Tantric Coconuts

by Greg Kincaid

  Mashid looked warmly at Angel, took a sip of her tea, and continued. “Father Chuck, Angel, and many more of us are looking to a third alternative: something transcendent, beyond both the nonthinking approach of the fundamentalists and the overthinking, intellectual approach championed by the secular world. The Buddhists call it awakening or enlightenment. Sometimes I think of it as realizing that our lives right now are every bit as much a manifestation of God as a burning bush was to Moses.”

  Angel brought her friend up to date on Ted’s studies. “You’re getting a little ahead of us, Mashid. So far, Ted and I have only explored the first and second levels.”

  “Oh yes, I see. Well, Ted, I’ll be blunt with you. First- and second-grade Islam often has very little attraction to a Western intellectual like you or, for that matter, to a Sufi like myself.”

  Ted interrupted. “What is a Sufi?”

  Angel knew that Mashid’s modesty would get in the way of answering the question, so she did it for her. “Islam is very unique. Unlike Christianity, where the inhabitants of the upper levels are left to wander about alone, unable to support each other, the Sufis represent the most spiritually evolved Muslims, and they support each other and do the Work. If you have the pleasure of knowing a Sufi, you’re probably meeting someone at a very high level of spiritual awareness.”

  Mashid tried to get to the bottom of Islam’s plight. “Ted, fifth- and sixth-grade Islam, like the upper grades of Christianity or Buddhism, offer a transcendental awareness that can only be experienced and not described. Once you experience it, you will be changed forever. The paradox is that if you ask me to describe Islam, I must naturally begin with the Koran and first- and second-grade Islam.”

  Angel found another way to make Mashid’s point. “Most of us are oblivious to the first-grade thinking in our own religious worldview, but your first-grade religious thinking will stand out like spilled milk on the countertop.”

  Mashid took a deep breath and dived in. “In many ways the story actually begins centuries before his birth, but nonetheless we’ll start with Muhammad, the Messenger. He was born among the Bedouin people wandering around the desert near Medina and Mecca in the sixth century AD. They were a tough, resourceful, and practical people. To survive in the desert they could not be otherwise. They were also quite barbarous by our standards, and there was a tremendous amount of fighting and killing in their world.”

  Angel interjected, “As there was in the rest of the world in the sixth century.”

  Ted shrugged. “Pick up the newspaper. It hasn’t gone away.”

  Mashid continued, “These Bedouin had no organized religion, but they had codes of honor and were generally animistic and pantheistic.”

  “Animistic?” Ted asked.

  “Basically, the Bedouin projected human characteristics onto inanimate objects. If you stubbed your toe on a rock, it meant the rock was mad at you. Clouds formed shapes to offer us signs or portent.”

  Angel whispered across the table, “This was a very typical first-grade religious worldview. Remember, for the first grader the self and its surroundings are not yet fully separated or differentiated, and so religious thinking is still very much tied to the physical world of the worshipper. I can stick a pin in a voodoo doll and make you hurt.”

  “That’s right,” Mashid said. “These early nomadic peoples were classic first graders in their religious thinking: many gods and other spiritual beings called jinn—plus spirits existing in inanimate objects like rocks, mountains, or streams.”

  Ted stopped Mashid with a question. “By the sixth century, when Muhammad was born, both Christianity and Judaism were well established. Had the Judeo-Christian culture also made its way to Mecca?”

  “Oh yes, a Christian and Jewish influence was definitely present and managed to exist side by side with these primitive Bedouin religions.”

  Ted smiled to show his appreciation and said, “Tell me more about Muhammad.”

  Mashid continued, “Shortly after his birth, Muhammad lost both of his parents, and he was raised by relatives. As a young man he went to work for a wealthy widow in the caravan trade, so here too he would have come into contact with Jews and Christians as part of his travels. The owner of the caravan was a woman named Khadija, and she was fifteen years his senior. They fell in love and she proposed to him. They married, and their relationship is looked upon as a model for marriage among the Muslim community.”

  Angel added, “He was no wimpy dude, you know. He screwed around a great deal, massacred entire tribes of people, and robbed his way to power. At times he was compassionate and loving and at times he was angry and jealous. In other words, a human.”

  Mashid glanced at Angel in a slightly dismissive way and said, “It is true, Muhammad was in many ways a regular guy, but nonetheless he is looked upon by Muslims as the most perfect man.” She grinned and added, “Apparently, male role models have always been limited.”

  “Some things never change,” Angel said. “Nonetheless, Muhammad was a natural to try to lead his followers from the first to the second level and beyond. He became the ‘mythic other’ that had direct access to God.”

  “Muhammad refused to attribute to himself any unusual power, yet he was selected by Allah to be the messenger of his word. After Muhammad’s marriage to Khadija, he began wandering off to a nearby cave to meditate, and there he was approached by God and given the revelations that were to become the Koran. He was the scrivener of God’s divine word. For Muslims the Bible is more like a history book and the Koran is more like the source. Miracles in the Bible are events, like the parting of the Red Sea. In the Koran the miracle is in the language of God: a direct conversation with God, unadulterated by human translations or memory.”

  Angel interjected, “Yes, but Ted is bothered by this. He wonders why God would limit the delivery of his message to one man alone.”

  Ted jumped in to elaborate. “Why did God choose to talk to Muhammad as opposed to someone else or, better yet, why not to a whole crowd of people or to all people simultaneously, so that there could be no disagreement about what he said? If God wanted to speak to man in this fashion, why not chisel his words on a mountainside where they could be read by anyone who walked by? All of these religious revelations are instead delivered privately, leaving the rest of us to take it on faith that nothing is lost in the translation.”

  Without any defensiveness in her voice, Mashid answered. “At these early levels, God is out there and separate from us, and so this description of communication makes sense for these worshippers. At the upper levels we no longer identify God as an object.”

  Ted wondered aloud, “So you’re saying that Muhammad attributed the voice in his own mind to God because he had no other way to explain it?”

  “Rather like Michelangelo believed that God moved through him when he sculpted.” Angel added.

  Mashid traced her fingers along the olive-skinned contours of her cheekbones and said, “This is a question that should be asked, but realize that the answer changes nothing. I would naturally question the assumption that God’s mind and Muhammad’s mind or, for that matter, your mind and my mind are properly seen as distinct and separate realms that communicate to each other from afar.”

  “You’re saying the question is grounded in my left-brained, dualistic way of approaching a problem?” Ted asked.

  Angel hesitated but decided that there would be no harm in saying it. “Ted, we’re not quite there yet. We need to discuss the third level, the level of laws, but I promise you, we’ll get to this.”

  Mashid knew this was the important point for Ted to grasp, so she spoke slowly. “Let me just say it this way to you, Ted. Like the average Christian, the average Muslim does not question the truth in the Koran, even if there are historical inaccuracies. So whether or not God literally spoke to Muhammad while he was sitting in a cave is not what is important to us. Whatever the source—God or Muhammad’s intuition—the miracle of the Koran and the Bible is the
exploration of the relationship between man and God and eventually the collapsing of boundaries and separateness that we create in our own minds. The value is not always in the answers provided but in the way these questions inspire us to explore our true essence and to move away from our false self. Finally, as I think Angel is about to tell you, Islam is a good place to discuss the third level of awareness. You should appreciate this third level, Ted—Islam is very bound up in law and rules.”

  Angel picked up on that theme. “At the third level, worldview shifts away from the earlier emphasis on magic and mythological helpers. Consciousness evolves or unfolds one step at a time, but each step involves a partial letting go of what came before it. It’s a process. It’s not easy to move to this third level, and Islam is particularly good at encouraging that journey.”

  Ted tried to return the conversation to Islam, which he found interesting. “Well, I’m sorry I got you off track. Mashid, please return to Muhammad’s history.”

  “Well, I was about to finish anyway. Islam took root in a bloody time and also quite an interesting time for me as a Sufi. For you see, Ted, when those crusaders were left to mingle among the Moors, as the Muslims of that time period are often called, some rather telling events began to unfold. It turns out, Ted, that at the higher grade levels, all of us—Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims—speak the same language and share the same experiences and truths.”

  Angel reached out and touched Mashid’s forearm. “Thank you, Mashid. That’s such an important point for Ted to grasp as we move forward. At the lower levels of awareness, spiritual traditions or religions seem very different; at the upper levels we essentially wake up, turn to each other, and realize we were all saying practically the same thing. Good religion is about finding a wisdom path. When we accomplish this task, we will come to better understand ourselves as divine, living participants in the flow of life and not as Protestants or Shiites.”

  Mashid’s eyes flashed with a little embarrassment and she said, “I’m going too fast, aren’t I? I’m sorry.”

  Ted wondered if he looked confused. “I understand. Please, continue.”

  “The Sufis and other upper-grade students,” Mashid added, pointing at the ceiling, “like to say the finger that points at the moon is not the moon.”

  “Father Chuck means the same thing when he tells us that we must not confuse the boat with the journey,” Angel interjected. “The first- and second-grade worshippers pitch their tents by these boats, call them churches or mosques, and form a religion of boat worshippers. At the upper grades we say, ‘Yes, sir, that’s a nice boat and a handy thing to have for a long journey, so let’s climb in and start rowing.’ ”

  “This goes back to your earlier point,” Ted noted. “It isn’t that the sign is wrong. It’s just that there is a distinction between directions and destinations that is not well comprehended at the early spiritual levels. You’re saying that people like me get frustrated with people worshipping the signposts, and as a result we ignore some pretty darn good directions.” Ted took a last bite of his toast and rested his head on his elbow. His mind was trying to process too much new information on too little sleep. He pushed away from the table and asked, “Could we walk the dogs? They need to go outside and I’d like to get a quick tour of this Earthship community of yours.”

  Mashid stood up, swallowed the last gulp of her tea, and said, “Of course. Let’s go walk your dogs and we can talk more as we stroll.”

  *1 Most of the coconuts found the Enneagram to be a helpful tool, particularly the Sufi members, who relied on it to better understand the peculiar aspects of each person’s unique egoic personality structure. Once they better understood it, they believed, they could relax its grip so that consciousness could unfold to higher levels of awareness. Helen Palmer, The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1975).

  *2 Jefferson’s Bible was a text that fascinated many of the coconuts. The entire Jefferson Bible can be viewed on the Web site of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History: http://americanhistory.​si.​edu/​jeffersonbible/.

  21

  Mashid pointed out the distinguishing features of the homes in her unique subdivision while the dogs sniffed about and Angel continued with her tutorial. She wanted Mashid’s assistance on what she considered to be the next important step.

  “Let’s dig deeper into the next level. The third grade is often defined as the level of rules or laws. At this level, Ted, we widen our awareness of others and we begin to comprehend the importance of rules in governing our relationship with others and God. As we move through the levels, you will see that each ascending level is less parochial and egocentric and more universal.”

  Ted found it invigorating to walk with his dog in the crisp early-morning desert air of northern New Mexico. He felt his energy returning. “Ah, I’m interested in this third level. We attorneys are all about rules and laws. Tell me more.”

  Angel smiled, suspecting that the third level was still where Ted spent a considerable part of his conscious awareness. “The third grader is an excellent rule follower, a conformist, that easily accepts traditional thinking and societal norms. The third grader is able to expand her universe of concern away from herself and give fully to others: her family, her group, her tribe, or her god, but her radius of awareness does not expand much wider than her field of vision.”

  “You’re saying that Crossing Trails is not the universe?”

  Mashid chimed in. “Mainstream Islam is dominated by a great deal of third-grade thinking. Like Jesus, Muhammad was trying to move his followers up to higher levels of awareness. To be Islamic you really have to believe in very little: there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger. But for Muslims there are a plethora of rules. Like Orthodox Judaism, Islam focuses on orthopraxy, or religious practices, more than orthodoxy, or religious beliefs. For the Muslim the path to God is daily prayers, fasting, pilgrimage, ritual cleansing, et cetera.”

  “All these rules—are they so bad?” Ted asked as they walked past one remarkable Earthship structure after another. Ted got out his phone and took a few pictures. He would have found it very difficult to describe these strange and awkward but somehow elegant structures. Then it hit him that the one person he wanted to text the photo to was Angel, and she was already standing beside him, so he put his phone back in his pocket.

  Mashid answered his question as best she could. “You’re right, Ted. Rules allow society to function. Political thinking is very third grade–oriented. If we just had the right law, rule, or regulation—and that usually means my party’s or my religion’s rules and not yours—then our problems would be solved. Third graders are tribal—they move from egocentric to sociocentric. If you can land in the right party and get the right rules, then not only will the universe add up but we can also influence or perhaps even control it.”

  Ted thought he got the point. “It’s only logical that if rules are what makes the world work, then our spiritual relationship with God should also be governed by rules. Surely this is where the rituals of religion come into play? You know, if the pope doesn’t wear the right robe, the Ayatollah doesn’t pray in the right direction, then the world might crumble?”

  Mashid nodded. “I think you’re right. I think it’s very tempting to believe that finding God is all about getting the recipe right.”

  Ted reached down and petted No Barks, then looked at Mashid. “I may have the best dog in the world, but this one is a close second.” The she-wolf brushed against Ted affectionately and arched her back. Ted asked Angel, “It sounds to me like the logical-thinking left brain is still in charge of the third grader. Am I right?”

  “I would say the left brain dominates the second, third, and fourth levels. The left hemisphere prefers to process information by using disjunctive thinking: everything is either X or Y, right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. The upper levels prefer the right brain’s more nuanced, hol
istic, and conjunctive style of thinking: black and white exist both separately and together as gray. While fiercely loyal to her own tribe of rule makers, the third grader is not yet able to see herself as part of a more global community.”

  Mashid looked at Ted and her green eyes made him melt. She added to Angel’s point. “At the third level there is still a great deal of sneering at the United Nations—the ultimate group of others that are wrong, foreign, and invariably misguided. The third grader, although very adult and sophisticated in many ways, still harbors assumptions about the superiority of her worshipper’s tribe, nation, political party, religion, neighborhood, college fraternity, or profession and finds it difficult to listen to anyone that might have a different, and particularly a broader, view.

  “On a purely psychological level, the thought processes of the first- and second-grade worshippers are dominated by what Freud described as the id: the egocentric and childlike aspects of our personality structure. The third grader is very motivated to follow the rules and do what is right, as reflected by the internalized voices of parents, church, teachers, and community leaders and her perception of God. The third grader’s place in the world is primarily secured through conformity to the provincial rules whispered in her ear by her hypervigilant superego.”

  “My rules are better than your rules?” Ted asked.

  “Yes,” Mashid answered. “Nonetheless, as long as she has a good rule book, the third grader is greatly advanced over her first- and second-grade cousins for the simple reason that social conformity and rule following have a lot of rewards. The more evolved third graders eventually move beyond their own clan as circumstances warrant and allow a more global set of rules to seep into their superego. This occurs as they become more aware that all rules are not created equal. They can become quite sophisticated when they allow that some big coach in the sky probably isn’t going to give them life’s playbook. They learn that unfortunately we sometimes have to write our own rules.”