Spiritual Life in the Asylum

2024, November, Issue 123

Earth, this dark obscure world,

this amazing amalgamation

Of bad decisions, worry, confusion,

A place of ignorance, attraction to nonsense,

Aversion to what is ultimately real,

A place of immeasurable insanity,

This is really something, some thing, some

fantastic lunatic asylum we have going here;

I see crazy people, I see crazy people!

I see insane beings manipulating regular

church-going, dyed in the wool, normal

responsible, normal lunatics, normal idiots

placing all their effort into perpetual suffering,

creating tremendous pain, suffering

and futility;

This asylum manipulates you into believing

lies,

It makes you a model citizen,

Bringing you to that sort of normal

any way that it can convince you,

in any way possible,

helping you to remain

ignorant

desirous

hateful,

this then is the mantra of the asylum,

in order to keep you here,

so that you don’t simply

walk away;

This lunatic asylum asks you to believe,

And all beliefs are nothing but lies,

Nothing but lies, all around this normal,

asking us to do horrible things,

even though we don’t know it,

not knowing what we do is normal,

To not know

To not care

To want more and more

And more, and more, and more!

Killing, stealing, lying, wanting lies,

fearing that no place is safe,

desiring empty promises,

Repulsive nightmares turned into daily life,

Taking this all in as

something normal,

until we are of no further use

for the lunatics

and their asylum,

this insane asylum we call Earth.

A poem by Robert Aho © 2024

When I was in the death bardo, as I was remembering once again that I had been a person, Bodhicitta ignited my need to return. This wasn’t some joyful feeling, it was one of profound sadness, a painful reminder of dread that ran very deeply. I knew that returning would be filled with pain and suffering, and that I would be returning to a world that did not want to awaken. It was a feeling of profound futility. The planet Earth prefers pain and suffering to any sort of liberation from that, except for a very few who have begun to awaken. This is a fact, based upon observation and investigation. I’ve seen nothing to contradict this observation.

People who wish to awaken are few and far between. The typical human spends their time cultivating their own demise, by simply remaining within the confines of worldly concerns, which are hoping for praise and fearing blame, along with hoping for fame and fearing insignificance, hoping for fortune and fearing poverty, as well as hoping for pleasure and fearing pain. These all come down to being poisoned by attachment and aversion, amid a field of ignorance. This is the world, and it wants you to do the same. This is the normal that some call conventional wisdom. Some also call this foolishness.

What concerns us in life is of absolutely no concern when we traverse the death bardo. We try to bring back these concerns when we die. We freak out in the gap between lifetimes because of this. Rather than enjoying our most profound experiences in the death bardo, we freak out.

So, there I was in the death bardo, pulling strands of consciousness out of bright light, shards of memories from a field of awareness, not really yet something that I could call a self. I hadn’t been fully reconstructed, or recreated myself. This was hard to do, simply because I had been gone for an eternity and the memories had nearly faded.

If I had appeared suddenly in a body, I would have been little more than a vegetable, certainly nothing that would be able to function as a human. Being a human was not something that I could really remember at first. I was still mostly this Supreme Source, knowing that I had to return, and that my purpose would be mostly one of complete futility. I had to accept the most profound sadness, the most excruciating pain imaginable, reignite a greatly limited life, in order to return.

Having tasted Ultimate Bodhicitta meant that I had become unlimited potentiality. Returning to a human life meant that I was about to cram something far greater than the universe into a human body. This was not a pleasant experience at all.

It's been a few years since my return; and, I must say, the incredible lunacy of this place is astounding. I’ve not been able to fathom the true depths of all the bad decisions that I’ve witnessed. The vast stupidity has led me to wonder if I should just return to the Supreme Source and forget about this place; but, then, I laugh at my own stupidity for thinking such a thing.

I’m here in a limited body that has quite severe health issues, attempting something impossible. I have no attachment to this world. My only purpose is to help a few beings to awaken. I have no other reason to be here.

May you find a similar reason to be here. When we discover that we are really in a lunatic asylum, we may wish to flee this place, or simply walk away. I would suggest to not worry about the futility of this world. It is time to awaken.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho