Today was a very trying day. I am trying to forget about it for the moment, by losing myself in some reading. I'm reading a mystic classic at the moment,which, like St. John of the Cross's works and most other mystics claims that the way to God (which I am using as a convenient noun for what I can only name otherwise lamely as "Wholeness") has nothing to do with thinking - in fact, the opposite, and can only be penetrated by love. This has been my instinct for some time, and what draws me on in my search, again and again this recurrs in every mystic tradition and religion. So very good - I must stop beating my brains out on scholastic and intellectual rocks, and just let go. The trouble with this is the same as my problem with therapists - very good, now we know what's wrong, but how do we change it?
The paradox (and holy (ha) crap sometimes paradox seems to be the entire content of the mystery) is always that trying to figure out how to change it requires more over-thinking and fruitless brain-bashing, and only leads you farther away. I am afraid to start out on this path until I've looked at all the options, consulted all the sources, and have charted out my own way by means of study and analysis. The only thing that my study and analysis seem to find is that study and analysis aren't going to get me there. I, or at least, my Ego, can't be in control of this. All paths stress letting go - giving over the reins. To who(m)? If I'm not starting with reassuring a-priories about a proper-noun-God-Captain-of-the-Ship sort of thing, it gets so much scarier. I was afraid to let go even when I was assured there was an Omnipotent Specialist waiting in the wings for my surrender so that he could step in and run the show the way it was meant to be run. But now -let go and trust? It's go to be done. But trust is a verb and needs a subject! Who or what am I even trusting? A collective unconcious? My own little unconcious? The Force? The (gag) "Universe"?
I guess it's not a leap of faith if there'sa trampoline in the canyon. Just jumping off the cliff with no assurance that anything is going to materialize to catch you is an age-old concept. Jumping off a cliff is called faith - it's also called suicide. I might be impressive but I'm not a frickin' Jedi yet.
"Just letting go" is scary, not in small part because somehow I've been socialized to believe it could lead to me strumming a sitar and wearing daisies, or in a convent, beadng rosaries. There is something so shameful about it somehow, about not being the one in control, and I don't know why it feels that way. To be simple, or god forbid, obedient, to anything feels like a sin. I'm so proud of all my ego's accoutrements that I'm terrified to actually take the plunge, lest it change my life in some way, as it inevitably would do - and the new paradox is -if I didn't want to change my life, why would I even begin on a path? A1 once left a comment in one of my more angsty spiritual-journey entries telling a story about a man who gave up meditation because it took away his desire to write. I can hear the wails of my generous friends and see them flinch and cringe at the "waste" it would be to "throw away" my gifts on that dirtiest of words in this century - religion. Well, even I think religion is a highly problematic thing, and it is not any religion that calls to me, but something that is almost soothingly wordless.
I bite and scratch and struggle against it, but something is Calling me, and the voice can not be ignored - this brings back the wretched thought of Vocation. I don't feel as though it is "Angels" or a "Personal Saviour" or anything that is calling me - whatever it is is not outside of me - as confused as I now am about God and such things, I seem to have grasped that it/He is not an Other. There's no seperate Entity following me around, tugging at my sleeve. It is rather something deeply unsatisfied in my own character and being that festers and rubs me raw like an ill-fitting piece of clothing - or if I was going to be melodramatic about it, as I probably am, like chafing ropes. Damn it all, yes, I want to be "set free",and yes, I know the Truth is the only thing that can do it. But I no longer have the convinience of being certain that Truth was incarnated and all I have to do is acknowledge the Divinity of a certain human being.
For once I understand the bible story about the rich young man who asked Jesus how he could enter eternal life.
"Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when the young man heard the saying, he went away sad, for he was one who had great possessions."
When I first heard this story, heaven to me was a Cloud-City and riches meant ingots. But if heaven is Enlightnment, or wholeness, and riches are cleverness or great prospects, or ambition, it suddenly applies to me, and time and again, I go away sad.
I can almost see how giving up these things could be my "salvation" - how much of the suffering in my life has been tied to that consuming need to "be something" to" do something" to "accomplish something." The despair I see in failed artists - is that noble? To loosen up your death grip on all your "gifts" and riches, and are ready to throw them away for the sake of something More, is that what will finally make you happy? Were all those saints who talked about "The Vanity of The World" as a corrupting influence actually right, not in the moral sense that we once thought but on a deeply true psychological and spiritual level? It is so freeing to say "Thy Will be done" - but these days it also smacks of cowardice. In the words of Richard Gregg, who was playing devil's advocate in an article on simplicity that I probably should have finished reading before rushing up here to write this, "Is it not the duty of sensitive people to grasp power and direct its use as well as possible? Is this cry for simplicity only a camouflage for irresponsibility, for lack of courage or failure of energy?"
And just who or what is the "Thy" we are speaking to? And can it/them/he/she/us/me even have a will seperate from my natural desire to spend my life drinking, eating, getting off, getting high and being rich, powerful and admired? I no longer evaluate those two wills in a strictly moral sense. Drinking, eating, getting off, getting high and being rich, powerful and admired are not Bad, but a quick glimpse into history and pop culture will prove that they are not Enough, either. Can you have all those, and the More? Why should we have to give up our "riches" to have that more? Why are they seperate? It doesn't makes sense, and yet all the notes we have from the ones who made it - the Buddahs, say it is so.
None of this is on the order of a wailing and gnashing of teeth - it is almost an apologia of sorts. And the fact that I feel so compelled to justify my journey shows how far I've got to go! (so do all the Very Important and Significant Capitalizations, I think.)
A very beautiful writing by a Quaker Friend of great insight and humility, touching on many of these subjects in the indomitable Quaker way is called The Candle, The Lantern, The Daylightand can be found in its entirety here.
One very beautiful passage about the nature of God, which attempts to answer some of my itchiest questions is -
"Many of us, however, being perennial beginners and perennially human beginers, need a personal God, and it is part of the grace that this need is met and yet God is not limited by it...the personal God, the God that can be addressed as Thou, is not diminished by being known as a part only of that which Plotinus called 'the Absolute'; that totality of which Tillich says that It is 'not a being but the power that gives Being to every being'; of which the Kena Upanishad says that It is 'the adorable being in all beings';and of which it is said in the mighty words attributed to Dionysius '...that It is the Cause and Origin and Being and Life of all creation. And It is to them that fall away from it a Voice that doth recall them and a Power by which they rise; and to them that have stumbled into a Corruption of the Divine Image with them, It is a Power of Renewal and Reform; and a Sacred Grounding to them that feel the shock of unholy assault, and a security to them which stand: an upward Guidance to them that are being drawn unto It, and a principle of Illumination to them that are being enlightened: a Principle of Perfection to them that are being perfected: a Principle of Deity to them that are being Deified; and of simplicity to them that are being brought into simplicity, and of Unity to them that are being brought into unity.'
Gandhi in our own times has put it very simply: 'He is a personal God to those who need His personal presence. He is embodied to those who need His touch.He is the purest essence. He simply is, to those who have faith...One may banish the word 'God' ... but one has to power to banish the Thing itself.'"
