If I have to meet difficulties, to overcome obstacles, to come by fits and starts to a realization of God and the beauty of the God-centered life, does that mean that my spiritual journey is any more valuable or significant than that of the blessed one who has known it all along? We all have gifts; it doesn’t much matter how we receive them so long as we are willing and able and enthusiastic about sharing our gifts with the world.
Throughout human history, people have relied on mythologies, on ancient stories handed down in their cultures which exemplify the working out in the human psyche of the correct and useful responses to the challenges of a typical journey in life. In our “enlightened” new world, however, we dismiss these stories as childish fables, but the underlying messages — how to achieve independence from our parents, how to become mature, autonomous individuals, or how to reconcile ourselves to dying — we leave in the bookcase with our old copies of Peter Rabbit. This is indeed a brave new world. Would that it were also informed, so as not to be so hopelessly sad.
The road of words (of thoughts, of rationality,) comes to an end. Even at the end of time there will be questions that remain unanswered. Faith is simply a willingness to live with the questions — to sit on the bench that has been left here for us and to observe the path and the world around us — without having to “press on.” There is no greater understanding but the one that brings us peace, harmony and love, right here, right now.
The main obstacle in our path to a state of grace is “the coincidence of opposites.” We are fascinated in our ordinary lives with good versus bad, with hatred versus desire, with pain versus happiness; but the way to God lies between these temporary, human values. We find true peace in the experience of the universal consciousness, which contains within it all opposites, all of equal value. If we maintain concentration on the path, conditions will not trigger these distractions of emotional response.
Dust-to-dust. I am born from the earth and all that I am will return to its elemental particles when I die. This is a humbling notion, but also a fundamental truth about the unity of creation, the connectedness of all of God’s universe, and the blessedness, the sanctity of everything. I exist to proclaim the glory of God; the purpose for which I have been put together out of the dust of creation is to exemplify and to enlarge the Truth. I am like water to a flower, like sunlight. I am following the Way and my purpose is to show, in my brief stay here, what dust can become.
Mental conditioning is like learning a song. Once it’s been practiced sufficiently it’s easy to bring it to consciousness. Sometimes a song I don’t like plays in my mental jukebox, over and over, and I must select another song to take its place, and always the same: Luiz Bonfa’s “Manha de Carnival,” melodic, uplifting, calming. It’s the same with emotional or negative thought. When I am thinking, “I don’t like him,” I have to remember to switch to another song, maybe something like, “I am on the journey of life. How interesting everything is.” This is the way to peace and prosperity.
I sometimes shy away from telling others of the power of God in my life. Why is this? Is it personal pride, not wanting to appear superstitious or unsophisticated? Is it fear that my conception of God might be misunderstood? Am I afraid I might alienate listeners because of their existing prejudices? Whatever the reason, it is a mistake; because the spiritual message of the Truth of God and the saving Grace of devotion are not mine. I did not invent it. I am simply a vessel by which the Word is known. I can only spread the seed, the ground on which it falls and the conditions which nurture it into fruition are not my concern. Mistaken pride prevents me from being of service to others.
How to have a genuine, profound spiritual experience? Don’t just do something. Stand there. This is it. The ground beneath your feet, the air surrounding you, filling your lungs, your heart; the light, reflected by the sufaces of all of the objects around you; the energy that you feel within you that is your self, which experiences the “real” world. This is what we know of God. The importance we attribute to each moment we are alive is how we express our love of His creation and how we live gratefully, happily, productively.
“If the mind does not differentiate, all things are of one Suchness.” This verse, from 2300 years ago and attributed to Seng Ts’an, an early patriarch of the Zen tradition, has profound meaning without meaning anything in any conventional way. It suggests the essence of human enlightenment in the perception of the unity of creation, and points to the problem of comparative or conditional thinking. It suggests that consciousness is universal and what we perceive within it is complete, lacking nothing. The holiness of this “realm of Suchness” is evident because, in achieving it, we are transported to that place of “peace which passeth all understanding.”
Enlightenment is the end of the pain of conflict. While we see right and wrong, good and bad, sacred and profane in our world, our thoughts and emotions are continually programmed by these apparent values. By devotion and study, we are gradually, (sometimes immediately,) released from these conditions. We come to see all as a good and true, purposeful and unified world. The end of spiritual work is to find our true place, to be able to accept and be thankful for every event and every circumstance because it is part of this amazing gift of Life.
Nick Hilton - Reflections 