Why Soulmaking?
Making Love to the World
This article explores the “why” of Rob Burbea’s Soulmaking Dharma paradigm.
You can find its sister article about the “how” here.
Why?
One of Soulmaking dharma’s primary powers is its potential to rescue us from the transcendental paradigm, where a lot of spirituality and religion – including Buddhism and related meditation traditions – have gotten stuck. Not to mention the millions of practitioners who follow their teachings!
In this paradigm, some form of basic spiritual reality (call it emptiness, spirit, or divine oneness) is taken to be “more true” or “more real” than everyday, conventional, dualistic reality. As a result of this metaphysical assumption, the aim and direction of one’s path is away from the world (because it’s all illusion, unreality, clinging) and into the undifferentiated bliss/truth/reality of divine unity, perfect emptiness, pure awareness, God’s love – whatever you want to call it!
While profoundly beautiful and healing, the shadow side of this paradigm is that it can become basically a paradigm of escape.
Escape this world of delusion and attain to heavenly truth! Let the world burn (because it doesn’t even exist, stupid) while we sit in our monasteries and attain perfect enlightenment!
A.K.A “spiritual bypassing”.
Some traditions make a distinction between absolute reality and relative reality. And then get carried away chasing the former and ignoring or devaluing the latter. But even if an absolute reality does “exist” (whatever that means), it is still evidently manifesting / presenting / experiencing itself as relative reality: so to deny, negate and escape relative reality will not get you any closer to it. The irony of this is that relative reality, warts and all, is absolute reality, and there’s nothing you can do to get any closer (or further away) from it. Even the poop on the sidewalk, the smell of your armpits, the fact that you just got a parking fine… it’s all buddha nature! Nothing is any “more” buddha nature (more real, or more fundamental) than anything else, which suddenly makes the high and exalted states of samadhi and nirvana seem… well, undoubtedly incredible manifestations of the boundless buddha mind, but no more so than a flower, a mountain river, or a garden in bloom full of insects and birds...
It feels clear to me that the major religions of the axial age all propound some form of transcendentalism. To caricature them in this way: classical Buddhism encourages us to shed all our attachments to samsaric perception and attain to nibbana (the unfabricated); Hinduism encourages us to pierce the veil of Maya (the world of delusion) and attain to the divine unity of Brahman; Christianity, Islam and Judaism all encourage us to join our Father in a heavenly realm that is separate and detached from this material realm full of suffering.
Now it’s not that these transcendental vehicles aren’t beautiful and completely legitimate mystical paths. It’s just that something deep within us is not served or satisfied when oneness is the only direction we want to head in. We could pretty comfortably call that something “soul”. And so long as our path is only directed towards spirit – unity, transcendence, openness – then the aspect of the divine creative intelligence that is longing for individuation, evolution and ever-more subtle and refined embodied incarnation will not be served. We can call that longing “Eros”. The loving desire for the creation and discovery of beauty. It is precisely this desire which soulmaking respects and legitimates as an energy that can take the path in a whole new direction: soulmaking. That is, the intentional imaginal fabrication of perception, for the purpose of cultivating ever-more sublime senses of soulfulness, meaning and sacredness. Quite a different tack from intentionally unfabricating all perception in order to return to universal oneness! (That’s the “spiritual” or transcendental path. Walking it exclusively is not wrong or bad. But it has consequences. And an abandoned soul who is yearning to evolve create and connect is one of them.)
Rob Burbea recognised that taking oneness, sameness and emptiness to be more true or real than duality, individuation and diversity leads to a denigration and denial of the world of form. Something gets twisted and lost, if we chase non-appearance exclusively and neglect the infinite possibilities for creatively working with appearances. It will typically lead to a rejection of the sublime and miraculous material realm in which we currently find (and discover) ourselves. As a result, transcendentalist traditions often generate cosmologies which conceive of a heavenly realm that is totally separate from this tainted, impure and decidedly not-divine material world. Definitely separate from our icky, unreliable and animalistic human bodies! In such a cosmology, all perceptions of self, other and world are ultimately discarded as illusory, problematic, delusional or unskilful, rather than divine, miraculous, magical and meaningful.
When we unhinge the assumption that unity is more true/real than duality, our journey into divine oneness can be complemented by an equally rich and incredible journey into divine multiplicity.
When we thoroughly see the emptiness of everything, that nothing at all can be conclusively said to be real or not real, then we are freed to return to the world of duality/form/matter, knowing it empty. We can then behold and relate to it with a completely different view, allowing us to see it as imaginal, divine, and soulful.
We can perceive self, other and world (and the multidimensional cosmic web of interdependent relationships from which these forms emerge) in a totally new light. In this way, soulmaking not only honours twoness (the conversation/communion/dynamic between self and other), but helps us, very practically, in the profoundly beautiful work of opening to the infinite depth, variety and richness of relationships that it is possible to have as a human being. Threeness, Fourness, Fiveness… all the way to Infiniteness… thus begins our conscious arrival in a living theatre of innumerable co-dependent and co-arising souls…
Before the axial age, we see indigenous cosmologies that were fully cognisant (and celebratory) of the embodied and material divine. Indigenous people inhabit worlds (or worldviews) where Gods, spirits, angels and ancestors are immanent in the world, and not transcendent (somewhere beyond, above or outside it). It’s not that there is a “God of the Sea” as in Roman and Greek mythologies (for example), but rather that the sea itself is a living God (or Goddess, or Spirit, or Angel).
And to the practicing soul maker, such a perception indeed becomes possible, once they learn to sense the ocean with soul; to perceive it imaginally. This becomes true of any object, being or experience: it is all fair game for the loving eyes of Eros, who longs to see everything without exception as the face and dance and song of his Beloved.
Observe that many indigineous peoples are not trying to escape a world of suffering, are not building monasteries in which to close their eyes and shut the world away, but instead live and move within a thoroughly sacred living garden, one that demands and receives their utmost reverence and respect. And with so much gratitude. This life with(in) the Divine Mother is not without challenge or struggle, but the struggle is also borne as sacred, as a gift, and not “pitiful delusion”, to use the Buddha’s words. The Aztecs called her “Tonantzin”, or “Our Sacred Mother”.
Soulmaking similarly also allows us to respect and receive all suffering as sacred, paving the way for a redemption of the profane world as a thoroughly meaningful phenomenon. It respects that “at the root of every desire is a sacred desire” (Rob Burbea’s words). This notion completely overturns the transcendental attitude towards desire, clinging and craving (that these are the essentially devil, and must be done away with entirely), instead allowing us to respect our impulses, anxieties, neuroses and attachments as unfolding expressions of Eros (or loving desire). This could be Eros for life, or beauty, or meaning, or communion, or intimacy…
For some, this may mean consciously reconnecting with “dark Eros” and the realm of desires and urges, particularly sexual ones, that are socially taboo in modern culture. This is healing work; it is not about unleashing destructive energies but working internally to find out how these energies want to flow into our lives – and bodies – to bring evermore vibrant, ecstatic and authentic living.
Yep, meditation just got kinky. Or at least, the doors are open, if erotic energies are wanting to break through into your imaginal life and practice! They can bring with them incredible amounts of healing, loving, revitalising energy. As the sex-positive saying goes, “if it’s hot, it’s healing”.
If this resonates or sounds relevant for you, I would point you to Galen Fous “Dark Tantra” (podcast here) and Bill Plotkin’s Wild Mind. Fous focuses on sexuality specifically, while Plotkin’s approach is a broad and holistic mapping of the psyche which I find particularly helpful for soulmaking, in that it helps me to identify the areas of the (shadow) psyche that I have been overlooking or ignoring, and so to begin working with them. I have found imaginal practice coupled with voice dialog to be a rich modality of practice. I assume the guise of the Loving King (something I picked up from Men’s Work with Hugh Newton) and make my way into the psychic wilderness, open to conversation and interaction with any and all figures who present themselves. This can be both disturbing and terrifying, but the love and patience of the King, his kind blessing, his devotion to the task of bringing healing, harmony and transformation to the kingdom… it all makes for an environment in which the many figures of the psychic community are free to express themselves, to relate their needs, desires, wounds and longings. It is as if the archetypal King can be a spaceholder for a meeting or council of the inner psychic community who, let’s face it, really need to come together, be heard and work out some old tangles. I feel joy to be able to undertake these adventures, which can be deep medicine for the forgotten shadow personas, with increasingly less fear of going insane. And with increasing certainty that this is, by contrast, a healing wholing process of going sane in a grossly unnatural and disconnected culture.
Plotkin also has a beautiful complementary definition of “soul” to go along with Rob’s work, and that is “one’s unique eco-niche in the earth community”. By this view, finding (or making) your soul is uncovering your unique gift, offering and archetypal lineage within the Gaian village (or should I say, organism).
The openness of Soulmaking dharma allows the possibility of fruitfully, creatively and soulfully relating to any and all dark, strange and surreal energies. The whole wilderness of psyche can be explored within this paradigm. And something tells me that it needs to be. There are so many wounds, so many forgotten subpersonas and imaginal figures who crying out for healing and compassion, for the illuminating love of our heart-awareness. And there is so much treasure hidden in the depths, if we only we resolve to go there: into the gold mine, and to face the “weird scenes” within (Jim Morrison lyric). I take inspiration from Padmasambhava, fierce and founder of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, a fully awakened Buddha who wrestled with countless demons (of the ancient, crazed, Himalayan variety), ultimately converting into servants of the dharma, the vehicle of universal awakening. He knew fully well that we need fierce energies on this path, if we are to truly walk as warriors in service of love, and to cut through the thickly-layered obscurations of the discursive conceptual mind.
Tibetan Buddhism has never shied from “wrathful” manifestations of the compassionate Buddha mind, and in a world run by gremlins, demons and forces of darkness, we would do well to take example.
There is truly immense potential here for redemption and transformation of suppressed, controlled and imprisoned aspects of the psyche; Rob himself tells multiple stories of students with dark and demonic , who with time and practice, alchemised into life-giving guides, companions and guardians. I have reason to believe that there is no shortage of soulmakers with celestial and angelic lovers; we’re simply not in a cultural climate where they feel they can talk about this openly and proudly.
The main point here is that when we begin to respect our Eros as sacred, we heal the wound of transcendentalism and allow ourselves to “return to the world” (both inner and outer aspects) in all its unfolding complexity, craziness and creativity, and to love and revere it all as sacred and meaningful. We are once again allowed to open fully to our all-embracing love of the countless “others” who comprise the world we live in: the friends, families, communities, nations, landscapes, forests, meadows, horses, cats, dogs, skies, rivers, mountains, and stars…
Soulmaking allows and en-courages us to reconnect with our very natural and innate loving desire to connect, commune and converse with all of these worldly forms/beings/deities. And really, this return to the world is inseparable from a return to ourselves as passionate creative actors/artists/magicians, participants in the eternal cosmic movement towards ever-more subtle beauty, harmony and refinement. It helps us to see that all creation is co-creation, that we are never alone but exist in and only as a result of our sacred communion with all living beings, material and immaterial/imaginal.
Could it be that our neuroses are largely the result of repressed Eros, or creative potential, that is longing to break out into the world and express itself?
You see, when we ignore and deny our Eros, our daemons become demons.
Trapped energy becomes destructive. But allowed to move, it sets the world on fire, burning up all the wounds and traumas of history and illuminating our hearts with the light of divine love. In opening to the current of desire, we allow our love to to flow into the world. And what’s more, we allow the loving desire of the world to flow into us, and to call / invite / initiate us into new orders of creative participation in the mystery. Sooner or later we recognise that our desire and the desire of the divine cosmos / creative intelligence are intimately and inseparably linked. The divine creative cosmos unfolds through our own personal desires and creative longings.
Embodied human life in this garden can be received and honoured as a divine gift, an unspeakable opportunity to individuate and make some sweet, sweet soul – certainly not the prison sentence that transcendentalists have taken it to be!
If we follow the current of our desires to their depths (to create, to discover, to express, to connect…) we find that loving desire is indeed the very force that impels the ongoing evolution, unfolding and blossoming of the cosmos. Once again, we can see that it is all necessary. It is all meaningful. It is all held in love.
“Matter is the most noble divine experience”, an Umbanda medicine song says. And I think that, deep down, we are longing to feel that level of respect and reverence towards worldly life, but we are held back from it by our conceptual frameworks and metaphysical assumptions (such as the transcendental paradigm and the postmodern “death of God”). Our lovers and magicians are being held hostage by our intellectual guards – and this isn’t going to change until our Loving King or Queen comes along and addresses the situation! It entails that we work with our intellectual, metaphysical, conceptual frameworks in order to liquidise and liberate them. Free them from the shackles of literalism, realism and scientism. Deliver them into the boundless potentialities of emptiness, imaginality, divinity and magic. The Soulmaking Logos will do exactly that, if it is digested and woven deeply enough into the fabric of perception.
This challenge brings us to the materialist paradigm, which Soulmaking also helps us to overcome.
This paradigm assumes and teaches us that “everything is made of matter (atoms and subatomic particles)… and we are conscious observers of the material universe who are able to measure it, make conclusions, and through these experimental interactions, to arrive at objective and absolute truths about reality”. This paradigm leads to a total preoccupation with the objective material world, which is assumed to be the only thing that is real – enabling us to deny, repress and ignore our powerful innate capacities for imaginal and soulful ways of knowing, sensing and relating. Not least with the transcendent and sacred dimensionalities of the immanent material world!
Soulmaking dharma invites us into a paradigm that transcends and includes all of the above paradigms, recognising them all as valid ways of looking, none of which are ultimately true, and each of which accordingly generates very different conceptions and perceptions of self, other and cosmos. Soulmaking can do this because it is grounded in a recognition of the emptiness of all things, and of all ways of looking.
Deep insight into emptiness may emerge from a meditative journey of unfabricating the entire world of perception. Seeing that, with a reduction of clinging and craving, perception (experiences) fade and disappear, one sees that the perceptions / appearances / worlds that we once took to be real, are not! At least, not in the way we had unconsciously conceived (or imagined) them to be.
We recognise that nothing “exists” independently of the way of looking. Now the other worldview to sidestep here is nihilism, which concludes, since everything is empty and nothing is real, then nothingness must be the basic reality. I think this is basically a half-baked insight into emptiness: one that says “nothing exists”, so life is worthless and actually not real in any way. “It’s all a lie. Give up.” But if they inquired deeper, nihilists would recognise that even nothingness is a fabricated perception, and “arises” dependent on a way of looking. It is not a basic reality.
To say “nothingness is the only thing that is real”, or that “all that exists is nothingess” is itself a self-negating statement that reveals the illogical contradiction at the heart of nihilism. Again, it is a valid way of looking, one that can free us from a host of unconscious attachments and metaphysical assumptions. But is it ultimately true? And does it really nourish our soul’s desire for beauty, relationship and mystery?
As Burbea puts it, “Emptiness teaches that there is no basic reality. The basic reality is that there is no basic reality.”
Far from leaving us in a meaningless void, this frees us to fabricate (to perceive, to live, to see and sense) and unfabricate as we please… to sense the world, others and ourselves as our souls desire to.
If we recognise emptiness not as a truth or basic reality, but as a way of seeing, then we don’t have to revere or chase it above and beyond the ways of seeing that do fabricate perceptions, selves, stories and experiences. We can return to the ways of seeing that make soul, that see and sense – and indeed participate in – the divine and angelic dimensions of all things and all beings.
We don’t have to throw away all appearances, and instead can fully we enter into this divine gift of our creative capacity to weave entire worlds and realities. In fact, that’s what we’ve been doing all along, but now we are free from the conceptual trap of ever taking these worlds, realities and selves to be ultimately true or real! This changes everything, for now the context of life, love, death and perception is an infinite imaginal expanse, rather than a dead, finite and meaningless cosmos.
The imaginal middle way begins as a narrow path between the “reality” and “unreality” of things, and gradually opens up into a space of infinite openness and possibility, in which the path, and the self on the path, and the countless other we walk with, are all known to be boundless, unfathomable and open-ended. As such we are invited to experiment with our powers of creative imaginal perception without limit or boundary.
It appears that Rob went so deep into emptiness that he came out the other side. Looking back, he saw that emptiness is empty, and so is everything. If emptiness if no more real than form, then working with and in the world of empty form as utterly miraculous, sacred and angelic appearance becomes legitimated… and indeed Rob found that his empty imaginal soul, his beating bloody human heart was longing for that devotional re-engagement with the world that he loved so dearly. And not only that, he was longing for a reconnection with the imaginal, angelic, celestial beyonds that apparently engulf and encompass this little four dimensional spacetime experiment we are currently whizzing around in. It’s quite a thing to discover that not only is this world permeable and open to exchange and communication with those beyond’s, but also that these beyonds are populated by innumerable beings, deities, angels and d(a)emons, many of whom are longing to enter into dialogue and collaboration with conscious creative human souls. To reconnect with our Gods, Goddesses, and the archetypal forces of nature, in and through the imaginal: this is so possible, if only we turn towards our images with respect and reverence, with an openness and willingness to communication and exchange. If we believe the imagination “is not real” then this is impossible. If we believe that it’s a legitimate way of seeing and knowing, then the path is right there, waiting to be traversed into the vibrant wildernesses of psyche…
Now we know that fabrication, samsara and form, are no less real than unfabrication, nibbana and emptiness), the doors are wide open to the possibility of perceiving and sensing everything imaginally, or soulfully. In turn, this paves the way for engaging creatively and compassionately with the world, infused with a heartfelt sense of divine love, intelligence, harmony and meaning… for actively participating in the unfolding of world events and taking full responsibility for one’s power, one’s desires, one’s fundamental role as a co-creator of the cosmos.
If we unfabricate everything completely until all perception disappears (as the transcendental paradigm recommends) then there is no self, other or world, that could interact, relate, learn and evolve into ever-deeper beauty. If we continue to fabricate habitually and unconsciously, we will remain stuck in the conventional reality generated by our habitual ways of looking. But if we can find the “liquid” sweet spot, unfabricating conventional appearances just enough to release our contracted, ego-centric, realist, and literalist default views, then we become able to perceive (to re-imagine and re-conceive) the unfathomable divine beauty and unlimited depth latent within all conventional appearances. Rob explores this beautifully in the talk “Until All is Liquid”.
We can now engage in a creative alchemical transformation of all reality, not least of all aspects of our self and personality, as all becomes absorbed into the soulmaking dynamic… as everything that we once took to be “really real” is revealed as having its roots, causes, origins in the imaginal.
The world is a flower in psyche.
And psyche is the world in flower.
To me, this legitimates a return, really a homecoming, to all the aspects of worldly life which I dearly love, but that classical Buddhism told me was simply “all empty, all delusion, all based on clinging and craving to sense pleasure and therefore not worthwhile, not skilful or useful in any way”. Art, poetry, song, voice, rhythm, stargazing, nature, dance, organic beauty, conversation, friendship, romance, theatre, film, dreaming, writing…
Now I can say that these activities are soulmaking for me… I do them because my soul loves them, relishes in them, longs for them. They bring me deep senses of beauty, sacredness and meaning, in a very natural and uncontrived way. They all form essential parts of the imaginal mandala that is this divine imaginal soul, embedded in a divine imaginal cosmos (or angel) of inconceivable magnificence, creativity and intelligence. To be given the permission and invitation to continue this work, I am forever grateful for Rob, the Soulmaking teachings, and the angels of inspiration and ideation that brought them to him.
