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...

PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST

The journey into awareness (or coming into the Light, as the Bible would describe it) is a fascinating, exciting, sometimes confusing, often difficult, frequently discouraging, and many times frightening, journey.  Joseph Campbell termed it "The Hero's Journey" because it takes great courage to face ourselves and our inner demons or shadows.  I recently read Putting on the Mind of Christ - The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality by Jim Marion, which been a tremendous help to me in understanding my own path along this road to awakening.  Of course, the journey has many "dark nights," meaning periods of obscurity where we just don't know what's happening. Marion says "One can never see with exactness where one is going; one can only see afterwards where one has been" (p. 93).  I'd like to share a portion of this book that was especially enlightening for me.  The author is detailing the new understanding gained when experiencing resurrection from the Dark Night of the Soul.  He says:

"We see that our own selves and all humans are made of 'God-stuff'...begotten of God and made of the same substance ad essence as God.  We see that this has always been so, but up until now, we have been too blind to see it...I'd been picturing the inner God as a sort of invisible extra appendix, a God within but definitely separate.  Now I saw that the opposite  was a fuller and better expression of the truth: God isn't so much within us as we are within God. We are actually cells in God's body, God's Incarnate, or Created, or Only-Begotten Body, the Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-27).  I saw that what St. Paul said to the Athenians is true, that we live and move and have our beings in God (Acts 17:28). 

"I realized that what some Christians call the 'Mystical Body of Christ' wasn't an exercise in fanciful poetry but was a cosmological description of the actual physical (and non-physical) universe.  It is the way things really are, the way they operate.  As Jesus had promised, I saw a whole new world, and I saw that this world, all of Creation visible and invisible, is nothing less than the Christ, God's 'Only-Begotton Son,' God's Word Made Manifest or Flesh (Gen. 1:1, John 1:1-3)...All the great Christian mystics speak the essential truth that is realized upon coming into Christ Consciousness...we realize that 'only God is and we are not' as in 'I live, now not I, but the Christ (God Manifest) lives in and through me' (Gal. 2:20).

"Many things follow automatically from this new understanding, this new vision of reality.  In all one's dealings with others, from now on, one is always aware that one is dealing with God's Son, and that whatever one does to others, one does to God's Son (Matt. 25:35-40); in fact, not only to God's Son but to oneself (since we too are one substance with that Son).  One sees that in this world there are not 'others,' there is only Christ.  One sees that this has always been the case but up until now, we had been blind to this truth. 

"Second, we see that, since humans are made of eternal 'God-stuff,' there is no death (1Cor. 15:54).  Our mortal self is now clothed with immortality exactly as St. Paul says (1 Cor. 15:54). We no longer have to believe in life after death.  We see not only that we will never die but that we have never been born...we are now totally identified with our eternal soul, our true Christ self. Living in the Christ Consciousness we know we will never die (John 11:26).  All fear of death is therefore lost.  As St. Paul said, 'Death has lost its sting" (1 Cor. 15:55). 

"Third, as St. Paul says, sin is conquered.  Since we now see that humans are made of  'God-stuff,' and have always been divine, we see that sin does not exist.  God after all, cannot commit sin.  Nor can God's only-begotten Son, the Christ we all are...From this point on, when face with our own or others' negativity, the Christed person sees not sin but ignorance, that is, lack of awareness.  We see that all the negativity people bring onto themselves and others results from a lack of awareness.  Whenever we encounter negativity, with respect to both self and others, we join with Jesus on the cross in saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Luke 23:34)" (p. 166-169).

"Does the non-existence of sin mean we can do anything we please?  Two answers: Yes, we can do anything we please.  And we have been doing just that since Adam and Eve, including murder, rape, war, cannibalism, and all manner of other horrors.  Free will means precisely that: we can indeed do anything we please...There is a second answer: Since God is all in all  (1 Cor. 15:28) and everyone is divine and has God for their being (Acts (17:28), whatever we do to anyone else we do to God, to Christ, and to ourselves (Mat. 25:40).  There is no other.  Whatever we do to the supposed other, therefore, necessarily comes back to the self.  As Jesus said, 'He that lives by the sword shall die by the sword' (Matt. 26:52). That is why Jesus also warned that we should 'Do unto others what you wish to have done unto you' (Matt. 7:12).  St. Paul admonishes that 'A man will reap what he sows' (Gal. 6:7-8)" (p. 243).

These things I have seen.  Dimly, and from afar.  But I have seen, and wrote about here...

“…seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Col 3:9-11).

Previously, I looked at these verses as meaning that when “they” all come into Christ, there will be no more divisions.  Now I have seen that it is when “I” shed the old man (a.k.a. carnal mind, ego) and come into renewed knowledge, this is a place where “I” see there ARE no divisions – only unity in diversity.  Where I can look with renewed perspective and see there is no Barbarian, Scythian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. but that Christ IS all and is IN ALL.  

I have seen...and I have hope that I'll come into ever greater understanding of this Reality and be able to live more and more in the beauty of this vision.  The journey continues....

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...