From Suffering Flesh Machine to Nonduality Coach: I Am M0bius
When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper side as the lower; and when you make the male and the female into a single one, that the male be not male and the female female; when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter the kingdom.
Until 1997, I had no inkling - or maybe only the tiniest inkling - that I was anything but a suffering flesh machine who took periodic breaks for laughter and intense joy until careening unto meaningless death. Despite years of education and truly epic amounts of reading and writing, I was miserable, sick and felt unmistakably cornered by the cosmos. Suicidal, thinking of nothing but the aisle in the nearby Walmart where they kept a gun I was almost certain my mouth or temple had an appointment with, I phoned the 800 number on the back of the health insurance card that I was yes blessed to have, and some bodhisattva answered on a frankly crackly line from Somewhere in North Dakota.
They took my information multiple times for maximum redundancy - birthdate, social, address, phone number. I watched myself tearing myself open through the static, my mouth-tongue-throat throbbing; no, gently weeping but undulating and sobbing, my cosmic guts spilling into the phone as they patiently took my vitals, sighed, and assured me that they could link me with somebody in the area with whom I could talk and get a prescription. I tried to tell the story of all of the death and suffering, the why of my cosmic impasse, but, of course, failed. I proudly lied and said I was no danger to myself, none at all. It was a noble failure. I did my best!
Obviously, and I assure you entirely in retrospect, that cosmic phone call was a moment of grace. I suddenly had the undeniable inner impetus to live rather than just hang on and periodically visit oblivion through alcohol and cannabis. It was to time to wake-up! It was hard hard hard work, but only I could do it, so with the help of diverse and sundry bodhisattvas, including that particular Somebody Somewhere in North Dakota, there has been healing of severe asthma, whole body and ridinokulously reptilian eczema, severe depression and anxiety.
The healing happens, and continues to happen, because gradually, and in fits and starts, we can observe our nature as self healing beings. As self healing beings, we reflect and reconnect to extraordinary wisdoms and energy just beyond the pale veil of ego, making us whole. We can argue the deets, if you really want to, but suffice to say that after long practice and persuasion, the being formerly known as Richard Matthew Doyle stumbled, staggered and banana peel slipped himself directly into daily practice as a being whose roots and identity can only be found via the unchanging eternal aspect of reality described in the Bhagavad Gita:
aham atma gudakesha sarva bhuta asya sthitah
In that unchanging Now that is Always and Everywhere accessed when we point consciousness calmly and directly at itself through meditation, chanting, ecodelics and intensive physical practice, we let go of the mirage of separation and suffering, and we do so right Now. And healing, being made whole, ensues. My nomme de guerre's m0bius because for this body, it happened when the inside was made the outside, and the outside was made the inside, as in the Gospel of Thomas. I lost my feeling of separation as yes indeed, Now and forever mobiused I was.
That's why I do what I do, with thanks to George Clinton, Once Upon a Time Called Right Now.
What I do is joyfully engage others from all walks of life and all demographics to find that impetus for their own self healing. The techniques I enthusiastically share and practice include:
· Coming to know, through direct experience, that Advaita (not-two) states like the mobius arch portrayed above are and can occur for you. Sanskrit chanting, zazen meditation, guided meditation, the composition of and declamation of poetry, ecodelics including cannabis, can all help and hinder here. Over thirty years of cosmic breadcrumbs through the shamanic healing I received from Mamahuasca and Norma Panduro and the training of teachers such as Gary Weber have made the Fact of Advaitic states unavoidable to me. I offer guidance in all of these practices as they have worked for me in collaboration with correspondents and students.
· It means that such Advaita states exist. A wide variety of "mystical" texts from the Perennial Philosophy offer profound practices of contemplation for transcending the limits of subject/object thinking and other dualities that simply do not map onto these Not-Twoness events. Techniques for elevating the understanding and the imperience of these Advaita states. "Imperience" is a word coined by the great mathematician and jnani yogi Franklin Merrell Wolff whose ashram was built at Mt. Whitney, portrayed through the mobius arch above. Wolff mapped "imperience" as an experience that happens beyond any quality of personhood or subjectivity, as distinct from an "experience" where a subject always is accompanied by an object, and vice versa. When we gently release or negate any content to our consciousness, what FMW called consciousness-without-an-object can be observed. By Whom?! Are you imperienced? I practice exegesis together with groups and one on one for accessing and integrating these ancient technologies of the word, collectively through non egoic dialogue of the sort I practiced with Gary Weber in these videos.
· Self Inquiry. Atma Vicarra is the Sanskrit tradition's rendering of techniques for looking for the source of the I. These techniques can be found across all of the world's spiritual traditions and, when practiced, can be a boon for integrating the imperience of Advaita. I like to think of them as cosmic knock knock jokes: Who's there?
I offer a candid analysis of your extant practice and make concrete and practical suggestions - usually in groups of three - for elevating it. Coming to know, understand, elevate and integrate Advaitic eventhoods of pure being can offer adventures in the "ecstatic spontaneity" described by scholar Herbert Guenther. Let's do this!
Why I Charge Moolah
For at least a decade, I have offered most or all of these teachings and guidance gratis for those who spelunked around enough to find me. It's worked pretty well, but the better it works, the more correspondence hours and discussions ensue, and pretty soon it eats into my practice time - at least four hours per day are dedicated to the care and feeding of the mobius through meditation, biking, swimming, scripture, writing and plants - and the health of the mobius becomes less robust, like a plant in need of some compost, light, or a good long drink. So I bow to the Darwinian gods of attention and biological thriving, and budget eight hours per week for this kind of Good Work that will pay enough to sustain my expenses and prevent me from being consumed by the Grand Task of Sharing The Obvious.
If money is even remotely an issue, just email me directly and we can work out something on the sliding scale shaped like a cosmic banana peel, twisted around itself.
Thank you all for reading, and for the opportunity to work together in making the outside, inside. Blessings!
About the Author
Richard Doyle, Ph.D., aka m0bius, is an Edwin Erle Sparks Professor in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State University, where he has taught since 1994. He has authored numerous books and open source texts about the wonders of plant medicines and consciousness, including the 2011 release Darwin’s Pharmacy. m0bius has a special fondness and expertise for Ayahuasca, Cannabis, + Mushrooms, and he is especially gifted at assisting those passionate about understanding our dual nature, and our non-dual destinies. m0bius has also been the recipient of numerous awards, including grants from the National Science Foundation and the Penn State Alumni Association.
