Ordinary Mysticism

We have a habit of thinking that the deepest insights, the most mystical, and spiritual insights, are somehow less ordinary than most things--that they are extraordinary.  This is the shallow refuge of the person who does not yet know what he is doing.  In fact, the opposite is true: the most mystical, most religious, most wonderful--these are not less ordinary than most things--they are more ordinary than most things.  It is because they are so ordinary, indeed, that they strike to the core...These deep things which really matter, they are not fragile--they are so solid that they can be talked about, expressed quite clearly.  What makes them hard to find is not that they are unusual, strange, hard to express--but on the contrary that they are so ordinary, so utterly basic in the ordinary bread and butter sense--that we never think of looking for them.  --C.A.


I really appreciated Christopher's insight on this matter, and indeed, it is so clearly expressed.  We tend to assume that deep thinking and mystical experience are so precious because they take so much effort to arrive at.  Only through years of practice and devotion--and the development of "expertise"--do we get the reward of that sought after experience.  Ordinary folk are somehow dependent upon the more erudite for the secret knowledge that they worked tirelessly to acquire.

It's true that those things which strike our cores are those things which seem so simple and so relevant to our lives.  The fanciful mental propositions of philosophers may be entertaining or intriguing, but it is those understandings that relate to our everyday experiencing of the world and our lives, which make the ground under our feet tremble.  They challenge our typical thinking and experiencing, and open new ways of apprehending the normal things that go on inside of us.  For example, in realizing that your hungry acquisition of knowledge is, deep down, a means for you to be liked or respected, just like those who pursue flashy cars and cosmetic surgery, you create a space in which you have the opportunity to be free from that impulse.  The insight comes quickly, like lightning, which illuminates the field around you and gives you a moment of clarity.

The secrets of life are all around us and inside of us, but we have to have the patience and openness to listen and observe.  It's the cornerstone of the scientific process, and look how many secrets of life have been discovered!  We are all scientists, in a fundamental sense, and we are all discovering.  We can share our secrets about the ordinary, and through that process, create the extraordinary.

Timeless Way of Living

There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work, in order to be alive like this; that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself.  This teaching has some value, since it is so easy for a man to imagine that his problems are caused by "others." But it is a one-sided and mistaken view which also maintains the arrogance of the belief that the individual is self-sufficient, and not dependent in any essential way on his surroundings.  The fact is, a person is so far formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings. Some kinds of physical and social circumstances help a person come to life.  Others make it very difficult.--CA


When I was sixteen I was introduced to the literary genre of inner work.  I took to it immediately, always feeling that I had a responsibility for my state of mind.  If I had an unhappy mood, thought, or circumstance, it was my own creation.  If I was maladjusted, I needed to recalibrate my mind so that I could be at ease with the environment.  If distress were still present, it meant I had more inner work to do.  This "arrogance" as Christopher Alexander calls it, stayed with me for many years.  It led me to psychology in college.  I had a passion to learn about the internal workings of people and myself to see how we and society at large are created from the inside out.  One class, though, put a chink in that assumption.  It was a class in sociology on deviance and conformity.  And the classic Zimbardo experiment.  Still, I was rather entrenched in my inner work orientation so I continued on mostly the same path, except for some seeds of doubt.

Circumstances in my life (throughout my twenties) became much more hostile, on many fronts (financial, academic, political), and my confidence in my ability to place myself in a state of perpetual contentment eroded.  I learned that I couldn't be the "master of my universe" no matter how diligent or honest I was.  Perhaps most people understand this instinctively, but I did not.  I thought that no matter how deplorable the conditions were around me, I could find a way (if I were wise enough) not to let those conditions affect me inside.  In other words, I could encase my inner being in a cocoon of peace.

Life loves to teach us many lessons, particularly those that show us how wrong we can be.  To adapt to my new understanding, I got more involved in "social activism."  I wanted to help change the circumstances that warp us and create so much conflict.  I saw the circumstances around me that are structural and that hurt me and wanted to begin the work to change them.  The most appealing organization with a comprehensive approach that I could find was The Zeitgeist Movement.

I see, though, some tendencies of people involved not to recognize the importance of inner work.  Since the ZM truly depends on a value shift in people, the "resource-based economy" cannot manifest as an imposition.  It must emerge through an understanding of the inner and outer.  A person must grow out of their need for domination and greed (insecurity) and understand that a social structure that promotes those qualities must be changed.  The problem isn't just "inside" or "outside."  It is in the relationship between the two.  In fact, the division itself is part of the problem.

Just as scientists (and the public) are now understanding epigenetics, we see that it is the relationship between the environment and genes that matters.  In the Timeless Way of Building, Christopher speaks about "patterns" as the fundamental building blocks of architecture, of society.  All doors are different, but there are relationship patterns common to all, which allow us to recognize and use them as doors.  We relate to each other, to objects, to nature.  It is in these relationship patterns that we either make ourselves dead or alive.