NOTHING LOST/NOTHNG TO FEAR

It's been a long time since I posted anything, I guess I've been internally processing a lot of things that I've not been able to express. My offering for today is my vision of nonduality patched together from many different spiritual perspectives.   Incomplete as it may be, it helps me to keep my eyes on the big picture...and fills me with hope. So here goes: 

Everything on earth is transitory – it’s passing away.  It arises, and falls.  All the things we count on, even heaven and earth, shall pass away….  “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.  The grass withered, and the flower thereof falleth away, But the word of the Lord endureth forever” ( 1 Pet 1:24-25).  

Everything earthly is for a season.  Why do we let these things that pass away have dominion over us?  They come, they go.  But we cling to them…

Everything old is new again.  Nothing is ever really lost…it comes around again to manifest in the natural in a different form.  Nothing is ever worthless, it all has meaning and purpose, but that meaning and purpose is for a season…we just sojourn here… (Ecc. 1:9-11, 3:15).  

If we are all “passing away” but nothing is ever really lost of our essence, death really is swallowed up in victory.  We are a form through which the Life Essence (God) shines, albeit imperfectly.  Each one is different so that the glory of Life is manifested in a different way, from a different perspective, and temporarily (for a season). But when that body passes away, nothing of the essence is lost, because “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7). Since nothing is lost, there is no sting and nothing to fear! 

But the carnal mind (or insert your term of preference here: ego, devil, beast, conditioning, amygdala) is a fear-monger!  And it torments us continually…never shuts up!  That’s why many “relax” by watching TV, playing games – the carnal mind is engaged with something else and is not torturing us with worry and fear.  The carnal mind is the enemy who has taken us captive and drags us to hell to torture us.  “For to be carnally minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom 8:6).  At the last trump (Rev 11:15) when the beast in us has been defeated and the mind of the Christ reigns in us, we will have rest.  For those who still worship the beast, “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever (continually!) and they have no rest day or night” (Rev 14:9-11).  This happens in the very presence of the Lamb (v10), who is there all the time offering rest! 

It’s All Good…

There is an ancient story that tells of a student monk who began to laugh during group meditation and prayer.  The other students, horrified and embarrassed for the monk, hoped that he would stop laughing.  But his laughter grew louder and louder, until the other monks could not help but wonder what the teacher would do in the face of such irreverence.  But to the amazement of all the other monks, the teacher pronounced the laughing monk enlightened!  The monk laughed because he saw that everything is wonderful! Everything does work together for GOOD! It’s Divine play, in a way, but not as in a cruel game.  It’s a game in the sense that we shouldn’t take it so seriously, because nothing is ever really lost. There is really GOOD NEWS!  It’s only a game – there’s nothing to lose and nothing will ever be lost!  We take it all so seriously, and so cause all our own sorrow.  So we can begin to see that suffering and sorrow, although very real, are only for a season, and that everything is perfect and as it should be.  This is the peace that passes all understanding, when we see that there was never anything to fear.  

This is not to make light of the suffering in the world, just because we are in a large place and know that suffering is only for a season.  We need to work very hard to alleviate suffering, for suffering is very real.  

Right now, huge weather pattern changes are taking place, changes that could destroy millions and leave much of our planet frozen solid or an arid wasteland.  And I know it will be okay if even that happens…for nothing is ever lost.  It is all so very real and awe-inspiring; it is all also like a dream or a movie in which we are very involved.  Upon awakening, we will find ourselves in the heart of God.  Death happens, yes, but it has no sting.  There is nothing to fear.  We are on a great adventure, and we go back to where we came from.  What joy, freedom, peace, and rest is found in this knowledge:  nothing is ever lost and there is nothing to fear!

FORGIVENESS

“People are paralyzed by the tensions and contradictions in their own beliefs.  In turn, they shy away from examining their own behavior too closely…” (Sharif Abdullah, Creating a World That Works For All, p. 105).

We all need food, safety, security, belonging, love. Sometimes our need for these things is so desperate that we try to take them, maybe harming others in the process.  For me, the definition of “sin” is when we try to meet our very legitimate needs in a way that is harmful to ourselves or others. It bothers us to realize that we’ve done things in unskillful ways to get what we need; that we’ve not lived with integrity with our innermost values.  That is very difficult to face, so most people choose to run from self-examination.  We shove it down and hide it – sometimes so deep that it’s buried in the unconscious.  It takes great courage to go within and face ourselves, for when we do so, we find that our actions don’t match our values - that we’ve not lived in honesty with our own selves.  That’s why Joseph Campbell termed it “The Hero’s Journey” – to face our inner demons takes more courage than most of us have!

We seek forgetfulness in many ways – watching TV, shopping, busy-ness, etc.  We try to like ourselves in spite of the things we’ve done that bother us.  Some self-help teachings even advise looking in the mirror and saying, “I like you!” to build self-esteem.  It would be healthier to face those behaviors and find ways to live in alignment with our innate desire to live with compassion toward all. 

We have such a deep need to forgive ourselves that we’ve created a God “out there” who can forgive us and wipe our slate clean…what we really need is to face ourselves, understand ourselves, forgive ourselves, and move forward in alignment with our innermost values.  It’s an internal thing of facing it, understanding it, and finding forgiveness…

The truth is we have all tried to meet our perfectly legitimate needs with unskillful means, bringing harm to others and/or ourselves.  Some traditions call this facing the "shadow" or dark side.  Christian teaching puts it this way: we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. This has been interpreted to mean that individuals are evil and deserve to die, when in fact we have all learned to live in ways that are not beneficial to ourselves or others.  How freeing it is to see that, face it, forgive ourselves because we were ignorant of any better way, and learn more skillful and less harmful means of getting our needs met.  In Scriptural language, this process has been described as confession, repentance (turning), forgiveness, and sanctification (the process of learning to live righteously). Whatever we call this process, may we find the deep courage to forgive ourselves for past mistakes and to live in alignment with the deepest desires of our hearts...

A Letter From a 16 year old Oslo Survivor

Dear Anders Behring Breivik,

A lot of the friends I met at Utoya are dead and you are the perpetrator. You are the man who, by coincidence, didn’t kill me. I was lucky.

You might think that you have won. You might think that you have ruined something for the Labour Party and for people around the world who stand for a multicultural society by killing my friends and fellow party members.

Know that you have failed.

You haven’t only made the world stand together, you have set our souls on fire and should know we’ve never stood together as we do now. You talk about yourself as a hero, a knight. You are no hero. But you have created heroes. On Utoya that warm day in July, you created some of the greatest heroes the world has seen, you unified people from all over the world. Black and white, man and woman, red and blue, Christians and Muslims.

You made your victims martyrs, immortals, and you have shown the world that when one person can show as much hatred as you have done, imagine how much love we can show when we stand together? People who I thought hated me have given me hugs on the street, people I haven’t been in contact with for years have written 300 to 400 words about how much it means to them that I survived. What can you say about that? Have you broken anything? You have united us.

You have killed my friends, but you haven’t killed our cause, our opinions, our right to express ourselves. Muslim women got hugs of sympathy from random Norwegian women on the street and your goal was to protect Europe from Islam? Your actions worked against its purpose.

You deserve no thanks; your plan failed. A lot of people are angry, you are the most hated person in Norway. I am not angry. I do not fear you. You can’t touch us, we are greater than you. We do not answer evil with evil, as you wanted it. We fight evil with good. And we win.

Ivar Benjamin Østebø, aged 16.

Thanks to Humanity's Team for this blog post.

A FRESH LOOK AT DEATH AND ORIGINAL SIN

In the beginning, there was One, and One was All that there was.  Out of this One that was All, there began to manifest matter…and stars…and planets…  On one planet that we know of, slowly soil…and water…and plants…and animals…began to appear…but still there was only One that was All.  Simple at first, the One began to manifest in more and more complex forms. The One was becoming the many, but the many were still the One.  And the One loved the many.  The forms would appear for a time and then return to the All – we have called this birth and death.  Some of the animal forms completely ceased to appear, returning back into the All (we have called this extinction) while ever new and growing forms emerged.   Still the One that is All remained, unchanged yet always changing – for God is One.  God saw that it was all good, and that nothing was ever really lost.

As one of the forms developed, it became aware of itself in distinction from the One – became “self-conscious.”  These first humans realized they were different and separate from all that surrounded them – they became aware of themselves as individuals.  They even gave all the other plants and animals names because they perceived everything as so different from themselves. Believing themselves to be “separate beings,” they had no sense of their connection with plants, animals, other humans, or with the One.  The One was still very much in the many and the many in the One, but self-conscious humans were not able to discern this.  This is the only thing that God said was NOT good – man's perception that he was alone!

One of the things newly self-conscious humans noticed was that something terrible happened to the other animals and humans around them: they ceased to be – they experienced Death.  And humanity began to understand that this was the horrible fate that awaited each person. In metaphorical language, humanity ate of the tree of knowledge (awareness), and as a result realized they would surely die.  Naturally, this caused great fear!  With no knowledge of the One in which they lived and moved and had their being, humanity felt alienated and alone, naked, exposed, vulnerable and without protection in a large and terrifying world. So began the conscious struggle for survival - the need to fend for and preserve themselves. Aware for the first time of the always impending threat of death, humans began to perceive circumstances in terms of whether they were advantageous to physical survival…or not.  Good…or evil....  Selfishness came into being.  Hot on the heels of (and driven by) selfishness, sinful behavior began to proliferate.

Death and sin are intrinsically connected, but we do not die because we have sinned.  Death, as far as can be ascertained scientifically, is natural and has always been a part of the cycle of life.  Instead, awareness of our own mortality creates a great fear which compels us to do whatever is necessary to survive.  Sin, then, is not the cause of death, but rather a result of the fear of death.  We sin because we're afraid of dyin'...

More later...

OVERCOMING THE STING OF DEATH

The Buddhist principle of impermanence teaches that individuals are like flowers that bloom for a brief time and then fade away.  If I understand this principle correctly, all things are said to be in a constant state of change but also of interconnection and unity – a process of flux and flow from one form to another.  For example, moisture in the form of clouds becomes dew, mist, fog, rain, snow, or ice and falls to the earth. There, it becomes ground water and flows along in streams and rivers, sustaining and cleansing all of life. The water becomes a part of all that is nourished by it – every plant, animal, or human.  Finally, the moisture evaporates – becoming cleansed and renewed in the process – and is transformed into clouds to begin the process again. And so it is with all of life.  While the duration of living things seems brief to us, nothing is ever really lost – all things are merely transformed. 

This is in accordance with The First Law of Thermodynamics, which says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, simply transformed from one type to another. Digging deep into Christian teachings, agreement can be found there as well: men wither like the grass of the field and fade in the manner of a flower.  Life is portrayed as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes from our field of perception (James 4:14).   But we also likewise find the good news that all things are restored, for “the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be…and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).  And again, “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been…” (Ecc. 3:15).  Man goes back to dust, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it (Ecc. 12:7). Nothing is ever lost, and what was, will be again.

We, too, like all things, are being transformed, and it does not yet appear what we shall be (1 John 3:2).  We cannot see deeply enough into the nature of reality to discover the transformation that takes place as our present forms fade away.  But we can know that when Christ appears to us – when we come into a level of awareness that enables us to perceive the Christ within us, then we shall be like him.  AND, when that happens, we’ll also be able to see God as he really is: as Love.  With the understanding that God is truly Love, there is no longer any reason to be afraid of death.  Death can be seen for what it is: not a punishment, but as part of the natural process of the renewal of all things.   With this understanding, Rev. 21:4-5 becomes a current reality rather than a dim promise for the distant future: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.  Behold, I make ALL THINGS NEW…!”  Once the veil that keeps people from seeing the nature of reality is removed, death will be swallowed up in victory, and the Lord will wipe all tears off ALL faces (Isa 25:7-8).  It is only our limited perception that makes us cry…

All must indeed face death, for death is part of the natural process of renewal and happens to all.  But death does lose its sting and brings us sorrow no longer.  Instead, we can rejoice, for the reality is NOTHING IS EVER TRULY LOST - merely changed from one form to another.  That's really good news!

FEAR...OR LOVE?

“Sin” – all the evil done by humankind – is at its core a result of humans trying to provide for their own safety, security, well-being and happiness at the expense of others.  Sin, or evil, springs from the root of fear – fear of not having enough.  Enough money, food, shelter, clothing or resources to survive.  Or enough power over others to be able to procure from them what seems necessary for personal survival.  All this to preserve the separate physical body that we have identified with. 

I love this quote from Eknath Easwaran over at Blue Mountain Center of Meditation:

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. Even the bravest among us have many fears. Behind the attachment to money or possessions, for example, you will always find the fear of loss. Attachment to prestige brings the nagging fear of what others think of us. The thirst for power feeds the fear that others may be stronger. Every self-centered desire brings the fear that we may not get what we desire.

One could make a Sears catalog of these fears, but all stem from one fatal superstition: thinking of ourselves as merely physical creatures, separate from the rest of life. As our sense of oneness with the rest of life deepens, we step out of the world of fear to live in the world of love.

What would our world look like if we realized the truth of the interconnectedness and oneness Scripture pictures as “a many membered body” (1 Corin. 12:4-27), who are “members one of another” (Eph. 4:25)?   “That there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another” (1 Corin. 12:25).  What would it look like if we actually lived the more excellent way of LOVE that Scripture goes on to describe in I Corin. 13?

Fear blinds to the truth that we are all connected and that what is done to one affects the whole.  Fear prevents us from seeing that when I harm my neighbor, I am harming myself, for if “…one member suffer, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corin. 12:26).  Fear is what prevents us from living in love. What if we could set our fears aside and see the truth of the appeal to love our neighbors AS we love ourselves?  What a wonderful world that would be…the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

SEEING THROUGH THE ILLUSION

There is an ancient story that tells of a student monk who began to laugh during group meditation and prayer.  The other students, horrified and embarrassed for the monk, hoped that he would stop laughing.  But his laughter grew louder and louder, until the other monks could not help but wonder what the master would do in the face of such irreverence.  But to the amazement of all the other monks, the master pronounced the laughing monk enlightened!  At first, this story seems difficult to understand.  But the monk laughed because he saw through the veil – he saw that everything is wonderful! Everything does work together for GOOD! It may seem cliché, but everything IS just the way it is for a reason and a purpose and God is working it all together for a higher good, even what seems bad to us from our limited perspective.  We begin to see that suffering and sorrow, although very real, are only for a season, and that everything is perfect and as it should be.  This is the peace that passes all understanding.  This is freedom.

When the veil of illusion that obscures the truth is removed, we will see that there was never anything to fear.  We will see that it was only our limited perspective that gave us sorrow and made us cry.  We will see that even death has no sting, but really is swallowed up in victory!  Once the illusion is seen through, we can emerge from bondage to the fear of death to live in glorious freedom! 

Read the complete article here.