The Lady Caramel was born Bernadette to devoutly religious parents and is the only one of my teachers who is still living in the everyday sense of the word. Entering a convent when she was 17, she left after ten years to live the rest of her life in what she calls "the market place". She had realized that, for her, the Unitive life gave little meaning lf lived asunder from the real world of joys, sorrows and hard knocks. She married and raised four children. The Unitive life begins when the ego has fallen away leaving the true self which, by definition is in union with the divine - which is why it is called Unitive life. All this is well-documented in the mystical and contemplative literature of the West. However, much to her surprise, she found that after decades of life in the "market place" that the self also fell away leaving - what? That is what she has spent the past many years trying to document and explain the experiences which left her where she is now. She writes in one of her books, "...the first thing to understand regarding the nature of self or consciousness is that it is not an entity, being, soul or spirit...it is an experience that we mistake for these things". The Lady Caramel is one smart lady, "The divine is not energy and no energy is divine." - that is, the divine is a still-point, not an energy-point. In silence there is infinite potential. but as soon as there is energy what ever potential there is in that energy is limited, finite. An analogy she returns to again and again is that of a circular piece of paper with a small hole in the center. The hole is a still-point a void, the void of the divine, unknown, unknowable. The paper is self-awareness, that of ego or true-self. True self is that which is contingent upon the hole and as self-awareness becomes focused on the void of the divine, the hole increases. As the void increases, the ego decreases and falls away. This leaves the true-self and is the Unitive life. The difficulty is that it is easy, in fact a temptation to mistake the self for the divine. The still-point is a still-point, not an energy point. The self is energy - because of the still-point - and all kinds of visions, archetypes, angelic and demonic and angelic can arise if the self, so to speak, loses contact with the void of the still-point. In the end, the void becomes so large that there is nothing left of the paper except a thin strip. Inevitably, even this disappears and there is no longer a divine, neither within nor without. God is neither immanent nor transcendent. In her own words, "...the divine is NOT...the structure, function or energy of anything. The energy that is consciousness or self is but one of many functions of matter....what lies beyond the death of self or consciousness is the resurrection with its revelation of the true nature of the body or...of matter. To understand this revelation...it is important to distinguish between the scientific notion of matter and the true nature of matter." The Lady Caramel, fittingly, adjures that she is not a spiritual director, counselor or teacher and adds that she has neither the talent nor interest. However she adds, "With this...comes a prayer God will send you whatever help, grace or insight you might need at this time." My advice, from personal experience, is to take this prayer to heart as if it were the blessing of a living saint. |
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Teachers of Reality >
Lady Caramel |