Neil Kramer - The Unfoldment- The Organic Path of Clarity, Power, And Transformation

The Organic Path to Clarity, Power, and Transformation

By Neil Kramer

Copyright 2012 by Neil Kramer

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

THE UNFOLDMENT
EDITED BY JODI BRANDON
TYPESET BY DIANA GHAZZAWI
Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design
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I would like to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following people: David, for sharing so many adventures with so much heart. Lynda, for her love and integrity. Ronen, for the best conversations on the East Coast. Kevin, for his tremendous courage. Nate, for his honorable spirit. My folks, for their love and understanding. Mikael and Brent, for greasing the wheels. John and Arthur, for their inspiration.

Thanks to all the fine souls Ive met at conferences, workshops, and conscious gatherings, for their support and insight. Thanks to everyone behind the scenes at Trident Media and New Page Books for helping to turn this into a finished product.

Finally, infinite gratitude to Maren for being an ever-luminous flame in my life.

When we pull ourselves away from the hypnotic allure of the material world and stand back from the clamor and collusion of it all, we come to the realm of philosophy. Philosophy invites us to rise above the route map of our own life and take a broader view. It is the gateway to experiences of meaning, insight, and truth. It can recalibrate the mind for contact with something of a higher order than everyday human consciousness. When approached genuinely and openlyand quite regardless of our familiarity with itphilosophy never ceases to reinvigorate our relationship with life, charging it with a vitality and a sense of adventure that many have not felt for years.

The word philosophy comes from the Greek philosophia: philo love and sophia wisdomlove of wisdom. Considered in this light, it is a rather more natural impulse than we have been led to believe. Though scholars and academics appear to have laid claim to it from the ancient days of Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece onward, philosophy is really an abiding and essential component of everyones life. We all know that wherever we are and whatever we are doing, the more wisdom we hold, the more fulfilling our life path.

Throughout the many journeys and realizations that have shaped my consciousness over the last few decades, I have always sought to distill my own thoughts into the most honest and lucid terms possible. This has been largely for practical purposes, so I can better understand myself, my fellow humans, and the extraordinary world in which we live. Many revelations, intrigues, and awakenings have been encountered along the way, all of them somehow interconnected at the deepest level. Though the wisdom I have come upon feels very personal and unique, I understand that, at its core, it is not. When the singular colors and textures that describe my journey are set aside, what is left is universal. It is transpersonal, open, and immutable. There are seven billions paths to itone for each of usbut the original knowing is always the same. We all feel the truth of it.

My path began with puzzlementpuzzlement at why it was that most peoples lives followed a single fated formula: work, rest, eat, sleep, repeat. It was a deceptively vicious gravitation and it seemed to eventually pull everyone in. Though there were plenty of diversions available to take the edge off it, such as sport, vacations, culture, church, and parties, none of these things offered too much inspiration or insight. In a way, they made it worse. There was precious little time for anyone to think about the deeper questions and mysteries of existence. In fact, any sort of pondering on any subject was considered a rare luxury.

From all walks of life, the talk that I overhead was habitually focused on very mundane matters and was conspicuously un-magical. People shared their stories, their wishes, and their woes, but no one seemed to be really getting to the heart of things. They didnt want to talk about it. Even the most intelligent people seemed resigned to contracting the formula, as it if were a diseasequietly accepting that it would shape their lives from one year to the next. It felt wrong.

I realized that unless I took it upon myself to do things differently, I, too, would most likely fall into the same routine. I vowed that I would do my best to create my own patterns and spend as much time as I could on the things that I felt were meaningful and real. I stopped focusing on the particulars of life and instead started going to the roots. This immediately required me to regard my life as a kind of experimental art project. What I did, what I thought, and even who I was, would be painted onto a perfectly blank canvas, with absolutely no rules or restrictions. As long as I did no harm to myself or others, it was all good.

For a while, I chose to adopt the formula like everyone else. I worked, paid the bills, put bread on the table, and conducted myself in a relatively orderly manner. In parallel, I also immersed myself in the study of philosophy, spirituality, and mysticism. These seemed to be the subjects and disciplines that were best suited to the enterprise of discovery. Though they had each fallen unaccountably out of fashion, to me, there was nothing more exhilarating and consequential. I studied deeply and comprehensively. I read everything that I pulled from the shelves: the classical and the obscure, the deep and the divine, the arcane and the enigmatic. I soon realized that the wisdom our forefathers had left for us could not be absorbed in a single lifetime; perhaps not even 10. So I chose as judiciously and intuitively as I could. I put forth whatever effort was necessary to optimize my time with those texts. I read them with a great sense of pleasure and privilege.

Nevertheless, such presumptuous independence meant that I was occasionally suspected of not taking life seriously enough. I found this odd, as that was exactly the opposite of what I was trying to do. It was suggested to me that it would be better to do away with the frivolities of philosophical contemplation and instead turn my attentions to the somber responsibilities of adulthood. There were also times when I was reproached for taking it all far too seriously, accompanied by bizarre attempts to coerce me into spending my time on more acceptable leisure pursuits like football, golf, and reading spy novels.

Because I chose to pursue my studies in a non-academic fashion instead, consciously selecting the path of the autodidact (one who is self-taught)it had the effect of making matters even more flammable. Without a degree or a job in any of my areas of interest, it seemed that all my efforts were apparently fruitless. What I was doing was unproductive, insubstantial, and without practical value. I had embarked upon an irrational and perhaps even dangerous path. Regardless, I just got on with it and kept my nose clean, as they say. I kept my game so sharp that, despite the underlying ideological conflict, there were no real grounds for complaint.