*Originally posted on the My Tangled Skeins Book Reviews blog, April 5, 2023 [https://mytangledskeinsbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/04/sex-drugs-and-spiritual-enlightenment.html]
ABOUT THE TITLE OF SD&SE
I’ve been asked “Why the focus on sex and drugs over spiritual enlightenment?” when it comes to the title of this novel. The truth is I added the parenthetical emphasis on the first two elements long after I’d completed the manuscript and started shopping it to agents and publishers. Several factors influenced the decision.
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I sometimes jokingly say the title is an admission that the book offers something to alienate everyone. (I hope the three elements, individually or in their potentially surprising juxtaposition, attract some people as well. My publisher and I are sort of counting on it.) Regardless, my impression is that the part most likely to raise eyebrows is the third, despite the “sensational” aspects of the others. I can appreciate why that might be.
For starters, what’s commonly understood as enlightenment is a myth, as echoed in these words from one spiritual teacher whose offerings tend to resonate with me:
“The English word ‘enlightenment’ implies (to most people) some kind of super-wisdom and/or a higher state of consciousness that elevates the one who has attained it above the mass of humanity.” (https://hareesh.org/blog/2016/3/3/why-spiritual-growth-does-not-lead-to-enlightenment)
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In reality, enlightenment does not confer any kind of superiority on those who experience it. Believing it does can be a barrier to gleaning insight into what it actually is.
Perhaps related to this confusion, many people are skeptical that enlightenment even exists. If you haven’t undergone a major awakening, which tends to be an intense, life-changing event, it can sound a bit woo-woo. If you think of yourself as one of those people, consider that enlightenment is actually nothing more than a subtle but profound shift in consciousness, and you’ve likely experienced that shift on a temporary basis without recognizing it as enlightenment.
It’s simply a feeling of total immersion in the present moment in which your default (and false) sense of separation from everything else dissolves. It can happen anywhere and anytime, but it’s probably most common in nature, where we often get lost in awe, wonder, and reverence. For some people it happens while engaged in creative acts, like writing or making visual art. It can occur while singing or dancing or even just listening to a particularly entrancing piece of music. Or, with the right partner, during sex.
And, yes, this state of being tends to be facilitated by ingesting the drugs known as psychedelics, or better yet entheogens. (The term hallucinogens imply the user experiences something unreal instead of something super real as I believe to be the case.) I prefer to induce my own occasional exploration of such non-ordinary consciousness with the help of plant medicine like chacruna (a source of DMT, the psychoactive compound in ayahuasca), psilocybin mushrooms, or, most recently, peyote. That doesn’t mean there’s no benefit from synthetic versions like acid, mescaline, or ecstasy. At the same time, I acknowledge that all these substances come with risks, especially if used without proper knowledge or guidance.
Anyone can cultivate moments of direct awareness of reality through whatever methods they find effective and appealing. You needn’t sit on a meditation cushion and chant mantras. Or practice postural yoga -- much less the hot kind! Those techniques are popular for a reason, though, and for some folks possibly worth a try. Be clear that you can just as easily surrender to the immediacy of presence while washing dishes, folding laundry, or engaging in other “mundane” activities.
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Some people also question, understandably, if full enlightenment -- as they envision it -- would really be desirable. I mean, sure, it’s supposedly blissful, but doesn’t it make you want to go sit in a cave or on a mountaintop? Give up all your material possessions? Wouldn’t it distance you from everyone you love?
It’s ego death, right? That sounds scary.
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As it turns out, awakening doesn’t turn you into a wandering beggar or an impoverished hermit. But if you decide to pursue total and permanent enlightenment, you will face the challenge of shedding all your ideas and images of yourself. You’ll have to tear off the veil of evolutionary and cultural conditioning that keeps you from seeing the truth of reality.
The good news is that once you’ve integrated a full realization of nonduality (recognition of the truth that everything is one) into your being, you can go about living a fairly normal life. You’ll just do it without actually identifying as the someone you used to think you were. That’ll be a role you play as the unbounded consciousness you now know you are.
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Or so I’m told.
Truly awakened humans rarely make a claim to enlightenment. Why would they? They have no impulse to impress anyone. They simply embody nondual awareness. In that state, such claims -- like all labels -- are irrelevant. People who do make such claims are often positioning themselves as gurus, using their personal “enlightenment” as a sales pitch.
Maybe this is a good time to mention the book is autobiographical fiction.
In sum, I figured the full title’s denial of any significant spiritual enlightenment, in what I intended to seem like a kind of wink, would demonstrate I don’t take myself too seriously and communicate a playful tone in alignment with the often-ironic humor of the material. I’m also trying to avoid false promises about content. I hope the novel illuminates aspects of existence and possibly even seems revelatory. But I want to minimize reader expectations about what they’ll take away from the story.
In any case, adding the parenthetical qualifier seems to have worked. Once I did that, I started getting more interest in the manuscript and, eventually, found a terrific home at DX Varos [and later at Ten16 Press].
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And here we are now.