Category: Spirituality

Ashtavakra Gita

Jon2 Comments

In the “(ext)WisdomReading”:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WisdomReading group, we’re beginning the Ashtavakra Gita, one of my favorite of the world’s Scriptures despite the fact that it’s relatively little-known.

Here’s a except from a recent post I made there:

…
The challenge with ??Ashtavakra?? is probably in being able to take it literally enough. It is nonduality, completely and totally uncompromised, presented plainly, in every verse. God is all that is, forms are part of _maya_, “the magic show.” ??Ash??. considers the world false, and [unlike the Bhagavad Gita] has no use for war, caste, or anything that divides the One:

v.2b Seek the nectar of truth,
of love and forgiveness,
of simplicity and happiness.

v.5a: You have no caste
No duties bind you.

…

To people who haven’t had an experience of nonduality, Ashtavakra’s use of the word “you” might require a little explanation. At times, ??Ash??. addresses the egoic self, the familiar self, the “you” you think you are, as in v. 1-6b. At other times, “you” is “the Self,” the One being that really is, no matter how many bodies and minds there seem to be, as in v.6c:

You are everywhere,
forever free.

It’s not hard to tell the difference. ??Ash??. constantly contrasts the illusion of forms and the limited “you,” with the boundless Self.

12 is another verse worth remarking upon:

The Self looks like the world
But this is just an illusion.

The Self is everywhere.

One.
Still.
Free.
Perfect.

That’s an interesting departure from the usual pictures given to explain pantheism and “panentheism”:/spirituality/biblical-panentheism/. Panentheists sometimes say that the world is the “Body of God.” This would give some real substance 🙂 to the physical universe. ??Ash??, of course, doesn’t, and says that God “looks like” the world but that even that is illusion. ??Ash??. says the Self is Everywhere not “everything” because from his viewpoint, there are no “things.”

Remember, you’re welcome to join us.

There I am

Jon3 Comments

You know the guy who never remembers where he parked his car, and has to survey the parking lot before he finds it? That’s me.

Now, I don’t identify with my car… But recently, I had that experience and when I saw my car, thought “Oh, _there_ I am!” This has probably happened hundreds of times, but this time, I realized how odd it is to see a car and call it yourself. (Really, I *don’t* identify with my car!)

And yet in non-duality, there is no car and no self. Maybe someday I’ll look at another person and say, “Oh, _there_ I am!”

Breaking through…

Jon11 Comments

Have you ever felt that the Universe was a projection, playing upon a screen, and the only thing beyond is the light of God?

Have you ever felt you could tear the screen down?

Have you ever done it?

Have you ever experienced it happening

Meditation on “Imagine” pt. 1

Jon1 Comment

Something i’ve wanted to do for a long time is post on John Lennon’s song, Imagine. What kept me from it was not wanting to make a really, really, long post. You’ve might have noticed I do like to keep things short! The solution ? take it in parts.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

I used to have a love/hate relationship with this song. On one hand, I lauded Lennon’s idealism and desire for peace, but on the other, his antipathy to religion was quite off-putting to me until fairly recently.

Some years ago, I did come to imagine “no hell below us,” though. And that willingness to *imagine* and consider, eventually became a willingness to “re-examine the hell idea” in depth. I’m happy to report it didn’t survive the scrutiny!

Reexamining “good” and “evil” seems to be going around in my local blogosphere, particularly in Trev’s and Julie’s blogs.

A large number of people, however, are not yet able to earnestly question what they’ve been taught about “good” and “evil.” That in itself isn’t a problem. But those unquestioned presuppositions can become the source of great suffering. Large parts of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish world are engaged in open warfare at the time of this post. It’s fair to say that every entity involved in the fighting views itself as “good,” and their enemy as “evil.”

Lennon urges us to look at ordinary life, rather than philosophy or religion, for the direction on how to live. Ironically, this echoes the idea present throughout all the mystics that ethics is as simple as the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your neighbor.

Is this raw atheism? Is there really “only sky” above us? Does “living for today” mean there is no afterlife? Not at all. I believe (yeah, I do have beliefs!) that there is far more to This than what is the visible world. (Really it’s far less, but I won’t get into that here!) But the thing is that we are only responsible for our interactions in this tangible world with each other, under the sky.

“Only sky” means that there is no heaven except at this moment, and no hell except at this moment, no life at all except the single moment we have to live now. The past and the future exist only in the mind. The only experience is the experience of the present moment.

And at every moment, we are constantly involved in creating heavens and hells for ourselves and each other. The eyes of the Father are not looking down upon us, so much as looking out through us… every one of us.

Posts in this series: pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, interlude, conclusion.

Two Kinds of Passers-by

Jon5 Comments

According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, “Be passers-by.” I take this as meaning that we are to realize that fundamentally, the world is not our true home, that we come from beyond, and will return from whence we came. Being a passer-by means that I may be enjoying my experiences and surroundings, but that I know that it’s just a show?there’s something more substantial to my nature. What I pick up here?riches (yeah, right!), experiences, eventually my body, and even memories?will eventually be discarded. We are passers-by.
My friend, Fr. Bob Griffith, has an excellent post on his blog about two different kinds of bypassers?pilgrims and tourists. Read this quote by Andrew Schelling he shared with us:

Only the walker who sets out toward ultimate things is a pilgrim. In this lies the terrible difference between tourist and pilgrim. The tourist travels just as far, sometimes with great zeal and courage, gathering up acquisitions (a string of adventures, a wondrous tale or two) and returns the same person as the one who departed. There is something inexpressibly sad in the clutter of belongings the tourist unpacks back at home. The pilgrim is different. The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out.
?Andrew Schelling

The only thing we can really take with us is the changes in our own being.

Soweto, and hope

Jon4 Comments

I’m in Maryland visiting a friend. In Silver Spring, there’s a film festival in progress called “Silverdocs,” devoted to documentaries. At a large outdoor screen in a park last night, a retrospective on the Soweto uprising in South Africa 30 years ago was shown.

Much more interesting, though, was watching the kids playing together in the park. While their parents watched the movie about horrific struggles between blacks and whites and the terrible toll of racism, black and white kids took turns playing ball and tag, without a care in the world for this thing called race.

May the same come to be for Israeli and Palestinian kids. And Shi’ite and Sunni kids. And Armenian and Turkish kids. All kids. And may they not lose it as they grow up.

The Holy Grail: still missing the point

Jon4 Comments

I’m writing my reflection on The Da Vinci Code. As I write, what strikes me most is that Brown’s interpretation of the Grail comes so close in some ways, yet still misses the point completely!

The Grail legend is a wonderful confluence of symbols which have been (mis)understood in an amazing variety of ways… rich treasure, holy relic, magic power, historical artifact (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), sacred bloodline (The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail), sacred person (The Da Vinci Code). And yet they all miss the point!

Any mystical symbol must be understood mystically; and then it becomes obvious:

What is the object of the Holy Quest?
What vessel conveys the “blood of Christ”?
What is hidden where only “the worthy” can find it?
What is the most sublime goal to attain?
What is the ultimate power you can access?

The answer, in a word, is you.

Not the “you” you think you are?not the “you” that has an age, gender, race, and loves and hates. It’s the “you” you really are. Your true nature, your source, your ultimate potential. All mystical traditions have their own names for this: Atman (the one Self within all beings), Buddha-nature, Christ-nature, Nirvana, Emptiness, the Tao, the Kingdom of Heaven, the imago Dei (the image of God), the Holy Grail.

I once heard a priest relate a Hindu parable: Because the gods feared man’s power, they decided to hide his divinity from him. One suggested hiding it in the heavens, but the others responded that man would build spaceships and find it there. Another suggested hiding it in the ocean’s depth’s but the others said that men would build submarines and discover it there. Another suggested hiding it deep in the earth, and that too, was voted down, due to the power of the human mind. Finally, a god said, let’s hide it where they’ll never find it: deep within their hearts.

A more familiar version of this story is the Tower of Babel: God feared that man’s genius would enable him to storm heaven, since he was “of one mind.” To prevent this, the Lord said “let us (plurality again!) go down and confuse their speech.” And so, our divided mind, full of unending, confused chatter, enshrouds itself around the pure simplicity of our actual being, keeping us from seeing it or even suspecting it.

Another close parallel is attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus said:
If those who guide you say, Look,
the Kingdom is in the sky,
then the birds are closer than you.
If they say: Look,
it is in the sea,
then the fish already know it.
The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you.
When you know yourself, then you will be known,
and you will know that you are the child of the Living Father;
but if you do not know yourself,
you will live in vain
and you will be vanity.?Gospel of Thomas 3

Our consciousness is the consciousness of God in flesh.
Our bodies are the body of Christ
Our blood is the blood of Christ.
Our love is the Eucharist.
Our realization is the Holy Grail.

This is the quest. This is the desire of ages. This is the Holy Grail.

The highest of all things desired is to become God. –St Basil the Great

The center of the soul is God. –St. John of the Cross

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We just want to eat your brains!

Jon3 Comments

zombies.jpgI was writing a letter to a friend this morning, and zombies came to mind as a metaphor about trying to be an awake person in the world. You want to be alive, conscious, and know God/Ultimate Reality/Truth, and—they don’t. Some of them actually want very much for you to not want that. (Hell, almost every dollar spent on advertising is for that very purpose!) The zombies see your difference as something they need to fix. And they’re willing to help. They just want to eat your brains!

There’s something definitely less-than human about the ego-self. Rather than embodying the consciousness of God in the world, we shuffle along, half-alive, half-dead, destructively seeking to satisfy our insatiable appetites. And whether that manifests as a literal lust for blood, or mere selfishness, the result is the same—we want to stay entranced, “dead while we live,” destructive, and unconscious. Oh, and yes, more blood is shed.

If God created mankind to be his manifestation in the world, the result was a tad lacking. The script was rewritten. Son of Man. Man II. Human—The Sequel. Not only is this one going to be more uplifting to watch than Dawn of the Dead, but you can star in it!

Check out Jonathan Coulton’s hilarious song, Re: Your Brains.

What you don’t want to admit to yourself

Jon8 Comments

The stories you love, are all about you. The heroes you adore, are all you. That’s why there is the resonance. It’s a recognition, beyond words, beyond knowledge. Jung realized that all the characters in a dream are the dreamer, but it’s not just the stories we tell ourselves when we’re asleep.

You’re not merely what you think you are. You are Spirit experiencing the world through flesh, incarnating into billions of bodies; even though you “identify” with just one, your essence is in all.

You’re Luke Skywalker, the humble farmboy who blows up the Death Star. You’re Princess Leia, getting the plans to the Rebel Alliance, and leading the effort to overthrow the forces of oppression.

You’re Neo and Trinity, penetrating the thicket of illusion and deception called The Matrix, and defending Zion, the bastion of freedom.

You were born of a virgin: The appearance of your spirit in the body here was miraculous. Only your body was created by sex.

You became enlightened many times. It’s time to do it again. (Should be old hat by now!)
You were proclaimed the son or daughter of God. You know this!

You carry the sins of others, you forgive them: and Jesus told you if you don’t forgive, they’re not forgiven (Jn 20.23), so you know what you need to do!

You died, and rose again, but you do not remember. No problem. You don’t have to. Just be what you really are.