The day after writing a post such as “Judas”, posts that are just a whiff of something, barely discernible, I sometimes feel in a better place to explain them after a night’s sleep. The initial fire has passed, some of the outer flames have burnt off, and the core of it is a little more exposed.
So, what is at the core of “Judas”? In my case, the spiritual search (a phrase to be understood any way you like) has always been a state of conflict, pulled on the one hand by the timeless sense that everything is and must be ok as it is and, on the other hand, by the apparently unstoppable drive to find a place of security. Furthermore, as security itself is so ungraspable the mind tends to measure its success through measurement, and the competitive element of enlightenment becomes more prominent. It’s as if the mind says “I’m not sure if I’m there yet, but I’d rather it be me than you…I’d rather you failed and thereby increased my chances of succeeding.”
In this way, “Judas” is meant to convey these cross-currents of thought; the ultimate “security of insecurity” (to borrow and alter Watts’s expression)….the firm ground of defeat, as surely defeat is all there is, and Judas’s aspirations that mirror our own, of pleasing and gaining approval from the “Almighty”. You see, in a way, we owe our survival to our competitiveness…this is clear. However, this selfish drive is then extended into an existential dimension and clouds our original knowing that we are already in the “Kingdom of Heaven.”
Constant Voice 