Spirituality in Disguise: the Imagination as Bartender

By Robert Colacurcio

Mr. Bottiglia runs a bar called The Wandering Nomad. He practices and represents a disguised spirituality. Its right out in the open for all to see yet almost no one does. The fact that it is disguised doesnt make it any less effective. In fact, it seems that his spirituality is more effective because it is disguised. In the persona of Mr. Bottiglia, the imagination is a secret ally and a practical theoretician. The imagination as bartender is an acute observer of the human scene. It is silent, keeping its own counsel, until asked. The imagination as ally offers concrete suggestions to advance any situation. It sets the barraising or lowering it depending on the situations concrete circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479735648

Robert Colacurcio

Robert Colacurcio has been practicing the methodology of the Buddha’s spiritual technology for over thirty five years under the guidance of some of the most accomplished meditation masters in the Vajrayana lineage of Buddhism. Earlier in his life he studied to become a Jesuit priest, and earned his PhD from Fordham University in philosophy. His spiritual background includes two years at the New York Zendo, extensive study in the Human Potential Movement under the direction of Claudio Naranjo and Oscar Ichazo. His journey then took him to a Sufi commune learning the disciplines of the Russian savant, G.I. Gurdjieff. He is also deeply indebted to the works of Carlos Castaneda, Robert Pirsig and Jane Roberts. He currently lives with his wife, Carol, in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, and delights with pride in the growth and constant source of revelation that are his children and grandchildren

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Copyright © 2012 by Robert Colacurcio, PhD.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4797-3563-1

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction to Spirituality in Disguise

Chapter 1      The Imagination as Bartender

Chapter 2      The Bartender as Being Keeper

Chapter 3      The Imagination as Agent of Change

Chapter 4      The Imagination and Unmet Expectations

Chapter 5      The Paradoxical Positive of Negative Space

Chapter 6      Your Shark Can’t Eat My Train

Chapter 7      The Black Cat and the Black Box

Chapter 8      The Flea That Stopped a Train

Chapter 9      The Cloistered Extrovert

Chapter 10      When The Desks Are Screwed To The Floor

Chapter 11      The Zephyr And The Thunderclap

Chapter 12      The Ultra-Lite vs. The Jet Ski

Chapter 13      The Imagination on Tap

Chapter 14      The Unfinished Tree House

Chapter 15      Deer Me

Chapter 16      Mr. Bottiglia’s Bottle

Chapter 17      Spirituality in Disguise

Appendix A      Keeping It Real

Appendix B      The Imagination in Epistemology

Afterword

Footnotes to Spirituality in Disguise:

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge with appreciation the friends who read

this manuscript and offered helpful suggestions which improved it: Judy Chandler, Samadhi Longo Disse, Nick Edge, Martha Gehly, Joyce Hilliard, Sonny Carroll and Celia Ryan. Special appreciation goes to my wife, Carol Jo, who commented on each chapter as it was written and then carefully proofread and typed the final manuscript.

Preface

If you are reading this indoors, look around you. There is nothing in your fabricated environment that did not start out as an idea in someone’s mind. Even in the natural environment it is hard to find places anymore that have not been altered by man’s idea of how they should be. That the imagination cooperates in this environmental alteration is obvious enough. Not as obvious, perhaps is the way the imagination cooperates in the alteration of one’s mental environment. In fact, the imagination is a co-creator of this interior environment.

My early training in the Society of Jesus led me to aspire to the ideal of becoming a contemplative in action after the example of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. My experience and close observation of my brothers in Christ led me to conclude that the methodology from Ignatius was not powerful enough to systematically achieve that goal. My observation of most students practicing the Ignatian method was that a few realized the ideal but most did not.

After an intense introduction to Zen followed by a continuous practice of the Buddhadharma as it came to the West from Tibet, I had a much different experience. The Buddhist methodology systematically achieves the ideal it proposes.

This book is a discussion of the influence of the imagination on one’s interior life. The main character in the book never claims to be a contemplative in action. We leave it to the reader to make that judgment. The ideal of being a contemplative in action is not even the way the ideal is formulated in Buddhism. Nevertheless, to be in touch with one’s supreme source where all space is sacred and every step is on holy ground no matter how mundane the appearances, this is an ideal devoutly to be realized.

A bar is a pretty mundane place. If the imagination as bartender can reveal an interior environment that has the potential to awaken one’s perception to being a contemplative in action, perhaps we should pay it more mind. And that, in fact, is what the imagination as bartender requires as payment: more mindfulness.

Introduction to

Spirituality in Disguise

The Imagination as Bartender

The reader meets Mr. Bottiglia in the first chapters. He tends bar at Club Nomadic Wanderer. Bartending for Bottiglia is covert spiritual practice. His way of being at the bar illustrates the many facets of the imagination as it sets one’s direction, corrects or changes one’s course and assists in achieving or exceeding a bar set for oneself.

There are bartenders and then there are Bartenders. Bottiglia is not bartending part time to help pay off a college tuition. There is no smug superiority about his persona. Neither is there any cocky razzle dazzle. His full time job is to be of service at the bar, and as we’ll see, he serves up more than mixed drinks or a beer and a chaser. Bottiglia is an acute observer of the human scene; he is genuinely attentive to every nuance in the plight of his patrons. They feel something about Bottiglia that draws them in and makes them feel that there is more to life than their successes and failures have so far shown them. How he stimulates their imagination in this way is a puzzlement. He doesn’t say very much. Yet each patron feels some need being met with more than a drink.

The imagination is a silent partner in the enterprise called life. It is like a CEO who assumes the role of one of his day laborers in order to really understand their challenges and struggles. His view from the top is quite useful when there is an imaginative application that makes their life better, safer, more productive, and more enjoyable.

The imagination is a secret ally and practical theoretician. Sometimes there is nothing as practical as a good theory. The imagination’s role as secret ally is to constantly register the current situation in vivid detail. Arising out of any given situation may be a question, an inspiration or some emotion positive or negative. The imagination as ally offers concrete hypotheses, theoretical suggestions if you will, intended to advance the situation. This is the imagination as bartender: setting the bar of achievement, raising or lowering it depending on the situation’s concrete circumstances.

The imagination as bartender is, therefore, meant to be an acute observer of the human scene, genuinely attentive to every plight of its patrons. It is silent, keeping its own counsel until