Radiant Joy Brilliant Love

by Clinton Callahan

  Entering the Archetypal world presumes that you are willing and have the capacity to be utterly annihilated, and then to start rebuilding your world from nothing.

  Radiant joy / brilliant Love is not personal, yet it arises only through contact with another person, and it feels personal. This can be maddening.

  Encountering unlimited joy and Love immediately puts you outside of society, because modern society is founded on a belief in the scarcity of love and on the idea that it is possible to be separate from love.

  Finally, Archetypal Love leaves you with nothing to do. All is already done. The powerlessness you may sense can be so vast that it may feel like you are “being lived” rather than merely living. This realization starts you on a journey into territory for which we have not been prepared, and is the beginning of radical Edgework.

  SECTION 8-A

  You Can’t Get There From Here

  We may as well get straight to the point: you cannot shift human relationship (whether ordinary or extraordinary) into Archetypal Relationship. They exist in completely separate domains.

  In each moment we are creating either human relationship (ordinary or extraordinary) or Archetypal Relationship. Each operates under its own set of laws. They do not blend or mix. We cannot be in one and in the other at the same time. Consciously or unconsciously we choose and commit to human or Archetypal through our every move. Even the tiniest actions determine our choice.

  The idea of shifting human relationship to Archetypal Relationship is like the idea of shifting the board game of backgammon into painting oil portraits in the style of Monet. You cannot shift backgammon into oil painting. In order to start oil painting, you and your partner must put down the backgammon dice, fold up the board, and put the game away. Then you can set up an easel and canvas, choose your brushes, arrange your partner into a pose, mix your colors and start painting their portrait. Backgammon and oil painting are two entirely different games.

  The same is true of human relationship and Archetypal Relationship. There is a quantum separation between them. Neither form of relationship is good or bad, they simply produce different results. When we develop the sensitivity to notice a difference between human relationship and Archetypal Relationship, we gain an option that we did not have before – the option to create Archetypal Relationship. Before making the distinction we had only one possibility – human relationship, whether ordinary or extraordinary.

  The possibility to create Archetypal Relationship opens up an entirely new universe of additional experiments for us to try, just like the possibility for oil painting opens up an entirely new universe of experiments to try in addition to those in playing backgammon. But, how do we begin with making experiments in Archetypal Relationship when all we have known before is human relationship?

  The answer is to take responsibility. Taking responsibility means no longer acting as if we are victims of the conditions of our upbringing. Whatever our parents or grandparents demonstrated to us is no excuse. The fact that we may have been in some ways abused or abandoned or betrayed is actually irrelevant. The fact that we may consider ourselves to be insufficiently loved is no contributing factor. The fact that we have a tender sacred place within us that has never before been awakened and caressed is no hindrance. The fact that we do not already know how to create Archetypal Relationship does not matter.

  We begin experimenting in Archetypal Relationship by taking responsibility for our present perception level and our present skill level with regard to creating relationship. It is not our parents’ fault or our society’s fault for determining what we do not see and what we cannot do. Taking responsibility means claiming that the quality and level of perceptions and abilities that we have so far developed has not depended on our circumstances. We are now, and have always been, at source for what we perceive and for what we can create out of what there is around us. Taking responsibility at the source level gives us the possibility of expanding our perceptions and our abilities so as to create a different kind of relationship. Taking responsibility for being where we are is the foundation stone and the always-present starting point for being able to create something other than what we are creating right now. Through taking uncompromising responsibility, we suddenly stand at the gates to the kingdom of Archetypal Relationship, whereas before we could only access human relationship. Through taking responsibility for previously blocking our own perception of the gates, we discover that the kingdom is at hand.

  We cannot shift even extraordinary human relationship into Archetypal Relationship. To start doing experiments in Archetypal Relationship we call upon our discipline and decide to step out of the world of human relationship, and then begin completely afresh, right now, each moment, in the world of Archetypal Relationship. The procedure for this change is responsibility.

  This book is only about taking more responsibility.

  SECTION 8-B

  Love, Friendship and Sex in the Three Domains

  Relationship involves such considerations as love, friendship and sex. In this book we are distinguishing among three categories or universes of relationship: ordinary human relationship, extraordinary human relationship, and Archetypal Relationship. In each universe the dynamics of love, friendship and sex function under completely different laws.

  In ordinary human relationship – love, friendship and sex are experienced from the perspective of a victim. There is a scarcity of love. Love means “somebody loving me.” I can never get enough of this love so I try to find love anywhere I can. I try to have friends as “the cure for my loneliness.” I try to have sex as “the cure for my horniness.”

  In extraordinary human relationship, I take responsibility for sourcing love, friendship and sex as laboratories for evolutionary experimenting. Love, friendship and sex are not scarce at all, because wherever I go, there they are. I source them. I create them. I play in these domains with ecstatic joy and wonder. Love, friendship and sex exist merely because I am there causing them to happen.

  The difference between extraordinary human relationship and Archetypal Relationship is that extraordinary human relationship is about love, friendship and sex, and Archetypal Relationship is about Love, Friendship, and Sex, where the capital letters signify Archetypal Principles. This is a big difference. The purpose of Archetypal Relationship is to be a theater in which the Archetypal Principle of Love, the Archetypal Principle of Friendship, and the Archetypal Principle of Sex can perform Archetypal interactions. In other words, Archetypal Relationship is the space through which the Archetypal Principles of Love, Friendship and Sex (among others) can do their work in the world.

  Archetypal Relationship turns out not to be about “me” at all. In Archetypal Relationship, the relationship itself serves the world as both a transformer and a transducer – structures that change the quality of energy. Transformers increase or decrease the intensity of a particular form of energy. Transducers shift the energy from one quality to another quality, so that the energy can be put to a different use.

  In the case of Archetypal Relationship, the relationship itself serves as a transformer when, for example, it increases or decreases the intensity of Love, Friendship or Sex to the level of intensity most appropriate for the situation at hand.

  Archetypal Relationship serves as a transducer when the relationship shifts the quality of the Principle of Love, for example, into the Principle of acceptance, teamwork, joy, appreciation, family, discovery, respect, or whichever Archetypal Principle is needed to make best use of the present circumstances.

  SECTION 8-C

  Love, Love, Archetypal Love

  Once you have experimented enough to expand your personal experience until it carries more weight than the opinions of our culture, once you have released yourself from pacing back and forth in the cage of ordinary human relationship, after you have taken a few breaths of sweet air and splashed clean sunshine on your face from extraordinary human relationship, you will soon need to know where else it is
possible to go. Let us start with the map that shows Archetypal Love.

  I may not be the most qualified to speak about Archetypal Love. I will try anyway. In my experience, Archetypal Love is of such subtle quality and such vast dimension that pinning it down into maps and procedures is like trying to grab a mountain of whipped cream. The more you try to hold the more it slips away. Common sense “rules” say we cannot speak about the unspeakable. In this consideration we will just have to break the rules. It may help to know that, although you may not be able to speak about the unspeakable, you can still directly and wordlessly experience the unspeakable, and then speak about the experience.

  Archetypal Love is the radiance illuminating the chamber at the center of the Great Labyrinth of Spaces (see map in Section 8-D). Heartrending poetry is the typical language that mere human beings traditionally use to speak of Archetypal Love. Like a light that is too bright for the eyes to tolerate, you must examine it indirectly, through filters, reflected by inference and implication.

  Since I am inclined toward the physical sciences, I seek the physics of Archetypal Love: how it works, the practical details, what we need to know. For example, already knowing that you can’t move from ordinary to Archetypal Relationship, how do we get to Archetypal Love from here?

  Traditional legends may hold some clues. Legends do not arise out of nothing; they derive from a source, and there is something true in every legend. Certain legends are passed on from generation to generation. The greatest of these legends is the legend of Archetypal Love.

  “True Love,” they call it. We have heard this phrase in love songs endlessly, and spoken on the big screen from time to time. In the film Princess Bride, Miracle Max asks the almost-dead Westley, lying on his kitchen table, “What do you have that’s worth living for?” (You have got to see this film!) Max uses bellows to pump air into Westley’s lungs, then he presses down on Westley’s chest so the almost-corpse can utter a few words. “True Love,” whispers Westley. That is good enough reason for the wizard to bring him back to life.

  When we try circumscribing Archetypal Love with words, we cannot but speak in superlatives. We cannot help but make reference to the astonishing. What do we really know about Archetypal Love? Nothing. But, so what? Let us carry on with foolhardiness so great as to assert that every human being can have certainty and direct knowledge of Archetypal Love. How many people have actually experienced true Love? Everybody. That is why the legend continues to excite us.

  Responsibility for True Necessity

  There could be a good reason explaining the lack of cultural reference points for Archetypal Love. Think about these questions: What percentage of the reading public would seriously study a book like Radiant Joy Brilliant Love? Look around your neighborhood. Be honest. How many would free up enough time and attention to buy the book and start experimenting? Think of other countries, other continents. What percentage of humanity is moved to make efforts to expand their conscious experience into the domains of Archetypal Love? Probably not a large number. A realistic estimate would be something less than one percent.

  MAP OF THREE KINDS OF LOVE

  1. Ordinary Human Love, self referenced, neurotic, “I need you” love, dependent on certain expected circumstances and experiences.

  2. Extraordinary Human Love, respectful, playful, adult, responsible, alive in the present, independent of circumstances because you create new love happening in each moment.

  3. Archetypal Love, the most abundant thing in the universe, pure, radiant, impersonal, the endless bright jewel of consciousness, the Principle of Principles.

  What is everybody else doing? That question is actually none of our business. More useful questions might be: What moves you in particular to stretch your intelligence, amoeba-like, to include greater competence with Archetypal Love? What makes this effort important for you? What do you get in exchange for the energy you invest? What keeps you reading rather than putting this book down and looking somewhere else for something else? What makes you hungry for Archetypal Love informational food? It is not that this food supply has been hidden – each culture and time for all of human existence has had direct access to these understandings. If a person with true necessity was persistent and intelligent in their searching, they could always find it. There is really nothing new here. The most interesting question is: What makes now the right time for you?

  A possible answer is that now is the time for you to receive clarity about Archetypal Love because you have built enough matrix to have true necessity. Other people have not yet built that part of their matrix, so they have no necessity.

  Matrix is built by weaving distinctions through your soul. At first your soul is void of distinctions, like a loop with nothing in it. Each distinction weaves a sensitive string across the loop to detect differences, similarities, and connections between things of every nature. From simple distinctions like, “A stove might be hot,” or, “This sensation in my eyes means I am tired,” to more complex and sophisticated distinctions like, “If I feel like a victim in any situation it is only my Gremlin generating a low drama,” or, “I can responsibly decode an irresponsibly encoded message; it is not fair but I can choose to do it.” Each distinction weaves over, under, around and through your other distinctions, until your soul starts functioning as a net that can collect new distinctions on its own. Further and further distinctions woven into the net make the weave tighter and tighter, until at some point the net starts functioning as a sail, influenced by the force of Bright Principles that then blow you and your life in the direction of fulfilling your destiny.

  Bright Principles and Archetypal Love

  Archetypal Love can be seen as the first Bright Principle, the Principle of which all other Bright Principles are but a mere facet. Archetypal Love sources an intelligence so vast that consciousness, space, time, energy and matter originate and flow directly out of its structure. Archetypal Love would then be the most abundant thing in the universe.

  When the first maps showed the world as flat, it was well known that if you sailed away from known territory you would fall off into the void and come to a terrifying and most disturbing end. These thought-maps had a profound influence on our behavior. Flat-world thinking – the thinking of boundaries, dangers and separations – is what created Europe. There is no Grand Canyon between France and Germany. There are no Atlantic Ocean or Himalayan Mountains to cross. You can easily walk from Paris to Frankfurt. But people would be born, grow up, have kids, work and die within a ten-mile radius, because they were unconsciously afraid to leave known territory. The thought-map of flat-world dangers separated Europeans from each other for centuries, permitting the evolution of diverse languages, attitudes, eating habits, and thought processes that still exist today. When the round-world map came into general acceptance, an entire Renaissance of creativity exploded across the Western world. I submit that the original Renaissance is still in its youth.

  The same boundless joy and expanded horizons of the Renaissance await us when we discover the Map of Archetypal Love. By redrawing our thought-map of the universe of love with Archetypal Love as the original, eternal and endlessly available background, we gain immediate access to unforeseen new dimensions in relationship.

  For example, in a universe where the source of consciousness and all existence is Archetypal Love, and where this Love is the most abundant thing in the universe, one of the features is that you cannot be unloved. Cannot! It is impossible to avoid the experience of endless unconditional Archetypal Love. Where can you go where Love is not?

  Free Will

  “So,” you might ask, “what about those of us who do not feel this Love? What about those of us who feel wounded to the core, totally abandoned by anyone who matters: those who feel disrespected, betrayed by Love itself not living up to its great promise? What about the vast majority of humanity?”

  Consider this: Our Box has the power to block us from basking in and utilizing the endless resource of Archetypa
l Love. The Box is a manifestation of our free will. Through free will, we choose to believe our Box’s copious evidence that we are our Box. Through free will, we choose to ignore the even more prolific evidence that we have a Box but that who we are is Archetypal Love. The Box uses a simple “sleight-of-mind” trick to block us from immense innate capacities for compassion. The Box’s trick is called “misidentification.” We constrain ourselves to behaving within the permitted limitations of our Box because we think that we are our Box. We squeeze down and miniaturize our allowable responses so that we appear to be sane, instead of appearing to be a Pirate Sorceress Warrioress Queen Goddess Woman or a Pirate Magician King Spiritual Warrior Man.

  We constantly use our free will to sacrifice innate treasures of dignity and nonattachment, for the sake of peer approval and social acceptance. In the next breath, we admit that none of us is sane, that there is no universal measure of psychic health, or objective sanity. One person’s sanity is another’s madness. This sacrificing of our free will is unconscious herd behavior – extremely disrespectful of our memetic possibilities. There are far more interesting uses for free will.

  SECTION 8-D

  The “How To” of Archetypal Love

  How do we step into the new Map of Relationships that includes Archetypal Love? How do we establish the flow of Archetypal Love through our central being? How do we open the floodgates and drown our separative misidentification in Archetypal Love? How do we reclaim a practical, functional ability to apply the resources of our true nature?