Kellerjoch

Published on 2021-7-10 by Michael Stanton

With a day of good weather, and newly lasered eyes, it was time for a hike. I wanted to get up high in Austria, but wanted to be able to take a lift down to keep the elevation gain reasonable. I figured with about 1300 meters up and down I could climb the Kellerjoch from Fügen, then come down with the lift. As it turned out, my calculations were a bit off!

But it was a good day anyway. The trail up from the lift station is quite pleasant. It tries to stick in forest on one side or the other of the lift, first on the left, then on the right. Beyond the Mittelstation, after a short steep stretch right under the lift, it beetles off to the right for a long time. Again, the forests were just fantastic.

Ridiculously pretty flowers looking to the Rofan Mountains.

Note the sheep -- how do they stay attached?! :D

I was listening to an audio book of Swami Vivekananda's "Raja Yoga." I found this book at the beginning of 2019 and it impressed me so much. His clear description of the relation of modern man to the concept of religion, and how that concept is a shadow of what it could or should be was helpful to me. His terse practical outline of a plan of work is motivating. What an amazing figure he was. Here is a snippet:

If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoke atheist than a hypocrite. The modern idea, on the one hand, with the “learned,” is that religion and metaphysics, and all search after a Supreme Being, is futile; on the other hand, with the semi-educated, the idea seems to be that these things really have no basis, that their only value consists in the fact that they are strong motive powers for doing good to the world. If men believe in a God, they may become good, and moral, and so make good citizens. We cannot blame them for holding such ideas, seeing that all the teaching these men get is simply to believe in an eternal rigmarole of words, without any substance behind them. They are asked to live upon words; can they do it? If they could, I should not have the least regard for human nature. Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself, to grasp it, to realise it, to feel it within his heart of hearts; then alone, declare the Vedas, will all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight.

This is definitely the shape of things today. My friends mostly hold religion as nonsense for them, but they see that it can be good or helpful for "regular people," who might need it to get through the day. And this "it" they imagine is a collection of statements about doing good and being good combined with the remaining apparatus of formerly powerful organizations. Privately, they feel this is a thin gruel on which to feed, but they accept that by some combination of social inertia and lack of curosity on the part of the individual, the bundle of ideas continues forward, and there we are.

I'm sorry but this is the attitude of a teenager! That is, when they were teenagers they worked out this thought pattern, and haven't revisited it since. I know because I did the same thing. No one looks deeper into a thing which they believe to be settled. It's possible to grow old and die thinking that this is what "religion" is.

True religion is science continued by other means. It is the exhaustion of inquiry into the external world, and the beginning of internal inquiry. All of the dangers of misapprehension science has thus far elucidated in the process of external search remain, and are, in fact, greatly magnified. Because the object of inquiry now is the very apparatus which makes conclusions -- the Mind. Knowing the observer effect, the rational man will admit that the work proposed is impossible. True!

Thusly, we attempt to reach, maintain and easily reproduce another state of consciousness which is able to observe Mind. To watch it emerging from rabbit holes and descending and dividing into tunnels. Now we can begin to get a handle on the many distortions of subjective thought that we habitually encounter.

We seek objectivity. We seek to use the discernment we developed in our years of inquiry into the external world. That was the training ground, and now we move onto much more "Real" inquiry.

Why do I apply the word "Real" to that which is most insubstantial -- the subjective states of consciousness? Well, because it's true. The most real thing you know are those electrical patterns in the brain which tell you that a bee hovers just inside in the window. This is an impression in the thought-space, in that "unreliable instrument" whose investigation we constantly shy away from, the Mind. If you deny that this is the ground of reality, then what is it you call the "really-real?" It would be nonsensical to say that it is those apparently external things about which you are only informed through the unreliable medium. For if it is so unreliable, how can it serve as a delivery vehicle?

Hmm, young Jedi Master?

LOL. Anyway. Such were my wandering thoughts on this day.

Fellow hikers near the summit of the Kellerjoch.

The view from the summit looking east.

Looking south to higher mountains.

Above the forest, terrain because temporarily depressing with construction vehicles, a bivy of ski lifts, and wandering, bored families in search of ice cream spilling out of the lift station (I'm being uncharitable out of habit -- in fact, many of the people were fit, fast walkers, often impressively old). But soon "wilderness" began again. I traversed a high trail above the Geolsalm, then descended to a basin on the beclouded north side of the rocky Metzenjoch. Feeling pretty tired, I reascended to the final steep trail to the Kellerjoch and took a short rest. I was fasting (for some reason...I guess I felt fat!) and hadn't eaten in about 40 hours. I was really feeling it now. I made the final hike, and found a summit with a little chapel and a bunch of folks sitting around. It was a great view. I was about 1700 meters above my start in Fügen.

I hiked keenly down to the nearby Kellerjochhütte, eager for food! I drank an alcohol-free Weißbier, imagining that alcohol on such an empty stomach would be inappropriate. Here I got greedy and made a mistake, ordering the richest-looking food available: dumplings ("Knödel"). It was really a bit too rich. I'd never had this particular kind of red dumpling before, and it tasted odd. I couldn't quite finish the meal, alas.

But the view from the hut towards Innsbruck was excellent. In general, I decided this peak and it's grouping of valleys and ridges would become a favorite in the years to come. The trip back to the Spieljoch lift station was rather hard. I was limping and eager to reach the lifts.

Finally this was done and I sailed down to the car courtesy of men and women who didn't mind investigating the external world long enough to produce hydraulic lifts, steel cables, modern plexiglass windows and all manner of conveniences!

2100 meters up and about 1000 down thanks to the lift.