Two Kinds of Passers-by

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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

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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

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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!

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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

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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.

That Bodhisatta Vow

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One of the things I appreciate most about my teacher, is that he’s a bodhisattva, not just a buddha. In English, that means that he’s concerned with the salvation of the world. At his enlightenment, he chose to return to this world with all its sorrows and pains, and he wants his students to become enlightened and practice being the light, so they can give light to the world wherever they are, whatever they do.

One night just over six years ago, Jesus came to me, and destroyed my religion. What was left was something I didn’t expect—a fierce desire to follow him, to be like him. I realized he was Bodhisattva, Christ, the teacher who saves the world, and that he himself said he longs for us to follow him in this work, to be one in him, as he is one in the Father (Jn. 17:21-22). St. Paul taught that Christ is a power of God that extends beyond Jesus, that all who sincerely trust him, become “members of his body,” that is, parts of the same being (I Cor. 12:27), and that Jesus is the eldest of many brothers (Rom. 8.29).
So, a few days later, on May 5, 2000, as I sat on a pier I privately made my own bodhisattva vow to God, to work for the salvation of all according to all the grace I am given.

I confess I do not live up to my vow very well. Perhaps it is because it’s so daunting that so few people take it up in this culture. Yet my vow works on me, as I work to fulfill it … And I’m blessed to know a realized bodhisattva who guides me to the light I want to shine.

Last night, Kitabu Roshi urged his students to “become what you admire.” Not to just worship Christ, but to become Christ, become the Buddha, become the teacher.

There’s so much that can be said about this, so much that has been said already. But those who actually come to believe it’s possible are few, and those who resolve to do it, are fewer still. So today, I renew my vow. Theosis is more than just a work of grace. It’s a pledge to be worked on and be available for the world, here and now.

Are some of you also being called to this?

Duma

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I saw two good movies last weekend. One was Duma, a coming-of-age story about Xan, a white farm boy in South Africa during the apartheid era, who must let go of his nearly-full-grown pet cheetah, Duma. He runs away from home to try to return Duma to the area he came from, and ends up crossing hundreds of miles of the wild on foot, including part of the perilous Okavango Delta. In addition, he needs to teach a very tame cheetah who loves to play with other animals, how to hunt. Xan, who was home-schooled and sheltered, must also learn to trust Ripkoen, a mysterious black wanderer, in order to survive. As unlikely as it seems, it’s based on a true story.

This is the kind of movie people used to go to the movies for! It’s directed by Carroll Blanchard of The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home fame. If you get the chance to see it, do it. You won’t be disappointed.

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Naked in Ashes

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Another good film shown at the Naro last weekend was Naked in Ashes, Paula Fouce’s documentary on the sadhus (holy men) of India, and their extreme asceticism. The documentary focuses on three small groups of yogis (each with two or three practitioners) and follows them for several weeks.

As I suspect many are, I’ve generally found extreme acesticism, especially of the Eastern kind, very off-putting. I can understand St. Francis and his love of having nothing but God, but wasn’t able to make the same connection to these ash-covered guys in India.

Naked in Ashes sheds some much-needed light on the sadhus. Some are true bodhisattvas, dedicating their austerities to taking away the sins of the world. One guru said, “The world is suffering. That is my problem. I take on myself the sins of all, and wash them away in Mother Ganges.” I came to realize the answer why these holy men live in caves with nothing is not that far from why Jesus went to the Cross. The spirit of all-consuming Love is behind it.

The experience was further enhanced by a guest speaker, (an ODU professor on Eastern religion) an excellent enthusiastic discussion afterwards.

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Size matters! (Clarifying ‘a really big man’)

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Judging from the comments that got on my previous post, I guess I need to give it more context. I’m not writing about Paul Bunyan, folks, but the Teacher.

I was thinking about how practical people (God love ’em!) tend to warn how important it is to keep “both feet on the ground.” and not to have your “head in the clouds.” They have good points. Too often I really have had my head in the clouds and my feet weren’t on the ground.

But an enlightened person is “big” enough to have his or her head in the clouds and feet on the ground, and strong enough to blow the clouds away. Thomas Traherne (the 17th-century Anglican priest who has been wonderfully treated in some posts by Akilesh on Graceful Presence”, and by Trev on Diesel Musings) wrote:

It is less that I am in the world, than that the world is within me.

Size matters! The teacher knows that the Kingdom of heaven is within him, and all things are as well. He or she sees the spiritual reality, and knows the physical appearances to be only what they are. When this image came to my mind, I saw the BIG man as being like the angel in Rev. 10, who stands with one foot on sea, and one foot on land, and declares “there shall be no more time.” All potential already is. What will be manifested, though, is up to us in the manifest world. It’s like all the lines for all the scripts are already written. It’s up for us to awaken and choose the parts we will play. What will this world be like tomorrow? Will we stay unconscious, and react instinctively to protecting our belief systems and other mental fictions, or will we live as what we really are?

About six weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear another teacher, Lono Ho’ala. Lono shared the horrific story of the unbearable pain that forced him to awaken. Lono the asked the group: how much pain do you think the world will need for our political, cultural, and religious leaders to awaken? To realize that God is love, and is everything? He urged us to wake up, before nuclear bombs explode over Tehran and New York. Only awakening beyond the reactive nature can spare us the holocaust we’re threatening ourselves with.

That’s putting it dramatically, but these are dramatic times, and the ego is endangering the world with its lust for drama. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Get ready! Find a big person who can reach down, pick you up, and show you the clear sky.

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