Browsed by
Tag: Eternal Now

Getting out of your mind

Getting out of your mind

Comments 0 Comment

Man sitting on bench under treeI have heard multiple stories of Thanksgiving dinners being upended by this month’s election. Some people are so upset that they have dis-invited friends and family members from their holiday feasts because their political choices were intolerable to them. Doctors have reported a significant increase in patients reporting debilitating stress because of the election, some experiencing breakdowns. And there have even been reports of suicides with the victims saying they could not live with the political change they believe the election is ushering in.

In response, various websites and channels I follow have been providing advice and methods for coping with stress and despondency. Many people are taking matters into their own hands by simply stepping out of the fray. A few I’ve heard about are literally leaving the country. More common, and more practical, are those reducing or eliminating watching, listening to, or reading news and political commentary media. A couple TV networks have already announced significant budget and salary cuts in response to a drop in viewership. I think this latter option is the healthiest one, and actually a hopeful sign.

It’s been over 25 years since Eckhart Tolle published his mega bestseller, The Power of Now. Boosted by an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey TV show, the book has since been translated into more than fifty languages and read by tens of millions. Its seemingly simplistic assumption is summarized in this quote.

Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.

Why does that matter? Because where we seem to live is in our mind, and it focuses most of its attention on the past or future. That disconnect, Tolle believes, is the source of much of our misery.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.

Most don’t realize that the past and present to do not actually exist. They are creations of our mind, just like our imagined self, our ego, which is obsessed with time. It’s occupied with reminiscing about or lamenting the past and looking forward to or fearing the future. What it can’t do is be in the present moment. That is the realm of our true self, our timeless conscious awareness.

Modern culture has mastered the art and techniques of getting into our heads. Political propaganda, commercial advertising, the entertainment industry, and media of all types tell us and show us what to believe, how we should think, how we should feel, what we should value, and how we should spend our money and our time. We are all manipulated far more than we realize or want to admit.

There is growing awareness of all this, however. Confidence in institutions of all sorts has dropped dramatically, often with good reason. Even sources of knowledge and information that used to be valued for their objectivity are now seen to be themselves manipulated or corrupted by outside political and financial interests.

In response, we cast about for new sources we can trust but usually come up empty handed. We do that because we have been mistakenly taught to distrust the one source we actually can believe in: ourselves. Our true self. Not the unending babble of conflicting voices in our head but the spirit that is our center, our conscious awareness with which we know ourselves and the world experienced through our senses.

The political world which seems to have taken hold of so many of us is a fantasy, a creation of our minds. None of us walk the “corridors of power” in Washington. Our experience of it is almost entirely through the media’s talking heads and other electronic or print sources. Such “experience” is then reinforced by conversations with others who mostly agree with our point-of-view. Our minds overflow with arguments and counter-arguments and the drama of conflict between our imagined political heroes and enemies.

When we turn off our TV and step away from our computer, we disengage from our mental turmoil and reality returns. The present moment, life here and now, beckons us to awaken to its truth and potential. As Eckhart Tolle says,

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.

Our minds are wonderful things but they have never been more vulnerable to being hijacked by cultural forces and nefarious actors of all kinds. Our mistake is in believing that our mind is who we are, causing us to identify with the thoughts, feelings, and images spinning inside it. But it’s not. Our true self is what is aware of our mind and is unaffected by it. This is the shocking truth we need to discover, that there is within us a calm center free from the mind’s turmoil. This is what Paul described as “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”

Tolle warns about the danger of misunderstanding the mind’s proper role.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly – you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you.

As a result, our lives are deprived of the genuine and fulfilling experiences intended for all of us.

Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.

Spirituality is not about having esoteric experiences. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. Spirituality is awakening to our true nature and our true self. It’s coming back to reality from the imaginary world created in our mind. In doing so, we discover that our identity is not any transitory attribute or social label but the unchanging awareness we simply call “me” or “I.”

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

The dramas of life, including political ones, are very enticing. Our ego feels so good being right and being on the right side. But these dualistic conflicts—whether political, at work, in our family, or in our community—often, and quickly, balloon out of proportion to their real importance. The “combatants” become trapped, unable to disengage because they believe that their self-worth and sense of identity is now at stake in the outcome. But they’re not.

Our value is inherent in our timeless being, our “I am-ness”, which we share with everyone else and all other beings. The more aware we become of our being, and the more we center our sense of self in it, the more secure we feel and the more compassionate we become towards all who share it with us. When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” this is what he was pointing to. Our neighbors are, in fact, extensions of our self, because they too embody the Being of all reality, just as we do.

There is certainly much to be done and much that needs to change in our world. But as is obvious today, the political tempests of battling egos accomplishes little. To be of genuine benefit to others and to our planet, we must be grounded in our true self, which acts not out of fear or competition but the peace and compassion which recognizes our oneness with everyone and everything.

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

 

 

 

 

A God of silence

A God of silence

Comments 0 Comment

Hurricane Milton image from spaceIn the days before Hurricane Milton made landfall, I saw multiple Facebook posts appealing to God for protection from the storm. They often were not for personal protection but for some specific location or the whole state, and often in very assertive language. One such post said,

In the mighty name of Jesus, we believe that Hurricane Milton will dissipate and cause no harm to the state of Florida. In the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

The post had a graphic with a set of praying hands amidst swirling clouds over the Gulf, next to an image of the state of Florida. Similar posts had pictures of Jesus calming a stormy sea from a boat or on shore. The post quoted above had over 800 likes and over 200 responses, the largest number being simply “Amen”, often with one or more hands-together emojis. (In the US, most assume they are “praying hands” but, having been created in Asia like most emojis, they actually represent the gesture accompanying the Hindu Namaste greeting.)

A few responders expressed skepticism about the prospects of any divine intervention. Some of them in turn got surprisingly strong, often judgmental push-back for their lack of faith. A common theme of the posts I saw, as well as many of the comments, was the notion of “claiming” supposed divine promises of protection. Many responses to the skeptics included citing biblical stories of God saving or protecting people in danger. He did it before, so he will do it now.

I recognized these assertive “claiming” prayers as common to a certain strain of evangelicalism, often of the megachurch and Pentecostal variety. They are based on the conviction that believing strongly enough some presumed biblical promise will result in God fulfilling it. The strength of your belief, and the numbers who share that belief, will determine God’s reward.

In a worship setting, such prayers are a combination of “positive thinking” and group-think, and are often used to bind worshipers together. That’s the reason these posts got so many affirmations and why the naysayers were so firmly reprimanded. The skeptics disrupted the group cohesion of the post.

When Milton initially seemed to be behaving in a less destructive way than predicted, posts appeared claiming this was in response to people’s prayers. But as the actual extent of the damage and suffering became apparent, those posts disappeared. Less storm surge was accompanied by damaging winds, flooding rains, and (surprise) fatal tornadoes.

During the heyday of his 700 Club TV show, televangelist Pat Robertson once claimed to have “prayed away” a hurricane threatening his Virginia Beach headquarters. This was quickly slapped down by critics pointing out that the hurricane’s turn simply resulted in suffering and destruction happening somewhere else.

On the flip side was the assertion by Jerry Falwell and others the Hurricane Katrina was punishment for New Orleans’ debauchery, especially its hosting of an annual gay festival. The fact that the vast majority of victims had nothing to do with their city’s supposed depravity was ignored.

The idea that God punishes the wicked and protects and rewards the righteous is found throughout the Bible and is common in the Bible-based religions. This belief is especially prevalent in the Psalms, which probably explains their continuing popularity.

What is often ignored, however, is that such a belief is regularly challenged by other biblical writers. The prophets, especially, reject the notion that God will automatically give his people protection if they ask for it. Going further, wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes reject the notion that righteous living and piety will result in God’s blessings.

The Bible never resolves the issue. An overarching and unanswered question of the Old Testament is why God’s chosen people suffer so much. The New Testament continues that conversation by embracing suffering and death as the path to eternal life. But even there such a notion is never fully satisfying.

To put it bluntly, the biblical tradition struggles with the question: What good is a God who doesn’t help us, and in a predictable and reliable manner? Evangelical “claiming” prayers seem more like magic than faith. Say the right words and get the desired outcome. They also seem to be trying to manipulate God. You said You would protect us, so You have to come through for us when we ask.

Why do we appeal to God for help? Crying out when we are in distress or danger is a natural and automatic response, though not necessarily to God. John Shelby Spong quotes a woman who didn’t believe in God but in a time of great suffering cried out to the Universe for relief. The effect for her was probably the same. It expressed her distress and deep desire for her circumstances to be different.

So is God like a therapist or close friend, listening and nodding as we recite our problems, responding when appropriate, “I feel your pain”? In the progressive Christianity of mainline churches that seems to be the case. Even though prayers are said during weekly worship for the world’s problems and the needs of members, no one can explain what they believe will result from those prayers. Some will say that such prayers make us more aware of others’ needs and perhaps motivate us to act in some helpful way. That may well be true, but what has God got to do with it?

God as a Supreme Being far above us yet watching over everyone and everything is no longer credible for most people, including many religious people. Yet progressive churches have done little to help their members imagine, let alone experience, God in a different way. Countless numbers of theologians of the past two hundred years, Protestant and Catholic, have done valuable and productive work in this regard. Yet their own churches, often while saying affirmative things about them, have largely ignored their insights when it came to reshaping their beliefs and practices.

But it seems now that theology is not the way to move Christianity forward. Rather than more words, it is silence that is opening the way to a new understanding and experience of the Sacred. And some theologians themselves have recognized this.

One of the primary theologians of Vatican II, Karl Rahner, said that Christians of the future will be mystics or they will not exist at all. The great 20th century German American theologian, Paul Tillich, declared that God does not exist, but rather is the ground of existence. This was an idea he derived from the preeminent medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart. God is not a being but Being Itself. Such an understanding has support in many places in the Bible but probably the most well-known is a saying attributed to Paul in the book of Acts: “God is the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being.”

The essence of the mystical experience is not the God far off, out there, somewhere. Rather it’s knowing God right here, right now, within and all around us. In times of distress, we don’t appeal for God’s help so much as center ourselves in the sacred presence that is at the center of our being. By a life of “practicing the presence of God”, as Brother Lawrence described it in the 17th century, we come to know our essential security by our oneness with God and all things.

And this is primarily known in silence. As the Psalmist says, “Be still and know that I AM God.” This is how we experience what Paul describes as “the peace that surpasses all understanding.” It is a peace not of the mind but of the heart, not of words and ideas but of the boundless, silent Awareness that is our True Self. In the words of Meister Eckhart,

The Word lies hidden in the soul, unknown and unheard unless room is made for it in the ground of hearing, otherwise it is not heard. All voices and sounds must cease and there must be pure stillness within, a still silence.

Making room in our overfull lives and silencing the chatter in our minds is today’s spiritual challenge. Only then will we realize that we don’t need to cry out to God to come closer, but rather awaken, again quoting Eckhart, to the God “who is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.”

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Speaking a new language

Speaking a new language

Comments 2 comments
Pillars of Creation photo by James Webb Space Telescope
Photo of the Pillars of Creation by the James Webb Space Telescope (2022)

Recently I came across a piece of writing that stunned me with its clarity and wisdom. It was an essay I came across on YouTube by a young man who creates videos on spirituality and nonduality. Going by the online name ASCENDOR, he has no apparent religious affiliation but has learned much from the world’s various spiritual traditions and from life.

There is an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony. It permeates all that is, both seen and unseen. It is the force that guides the stars in their orbits and sets the planets to dance in precise order. Effortlessly, it orchestrates the rhythm of the universe – from the gentle ebb and flow of the seas to the winds that carry the clouds across the sky.

Within this intelligence, everything finds its place. The trees grow as if they understand the language of light, stretching towards the sun, knowing that their growth is part of a greater plan. The animals instinctively follow their nature, migrating, hunting, resting, creating a perfect balance in the web of life. The seasons shift in an eternal cycle, as if an invisible hand gently directs them, allowing everything to bloom and fade at just the right moment.

Even in the smallest things, this intelligence reveals itself. A tiny seed, seemingly insignificant, contains within it the blueprint of an entire tree. It knows when to sprout, grow, and bear fruit – not through thought, but through pure being, through the infallible wisdom of life itself.

Everything happens in harmony, as if the universe were a single, vast symphony, where each note plays exactly in its proper place. This intelligence is not distant or separate from us; it is within everything we are and experience. It is in our breath, in the beating of our hearts, in every thought that comes and goes.

You have never seen a sulking or despairing tree, questioning its existence or losing itself in thoughts of the future. Trees live in natural harmony, rooted in deep trust. They surrender to the flow of life, carried by an intelligence far beyond the grasp of the human mind. In the same way, you too can let go of your worries, for they are not needed to live a beautiful life. When the weight of your worries lifts, the search ends. The ego-driven energy dissolves, and in this newfound vastness, the entire cosmos – everything that exists – becomes your family. Or, more accurately, you recognize yourself in all things.

What is being talked about here? Life, existence, reality, being, and “an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony.” There is so much to be pondered and explored in these words. One word that is not used, however, is “god”, though anyone from a religious tradition would want to say that is what the “intelligence” spoken of here means.

For me, however, this essay supports the late Catholic theologian Karl Rahner’s belief that we should stop using the word “god”, at least for a long while. Regardless of one’s beliefs, the word has accumulated so many ideas over the centuries, and has become so rigid, that is hides more than it reveals. By avoiding the word, as is done here, we are forced into questioning and exploring, rather than assuming we’ve got “it all” figured out.

Yet religions have great difficulty with the idea that they haven’t each got it all figured out—and usually exclusively. Speaking in Singapore during his recent Asia trip, Pope Francis got himself into hot water by publicly expressing this inclusive viewpoint.

“Religions are like different languages in order to arrive at God, but God is God for all. Since God is God for all, then we are all children of God…. If you start to fight, ‘my religion is more important than yours, mine is true and yours isn’t,’ where will that lead us? There’s only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God.”

The pope’s conservative critics once again were horrified at his openness and broad-mindedness. A retired archbishop responded incredulously,

“To suggest, even loosely, that Catholics walk a more or less similar path to God as other religions drains martyrdom of its meaning. Why give up your life for Christ when other paths may get us to the same God?”

Of course, he completely misses Francis’ point. God is the universal truth, not any religion. But this bishop and countless others like him are so wedded to their religious institutions that they can’t make that distinction. Such ossified misunderstandings are dragging religion down around the world.

The growing numbers of the “spiritual, not religious” reflects an attempt to find new language for this universal truth, ultimate reality, ground of being, which religion traditionally calls God. One of its most commonly expressed beliefs is that this ultimate reality is not in some particular place far off but here and now. As it says in the essay: “This intelligence is not distant or separate from us; it is within everything we are and experience.”

In a recent blog post reflecting on the pope’s words, Christian nonduality teacher Marshall Davis affirms his declaration but takes issue with one aspect of it.

In this regard both Pope Francis and his critics go astray. Religions are not paths to God. There are no paths to God. Religions are not different paths up the same mountain. Identifying religions as paths to God assumes that God is somewhere else and we need to travel to arrive at God. 

God is not somewhere else. God is here now…. If religions are paths, then they are dead ends. They often serve as barriers to discovering God. They become God substitutes….  

God is not found by hiking a trail up a spiritual mountain but by discovering that there is no trail and no mountain. There is only the Divine here now. All we need to do is open our eyes. We need to get out of our own way. All we need is eyes to see and ears to hear.  As Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” 

Davis also just published a new video in his series on the spiritual awakenings of people in the Bible. This one is on Job. After chapters of talking about his sufferings, Job finally gets his meeting with God to find out what it’s all about. As Davis says, God doesn’t use theology or quote scripture. Instead, he gives a long speech about the wonders of creation. God is telling Job that he is never going to figure this out with reason. Instead, he needs to fully experience the world around him to discover his place within it.

This is the wisdom that this new yet ancient spirituality is appealing to, rather than the theology and rationalism religion has relied on for centuries. As ASCENDOR says in his essay,

There is an intelligence that endlessly holds everything in perfect harmony. It permeates all that is, both seen and unseen…. Within this intelligence, everything finds its place…. Even in the smallest things, this intelligence reveals itself.

Here are the seeds of a new creed for our time. The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said that the first book of scripture is the universe itself. How was that wisdom lost? Or why was it never assimilated in the first place? I’ve come to believe that the church’s anemic response to the climate crisis is due to it never sincerely believing in the sacredness of creation. And yet all of us have experienced spiritual renewal spending time in our gardens, gazing at the stars, or walking in the woods.

As Paul says in Acts, “God is the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” Davis is right that there is no path to God. How could there be a path to where we already are? The “intelligence” at the heart of everything is here now, around and within us. We just need to be still, and look and listen, with our minds and our hearts.

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Responding to TEOTWAWKI

Responding to TEOTWAWKI

Comments 2 comments

Homer Simpson wearing "The end is near" signThe sense of doom-and-gloom has a long history and likely never goes away entirely. Culturally it occurs in waves and right now the wave seems to be swelling significantly. Like watching an ocean wave in the distance, it seems small and unchanging for quite a while but as it gets closer to shore it can grow very quickly.

When the current “doom wave” first appeared isn’t entirely clear. Since the atomic bomb there has been a permanent level of anxiety which rises and falls with each international political crisis. In the 1970s, two new elements were added: awareness of a global environmental crisis and of growing economic uncertainty. At the same time, there was a revival of Christianity’s ancient apocalyptic fixation, beginning with the bestselling book, The Late, Great Planet Earth, by fundamentalist minster, Hal Lindsey. Since then, there have been the 9/11 attacks (2001), the Global Financial Crisis (2008), and the COVID pandemic (2020).

But to pick a date for its broad cultural awareness, let’s go with 1987 when the rock band R.E.M. released “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” Regardless of the merits of the song, the sentence-long title entered the public consciousness (often abbreviated as TEOTWAWKI). It began to be used in survivalist literature and has appeared in the increasing number of apocalyptic TV shows, movies, novels, and other media.

Today, the concern, and often belief, that our world is on the verge of some kind of life-threatening, if not life-ending, catastrophe is everywhere. Yet it somehow still manages to fly below the radar. Perhaps it’s just too awful to contemplate.

But I suspect there is also an unwritten policy that beyond the entertainment industry (now there’s irony for you), and fringe survivalist groups, this is not a topic to be seriously discussed. If it were, then the people in charge (aka TPTB, “the powers that be”) might be challenged to do something about it. Imagine if our presidential candidates were asked, “What do you believe should be done to prevent the end of humanity?”

Such a question may not be asked this time around, but it may well be in the not-too-distant future. And that’s because what has been an “elephant in the room” topic, is now being talked about openly by teens and young adults. I’ve seen it pop up increasingly in social media. But what got my attention most recently was an op-ed piece in last weekend’s New York Times. It was by author and Pulitzer-winning journalist Jake Halpern, titled “My Teenage Son Thinks the World Is Falling Apart. I’ve Changed How I Talk to Him About It.”

Halpern begins by acknowledging a basic split in how he and his wife view the world. While he is of the “glass is half-full” perspective, his wife takes the “glass half-empty” viewpoint. She grew up in Warsaw during the dark days of Communism’s impending collapse. Halpern, on the hand, had a comparatively idyllic middle American upbringing. As a result, he writes, their children get two very different pictures of life and the world.

I’m the upbeat dad from America; she’s the no-nonsense mom from Poland. We’ve created two different schools of child-rearing; it’s pretty much Disney versus the Iron Curtain….

When our boys were toddlers, and they asked us about death, I hemmed and hawed, while [my wife] Kasia explained: “I will die, your father will die, and someday you will die.” As you can guess, tears were shed, but death was thus accurately explained.

But their children’s concerns have moved on from basic life questions to current events.

My youngest son, Lucian, who is now 15, has a fatalistic streak. He recently observed to me, “The world is coming apart, isn’t it, Dad?” His proof, which was ample, included climate change, power outages, Ukraine, Gaza and the protests on the college campus near us. And he didn’t seem convinced that any of the world’s “supreme leaders,” as he called them, were doing an especially good job.

“How much faith, in general, do you have in adults?” I asked him recently. “Not much,” he replied. “Have you always felt this way?” I asked. “No, the world was better 10 years ago,” he said wistfully. “But I never really thought about that kind of stuff when I was 5. Back then I just thought about what I was going to have for lunch.” Fair enough.

Halperin now says his “look on the bright side” approach to their kids’ concerns was dishonest and unfair.

The truth is, Lucian is right. The world is coming apart. I see it from his perspective now…. My instinct to minimize all of this was wrong. On some level, I just didn’t want to admit to my kids — or to myself — that I was powerless to protect them….

So I’ve embraced the Iron Curtain response: “Yes the world is broken, which is why you need to fix it.” Lucian’s response to this, of course, is: “We didn’t break it. You did.” Touché. He also reminds us: “If you can’t fix things, what makes you think I can?” And I can only reply: “Maybe you can’t, but you still have to try.”

I appreciate Halperin’s “conversion” to being honest with his children but I have lots of problems with this concluding paragraph. The notion that “you” (the adults) broke the world and now “you” (young people) need to fix it is wrong even as metaphor. The chain of events that has led to our world today is immensely complicated, with no clear beginning. Nor is it at all clear that things could have turned out differently.

For example, the invention of the steam engine, combined with the desire to increase human productivity of all kinds, meant pollution and global warming were baked into the modern industrial cake. Already in the 19th century scientists were forecasting the negative effects of pumping carbon into the atmosphere.

The 18th century invention of bureaucracy (from the French, literally “desk power”) resulted in previously unknown abilities to organize both people and material goods. The modern world would have been impossible without it. Yet it also allowed Napoleon to move soldiers and supplies across Europe in ways never seen before, and every military force since has followed his example.

The modern world has certainly seen dramatic improvements in the overall quality of human life, in both material and social terms. The seemingly endless struggle with hunger and disease has been much reduced. Material living standards and education levels have risen nearly everywhere. Racial and ethnic discrimination and gender inequities have been curtailed significantly. Yet all this has occurred in parallel with humanity’s increasing ability to wreak untold havoc on itself and the planet.

So just as there is no one who “broke” the world, there is no one who will fix it. That’s not how things work. Such a naïve view is an unfortunate result of the modern perspective of seeing everything like a machine. Whenever something is out of whack, we just need to call a service tech and they’ll make it right again.

Living to fix the world can only lead to frustration, anger, and depression. The times in which we live don’t change our calling, which is simply to live in the here and now. Our concern is with what’s right in front of us: in our family, community, workplace, or in the random occurrences of daily living. This understanding is found in the famous “lilies of the field” passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear…. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ … Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Jesus was no Pollyanna. He is not promising that everything will turn out just fine. Rather, he is pulling us out of our fevered mind, with all its fears and fantasies, to live in the present moment. “Today’s trouble is enough for today.” “Your plate is full now!” Jesus is saying. Why look to tomorrow or next month or next year for more things to pile on it? And the key thing about those future worries is that they are all mental abstractions. Wild guesses our minds make about what may fall into our laps, or fall on our heads.

This does not in any way diminish the world’s problems or its potentially perilous future. Rather, it reminds us that we do not live “in the world” but only here, in this place, and not in the future but only now, in this moment. Within our context, are there things we can do ameliorate suffering and lessen the world’s problems? Of course, and we should act as we are moved and as opportunities present themselves. In doing so, however, we are not trying to “fix a broken world” but responding with compassion to needs that are in front of us. As Jesus says, facing those choices and challenges will be more than enough for us.

Is it TEOTWAWKI? Yes, it always is. Everything is impermanent, as the Buddha and the book of Ecclesiastes taught. The world and our lives are in constant change. Some of that we like, but others not so much. Life is responding to those changes, whether for good or ill. But life is also discovering that our true essence is a center of unchanging peace, unaffected by any storm, and united to the One from which everything comes and goes.

 

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

 

 

Repurposing the church: conclusion (part 3)

Repurposing the church: conclusion (part 3)

Comments 8 comments
Storefront church
A storefront church in Toronto.

In almost any conversation about the church’s future, the elephant in the room, the thing everyone is aware of but no one wants to talk about, is God. Perhaps it’s because people take God as a given, needing no discussion, but I don’t think so. For some it may be that they would feel too awkward or embarrassed. But I think the main reason God is “off the table” is that people know it would open a can of worms. It would reveal that people are all over the map on who or what God is, and that few adhere to the church’s “official” position.

It’s been well over a century since the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “God is dead … and we have killed him.” Despite hysterical distortions by his opponents then and since, Nietzsche was basically reporting a historical fact: the notion of God common in the ancient and medieval world was no more. That God was “killed” by the creation of a science-based world that has no place for such a God. That God is now homeless and unemployed, since heaven has no place in the universe and the universe has no need for God to keep it going.

Are a scientific worldview and the idea of God incompatible? Well, yes and no. If God is a being in some extraterrestrial location called heaven, who intervenes in the operation of the universe and the affairs of humanity, then yes, you have to choose one or the other. And if you choose science, then no God. This, of course, is the fundamentalists’ assumption and the reason for their hostility to the modern world.

Yet most Christians (including most fundamentalists to a degree) want to have their cake and eat it too. They accept science and the marvels it has brought to modern life, yet somehow also want to keep a personal God existing somewhere out there. Thus, Christians live with their religion and their science-dominated daily lives in separate compartments, with interaction between them rare and, when it does happen, awkward, if not explosive.

Or at least, that’s how it’s been. For I think we have reached a tipping point where most people now find this an impossible and unnecessary juggling act. The one bond above all others which has held people to the church is finally dissolving, and that’s a belief in a theistic God, God as an extraterrestrial being somewhere out there.

I say both impossible and unnecessary because people are discovering that, despite the church’s age-old denial, there are other ways to understand and experience God. Furthermore, many Christians are discovering that within Christianity there have always been alternative viewpoints, expressed by the mystics but also more than a few theologians, not to mention countless ordinary clergy and lay church members.

The growing number of those identifying as “spiritual but not religious” is the most tangible sign of this movement. These are people who have abandoned the theistic deity of traditional religion yet maintain a belief in an essential spiritual and sacred dimension to life. As surveys have shown, many may still express a belief in God, but often this is not the God of the church’s creeds and doctrines. This is often a God of experience rather than of theological belief.

A few months ago I wrote a blog post called “God Has Left the Building” and discussed how spirituality is rapidly displacing traditional notions of religion like Christianity.

Spirituality is now in broad use to refer to the experience of the sacred and of mystery in life and in the world. Many teachers and authors of various religious traditions, and of no tradition, commonly use the term to identify this dimension of reality. Spirituality is being seen as a way to reestablish our connection with the natural world and stem our abuse of it. And, being a religiously “neutral” term, spirituality is also providing a new opening for interaction with the sciences, especially psychology and theoretical physics.

Unfortunately, traditional Christianity is largely left behind in all this. The church cannot let go of “the Big Guy upstairs”, with its hymns, prayers, and rituals still directed to this imaginary being somewhere “above” us, imploring his forgiveness for our misdeeds and intervention in our many problems. While such piety still has some appeal, it is shrinking by the day, as evidenced by the ever-increasing numbers of empty pews.

The biggest thing missed by today’s distressed church leaders is that the church’s decline is largely a rejection of worship and the theistic God worship is centered on. Shrinking worship attendance means that millions of people have realized that they can get along fine without it and its weekly reconnection to the God-out-there. This is the reason the pandemic lockdown was such a blow. Forced to stop their worship practice, many discovered they didn’t really miss it and found other things to do with that time.

The pandemic lockdown was a missed opportunity, for this was when the church could have recognized that worship’s time is over. As I go on to say in the post I quoted above, the problem with worship is the church’s problem with God. The theistic God in heaven, the “sky God” as he’s sometimes been called, or God as Batman as Sam Harris described him, swooping in to rescue us from disaster, simply doesn’t work in the world today. As long as it clings to such a notion, the church can’t say anything intelligible, let alone meaningful, about such a God.

As I have shared these ideas in various places and settings, I rarely if ever get any pushback. While some raised in the church still cling to its traditional notions, the vast majority of people, both inside and outside the church, have moved on. Yet the church has hardly budged. Especially in worship, its hymns, liturgy, prayers, creeds, and preaching still assume this yawning gap between God, reigning in heaven, and the world and each one of us.

Spirituality is the recognition that there is no gap. God, as Paul says in Acts, is the one “in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” Or as St. Augustine said, and many spiritual teachers have repeated over the centuries, “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.” And as Meister Eckhart says, the man who 700 years ago spearheaded the greatest effort to redirect the church toward this orientation:

Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.

Churches measure their vitality by how many people are in worship, yet it is worship that is dragging down the church. It is like an addiction, a habit the church can’t let go of. That many people, especially clergy, would be astonished, and even outraged, at such an idea shows how difficult breaking this habit will be. They don’t see that culture is breaking that habit for them, as churches close by the thousands.

No doubt many repurposed churches will retain a regular community gathering, though hopefully called something other than “worship”. But here is the great learning opportunity: let members reexamine church traditions and decide how they can be reimagined and repurposed, or that they just need to go. What opens us to recognize God’s presence here and now? How do we recognize the holiness of this time and place, of everyone present, and of the world around us? And how do we tell the story of Jesus, not as the Son of God, but as a child of God who lived to show that this is the identity of every person?

For this, finally, is what a repurposed church is about: following Jesus as the revealer of our oneness with God, of our true nature as Spirit, of each of our beings as a unique embodiment of God’s own Being. In that light, much of what has passed for “essential” church life will fade away or be radically reimagined. The church will no longer proclaim the “story of salvation” as Christ’s deliverance of the world from sin. Rather, the church will be a place to “experience salvation” as the awakening to our true nature, revealed in Jesus’ life and teaching.

A repurposed church will be a place to learn from spiritual masters of past and present, whatever their religious label. Here people will be guided to follow the “pathless path”, which leads them to where they already are by discovering they have never NOT been apart from God, but only lost in their egoic mind’s delusions of separateness. In a repurposed church they will be supported in a journey inward, to discover both their true selves and the God who is the core of their being. As Meister Eckhart taught,

There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.

This may be the most difficult of the lessons a repurposed church must learn, but it is crucial. That after a centuries-long obsession with words—scripture, creeds, doctrines, theology, sermons, hymns, prayers, liturgy—God is not found in them. Rather, as Elijah learned at the mouth of his cave, God is in our silence. And in a repurposed church, silence will be its sacrament.

 

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support (see the “DONATE” box), which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Walking each other home

Walking each other home

Comments 4 comments

In my last blog post, I mentioned the name of Ram Dass as one who was an early proponent and practitioner of spirituality apart from religion. To many, Dass (1931-2019) was the quintessential 1960s/70s hippy, but he was also a serious thinker and writer and deeply compassionate.

Two sayings came to be associated with him, often appearing on bumper stickers and posters. The most well-known was “Be here now.” This is the challenge to the tendency of our minds to be focused on the past or future, or on what we imagine is happening somewhere else. Being in our heads someplace other than “here, now” is the primary cause of our distress and anxiety.

The other phrase, which I think is equally powerful, was, “We are all just walking each other home.” The meaning of this may not be as immediately obvious. Dass often used it in the context of being present with the dying, but he understood dying as a lifelong spiritual journey. To me it is one of the simplest descriptions of our spiritual life and of what Jesus (and others) saw as our calling in life.

The overarching theme of Jesus’ teaching was the kingdom of God. The meaning of this phrase was not obvious. It was not an idea found in the Old Testament, which talks instead about the political kingdoms of Israel and Judah, so it left most of his hearers puzzled. Jesus never gives a clear definition of it, preferring instead to describe it with metaphors and to tell stories about it through parables.

It seems that even Jesus’ most devoted followers never really understood him. At the beginning of Acts and just before the resurrected Jesus’ ascension to heaven, the disciples ask him, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” One imagines Jesus shaking his head and thinking, “After all this, you still don’t get it.” Instead, what he says is that it’s not his decision to make, but hang tight for the coming of the Spirit. At Pentecost it’s made clear that God’s plan is for the whole world. But “the plan” always remains a mystery.

Jesus’ parables and other teachings make clear that the “kingdom” he is talking about is metaphorical. It is not a political or geographical entity, nor is it something to anticipate happening in the future. This is said most explicitly in Luke 17:

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among and within you.”

In the noncanonical gospel of Thomas, Jesus says,

“[The kingdom] will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is.’ Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”

In a surprising story in Mark 12, Jesus is challenged to name the most important commandment. After responding, a scribe congratulates him on his answer and then expounds upon it in greater detail. Jesus in turn affirms the scribe’s response, saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” The words “not far” imply a spatial relationship, yet it is obviously not literal but metaphorical. The kingdom is somehow “present” but we may be at some distance from it.

Things lost and returning to where they belong is a frequent theme of Jesus’ parables. Of these, the most well-known is the parable of the prodigal son. The familiar story tells of a younger son who wants to leave home and see the world. So he travels to “a far country,” squandering his inheritance from his rich father in the process. Destitute, he realizes his family home actually has all he wants so he goes back and is rapturously welcomed by his father.

A second parable is ingeniously attached to the first. It tells of the elder son’s bitterness as his father’s welcoming back his useless brother. However, the story reveals that the elder son has never appreciated what he was blessed with living with this father. While physically present, he too was “lost” and far from home.

Meister Eckhart understood the message of these stories and what it means to be in God’s kingdom. He summarizes the human predicament in a quote I used last time. In this translation, however, the connection to the parable is obvious.

God is at home. We are in the far country.

Thus, according to Eckhart and to Jesus’ lost-and-found parables, the mystery is not where to find God but why have we left our true home where God has been all along. The “returning home” experience is summarized in a line from the popular hymns Amazing Grace.

I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.

Now the deeper meaning of Ram Dass’ saying becomes apparent: “We are all just walking each other home.” To be lost and wandering is the human predicament. Our life journey is finding our way back home and helping others along the way to do the same.

But what and where is “home”? As I’ve said many times before, the corruption of religious language makes it hard to take the Bible and theology seriously. Ironically, the same was true in Jesus’ day, which is why he resorted to parables to communicate his ideas.

Home is where we belong because it is where we are from. We can rephrase Jesus’ response to the scribe as, “You’re almost there; you’re almost home.” The gospel of John, written for the Christian community decades after Jesus, sees Jesus as a symbol for home, the place where we are meant to “abide.”

I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.

The turning point for the prodigal son is when he “comes to his senses.” Amazing Grace talks of being found and regaining sight. The most common description which transcends religious and spiritual traditions is “waking up,” from delusion to reality.

Where is home? It is all around us, and within us, Jesus says, if only we could see it. What is home? It is our true self, our being, experienced as pure silent awareness, but obscured by the made-up roles and identities we have accumulated over our lifetime, and the endless chatter in our heads.

To be at home is to know our oneness with the Source of all reality, the ground of being, with “God,” if that word works for you. This Oneness is beyond words, in any case. All we have are pointers and metaphors. But more important than words to describe it, is the experience of being home. Paul calls it “the peace that surpasses all understanding.” It’s the deeper truth of the saying, “Home is where the heart is.”

We are all on the journey home. It can be arduous and frustrating, filled with distractions and detours, but there are guides along the way. And it all becomes less stressful, and seems more doable, when we realize that we are all on the same journey, that “we are all just walking each other home.”

 

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support, which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Consider the lilies

Consider the lilies

Comments 1 comment

photo of liliesThe news today, whatever its source or format, provides endless sources of distress. Local events, national politics, international conflict, natural disasters, and predictions of future catastrophes all contribute to our sense of dis-ease: feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, hatred, frustration, guilt, depression, sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

Of course, people have been upset by distressing events long before there were news media. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses this in one of the most famous passages in the gospels.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear? For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

On first hearing, Jesus words sound pollyannish. “Don’t worry. God will take care of it.” Worse, you may have heard such sentiments from people thinking they were being helpful. And Jesus can also seem annoyingly simplistic when he tells people on multiple occasions that they need to have faith, or that their faith has healed them.

But this text contains profound wisdom if we listen carefully. As he often does, Jesus tries to get his listeners to open their eyes to see the world as it really is, learn the lessons it has to teach, and re-frame our own self-understanding as a result.

Remarkably to us, perhaps, Jesus begins by noting that all life is part of an ecosystem. The seeds and bugs birds need are simply there for the taking. Lilies beautify the fields they occupy simply by being what they are. Yet while this is supposed to encourage us in trusting that we too will be taken care of, Jesus almost off offhandedly adds that the field that is so beautiful one day will, nonetheless, be cut down and tossed in the oven the next.

Jesus joins the Buddha here in teaching the most basic lesson: nothing is permanent, including you and me. An emotional reaction to distressing news is natural, whether it’s something happening right in front of us or halfway around the world. But when those emotions begin to overwhelm us and we can’t find peace again, then something else is going on. We are clinging to what can’t be held on to.

Buddhist priest Norman Fischer summarizes this Buddhist teaching.

Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice. All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto. When we don’t fully appreciate this simple but profound truth we suffer…. When we do, we have real peace and understanding…. As far as classical Buddhism is concerned, impermanence is the number one inescapable, and essentially painful, fact of life. It is the singular existential problem that the whole edifice of Buddhist practice is meant to address.

Jesus is, perhaps, less systematic than the Buddha but his response to impermanence is essentially the same. “Seek first the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. That is, seek what is permanent and stop looking for security and peace in the impermanent, what is so pretty one day and tossed in the oven the next.

Now here, of course, we run into the problems of language and the corruption of language. For most today, a statement like “seek first the kingdom” drips with a cloying piety from generations of manipulative preachers and evangelists. Jesus’ concern isn’t with religion, however, but daily living.

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

We hear this expressed in AA as living” one day at a time” and in nondual spirituality as “living in the now.” Neither past or future are real; they are only ideas in our head. And those ideas are the source of most our distress, anguishing about what did or didn’t happen in the past or what might happen in the future. Real life happens only here and now. This is the meaning of existence and is our true being. Anything else is fantasy.

The medieval theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart said that God is “the ground of being.” That phrase was embraced in the 20th century by the German American theologian Paul Tillich and has grown in usage since. Being is the Really Real. “Ground of being” echoes the famous story of Moses at the burning bush. When Moses asks for the name of this God, he is told it’s “I AM”, Being Itself, speaking to him.

Mystics of all religious traditions have said that, in some profound way,  existence itself it the ultimate revelation and experience of God. Reality’s countless forms are expressions of existence, of Being, but they are all transitory, constantly changing, impermanent, forever coming and going.

To “seek the kingdom” as Jesus says, is to find and ground ourselves in the permanent, the timeless, the Really Real, and to let go of the transitory, that which is forever changing and impermanent. To do otherwise, Jesus and the Buddha both say, is to live in confusion and suffering.

How do we respond to the world’s chaos and crises? “Today’s trouble is enough for today,” Jesus says. Do what you can and are moved to do here and now: donate, write a politician, vote, volunteer, etc. But endless thinking, ruminating, fuming, stressing about this problem or that crisis won’t accomplish anything.

When these emotions get us in their grip and won’t let got, nonduality teacher Angelo Dilullo says it’s time to practice a type of meditation called self-inquiry. In this practice, we look inwards to find the underlying emotions that have been triggered by the event or events that have so distressed us. What painful experiences or negatives ideas have been opened within us? Often the question will be, what are we clinging to that we need to let go of?

The events and situations causing so much distress to people today are not trivial but often have little direct impact upon us. And in most cases, there is usually little we can do about them. Obsessing about them in response to our powerlessness, including feeling deep anger or depression, does nothing. This is the suffering that comes from clinging to the transitoriness of life.

Tying ourselves in emotional knots over the latest news story or headline disconnects us from living here and now. It closes us to the beauty of the world around us and to the opportunities we have to bring hope and healing to situations right where we are. “Today’s trouble is enough” to challenge our abilities and to create new possibilities of love and life, if we can be centered in the Really Real, the kingdom which Jesus says is all around us and within us.

If you appreciate these posts, remember to “Like”, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. In the mystical world of search algorithms, this all helps “spread the word.” And add a comment, if you’re so moved, to be part of the conversation. Finally, thank you for your financial support, which covers blog expenses and helps me to keep doing this.

Yes, but who are you?

Yes, but who are you?

Comments 2 comments
Sunrise in Santa Fe, New Mexico
New Mexico sunrise

The traditional meaning of Good Friday and Easter is that Jesus died for our sins and by his resurrection people are given eternal life. For centuries, this has been the church’s carrot and stick. Believe in Jesus and you will have eternal life in heaven. Don’t believe in Jesus and you will die in your sins and go to hell, or at least not go to heaven.

I think the stick part of this message has almost completely lost its credibility. Even very few religious people believe in a God who punishes human beings for their wrongdoing, especially for eternity in some place of torture. As one of my seminary professors wryly said, “I may believe in hell, but I don’t have to believe anyone is in it.”

But what about the carrot of life after death? My sense is that isn’t much of a carrot anymore because people either believe in it or not regardless of their religious beliefs. I have a friend who grew up in a Muslim household but has no religious practice now, and he told me emphatically that there is life after death.

For most people today, life after death is real or not regardless of one’s beliefs about God or religion. Some say, “when you’re dead, you’re dead”, while others, like my friend, insist our lives go on “beyond the grave.” What form that life takes is up for debate, of course. In any case, few believe anymore that life after death is something awarded to us, by God or the church.

The church’s reward-and-punishment message was always a self-serving distortion of Jesus’ teaching and what the Bible in general says. It was adopted because it got people in the pews and kept them there. The church got away with it because there is no clear and consistent biblical understanding of life after death. So, the church’s theologians could pick and choose the verses and traditions which supported the message of salvation which the church wanted to promote.

Biblical scholars agree that the notion of life after death was a late developing belief in ancient Judaism. There is little discussion of it in the Old Testament. God’s rewards and punishments are almost entirely this worldly, and more related to the behavior of Israel as a people than of individuals. The dead went to Sheol, the underworld place of darkness. Later, the idea of a personal afterlife was likely picked up from Israel’s neighbors but was never universally taught or accepted. It remains a minority belief among Jews today.

Early Christians apparently were among those who did believe in life after death. In the gospels, Jesus clearly takes this position in a debate with some Sadducees. Yet Paul has to defend the idea of the dead being raised in 1 Corinthians in order to justify a belief in Jesus’ resurrection, so apparently it was not universally accepted among the first Christians.

In that same letter, Paul gives his most detailed discussion of resurrection and what he says would startle many Christians. Paul says flat out that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Likening death to the planting of seeds, he says, “It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Thus, Paul would have scoffed at the later gospel stories of the resurrected Jesus’ with a body that could be touched and felt and even eat!

Paul never defines what he means by his seemingly contradictory phrase “spiritual body.” But another statement he makes does point in a helpful direction. Using the idea of Jesus as the “second Adam” (i.e. God’s restart of humanity), he says, “Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit.”

The divine spirit, often imagined as breath or wind (the words are the same in Hebrew and Greek), is one of the most important but underappreciated ideas in the Bible. The creation story in Genesis 1 begins with “a wind from God” blowing over the watery chaos from which the universe is made. In the creation story of Genesis 2, God creates the first human out of dust and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Spirit, God’s own breath, is what makes us alive and is the energy of all creation. Death is the departure of that spirit from the body. All four gospels describe Jesus’ death in those terms. Mark, Matthew, and Luke each say Jesus’ death was when he “breathed his last.” Before this moment, Luke has Jesus say, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” And in John, Jesus’ death comes when he “gave up his spirit.”

But in talking about life after death, we rarely ask who or what it is that might continue to live after death. Who is the “I” that we think will go on? This is the source of our confusion because we fail to ask the most fundamental question: Who am I? Ignorance of our true identity is the primary cause of our misery according to many of history’s great religious and spiritual traditions.

This has become a crisis in modern Western culture. Society emphasizes the individual personality and its free development, i.e. “finding” or developing ourselves. Yet we know that all our qualities, abilities, talents, and accomplishments are ephemeral—they won’t last. Am I more than these qualities? If so, who is the “I” that has them? Who am I besides the roles I play, my ever-changing physical qualities, or my mental and physical abilities?

While much religious language has become antique, the word “spirit” has remained meaningful and powerful. I believe this is because it points to what is unchanging and eternal, deeply felt and intuited, yet otherwise unnameable. It is spirit, according to ancient wisdom, that is our true nature and identity. And being spirit, we are then one with God.

In modern times, this was perhaps most clearly summarized by the 20th century French anthropologist, priest, and mystic, Teilhard de Chardin. In describing our true nature, he said,

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Is there a way to understand spirit in modern, even scientific, terms? Increasingly, spiritual teachers and scientists are finding common ground in the idea of consciousness. The study of fields as diverse as quantum physics and near-death experiences (NDEs) are causing scientists to recognize that consciousness needs to be seen from a new perspective. Many are beginning to speak of it in ways that echo the teachings of Eastern religion and Western mystics.

Earlier this month, The Guardian published an in-depth story titled, “The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’.” Among other topics, the article shows how our confusion about consciousness is impeding our understanding of both living and dying. The author quotes the bold prediction of Sam Parnia, an acknowledged expert in the fields of resuscitation and NDEs:

“I think in 50- or 100-years’ time we will have discovered the entity that is consciousness,” he told me. “It will be taken for granted that it wasn’t produced by the brain, and it doesn’t die when you die.”

Other scientists are going even further, asserting that consciousness is not how we perceive reality but where, in fact, reality starts. In his book The Case Against Reality, UC-Irvine cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman says of this new perspective, “Conscious realism makes a bold claim: consciousness, not spacetime and its objects, is fundamental reality.”

How do we experience consciousness itself? For centuries mystics around the world have said this is the purpose of meditation. Through the practice of sitting in silence we develop the ability to become aware of awareness itself. This is our true self, such teaching holds, before any particular experience or thought. It is the self which knows such experiences and thoughts, is aware of them, but is not the experiences or thoughts themselves.

Not only is consciousness our true self, spiritual traditions have said, but it also Consciousness, or Awareness, our experience of our oneness with God, the one Self of all reality. This is why so many religions teach that knowing God requires a dying, a giving up of our ego, our false self, because it obscures our experience of our True Self. As Jesus says, we must lose our life in order to find it.

Alan Watts was a British-American clergyman who helped modern Westerners discover the Eastern religious traditions. Appreciating both the Bible and Eastern spirituality, he wrote:

You don’t really exist. That is, as an ego, a soul, a separate will. When you realize this, you’re liberated…. Ego is an abstraction…. So is one’s self. There’s a happening, but it’s not you. By dying to yourself, finding you don’t exist, you’re reborn. Forgetting yourself, the universe flows on.

This was the essence of Paul’s experience of the crucified and risen Jesus. In this letter to the Galatians he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”

In his video, “What Happens After Death? A Nondual Explanation”, retired Baptist pastor and author Marshall Davis comes to this conclusion.

What happens after we die? The individual human consciousness comes to an end. No more me. But the universal eternal consciousness that is expressed as me, in me, through me, that consciousness that we call God, continues…. [W]e are one with this divine consciousness. This consciousness is the universe, is the nature of the universe, and this consciousness is always, and it continues. In that sense we continue after death because this is who we really are. The good news is that this divine consciousness can be known now. When I die, I expect that this divine consciousness that I know now will continue, although my individual personal consciousness will end.

A phrase I have not used until now is “eternal life.” It is so often misunderstood. Eternal life is not just life after death. The word “eternal” means “without beginning or end; lasting forever; always existing.” In John, which uses the phrase more often than any other  book of the Bible, Jesus teaches that “eternal life” is not something given later but known now. How could it be otherwise if it is eternal? In other words, our true self has no beginning or ending. Not only will we not die, but we were also not born, because our true self is the eternal Spirit of God.

One of the mystical metaphors that is especially helpful is that of waves on the ocean. Each of us is such a wave. It exists only in union with the ocean. The wave’s substance is entirely that of the ocean. When it reaches the shore, it comes to an end, even while other waves are following behind. Nothing “dies” when the wave ends. Only its form has changed while its true identity as ocean continues on unchanged.

Discovering this truth is the experience of salvation. In John, it is what Jesus means, in his conversation with Nicodemus, by being born from above or born again. In many religious traditions it is called awakening. It is seeing clearly, for the first time, who we are, and what life and reality truly are.

It is to be set free to live in the “eternal now”, without regrets about the past or fear of the future because neither actually exist. It is to be able to love life and our own existence, and to realize how literally Jesus meant it when he said we should love our neighbor as ourselves. It is to recognize our eternal oneness with God, or whatever word we want to use for the One that is the ground of existence, as Meister Eckhardt says. It is to recognize our oneness with everyone and all things. It is to know that our truest and most important identity is expressed in simply saying, “I am,” and to know that we always will be.

An Ash Wednesday Meditation

An Ash Wednesday Meditation

Comments 4 comments

It’s my intention to occasionally include video posts here along with my written pieces. There are a lot more elements to making a quality video than an ordinary blog post. But I realized if I waited to do it “just right” it might never happen. So this is a very simple start. Wish me luck as I work on sound, lighting, editing, and so on. Thanks for watching and, as always, I appreciate your comments.