Well, there’s a lot of candidates for this prognostication! One of these items below is what I am really pointing to–the others are an extra bonus!

 So, is it…..

Killer asteroids? Hey, they are out there…they have hit us real bad in the deep past and who is to say what the future holds…. And the really important thing is that if we spot one of these big guys, there is nothing really that we can do about it.

So, is it…

Drought? Some folks in the southwest and in California are saying that the drought is over. Wrong, folks! So far we have had only Intro to Drought, next comes Drought 101, and then comes Advanced Drought. A bit of wet weather during the past few months can fool you. During a long-range drought there will be a blip occasionally of wet weather even as the trend moves toward an ever-drier condition. So….the snowpack is only so-so in the Sierras–even with this supposedly mega El Nino; Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two great reservoirs of water for Vegas, Phoenix, LA, etc., both are at historically low points even this Spring. Edward Abbey cursed the Glen Canyon Dam when it was built, creating Lake Powell and covering over a canyon that rivaled the Grand Canyon for wildness and beauty. Well, the curse is working…the water is going down so fast that there are predictions you will be able to hike the canyon in 10 years. The long term view is ominous.

Is it….

Climate change? It’s happening folks; things are warming up, no doubt about it. Global political leaders are either faking it or are self-deluded that what they are offering is substantial and will stop this warming. In any case it is not even clear that this warming is not just human-made but may also be a cyclical thing with the sun and the atmosphere. If that is the case we are really cooked.

Is it…

Elections?  Ugggghhhh! Don’t think that voting the “right way” will save us! As Rosa Luxumberg said about a century ago: If elections could change things, THEY would make them illegal.  Ok, so you believe you have this choice between the abysmally, godawfully bad and the less bad. So you vote for the less bad and breathe a sigh of relief. You think you have stopped a catastrophe. But here’s the sad truth: the really really bad is still coming–you have not closed the door; in fact you have put out the welcome mat! And here we come to my prime candidate for what I refer to in the title of this piece. The fact is that we are suffering from a very deep and pervasive incoherence and dysfunctionality as a culture and a people. Sounds kind of abstract and not very exciting, but it is this kind of thing that brings down empires and whole civilizations. The rot, the disease starts deep inside the culture within our very fundamental communication, our language. Words begin to be used in a very deceptive way. The novel 1984 gives a small illustration of this. We begin to live in a culture of lies and deception and even self-deception. We not only lie to each other; we lie to ourselves. And here we are not just referring to the traditional untruth but more to a deceptive use of language where we don’t really mean and act on what we say. We live in a make-believe, a pretense, an incoherence in the meaning of our communication. This leads to certain spiritual death, and then to a very real moral confusion where we can no longer tell what is the right thing to do. The end result is social and cultural collapse.

It is interesting that people as diverse as James Joyce and Gandhi stressed the importance of language in the moral life of a people. Merton picked up on this and noted the intoxication with violence and self-deception that the media and the political leaders of his time exuded. Clarity in language and truthfulness are the building blocks of a healthy morality and a robust spirituality. But as I have said, we are moving in the opposite direction and I would like to illustrate this with some concrete examples of a manifestation of this problem. We will begin with a rather bland, seemingly innocuous example of political “shape-shifting”:

“ President Obama took office promising to usher in an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability in the federal government. Back in 2009, when he said federal agencies “should take affirmative steps to make information public,” he promised that the administration would make openness a centerpiece of its agenda. But as the curtain closes on Obama’s second term, many of his lofty promises remain unfulfilled. For example, despite signing the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, which was supposed to usher in a new era of protections for officials who speak out against waste and fraud, the Obama White House has brought more cases against whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined. In other areas — such as a plan to improve the Freedom of Information Act, or a proposal to shine a light on federal spending — the administration hasn’t only fallen short, but sometimes undermined reforms that would make the ways of Washington more open to public scrutiny. Consider the short-lived office of the “ethics czar,” a position President Obama created to crack down on government corruption and malfeasance. It was a good idea, but one that didn’t last long — the position has been vacant since 2011.” (quoted from an article by Elizabeth Hempowicz of the Project on Government Oversight)

A lot of people pay no attention to this rather arcane, Washington-insider kind of stuff, but it is a symptom of a much larger problem. We are so used to “Washington promises” not being fulfilled that we think nothing of it. Not thinking of the far larger implications of this kind of deception and pretending. Here’s a more serious example:

There’s a lot of politically liberal people who decry gun-violence in this country, and the prevalence of guns all over our society. Ok. But you will hardly hear anything from these same folk about the problem that the good ole’ USA is the number one weapons dealer in the world, selling all kinds of weapons to all kinds of people–as long as they “promote our interests.” This was done not only under right-wing presidents but very much under Clinton and Obama also. If we facilitate violence all over the globe, we shouldn’t be surprised if that violence comes home to roost!

President Obama, the “progressive” president, called dropping the bomb on Hiroshima evil and he has forced a cutback on a nuclear program in Iran; yet he is updating and upgrading our own nuclear arsenal.   Wish we could ask Dan Berrigan what he thought of that. And here’s the thing: these “liberal,” “progressive” folk do offer us a bit of economic candy, they put a lot of sugar in the toxic brew that is our economic system, so most people just swallow this and are really afraid of radical change. Insecurity of sorts. But what happens is that we become tolerant of more and more outrageous pretense and deception.   Like this “war on terror.” The drone killings. Etc. As long as we get our little piece of the American pie, what do we care about what happens elsewhere. If we bomb a hospital, the President says, Oops! Sorry about that. But no accountability; just as with the banksters and the people who lied us into a war costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But we are awash in a sea of lies, a mirage of self-righteousness, a fantasy of American exceptionalism, the home of Special Ops and Special Forces. Think of this last example: the President authorized the sale of arms to Vietnam.   He opens a door to Cuba, hooray, and then opens a door to death and destruction in SE Asia. Why not? Our excuse is basically that of the corner drug dealer: hey, if we don’t sell it to them, someone else will. Here’s a more succinct and artistic presentation of the problem:

But lest you think that our problem is primarily political and economic, I would like to remind you that our churches are totally implicated in the lies and deception. Of course they do not protest at the deceptions of the government or the economy—did not hear a peep of protest as we invaded Iraq. The churches seem to be there only to “hold the hands” of the faithful and help them enter the next world. If that were the only problem, I could even excuse them. But the situation is much more serious. Some of them are active pushers of this drug of deception. Make it look like it’s one thing that they are about when it’s really something quite different that they are doing. Consider this story from the New York Daily News:

“Not leaving it to divine chance, the state Catholic Conference has turned in recent years to some of Albany’s most well-connected and influential lobby firms to help block a bill that would make it easier for child sex abuse victims to seek justice. The Catholic Conference, headed by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, has used Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, Patricia Lynch & Associates, Hank Sheinkopf, and Mark Behan Communications to lobby against the Child Victims Act as well as for or against other measures.

All told, the conference spent more than $2.1 million on lobbying from 2007 through the end of 2015, state records show. That does not include the conference’s own internal lobbying team. Filings show the lobbyists were retained, in part, to work on issues associated with ‘statute of limitations’ and ‘timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses.’ Other issues included parochial school funding and investment tax credits.  ‘They are willing to spend limitless money in order to basically keep bad guys from being accountable for their actions,’ said Melanie Blow, chief operations officer of the Stop Abuse Campaign. ‘I think they’re doing it because they don’t want to have to pay out settlements.’

“Timothy Cardinal Dolan heads the state’s Catholic Conference, which in recent years hired major lobby firms to block legislation designed to help child abuse victims seek justice. Added Kathryn Robb, an advocate and survivor: ‘If they need to spend that much money on lobbying, clearly, then, they have some pretty big secrets to hide.’ While a far cry from the millions in lobbying top special interests spend in Albany each year, advocates for child sex abuse survivors say the $2.1 million spent likely represents a worthwhile investment to the Catholic Conference if it can continue to block legislation that would eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse civil cases and open a one-year window to bring lawsuits for victims who can no longer sue under current law.”

So the Church is very fond of “talking the talk” with regard for care for the victims of clerical sex abuse; but it hardly can be said to “walking the walk.” For all the talk of addressing the problem and even solving it, actually the Church in a lot of places has spent enormous resources blocking accountability and making it more difficult for victims to get justice. Of course it not only seeks monetary protections but it cherishes its image above all else. Recently the Pope got some headlines because he supposedly expanded Canon Law in order to facilitate the firing of bishops who have hidden priest abusers. But as some organizations have pointed out this is a smokescreen because a real tribunal that was to be formed to examine such cases, specifically sex abuse cases, will not be formed; and furthermore the actual fact is that the Pope could have fired many bishops and cardinals in the recent past, but very very few have been touched in any way–and even if they are “fired” there is no talk of criminal prosecution for these guys. The fact is that neither Church nor State have acted to hold the bigwigs of the Church accountable. Here’s a piece of the story from Truthdig and the Washington Post:

“The Catholic Church has been struggling to remedy internal proceedings ever since it was revealed in 2002 that bishops across the nation shielded pedophile priests from consequences. Last year, Pope Francis looked to hold bishops accountable when he announced the creation of a tribunal with authority to dismiss bishops who played a role in covering up abuse. But now the pope has apparently changed his mind. The pontiff announced Saturday that he was abandoning the tribunal proposal and instead would clarify existing laws regarding the removal of bishops. According to Nicole Winfield’s report in The Washington Post:

‘The new procedures sought to answer long-standing demands by survivors of abuse that the Vatican hold bishops accountable for botching abuse cases. Victims have long accused bishops of covering up for pedophiles, moving rapists from parish to parish rather than reporting them to police — and suffering no consequences. But the new law was immediately criticized by survivors of abuse as essentially window dressing since there were already ways to investigate and dismiss bishops for wrongdoing — they were just rarely used against bishops who failed to protect their flocks from pedophiles.’ Winfield goes on to explain that the changes to the law mean very little. In fact, the only thing worth noting about the pope’s changes is that they make ‘no mention of the original proposal for the tribunal, which would have treated negligence as a crime and prosecuted it as such.’ “

Even the so-called progressive National Catholic Reporter missed this ecclesial sleight-of-hand. Now the Pope seems like a decent fellow overall, but the sad fact is that he is nevertheless also caught up in this web of deception and self-deception where the cost of speaking truly and clearly and then ACTING so is actually very high. Thus I would like to conclude with some examples of those who moved in the other direction, who showed that “wholeness of spirit” alluded to by that Desert Father who said “I am the same inside as I am outside.” In other words, you get what you see. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, too many of our political, economic and religious leaders are like magicians–they are doing one thing with one hand and something quite else with the other. Watch them carefully; the old adage holds: the “hand is quicker than the eye.” And their language is replete with deception, even in cases where explicit deception is not intended.

But like I said, there are counter-examples, and the first one is Gandhi. Here is a famous story to illustrate the point: A mother brings her young son to Gandhi’s ashram and asks Gandhi to tell her son not to eat sugar because it was bad for him. Gandhi agreed to talk to the boy but tells the mother to bring him back in a week or so. She is puzzled but does as told. When she returns, Gandhi takes her son and spends some time talking to him about how bad sugar is for him and not to eat it. After the talk the mother thanks him, but then she asks him why couldn’t he have just said that last week. Gandhi answered, “Last week I was eating sugar myself.”

Another example: recently in the news there was a story of a Unitarian minister, a chaplain in the military, who was stationed in Afghanistan. Every day he would see the drones flying on the way to kill someone and all the so-called “collateral damage.” He got sick of it. He quit; resigned his commission in protest. Never mind the political leaders, religious leaders have been almost totally silent on anything that we do militarily…except for a few like Dan Berrigan and this Unitarian minister. Of course the cost is pretty high for speaking out and few are willing to pay that cost.

Speaking of that, it just came in on the news that Muhammed Ali has died. What a remarkable figure and a counter-example of what I am talking about. On the one hand he was a clown and a comedian who had a lot of fun; on the other he was possibly the greatest athlete of the last half century. But more than all that this young Black had an extraordinary purity of heart that was hardly understandable in the circles in which he moved or in any church circles for that matter. In the early ‘60s, when he was entering his athletic prime, he started hanging out with Malcolm X and changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammed Ali, and that scared a lot of white folks who wanted to hero-worship the heavyweight champion. He alienated a lot of people when he joined the Black Muslim movement, a weird sect of Islam here in the U.S. among a small group of Black people. As Ali matured and grew in vision, just like Malcolm, he entered the mainstream of Islam and by 1975 had actually become a Sufi. Hardly anyone in the sports media or the mainstream media understood what he was about.

At the very height of his athletic prowess when he was world champion, Ali spoke out against the Vietnam war with vigor and refused to register for the draft. This was even before Martin Luther King turned against the war. Here’s a quote from Ali:

““I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in taking this stand: either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my Constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end I am confident that justice will come my way for the truth must eventually prevail.”

And another quote:

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.” (Both quotes as found on Rawstory)

After such words Ali found himself vilified by the white media, lost most of his fans and supporters, held in contempt by white and black politicians, and even criticized by certain Black leaders. He was stripped of his title, forbidden to engage in any boxing activities, and made a pariah in the public forum. From many estimates he lost the best of his athletic life to inactivity, lost millions of dollars in earnings, and had to endure the hatred of many. It was not until 7 or 8 years later when the country itself woke up to the horror of Vietnam and at least a small majority of the country came out of the propagandized fog, that more people began to see Ali as a true prophet. Slowly his stature grew until he became globally a beloved figure.

So there are a few people out there fighting the system of lies today. Next month Chris Hedges and a throng of “truth-seekers” will be giving witness at the Democratic Convention . Here is Hedges in his own words(as found on Truthdig):

“On July 25, opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Cheri Honkala, leader of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, who was denied a permit to march by city authorities, will rally with thousands of protesters outside City Hall. Defying the police, they will march up Broad Street to the convention.

“We will recapture our democracy in the streets of cities such as Philadelphia, not in convention halls such as the aptly named Wells Fargo Center, where the Democratic Party elites intend to celebrate the results of the rigged primary elections and the continuity of corporate power.

“Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, other activists and I will march with Honkala. It is not as if we have a choice. No one invited us into the center or to the lavish corporate-sponsored receptions. No one anointed us to be Clinton superdelegates—a privilege that went to corporate lobbyists, rich people and party hacks. No one in the Democratic establishment gives a damn what we think.

The convention is not our party. It is their party. It costs a lot of money to attend. Donate $ 100,000 and you become an “empire” donor, with perks such as “VIP credentials for all convention proceedings,” along with tickets to lavish corporate and Party receptions, photo ops with politicians at the convention podium, four rooms at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel and a suite at a Yankees game, where a “special guest” will be present. Short of $100,000? You can become a “gold” donor for $50,000, a “silver” donor for $25,000 or a “bronze” donor for $10,000.

“We have the best democracy money can buy. The Wells Fargo Center and the fancy hotels in Philadelphia will be swarming with corporate representatives and lobbyists from Comcast, Xerox, Google and dozens of other companies that manage our political theater.

Honkala, who was once homeless—she lived for a while out of cars, in abandoned houses and under bridges—and who was the Green Party’s vice presidential candidate in 2012, has long defied the elites on behalf of the marginalized and the poor. She led a protest at the 2000 Republican National Convention, (after being denied a permit for that as well), which saw 30,000 people shut down Philadelphia’s center over issues such as racial discrimination, police violence and poverty. She has fought for the homeless, the unemployed and the underemployed for three decades, through acts of civil disobedience —marches, the construction of tent cities and homeless encampments, and sit-ins—that often ended in arrests. She has been arrested more than 200 times.

She will be on the south side of Philadelphia’s City Hall at 3 p.m. on July 25, with or without a permit. And thousands for whom the Democratic Party is another face of the corporate enemy will be there with her……

“The loss of faith in the political system and neoliberal ideology is widespread. The corporate elites are pouring $5 billion into the carnival of presidential electoral politics in a desperate bid to keep us mesmerized and controlled. Democracy is endlessly invoked on the airwaves to legitimize the corporate and political forces that have destroyed it. Congress has an approval rating of 11 percent. Half of qualified voters are not registered to vote, and half of registered voters do not go to the polls. A little more than half of 25 percent—no more than 15 percent—of the electorate determines who becomes president. And this is the way the elites want it.

In our system of inverted totalitarianism, the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin pointed out, the object is to demobilize the citizenry, to render it apathetic, to convince the citizen that all political activity that does not take place within the narrow boundaries defined by the corporate state is futile. This is a message hammered into public consciousness by the corporate media, which serve as highly paid courtiers to the corporate elites. It is championed by the two parties that offer up fear of the other as their primary political platform.”

I will pray for Hedges and his companions, and I hope they do their thing in a Gandhian spirit and not get lured into a violent response. As it is the national media will portray them as rabble-rousers, etc. I think their efforts will be futile–but necessary. As for myself I want to head for the hills and live in a cave–something really really bad is coming. But Mother Nature and the Truth will prevail.

The word “mysticism” is not very much in favor in our society and culture. For too many this word merely points to various bizarre manifestations or simply just the paranormal, whatever that be. Even at its best, “mysticism” seems to refer only to some special experiences of some small elect group within a religious tradition…the “elite” of that tradition. As I have often lamented in my postings, at least within Christianity mysticism hardly seems to matter to the average church goer. What we badly need is a very basic, down-to-earth language about mysticism (kind of ironical in that regard) and an understanding of it that opens people up to the depths within themselves wherever/whoever they be. And finally we need to challenge our superficial religious culture and consciousness of a watered-down Christianity that is more about making people feel “comfy” within the aches and pains of modern life than about opening us to the depths within our hearts.

In some ways it is useful and important to talk about mysticism in universal terms; but that can also be misleading. In the concrete experience of people mysticism comes in so many different “flavors” and “styles” that it is bewildering to see any deep down unity of that experience. It’s only when you abstract from the varied experiences that you begin to see certain universal traits and common notions, but then you have only the conceptualizations of mysticism, not the reality itself. There are numerous philosophical issues that these last few sentences hint at but we won’t be getting into that. Suffice it to say that no one can/should claim that it’s obvious that all mysticism is “one” and the “same.” How do you get John of the Cross and Francis of Assisi and Eckhart and the great hesychasts of Russia and Mt. Athos under the same umbrella? And then there’s a short statement by Merton somewhere which is not picked up by most commentators that mysticism in our time will be quite different from classical mysticism. All this is only for Christian mysticism; how about then such figures as Ramana Maharshi, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Ryokan, Rumi, al-Hallaj, etc., etc.? Or consider the personal/relational mysticism of bhakti yoga or most Christian piety concerning Jesus and compare that with the Buddhism of Nagarjuna or the advaita of Sankara. Only a superficial view of these people would claim that all these folks are about the same thing.

Given all that, it is still extremely important to get some universal handle for this topic; or to put it better, to find something in our hearts that is universal and seeks fulfillment and expression in the mystical language available to it, which in some sense also shapes that fulfillment. Consider the following quote from Abhishiktananda:

“In the heart of every human being there is something–a drive?–which is already there when he is born and will haunt him unremittingly until his last breath. It is a mystery which encompasses him on every side, but one which none of his faculties can ever attain to or, still less, lay hold of. It cannot be located in anything that can be seen, heard, touched or known in this world. There is no sign for it…. It is a bursting asunder at the very heart of being, something utterly unbearable. But nevertheless this is the price of finding the treasure that is without name or form or sign. It is the unique splendor of the Self–but no one is left in its presence to exclaim. ‘How beautiful it is.’”

In every work of art there is a “more” than just what the artist intended to be there. You may have a sense for that “more” even beyond the sensitivity of the artist. He/she does not necessarily have the resources to exhaust the meaning of what they have created. By analogy, the language of the mystic is not necessarily exhaustive of the meanings of his/her experience. That’s why it is advantageous and beneficial to read the mystical language of a different tradition than your own–you might have a sense of something there that will help you understand your own tradition so much deeper. The “more” in your own tradition may become manifest only with a different vantage point. This is not the same thing as a cheap syncretism.

The word “mystic” comes from the Greek word “mystikos.” Perhaps here lies a problem. The root meaning of this word refers to things that are “secret,” hidden, not manifest. The word “mystery” comes from the same roots. Originally the word “mystikos” applied most readily to matters and persons in the Mystery Religions of Hellenistic culture and the ancient Near East. One had to undergo a certain initiation in order to be a “mystikos.” This makes one a member of a secret group of elites who have this secret knowledge of the “other world.” So this is an unfortunate association. Nothing to do with real mysticism except that the latter does involve us in something hidden but in a very paradoxical way–or in a very Zen way if you will. In real mysticism what is most hidden is what is most manifest; and what is most manifest is what is most hidden.

Namaste. The traditional greeting between people in India; superficially akin to people in present-day USA saying “Hi,” “How are you,” “Hello,” “Good to see you,” etc., etc., and then the all important handshake.   In “Namaste” the hands are held palms together as in western prayer in front of you, and this parallels the western handshake. Actually to say that there is a superficial resemblance between the two is in fact a gross overstatement. There is actually very little in common between such greetings. To extract the deep down meaning from “Namaste” you need to explore the meaning of such a statement as: “God in me greets God in you.” Here we are very far from the western handshake!

The handshake, the western greeting, partakes of a very different sense of relationality to the “other.” It speaks, whether people realize it or not, of an economic relationship, the world of commerce and bargaining, a contractual relationship: I will be nice to you if you are nice to me. The western greeting and handshake is a kind of agreement; the handshake is an outgrowth and an extension of a contractual agreement–you can count on the other party for something, at the very least for a kind of mutuality that is the basis of all contracts, and we often hear it said, “His handshake is good enough for me,” or “You can tell a lot about a person from their handshake.” So we encounter the “other,” acknowledge his presence and in greeting we enter into an unspoken agreement to be mutually civil and to share and exchange whatever it is that we are about. And all this is most often left unsaid and even unthought, but believe me it is at the basis of all these greetings whether we realize it or not.   Now “Namaste” is in a completely different world. Here we are no longer encountering “the other” with greetings that have economic underpinnings. This is human relationality grounded in something quite different. For one thing, the very notion of “the other” begins to recede and the underlying unity or “oneness” is pronounced and becomes manifest. This is not a unity that is due to some contractual agreement, but it is a unity that is a fundamentally spiritual and metaphysical reality. And, yes, all this is quite there even when the “Namaste” is said with little thought.

Now you may be wondering what does this have to do with our discussion of mysticism? Well, lots! Just maybe the very notion of mysticism is impossible to understand within a culture that sees all human relationships through the lens of economic underpinnings. Within that kind of setting mysticism seems only bizarre. Maybe it is only when we are within the world of “Namaste” can we begin to sense the real meaning of mysticism.

In the western mentality (and actually in a lot of the East too, but mostly in the West) there’s this mindset: mysticism? Ok, how do I get started? What’s step 1? Step 2? Step 3?….give me a plan…a recipe…maybe a shortcut…let’s do it…hey, maybe there’s a how-to video on You Tube….ok, ok, now I am exaggerating, but you get the idea. Authentic mysticism does not unfold like that at all. It’s a long, long journey–with no beginning and no end, at least not in any sense that our little rational minds can grasp. Decades ago the Beatles had this lovely song about a “long and winding road”–that’s your life you know. You are THAT road, that trail through the wilderness, wherever you are, whoever you are.

(with thanks to the PCT hiker who took this photo)

There is only a kind of awakening to it, but you are on that road whether you realize it or not. Authentic mysticism unfolds like that–in the very heart of whatever life you have. With whatever aches and pains there may be, with whatever bliss there may be, with whatever turns there may be.   There is NO map, no guide, no how-to manual to YOUR life, your “long trail,”–the mysticism that IS you is your real life. Maps, plans, programs, guides, all these exist only for the abstract journey or as some sort of exemplar but be cautious even with the classic and great “maps” of various holy people.

There is this superb Hasidic story: Rabbi Zusya, a true holy man, used to say: When I die and come before God, God will not upbraid me by saying, “Zusya, why are you not yet Moses?” No, God will upbraid me by saying, “Zusya, why are you not yet Zusya?”

The Divine Reality is manifest in all things and in all people; but in each it manifests itself in this unrepeatable way and so it goes to infinity. The Divine Reality unfolds in your heart and in your life and manifests itself there in a way that it does NOWHERE else in the whole cosmos. In the Old Testament the Divine Reality is called a “jealous God,” and you can begin to see the true meaning of this term when you see the Divine as being “jealous” when you seek out its manifestations somewhere else than your own heart and your own being, which is “on fire” as the Burning Bush (and as the Desert Father Abba Joseph said, “Why not become totally fire?”). In the depths of your being you know the Divine Reality by a Name that no one else knows, and it is this that is the essence of your uniqueness. It is this Name which is hidden in the depths of God and in which you find your own self and the Self of God as One Reality. Once you awaken within the Divine Presence in your own unique life, you can truly say Namaste to all in the deepest sense.

Having said all of the above, there is still a very real place for a “clearing of the cobwebs” of consciousness, for a setting in order the disorderly passions, for training the mind in certain ways. The path of renunciation and asceticism has its rightful claims on us if we are truly “into” mysticism. However, there is an interesting problem and a common mistake here.   And this may be a peculiar problem within the Christian spiritual and mystical traditions. Too often certain key notions from the Gospels are used as grounding renunciation and asceticism: “taking up your cross,” “following the way of the cross,” “giving up your life in order to save it,” “following Jesus with your whole being,” etc., etc. These are extremely important moments and sayings from the Gospels and they have much more to do with one’s whole life, your whole orientation in life, than with some practice that may or may not be difficult and/or arduous. Let’s be very clear: the language of the Cross, Jesus on the Cross, has very little to do with ascetical practices and nothing to do with creating pain for oneself by some practice. It has everything to do with the real cost of discipleship in that path which plunges one into the Mystery of the Divine Reality whom Jesus called “Abba,” “Father.” The two should not be confused like they have been at times in the tradition. The rationale for asceticism has to do with “clearing the cobwebs of consciousness”; the Cross has to do with the most fundamental direction of one’s whole being.

And in conclusion I would like to end with a beautiful quote from a great holy man of the Kasmir Saivism tradition, Lakshman Joo:

“God is realized by everybody. He is perceived by everybody. God is realized by ignorant people. God is realized by those who have nothing to do with God. They have also realized God. And those who are only engrossed in household activities, those women carrying water from the river, who know nothing else, they have also realized God. So, drstah: he is realized, from all sides he is realized, let Him elevate us.”

Old

Old age is not in favor in our society and culture. It is amazing how much effort and energy is spent in trying not to appear old. It is quite an industry.   But it’s not just appearance that is at stake; old age is no longer considered an abode of wisdom and a deepened sense of life, but merely a time of “retirement,” whatever that means. So you spend your life “making money,” “doing,” “making something of yourself,” and then you quit and “play” in some socially acceptable old age activities. But what if old age is for bringing your whole life into focus, deepening your vision, growing in wisdom, assessing your “wrong turns” in tranquility, coming to terms with your own limits and blindness, understanding the nature of your “wounds,” reconciling with all that needs reconciling….and most of all understanding that your little self is not some castle or fortress that you need to protect and defend and manipulate for the much-advertised “successful life.” In other words, old age may be quite an “active” period but perhaps not in the way our society deems “action.”

Yes, what if old age brings about an enhancement of one’s intellectual, sophianic and spiritual vision. Perhaps it is only then that you peak in this regard. Perhaps it is only then that your most radical journey begins.

Speaking of which, let us divert momentarily to one of my secret loves: hiking and the people I admire, long-distance hikers. Not too long ago the magazine Backpacker featured a brief portrayal of some elderly long-distance hikers who are true legends. Here’s a few that are my favorites: (the accounts are right out of Backpacker)

Billy Goat

Image by NPS/Deby Dixon via Flickr

“I’m not on vacation. I’m not out for a weekend,” Billy Goat once told the Los Angeles Times. “This is where I live.” The former Maine railroad worker spends six months of every year hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. He’s now in his late 70s and still on trail as of the 2015 season. The triple-crowner has logged over 32,000 miles and has become a legend among long-distance hikers. To streamline the tedious process of signing his name in trail registers, Billy Goat inks a rubber stamp and leaves his red goat insignia in trail registers. 

And then there’s: Emma “Grandma” Gatewood

Footwear: Keds sneakers. Shelter: shower curtain. Pack: a sack slung over one shoulder. Emma Gatewood is proof that family responsibilities don’t have to sideline long trail dreams. The mother of ultralight backpacking was also a mother of 11 and grandmother of 23. In 1960, she became the first woman to complete a thru hike, and at age 67, no less. She finished the trail for a second time two years later. Her toughness was beyond question. “Most people are pantywaists,” she allegedly once told Ray Jardine. 

Another one: Lee “Easy One” Barry

Easy One started hiking the Appalachain Trail just a year after its official opening in 1937. In 2004, he set the thru-hiker age record: 81 proud years summiting Katahdin. He averaged 10 miles a day for the 220-day hike, a pace that hit the sweet spot for Barry. “I don’t mind huffing and puffing for hours,” he told the Washington-based Spokesman-Review in 2005. “I just want to be out here for the fun of it.”

One more:

Bill Irwin

Lost youth wasn’t the only obstacle beleaguering Bill Irwin: the 50-year-old thru-hiker was also blind. In 1990, he undertook the trail with kneepads and a guide dog, Orient, in lieu of map and compass. Together, the duo became known as the “Orient Express.” The eight-month trip was anything but smooth, but despite innumerable falls, cracked ribs, and a bout with hypothermia, Irwin became the first blind thru-hiker. He credits his faith for his perseverance as well as his motivation for getting the former alcoholic outdoors in the first place. “The first clear-eyed thing I had ever done was as a blind man, when I asked God to take charge of my life,” he wrote in Guideposts. “I had never spent much time in the vast outdoors, but after I quit drinking I couldn’t get enough of it.” 

And finally:

Nan Drag’n Fly Reisinger

Drag’n Fly holds the record for the oldest woman ever to thru hike the Appalachain Trail. She reached the trail’s northern terminus in 2014 at age 74, alongside her friend, Carolyn “Freckles” Banjak, who was in her late 60s herself. The white-haired and red-headed duo referred to themselves as Fire and Ice. Their secret? Slow and steady wins the race. “I had to keep at it. I couldn’t take time off,” Reisinger told The Sentinel newspaper. “We had to hike every day and not take breaks.” Reisinger also credits good health, previous experience (she’s logged over 6,000 miles on the AT alone), and an active lifestyle complete with canoeing, gardening, and tap dancing.

These are amazing people in their own right, but for me right now they symbolize and hint at some very important insights concerning the spiritual journey. There is no “retirement” from this journey; the effort and “work” might only then begin in fact, whereas before one was only “prepping” for this. It’s interesting that in a culture like India the traditional religious journey involves the whole person in the various stages of life: first you are a “student,” a “learner”; then you are a “householder,” a married person with a family; finally you leave all this behind and take up the life of renunciation, devoting the whole of the rest of your life to spiritual deepening. Now of course few Hindus really follow this program anymore; the young are less and less seeing their lives moving toward a deep renunciation, more likely toward a more comfortable life!! Also, it is important to note that one can jump into this spiritual path of renunciation and total focus at any time in one’s life, it’s just that there is this amazing awareness that old age is a kind of ripening moment when one’s inner psychic energy is most attuned and less distracted for spiritual deepening. Perhaps it is only when you are older that you truly begin to appreciate the spiritual journey for what it is–before, in youth and middle age, there is always the temptation to get mesmerized by what society offers. True, there are many people everywhere who are attracted to some aspect of the spiritual life when they are younger, and there is much to be said for youthful energy and acuity of intellect; but the testing ground of true spirituality is always in old age–the fake, the delusionary, the vacuous, the transient, etc., all fall way and not much might remain but what is there will be a bit more real than what you started out with. True, old age in itself is no guarantee of any authenticity or truth or depth; the sad fact is that many people simply collapse into their lifelong blindness and succumb to a kind of lethargy of the spirit, thinking that their lives and their “journey” is ending. That’s why I consider these elderly long-distance hikers marvelous exemplars of the spirit needed as we journey into the Ultimate Reality and our true identity.

Everyone by now has heard that Dan Berrigan, that great Jesuit and peace activist, has died. What an incredible and inspiring life! He was close friends with people like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and a friend and supporter of countless peace and justice activists. People who prayed and people who marched; and people who did both looked to him as a voice of sanity, faith, hope, and above all as the voice of the Real. He had the clear eye and the unfettered mind of a true spiritual person, and more than that he was empowered with gifts that enabled him to name our collective illusions. Thousands showed up at his funeral; and I am sure that many had their own insights about this remarkable Jesuit and the meaning of his life, but as usual I found the thoughts of Chris Hedges to be most helpful in grasping this moment. Here is the link to his eulogy of Berrigan:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bearing_the_cross_20160508

I won’t be discussing his essay here, but I would like to extract from that essay two pieces of Berrigan writing that Hedges used in his essay. These are so significant for our time that they must be repeated again and again. The first one he wrote after he was arrested for the burning of draftboard files of young men who were slated to go to Vietnam—a kind of prose poem. His little group was accused even by many Catholics of being agents of disorder and disrespect for the law. Here is Berrigan’s reply:

“Our apologies good friends
for the fracture of good order the burning of paper
instead of children the angering of the orderlies
in the front parlor of the charnel house
We could not so help us God do otherwise
For we are sick at heart
Our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children …
We say: Killing is disorder
life and gentleness and community and unselfishness
is the only order we recognize …
How long must the world’s resources
be raped in the service of legalized murder?
When at what point will you say no to this war?
We have chosen to say
with the gift of our liberty
if necessary our lives:
the violence stops here
the death stops here
the suppression of the truth stops here
this war stops here …”

Then he had these acerbic words for all his fellow Catholics and fellow Christians who were “moderates” in the pursuit of justice and peace (the Obama-Clinton vision of “gradualism,” and “compromise”). Berrigan was totally dismayed when almost no one protested the Iraq wars, when practically all of America’s leaders voted for the war, when torture was condoned, when no one even now tries to break the spell that has been cast over us called “the war on terror.” Things that would have been considered illegal and unconstitutional decades ago are now easily accepted….as long as we get our little piece of the American Dream and live comfy lives:

“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm … in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. ‘Of course, let us have the peace,’ we cry, ‘but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.’ And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

Berrigan is certainly not a “holy card” picture of a holy man, not even recognizable by most church-going people as a holy man; but holiness is never an abstraction that occurs somewhere in empty space. It is a manifestation of the Divine Reality within a concrete historical and social situation. I can’t think of a better model for holiness in our times than Fr. Dan Berrigan, S.J. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!

There is some disagreement among anthropologists about the nature and prevalence of violence among prehistoric human beings. The archaeological evidence for violence in the prehistoric world is scant, but it is there. There is no sense in romanticizing early human beings as if they lived in a perpetual paradise. No, they were quite capable of amazing brutality, cannibalism, and even a tendency to abuse their environment. However, according to some anthropologists, there is a significant change that unfolds around 10,000 years ago with the discovery and development of agriculture–an increase in the scope and frequency of violence on larger and larger scales. With the development of agriculture you have the demarcation of land, the arising of stable communities as villages and then the city, the sense of ownership and control, the idolization of all this in “wealth.” Many scholars hold that warfare emerged as a result of ownership of land, farming and more complex political systems. The signs of warfare are clear among settled, sedentary communities. Certainly you had some of this in the earlier hunter-gatherer societies, but it is in a very attenuated fashion. Once you have agriculture you have boundaries and fences and walls, and this social construction evokes in the human heart the need to say, “This is mine.” Or, one could say that the presence of this “This is mine” in the heart leads to these social constructions. One anthropologist even claims that this statement, This is mine, exposes the roots of all social violence in some way (of course this is prescinding from the pathologically sick person who expresses his sickness in violence). Now this is a remarkable statement, and one wonders if this anthropologist knew that his claim is very much in keeping with the views of several very deep spiritual traditions.

Two Desert Father Stories:

There were two elders living together in a cell, and they had never had so much as one quarrel with one another. One therefore said to the other: Come on, let us have at least one quarrel, like other men. The other said: I don’t know how to start a quarrel. The first said: I will take this brick and place it here between us. Then I will say: It is mine. After that you will say: It is mine. This is what leads to a dispute and a fight. So then they placed the brick between them, one said: It is mine, and the other replied to the first: I do believe that it is mine. The first one said again: It is not yours, it is mine. So the other answered: Well then, if it is yours, take it! Thus they did not manage after all to get into a quarrel.

And this story:

Once some robbers came into the monastery and said to one of the elders: We have come to take away everything that is in your cell. And he said: My sons, take all you want. So they took everything they could find in the cell and started off. But they left behind a little bag that was hidden in the cell. The elder picked it up and followed after them, crying out: My sons, take this, you forgot it in the cell! Amazed at the patience of the elder, they brought everything back into his cell and did penance, saying: This one really is a man of God!

Merton was right (from whom these translations are taken)–the Desert Fathers were people who were ahead of their time; certainly they had already figured out what this modern anthropologist was getting at but not from the standpoint of social analysis but through a deep understanding of their own hearts. They are the ones who truly grasp the meaning and significance of “possessions” and “This is mine.” And they flee in the opposite direction, toward a mode of being-in-the-world that we cannot even imagine–unless it is a “quaint” story. So common, so natural, so deeply ingrained in our social fabric and in our consciousness this “This is mine” is that it is hard to conceive of anything at all different. There is the boundary and the fence; that is your property and This is mine. That is someone else’s car; This is mine. My money; my career; ultimately my life. And of course then there is also “the border” and over there is their land and this is ours. That makes them “foreigners,” not one of us, etc. That’s their religion; this is mine.

And ultimately you need to push this into the depths of one’s heart and consciousness: my opinions, my ideas, my status and self-esteem and standing, my identity, even my vocation…. The moment we make anything, no matter how good or neutral it might be, into a real possession, we enter into a false and illusory relationship to the very ground of our being in God. We imagine ourselves to be this solid entity which then “has” such and such things and which then seeks commonality with other such “compatible” entities in some form of community. This is a precarious state because there is always some other entity that might come along and “steal” something “That is mine.” That includes not only “stuff” but also my reputation, job, career, status, etc. Various forms of defense mechanisms kick in. Ultimately it is Death who is the Great Thief who will take anything you “possess.” No other defense really except to lose ourselves in what the Cross of Jesus Christ signifies and to find our new self in the Risen Christ. These Desert Fathers, you see, are not just quaint but profound manifestations of the Risen Life and their true identity in the Risen Christ.

Another Desert Father Story:

A certain brother, renouncing the world, and giving the things he owned to the poor, kept a few things in his own possession. He came to Abba Anthony. When the elder heard about all this, he said to him: If you want to be a monk, go to that village and buy meat, and place it on your naked body and so return here. And when the brother had done as he was told, dogs and birds of prey tore at his body. When he returned to the elder, the latter asked if he had done as he was told. The brother showed him his lacerated body. Then Abba Anthony said: Those who renounce the world and want to retain possession of money are assailed and torn apart by devils just as you are.

So the significance of this story is that it points at the inner world of our thoughts and feelings where the “dogs” and “birds of prey” attack us because of this false sense of possession. It is impossible to have true peace, harmony, and real freedom when our state of mind is in “This is mine” and we are carrying that “meat.” And if we have this inner churning of fear and desire and envy and anger and frustration, etc., we are not far from creating unpeaceful external conditions and structures–like war, guns, fortifications, etc. The “barbed wire” around our inner world soon reaches expression in the outer world because they are basically one. Now the Desert Fathers had a deep intuitive understanding of all this but they did not develop the highly technical and sophisticated analysis and tools that for example the Tibetan Buddhists did. The latter meticulously and methodically deconstruct that whole inner “I” which is the subject of “This is mine,” and so their aim is toward that same kind of freedom for “all sentient beings.” The Zen monks, like the Desert Fathers also, seem much less prone to analysis and various practices but rather aim at this sudden awakening to a state of mind in which it makes no sense at all to say “This is mine”—what is this “mine” anyway!?

Do you now see the real significance of the vow of poverty that monks and nuns take? Do you see the revolutionary nature of primitive Benedictine monasticism in this light? Here was a whole community of people living in community in which no one would say “This is mine.” Quite an accomplishment in the history of western civilization. Of course, human nature being what it is and the fact that they did not really root out the problem, these monasteries (just like in Tibet) became quite heavy with possessions, justifying and rationalizing them, and quite concerned to pronounce collectively, “This is ours.” So then comes the next revolution with St. Francis, and you see the reason for his special emphasis on poverty as a value. It was preeminent for Francis and for a reason.

The Bible; the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. Cain kills Abel. Right from the getgo, violence. And interestingly enough Cain is the agriculture guy and Abel the nomad. And the rest of the Hebrew Bible is a bloody mess, filled with all kinds of violence and threats of violence. Note how most of it is centered on the People of Israel being liberated from Egypt, being called a Chosen People, and given possession of Palestine. There was the inconvenient fact that there were already people living there. No matter; they can be slaughtered, even exterminated….because, well, This land is OUR land…now. And the text presents all this as ordained by God. And then there’s the Law supposedly given by God that calls for the stoning of people for so many different reasons. Remarkable stuff, really. The early monks pretty much either ignored these passages or allegorized them almost to the vanishing point. That way they tried to immunize themselves against the violence carried in this kind of language and attitude. Of course the Gospel of Jesus Christ completely deconstructs this mechanism and presents a completely different vision. We won’t go into that here and now, but one wonders if the early Church did not make a fundamental mistake in holding that the Old Testament and the New Testament form a true unity. And then there’s that whole question of that text as “inspired” and composed “guided by the Holy Spirit.” Did God really give this Law and order those massacres? I think not.   The text is inspired alright, but perhaps not in the usual and traditional sense of that term. The text is perhaps meant to disclose the delusions and machinations we will engage in order to rationalize our deep down proneness toward violence. Religion, unfortunately, has always been available as a cover for perpetrating violence that is actually and simply rooted in “This is mine.” We attribute to God what our own dark compulsions seek. The Bible seems to be a mirror held up to us so that we see what we are really about. Just think of the present-day in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

There are some very interesting exceptions in world history but none better than in Tibet. The Tibetans were among the most warlike people on the planet over a thousand years ago. But when Buddhism arrived in Tibet it was so deeply embraced by the people that it transformed them into one of the most peaceful people on earth. Tibetan Buddhism was able to do this because it gets to the very roots of the problem in human consciousness–something that Christianity never really did do in Europe or the the whole West.

One modern person who shows what a total transformation looks like in actual life and who totally transcended the dynamic of “This is mine”: Gandhi

Some Zen stories:

A monk asked Chao-chou, “What is your family custom?”

The Master said, “Having nothing inside, seeking for nothing outside.”

One night a thief broke into Ryokan’s hut on Mount Kugami. Finding nothing else to steal, the thief tried to pull out the mat Ryokan was sleeping on. Ryokan turned over and let the thief take the mat.

A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

(Comment: the “beautiful moon” symbolizes the monk’s enlightened state of mind, which is not a “thing” among other things and so cannot be hoarded as “mine” or given away as “not mine”–actually it’s all a gift anyway!)

One evening, Zen master Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras when a thief entered his house with a sharp sword, demanding “money or life”. Without any fear, Shichiri said, “Don’t disturb me! Help yourself with the money, it’s in that drawer”. And he resumed his recitation. The thief was startled by this unexpected reaction, but he proceeded with his business anyway. While he was helping himself with the money, the master stopped and called, “Don’t take all of it. Leave some for me to pay my taxes tomorrow”. The thief left some money behind and prepared to leave. Just before he left, the master suddenly shouted at him, “You took my money and you didn’t even thank me?! That’s not polite!”. This time, the thief was really shocked at such fearlessness. He thanked the master and ran away. The thief later told his friends that he had never been so frightened in his life. A few days later, the thief was caught and confessed, among many others, his theft at Shichiri’s house. When the master was called as a witness, he said, “No, this man did not steal anything from me. I gave him the money. He even thanked me for it.” The thief was so touched that he decided to repent. Upon his release from prison, he became a disciple of the master and many years later, he attained Enlightenment.

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter’s accusation, he simply replied “Is that so?” When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child. For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. “Is that so?” Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

(Comment: Hakuin shows the essence of a nondualistic mind where neither “mine” or “not mine” are needed or accepted as something “solid” and needing to be defended. By the way, this kind of story is used often by westerners as an example of detachment, greatly valued in western spirituality. Detachment then means kind of gritting your teeth and “giving up” things, letting go, “taking it on the chin,” but there is always this “I” that is doing the detachment. Clearly that’s not what Hakuin or these other Zen masters are about. Here it is a matter of seeing into the very heart and nature of the situation in a nondualistic vision.)

(All the above stories were taken from Paul Reps’ Zen Flesh, Zen Bones)

And finally let us conclude with one of my favorites from the collection around the Zen Master Chao-Chou:

A monk asked, “What is Chao-Chou?”

            The Master said, “East gate, west gate, south gate, north gate.”

(Comment: The question is tricky, a trap, an identity question which seems to call for an identity commitment in the answer. Chao-Chou’s only claim is total transparency, total openness, where the winds of experience can blow from any direction, a city or a house that is totally open and free, coming and going in all directions.)

We could also say a lot about the Sufis in this regard but we will save that for another time.

Many scholars hold that warfare emerged as a result of ownership of land, farming and more complex political systems. The signs of warfare are clear among settled, sedentary communities.

Let us proceed in reverse order:

The Ugly.

1. Did you see the story about the Georgia public school that tried to teach yoga to its students? A number of evangelical Christian parents got really upset. Here is the story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/24/ga-parents-offended-by-the-far-east-religion-of-yoga-get-namaste-banned-from-school/

The school apologized for the yoga instructions and even banned the use of the Sanskrit word, “Namaste.” Strange. Incredible. But given the nature of the religiosity of these folks, understandable. And interestingly enough the parents do have a valid argument of sorts: given that public schools do not allow expressions of Christian faith, like prayer, why is it that Hindu expression is allowed? The school answers that they are not allowing Hindu expression but simply extracting a popular element from the matrix of Hinduism that is useful for relaxation and de-stressing. That of course raises a very big question that has elicited thoughtful and intelligent debate and discussion among various people: can you really and legitimately abstract some element from a given religious tradition and use it for some other purpose? The true use and place of yoga is in uncovering the presence of God within one’s consciousness, not just for exercise and de-stressing. People can and do have different opinions on this topic, but suffice it to say these folks are not interested in that kind of debate but prefer to protect their children from “satanic religion.” There are a number of conservative Christian websites that warn of the “perils” of yoga!

2. Another dubious expression of Christianity: Every Good Friday there are these people that flagellate themselves and others who even crucify themselves. This bizarre religious expression defies explanation, and I can see why some begin even to question the nature of religion. You could say that this is only a very small group of people compared to the large numbers of the “more sane” believers; but really these folk are only the extreme tip of a large iceberg so to speak. In this group I include the large numbers of these televangelists, the hawkers of spiritual goods, programs and books to solve all your problems, the Prosperity Gospel people; the miracle hounds, like what does it really matter in this insane world that some remnant of blood liquefies or some flesh does not corrupt, really…. Religion gets turned into superstition or magic; if you have the magic words and/or the proper talisman, presto, you are “saved.” But….but if you get to the heart of every major religion, you will find that the real meaning of that religion has everything to do with compassion and freedom…not the freedom of our superficial society but the deep freedom of our deep self which is not moved by compulsion or fear or the crazy images and phantasms of our insane social existence. Read T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” Real religion addresses that picture; it is not a magical substitute for the mess we have made.

3. Ok, just to show you Christianity isn’t the only one afflicted in this way, take a look at this story from India:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35529867

India has a lot of problems. Political, social, and yes even religious. This cradle and home of a very deep spiritual tradition has been beset with radical Hinduism that equates religious identity and national identity and raises caste to a sacred rule. It has also been beset with unsettling violence against women and with calls for repression and censorship of any other religious views or of any criticism of Hinduism. The story here is not that serious but it is also worrisome. The fake religiosity and spirituality is rampant and that does not bode well; it is not a sign of religious health.

The Bad.

1. So with all these examples of “ugly” religion, is it any wonder that religion as a whole is losing ground in our culture? Take a look at this story:

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/secular-values-triumph-in-culture-war-study-finds-prayer-and-belief-in-god-have-hit-all-time-low/

What’s interesting here is that this phenomenon includes not only formal religion but also that fuzzy spirituality that supposedly was growing in our time, spirituality “without religion.” No comment here. Take it for what you will; it pretty much matches my own observations of life around me. And what I think is much more important is that this is a small piece in a much larger and darker picture which I point to below.

2. I wonder how many people realize how really, really bad our social, economic and political situation is. Here’s a short essay to help you with that:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35396-entering-uncharted-territory-in-washington-are-we-in-a-new-american-world

3. So we had these suicide bombings in Belgium a few weeks ago. The reactions from out leaders are typical and predictable. Here is something a bit different from Christ Hedges:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_are_all_islamic_state_20160327

4. Take a social concern, like gun control. The prevalence of gun violence in our society is very troubling, and we count on our political leaders to make some wise decisions to reduce that violence. Unfortunately, what they do is give you something with one hand to alleviate your concerns and then with the other do something hidden and quite contrary that exacerbates the situation in incredible ways. Just one example: the President is down on the prevalence of guns in our society but did you know that our country has been the leading seller of arms to the whole world during the past 8 years. We are the gun dealer for the world. There is no end to our hypocrisy. Here is the story:

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/president-obamas-record-breaking-arms-sales-are-enabling-human-rights-abuses

5. And I can’t leave the political scene without a bit of dark humor. Here is a hilarious clip that parodies a Men’s Wearhouse Ad, a place where you can buy a cheap suit. Here you can buy a congressman really cheap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03YEYNN_slI

6. Mother Nature may have her own plans for solving all this rot–like wiping us out!! Kurt Vonnegut once said that Earth will one day treat us like an invading bacteria and cleanse itself of us. It’s called Global Warming. We are sleepwalking through all this and very few seem to care or want to take the radical steps needed. That climate conference a few months back in Europe was a totally inadequate response and things may be a lot worse than anyone suspected. James Hansen, the legendary climate scientist who first brought this phenomenon to our attention about 1990 or so, has recently brought out a paper indicating that we are only decades away from catastrophe, not centuries as some thought.   Here is the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/science/global-warming-sea-level-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html?_r=0

And then there was this story just about February weather:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/14/february-breaks-global-temperature-records-by-shocking-amount

The Good.

1. There was a reasonable and a half-way intelligent debate about Mother Teresa on the front page of the New York Times–whether she should be canonized. Considering the other crazy religious news and considering the insanity of our times, this was “different.” Here is the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/03/25/should-mother-teresa-be-canonized

Both sides have their valid points, and I don’t think anyone will convince the “other side” of a change in perspective. But it is refreshing that we don’t idealize and idolize our “holy” figures–like we have in the past with so many so-called saints. My favorite in this regard is St. Bernard who called for the killing of Moslems. Enough said. As one who doesn’t really believe in this canonization thing, I figure if my church wants to play at this let them. My concern is NOT to “get to heaven,” as a reward for “being good,” but the Presence of God here and now and what that means here and now. For every human being every breath is not some arbitrary, mechanical event but a pure gift and a messenger from Absolute Reality, saying, “You are my child; you are one with me.” To hear this, to know this, is what is called “heaven” or paradise; nothing more is needed.

2. Here is a marvelous “picture” of Jesus of Nazareth:

I wish more Christians would try to imitate this Jesus.

3. And then there was Pope Francis on Holy Thursday:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/25/children-of-the-same-god-pope-francis-washes-the-feet-of-muslim-migrants/

Marvelous. And very significant if you follow the implications of what he said.

4. Given the darkness of our social situation, there are also some culture heroes and voices of a different vision. One of my new-found people is the turn-of-the-century writer Jack London. Here is a bit of an autobiographical statement from him as he had achieved a certain success as a writer:

“So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and
where I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice of
society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation
of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to labor, crowbar
in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, and
class-conscious workingmen, getting a solid pry now and again and
setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few more
hands and crowbars to work, we’ll topple it over, along with all its
rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and sodden
materialism. Then we’ll cleanse the cellar and build a new habitation
for mankind, in which there will be no parlor floor, in which all the
rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that is breathed will
be clean, noble, and alive.

Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress
upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will
be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of
to-day, which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in
the nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual
sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to-day.
And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As some Frenchman
has said, “The stairway of time is ever echoing with the wooden shoe
going up, the polished boot descending.”

5. And in conclusion here are a few words from another one of my favorite culture heroes: John Muir. As I long to get out into the High Country of the Sierra once more this June, I ponder these words from Muir:

“ I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains.”

We have been pondering how each major religion points to “that which is Beyond,” each in its own language–we are not saying that all religions are pointing to the same Beyond, that is not for us or for anyone to say. Simply that the existential manifestation of those who strive in that context seems to exhibit very similar qualities, and when these folks put down their preconceptions they find a very deep fellowship among the world religions on this path. And this “Beyond” is not something that any language can grasp in its symbolism, like “heaven,” “paradise,” “kingdom of God,” etc.; but rather it is that which truly is beyond the grasp of any religious language. So, we shall continue on this road, but staying mostly in the Christian context with one of its greatest hermits, Isaac the Syrian. And strikingly enough we will be able to do this using very little narrowly explicit Christian language.

Now Isaac the Syrian is a very little known spiritual figure in Christian circles. In Catholic and Protestant milieus he is almost totally unknown except in monasteries, and even there I bet the majority of monks know little or nothing about him. Isaac fares better in Orthodox circles because they do love their hermits, but I think you will find most Orthodox lay people not really interested in him in spite of their “idealizations” of the “desert-dwellers.” Isaac, like the Tibetan Buddhist Milarepa, was a radical proponent of solitude, and with that of silence. Hardly “social values”! Their way is certainly not everyone’s “cup of tea”–even the Dalai Lama says that it’s not good to go into intense solitude as a way of life but only for a periodic retreat. And Christianity itself is a thoroughly communal religion emphasizing the interpersonal and social nature of humanity, placing a divine value on the reality of community.  However……each person must follow the way that unfolds in their heart; to ponder abstract ways of life is sometimes worthwhile, but totally useless in determining “the path I should follow.” And the hermit life is a powerful icon of that Beyond which is the true goal of every religionist; an unwavering symbol and pointer at that Beyond which is the true patrimony of every human being no matter their situation. And so the hermit life is an absolute essential within the Christian context.

Let us begin with a quote from Isaac the Syrian, Isaac at his most radical:

“Just as among ten thousand men scarcely one will be found who has fulfilled the commandments and what pertains to the Law with but a small deficiency, and who has attained to limpid purity of soul, so only one man among thousands will be found who after much vigilance has been accounted worthy to attain pure prayer, and to break through that boundary, and gain experience of that mystery. Indeed, the majority of men have in no wise been deemed worthy of pure prayer, but only a very few. But as to that mystery which is after pure prayer and lies beyond it, there is scarcely to be found a single man from generation to generation who by God’s grace has attained thereto.”   From Homily 23.

Now there are two very important things to point out in this remarkable statement. First, never mind the hyperbolic language here, the rhetorical exaggeration if you will, that Isaac uses to make his most profound observation. The “fewness” of the people who will achieve these special moments in the spiritual journey makes it sound like it’s a numbers game and exceptional work, effort and very special grace give one a slight chance to “win” this spiritual lottery. I think this is a mistaken impression that Isaac’s language gives. Yes, there are few who find this very special pearl, but not because of lack of access on the part of the many. It is more likely that people settle for a lower form of religiosity, one that keeps religion within the confines of controllable religious language and concepts–often this is so because of ignorance or lack of awareness, but it can also be that they want a clearly delineated religion that is so easily encapsulated in concepts and notions. Thus for many their religion is simply trying to “be good,” morally, and get their reward for this: “heaven.” Or maybe they are more pious and they engage in a kind of relationship with saints, angels, and of course Mary and Jesus, and this engages more of their life than just “keeping the commandments.” But it’s amazing how often all this religiosity is still, underneath it all, a way of keeping the ego fed and clothe with approval and getting some favorable treatment in terms which are more or less understandable. Generally people see themselves as no more than as members of some social reality, being “part of something” is reassuring, and as no more than caught up in this struggle to maximize the positives in one’s life and minimize the negatives; and religion then becomes part of the picture and the mechanism to make this happen. Ok, so Isaac (and the many other Desert Fathers and Christian mystics) are saying, wait, there’s a lot more to your identity than that. But Isaac is also a very down-to-earth realist and he realizes that only a few, a very few, grasp the epiphenomenal nature of our supposed identity and awaken to something way beyond that. But we must emphasize that Isaac’s language does not mean that the “Beyond” is only for a chosen few, an elite of sorts; no, it is the very foundation of everyone’s humanity wherever they are, whoever they are. But it does require a kind of “seeking” that few want to partake in.

So this brings us to the second important point of Isaac’s statement: the reference to “the beyond.” It is striking enough that he posits “pure prayer” as a true goal of Christian praxis–this in itself would make him a mystic in the Rahnerian sense. Important here to note that this term points to something that is called by different names by different spiritual teachers. Thus, for some this is termed “purity of heart,” for yet others as “continual prayer”; for others as “theoria” or the “vision of God”; for others as “quies” or stillness; and for some others, “the kingdom of heaven,” and so on. The appropriation of Biblical language for noting mystical experience is very interesting. Recall that Beatitude: Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God. Whatever be the original Gospel meaning of this statement, which probably had to do with an afterlife situation, like “going to heaven,” the monks and mystics of Christianity appropriated this language to speak of an awakening to the ever-present Divine Reality, to abide in the Divine Presence continually. And it is not in their imagination or in their thinking as another concept that this takes place; but it is as real as the ground under their feet. This kind of awakening should be the patrimony of every Christian, but as a matter of fact it is very rare.

Now an emphatic note: here we are still within a dualistic mysticism and vision: here I am and there is God (or the Risen Christ). Even if it be the depths of the heart where this God is found, still….there is me and there is God and there is this most profound and intimate relationship. So “pure prayer,” as mystical as it is, it still functions within a dualistic vision, which is in fact the signature vision of Christian spirituality. Except that there are these glimmers and occasional glimpses of something quite different–for example, in Eckhart, and of course here in Isaac. I am really struck by the plainness of his language here: “But as to that mystery which is after pure prayer and lies beyond it “…. So there is this “beyond” which lies beyond even “regular” mysticism–it is a “mystery,” not describable in theological or spiritual terms. Isaac is speechless; he merely points to that Beyond. And here we can rightfully and speculatively inquire whether this isn’t a reference to a kind of Christian advaita, that which Abhishiktananda struggled so much to express in Christian language from his own inestimable experience of that Beyond.

And just some more additional words by Isaac on this topic–again from Homily 23: “Even as the whole force of the laws and the commandments given by God to men terminates in the purity of heart”….   So here we see that normal religious observance is to reach the goal of this “purity of heart” which leads to the vision of God. Religious observance is not for its own sake; nor just a social structure and not meant to serve the neurotic needs of certain individuals!

Isaac continues: “…so all the modes and forms of prayer which men pray to God terminate in pure prayer. For sighs, prostrations, heartfelt supplications, sweet cries of lamentations, and all the other forms of prayer [emphasis mine] have…their boundary and the extent of their domain in pure prayer. But once the mind crosses this boundary, from the purity of prayer even to that which is within, it no longer possesses prayer or movement, or weeping, or dominion, or free will, or supplication, or desire, or fervent longing for things hoped for in this life or in the age to come.”   So here we see that Isaac holds that the whole purpose of true piety is to lead to this “pure prayer” and beyond. Piety, religious observance and practice, in fact the whole of one’s religious life are not ends in themselves but open up on something much more vast and incredible. But Isaac is only beginning to astonish us! There is much more. He has spoken of a “boundary” here, but now he is once more pushing us beyond this boundary to something that is unspeakable: “Therefore, there exists no prayer beyond pure prayer. Every movement and every form of prayer leads the mind this far by the authority of the free will; for this reason there is a struggle in prayer. But beyond this boundary there is awestruck wonder and not prayer. For what pertains to prayer has ceased, while a certain divine vision remains, and the mind does not pray a prayer.” So there is only this abiding within the Divine Reality and there is no more space between you and God; and it is an awakening like a lightning bolt, as Abhishiktananda said, and there is only the “Ah” of the Upanishads–the Christian version of advaita.

Isaac not only points to this Beyond, but he provides an existential picture of the quality of life lived by the person who has knowledge of this Beyond. For Isaac the chief characteristic of such a person could be summed up in this phrase: a merciful heart. To be sure this is not just some emotional state or a whim of good feeling or dependent on us having sufficient “willpower.” Rather it means a total transformation of the dynamics of one’s personal life and an awakening to a transcendent sense of identity. Do you want a better picture of this “merciful heart”? Isaac is quite obliging: “’And what is a merciful heart?’ It is the heart’s burning for the sake of the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and at the recollection and sight of them, the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. From the strong and vehement mercy that grips his heart and from his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up prayers with tears continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles, because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.” So, quite a statement! But what is most remarkable is how close this is to the Buddhist Bodhisattva theme; in fact you might want to say that this is the Bodhisattva in Christian terms. We are no longer locked in a narrow vision of “saving our souls,” but our concern is for all sentient beings!

Now for Isaac the gateway, so to speak, for his Beyond lies in silence and stillness. This means a lot more than just verbal silence, refraining from talking, etc., though of course that would be a good foundation. What Isaac is referring to is something very close to what Mahayana Buddhism seeks, both in its Tibetan and Zen forms–a stillness of the mind. And this is best illustrated by a well-known analogy. Consider being on the shoreline of a very great ocean, like the Pacific. There is a lot of turbulence on the surface and on the edge with large waves crashing and foaming, etc. But go down diving a few hundred feet and it will be eerily quiet and calm with serene fish swimming along. So it is with our consciousness. Along the “surface” we are constantly in motion with thoughts and feelings running along and “crashing” on the shores of the mind. But if you quiet this down; or if you go deeper into one’s own consciousness, there comes a deep calm. And the deeper you go the more calm it gets; and the more calm it gets, the deeper you go. This is the royal road to a profound awakening both in Buddhism and for Isaac–among others also.

Isaac: “True wisdom is gazing at God. Gazing at God is silence of the thoughts.”(Homily 64)

Isaac: “Love silence above all things, because it brings you near to fruit that the tongue cannot express. First let us force ourselves to be silent, and then from out of this silence something is born that leads us into silence itself. May God grant you to perceive some part of that which is born of silence!” (Homily 64)

Isaac: “Do not be surprised if sometimes when you are kneeling in prayer and your mind is concentrated upon it, your mind grows silent and desists from prayer.” (Homily 64)

Isaac: “It is impossible without stillness and estrangement from men to bring the senses into submission to the sovereignty of the soul. For the noetic soul is hypostatically united and conjoined with the senses and it is involuntarily carried away by her thoughts, unless a man is vigilant in secret prayer.” (Homily 65)

Isaac: “Silence is a mystery of the age to come, but words are instruments of this world.” (Homily 65)

The silence/stillness that Isaac points to is a deeply inner reality. Now Isaac has language about all this, but it is obfuscated for us by its antiquity and its mannerisms and its (strange to us) imagery. Isaac seems to recognize the limitations of his language and of all language to communicate his vision and his experience. Furthermore, in Christianity there is no methodology or practice that deals with this inner silence–that’s why Merton wanted to explore what Buddhism had to offer in this regard because, as he put it, they had gone further in this regard than we had. For most Christian contemplatives this silence is reached through various prayer forms, like in the midst of praying the psalms, or the mantra-like Jesus Prayer, or even lectio divina, the meditative reading of Scripture. I remember once writing in this blog how as a youngster I would observe my grandmother drift into a deep silence while praying the rosary. While at prayer, focusing their whole heart at it, a person could find themselves enveloped in a very deep stillness within. Some persons, however, do go directly into the quiet through silent meditation. Whatever be the case, then opens the gateway to an experiential knowledge of the Beyond; and as they say, you will never be the same again!

Recently I came upon this incredible quote by Abhishiktananda–it was in his diary: “The ashram they want me to set up would be an ashram based on Christian namarupas. I am no longer capable of that. No more could I establish an ashram using Hindu namarupas. I can only agree to have with me one who is ready to go beyond all namarupas.”

This entry in his diary is from 1972, toward the end of his life. The implications of this seemingly simple statement are truly revolutionary, and I am not sure that there are many who would follow him in this. Let us step back a bit and take a look at the meaning of such a statement.

Religion is composed of these different languages. Each of the great world religions is a language in itself with its own grammar, syntax, vocabulary, colloquialisms, and codes of interpretation. A whole semantic field of meaning and signifiers is established by each language. Now by “language” here we mean not only the words, concepts and teachings of each religion, but also the prayers and rituals, the art and symbolism, the authority structures, the spiritual methods, the special (“holy”) places, etc., etc. All of these render the various forms of each religion. These are the namarupa, in Abhishiktananda’s terms, of each religion. Now maybe you begin to sense the radical and revolutionary nature of that little statement of his. The namarupas are not merely the “externals” of a religion. They are its doctrines, its practices, its claims, its core rituals, its “face” in the public square.

Most of us live within one of these particular languages. There is the Christian language, the Buddhist language, the Islamic language, and the Hindu language(I am not leaving out the Sikhs or the Jews or Native American religions, etc., but I just want to consider the major religions and everything I say there would also be applicable to all the other smaller religions. ) Now there are real and serious differences among these languages–I mean, by analogy, think of the difference between Chinese and English. And whether one is born into a language or whether one comes in as a convert so to speak, there is a real effort and a learning process to undergo if one wants to become “fluent” in that language and able to appreciate its more subtle nuances. One can also say that within each religious language there are also different dialects so to speak. There are different versions of Christianity and different versions of all the other great religions.

Now let us return to the Abhishiktananda quote. You sense a certain frustration and exasperation in this statement–as was also evidenced often in the last years of his life. There are some very important reasons for this exasperation. First of all, from his viewpoint all the great religions, at their clearest and at their best, point to an Absolute Reality that is beyond all languages, all namarupas, to the Beyond beyond all the beyonds…the Further Shore…and each religion is merely a vehicle to get there in one way or another. In Christianity even the Church is such a vehicle from this viewpoint. Now it is not at all easy or clear to see this claim as being true in any of the great religions. Each religion, each language, has in its own way a tendency to ensconce the participant within the horizon of its own language. Each language has its own specific way it leads the person to cling to the namarupa of that language. The “Beyond” becomes only a faintly hinted at possibility in the writings of the mystics of that religion and certainly not something that your everyday religionist ponders. For Abhishiktananda, due to his own deep and mystical “experience” of the “Beyond,” this was a source of frustration because for him this was not meant as something only for some rare birds but the spiritual patrimony of all human beings.

Let us now consider the language which is called Christianity, which at times was the most acute source of exasperation for Abhishiktananda. Recall what he was like when he first came to India: he was eager to bring the Gospel to India and the Christian monastic life, but to inculturate both thoroughly in Indian culture(You know, dress like an Indian, eat like an Indian, live like an Indian, use Indian cultural forms in worship, etc.). In some ways Abhishiktananda was ahead of things; in other ways he was quite traditional. Basically he was going to translate the namarupa of Christianity into Indian culture; later, after a deepening of experience in Hinduism, especially the advaita of the Upanishads, he begins to move toward a position of trying to translate the namarupa of Chrisitianity not only into Indian cultural forms but into the very heart of Indian religiosity, or at least the Upanishadic variant of it. By the mid ‘60s he gave up on that project altogether as a result of an ongoing religious crisis due to his discovery and experience of the Upanishadic vision (and Ramana Maharshi) and how it stands on its own and in some ways superior to anything that the Christian language ostensibly presents; and all this can be summed up in one word: advaita, nonduality. In the last years of his life he practically turns the tables on the whole missionary thrust of Christianity: it is Christianity itself which needs this Upanishadic vision in order to open up its deepest meaning. At this point he is moving between these two languages in a way that transcends their namarupa, and he no longer has any patience with an exclusive commitment to any namarupa.

Needless to say the average Indian Christian did not follow him on that path, and that is so true even today–as converts, even if from generations ago, they have embraced the namarupa of Chrisitianity, perhaps at great cost to themselves, and they are not about to relativize what they see as an absolute reality.  And of course a lot of Christian/Catholic theologians would not want to go that far either, and certainly the institutional Church would only allow a certain “Indianization” of piety and religious culture. And of course the Church sees its fundamental namarupa, its doctrines, as definitive, non-negotiable, and privileged statements, even though they are put in Semitic-Hellenistic terms. Abhishiktananda wanted to translate this language into the Upanishadic/Sanskrit language of advaita. Not a promising prospect! As I pointed out in a posting long time ago, the Christian language is interpersonal and relational while the Upanishadic is of being and nondualism. The two seem to travel on parallel tracks.

Now there is another problem for Abhishiktananda–his “Beyond” might be a bit too beyond for the comfort of Church folk and theologians. In Christianity, yes, there is that sense of being called beyond but this “beyond” is still somehow, more or less, demarcated by the namarupa of Christianity. So Jesus takes us to the Father, etc., etc. With very few exceptions among Christian mystics like Pseudo-Dionysius and Eckhart, most of Catholic Chrisitianity (and the other Christian dialects) stay within their namarupa, their language, precisely because it is considered as privileged because “chosen” by God. So, the argument goes, if God wanted to reveal Himself in Indian/Sanskrit terms, he would have chosen India for the Incarnation, but there is a reason why this Semitic language was chosen and then the Greek. This is the kind of reasoning that drove Abhishiktananda up the wall. There is, then, this interesting example of Thomas Aquinas, a giant in Catholic theology and Western intellectual history. Recall how at the end of his life Thomas has this mystical experience of the Reality of God–right in the middle of celebrating the Eucharist, in the middle of Mass; and he is so shook up that he calls all his theological and spiritual writing “dung” (a euphemism as I once pointed out). Thomas has gone “beyond,” so beyond that he can’t even celebrate the Eucharist the last few months of his life. Church folk who believe that you can never take leave of the namarupa simply say that Thomas suffered from a mental breakdown. Of course.

At this point it is important to point out that neither Abhishiktananda nor anything said here is an invitation to play havoc with the namarupa of one’s religion or that one can abandon this or that namarupa willy-nilly. This is the kind of thing that liberal Christianity is prone to–just pick and choose among doctrines and beliefs, change rituals to suit personal whims, etc., etc. This is the old changing-the-furniture-on-the-Titanic picture–they miss the significance of the whole structure. Liberal Christianity does not refer to a Beyond but merely to a redo of the namarupa; and it does not ground itself in a Transcendent experience of Absolute Reality. In some ways it fixes one even more solidly within the language of one’s religion because it gives the feeling that it’s all so malleable. A more traditional approach says, ok, this is what it is but it calls me beyond everything. And what conservative Catholics call “cafeteria Catholicism”–picking and choosing the namarupa– is NOT what Abhishiktananda is about. Incidentally, this points to another large problem: the renewal and revitalization of a religion’s namarupa. When that originates without deep inner experience as the ground, then the changes tend to yield superficial results. Compare modern Catholic liturgy with the old Latin Mass (which Merton always preferred!); or Gregorian chant with the new stuff. Gregorian chant came from a very deep place, but unfortunately when it’s presented as a show piece these days, or as an ideological badge, well, it just shows the incredible shallowness of our ecclesial experience.

Now recall a couple of famous Zen sayings: before enlightenment mountains are only mountains, during enlightenment mountains are no longer only mountains, after enlightenment, mountains are once more only mountains. And: before enlightenment, chop wood and wash dishes; after enlightenment, chop wood and washes dishes. This is a very healthy insight from the Zen tradition. Whatever be the experience of “going Beyond,” one comes back and lives within the namarupa of one’s daily language. Truly you will be seeing it in a new and unspeakably deeper way, but the fact is that the deepest expression of any religious language will be concealed by its “ordinariness,” how it seems NOT different from the casual practitioner’s language. When you have real knowledge of the Absolute Reality, you will be at home within the namarupa of one’s religious language. For a few, however, there is a real vocation to “transgress” the bounds of their language.

Now it is worthwhile to remember three of Abhishiktananda’s predecessors who also had to wrestle with religious namarupa: Ricci in China, de Nobili in India, Desidiri in Tibet. These three great Jesuits, who lived in the 17^th and 18th centuries, were inflamed with this apostolic zeal to bring Christ to the enormous religious and cultural structures of Asia. When they got there they found themselves in an enterprise that was much more complex and more profound than any simple missionary effort to “bring good news” to a “lost people.” They were opening a door that Abhishiktananda walked through! In some ways they sound very conventional and traditional to our perspective; in many other ways they were and are way ahead of where the Church was and is. All three, each in his own way, discovered that they were encountering something that was solid, real, profound and not at all explainable in Semitic, Hellenistic, or modern Western terms. They were faced with the beginnings of a realization that they were not so much “bringing God” to these people but the first glimmers that they were finding God within these cultures. The institutional Church ultimately did not approve of their approach and their vision because it diverged from the theological party line. These men were giants of their time and someday I need to spend more time examining the work of each.

But here let’s just briefly consider this phenomenon when two very different languages “collide.” Take a poem in ancient Chinese, for example, and your language is English. Certainly you can take the words of the Chinese poem and translate them into English if you have developed enough fluency in Chinese to do so. You will have a certain verbal equivalence if you are any good, but will you have THE poem? Most would say, no. Translating the words is not enough; there is the subtle nuances of language, the shades of meaning that the equivalent words in the new language might not at all be capable of conveying. Think of just moving between two modern Western languages like English and German, like translating the poetry of Rilke into English. It has been done and rather well, but it’s not easy. Now with ancient Chinese it is a lot more difficult. It helps if the translator has something of the depth of experience that the poet had and the translator is able to connect to that experience.

So by analogy this applies also to the case of two languages of religion encountering each other. The namarupa of one language is not equivalent to the namarupa of another language, and to translate the namarupa of one language into terms of another language may very well be impossible. As long as we stay on the level of concepts, doctrines and ideas that each religious language carries, we will simply end up talking to each other about these things (and that’s certainly a good thing to do), and be nice to each other and share our religious paths, etc., but it won’t be until we look at both sets of namarupa from the profundity of deep experience that is way beyond any words or concepts–and here many scholars and theologians will disagree because words are their livelihood– that we will begin to sense what is and isn’t common in the Beyond that each is pointing to.

With all of the above in mind, I will conclude by offering you a Tibetan song, a Tibetan namarupa if you will, one I heard Tibetan nuns singing. It was composed by a great 19^th century lama who was an amazing patron and supporter of Tibetan nuns. I found this English translation of it very moving and illuminating. Translated by a modern Tibetan lama, I have hopes that it conveys the original as well as it can. See if it has any message for you. Does the namarupa of this song hint at a “Beyond” that resonates with you? (Ps. “Mara” is the “demonic” figure that tried to tempt Buddha the night of his enlightenment.)

A Vajra Song of Tsoknyi Rinpoche I

Don’t wander, don’t wander, place mindfulness on guard:

Along the road of distraction, Mara lies in ambush.

Mara is the mind, clinging to like and dislike;

So look into the essence of this magic,

Free from dualistic fixation.

Realize that your mind is unfabricated primordial purity.

There is no buddha elsewhere; look at your own face.

There is nothing else to search for; rest in your own place.

Non-meditation is spontaneous perfection, so capture

The royal seat.

Well I am off to visit Milarepa’s caves. Got my backpack and won’t be back until I am enlightened…..naw, not really….just dreaming…. I always thought it would be so cool to visit those caves that Milarepa stayed in high in the Himalayas. Let’s step back a bit. Milarepa is one of the most remarkable figures among all the world religions. I am not going to go over the details of his incredible life here–that’s readily available. I was looking at photos of the caves and the area in which Milarepa practiced his intensive meditation and solitude. What an amazing place! The thing is that he apparently spent time in a bunch of different caves, but as far as I know these two are the only ones publicized/known–but I bet the local people there know exactly where he spent time but it’s not meant for outsiders to know. Anyway, what I am wanting to get to is nothing of this spiritual tourism thing but the meaning of this “cave” thing. So let us ponder this a bit.

For Abhishiktananda the word “cave” also had a deep significance. The cave has such a profound archetypal resonance as it implies much more than just a physical surrounding. It points to a deep interiority and also at the same time a kind of circle of limitation around one that is in fact one’s life.   The physical symbolism of the “cave” points to this enclosure which is in fact the enclosure of all that limits you–your life circumstance: physical limitations, psychological limitations, all the facticity of one’s predicament as given. So this symbolism of the “cave” then presents this inner/outer “map,” if you will, of precisely the demarcation of where one is to do one’s spiritual work. This is THE “place” where your spiritual work will unfold–or it will not happen if you simply dream of escape in some fashion or another (You know, those self-indulgent daydreams like “if only such and such were not the case,” or “if only I weren’t here but rather there,” or “if only I had this resource rather than this lack of resources,” and so on, and so on.) Yes, there is that person for whom the physical cave is precisely where they are to be(like Milarepa); but there is also the “cave” in which most of us discover ourselves to be but perhaps resist all along–even for “religious” reasons. That “cave” is in fact the inner meaning of the circumstances of our actual life–or as some would put it, it is “the cards we have been dealt.”

Let us consider the Christian equivalent language for all this: the cell. In the early monastic literature of the Desert Fathers, this term was one of the absolute keys in understanding what they were all about. Merton wrote a truly beautiful essay about this entitled, “The Cell”; and we will be following the path he laid out. He begins by relating one of the great Desert Father stories–I will add just a small editorial touch to it:

“A brother asked one of the Elders saying: What shall I do, Father, for I work none of the works of a monk but here I am in torpor eating and drinking and sleeping and in bad thoughts and in plenty of trouble, going from one struggle to another and from thoughts to thoughts. Then the old man said: Just you stay in your cell and cope with all this as best you can without being disturbed by it. I would like to think that the little you are able to do is nevertheless not unlike the great things that Abba Anthony [Milarepa] did on the mountain, and I believe that if you sit in your cell for the Name of God and if you continue to seek the knowledge of Him, you too will find yourself in the place of Abba Anthony.” [Milarepa]

So first of all this story is about life as lived in actual physical solitude and meant for the kind of person who is drawn into that “cave.” It is not going to be a “joyride” to say the least, certainly not until a certain awakening takes place. But the solitary one is also only an iconic figure pointing a way that both a person living in community or with a spouse has to journey on also. The solitary one is an explorer of sorts who shows us what the “cave” is all about, how the very limits of our life is a kind of “cell” in which we dwell and in which we may at times feel a revolt of nausea and wanting to flee from. So the next thing we learn from this story is that the spiritual path, the “gate of heaven,” is right there in front of our nose as it were, right in the circumstances of our life.

Merton’s comment on this story–as it pertains to the actual monastic solitary life:

“To ‘sit in the cell’ and to ‘learn from the cell’ evidently means first of all learning that one is not a monk. That is why the elder in this story did not take the admissions of the disciple too seriously. They showed him, in fact, that the disciple was beginning to learn, and that he was actually opening up to the fruitful lessons of solitude. But in the disciple’s own mind, this experience was so defeating and confusing that he could only interpret it in one way: as a sign that he was not called to this kind of life. In fact, in ANY VOCATION [my emphasis] at all, we must distinguish the grace of the call itself and the preliminary image of ourselves which we spontaneously and almost unconsciously assume to represent the truth of our calling. Sooner or later this image must be destroyed and give place to the concrete reality of the vocation as lived in the actual mysterious plan of God, which necessarily contains many elements we could never have foreseen . Thus ‘sitting in the cell’ means learning the fatuity and hollowness of this illusory image, which was nevertheless necessary from a human point of view and played a certain part in getting us into the desert.”

Another story from the Desert Fathers: “A disciple complained to his Abba: ‘My thoughts torment me saying you cannot fast or work, at least go and visit the sick for this also is love.’ The Elder replied, ‘Go on, eat, drink, sleep, only do not leave your cell. For the patient bearing of the cell sets the monk in his right place in the order of things.”

A truly remarkable story as Merton points out: “Afflicted with boredom and hardly knowing what to do with himself, the disciple represents to himself a more fruitful and familiar way of life, in which he appears to himself to ‘be someone’ and to have a fully recognizable and acceptable identity, a ‘place in the Church,’ but the Elder tells him that his place in the Church will never be found by following these ideas and images of a plausible identity. Rather it is found by traveling a way that is new and disconcerting because it has never been imagined by us before, or at least we have never conceived it as useful or even credible for a true Christian–a way in which we seem to lose our identity and become nothing. Patiently putting up with the incomprehensible unfulfillment of the lonely, confined, silent, obscure life of the cell, we gradually find our place, the spot where we belong as monks: that is of course solitude, the cell itself. This implies a kind of mysterious awakening to the fact that where we actually are is where we belong, namely in solitude, in the cell. Suddenly we see, ‘this is it.’”

And so it is also for every person. The cell, the cave, is the interior dynamic of the spiritual journey and also at the same time the locus of the essential spiritual work which we try to escape with all kinds of strategems and mental gyrations. The work at hand is always right there no matter what the condition of our life; every place is as good a starting point for the spiritual journey as any other. Even if our whole life is nothing but dung, dung serves us by enabling the ground to yield beautiful flowers and healthy vegetables. Recall the thief nailed to the Cross next to Jesus–only then in a sense does his spiritual life begin. And of course the profound and paradoxical thing is that we are to journey into this deep “loss” of identity (or better, a kind of image we have of ourselves), into a kind of extraordinary nothingness which we fear above all else. For the solitary one this is very clear; but even for everyone else this holds even as they may still have a plethora of credentials and identities that are simply part of social existence. They walk through all this without holding on to any one of them, and therefore they walk in peace, serenely. The example of Milarepa and the great Desert Fathers is there to help us keep focused on the work at hand.

But there is one more great point about this cave/cell thing–at least from a Christian point of view. Recall from the first story that the Elder says the disciple should “sit in the cell for the Name of God.” But this is like no other name because the Absolute Reality cannot be localized or delimited or defined. Let us listen to Merton on this point:

“The Name of God is the presence of God. The Name of God in the cell is God Himself as present to the monk and understood by the monk and understood by the monk as the whole meaning and goal of his vocation…. The Name of God is present in the cell as in the burning bush, in which Yahweh reveals Himself as He who is. Hence the solitude of the hermit is engulfed, so to speak, in the awareness of Qui Est [He Who Is]. This in fact becomes the true reality of the cell and of solitude, so that the monk who begins by invoking the Name of God to induce Him as it were to ‘come down’ to the cell in answer to prayer, gradually comes to realize that the ‘Name ‘ of God is in fact the heart of the cell, the soul of the solitary life, and that one has been called into solitude not just in order that the name may be invoked in a certain place, but rather one has been called to meet the Name which is present and waiting in one’s own place. It is as though the Name were waiting in the desert for me, and had been preparing this meeting from eternity and in this particular place, this solitude chosen for me. I am called not just to meditate on the Name of God but to encounter Him in that Name. Thus the Name becomes, as it were, a cell within a cell, an inner spiritual cell. When I am in the cell…I should recognize that I am ‘where the Name of God dwells’ and that living in the presence of this great Name I gradually become the one He wills me to be. Thus the life of the cell makes me at once a cell of the Name (which takes deeper and deeper root in my heart) and a dweller in the Name, as if the Name of God –God Himself–were my cell.”

But God is infinite reality, no boundaries. So in fact, whatever your “cell” or “cave” be, you are “sitting” in infinity and there are no bounds or boundaries there. A lot of neurotic states of minds, a lot of anxiety and fear, stems from this feeling that there are these “walls” around you, that you are being limited in some profound way; and of course death is the “biggest” such threat! The Tibetans are real good at analyzing and deconstructing this epiphenomenal experience and leading one into a breakthrough into infinite space whatever be the physical conditions of one’s life. So even if a wheelchair is your cell/cave (or a jail cell), you can dwell there within the Name in Infinite Space and you are much closer to Milarepa’s cave than you realize!

It is the Christian season of Lent when Christians are supposed to renew their spiritual life, monks included. This is not the weird stuff that pop religiosity focuses on; rather it involves an intensification and refocusing of one’s spiritual path. I can think of many “helping hands” for this work, but this Lent my favorite is this Chinese Zen monk from many centuries ago who went by the name of Stonehouse.

So Stonehouse is the name of a Chinese poet and Zen monk who lived in 13^th Century China. Unlike my favorite Chinese Zen-poet monk, Han-shan, Stonehouse is very little known even among the Chinese. Over the centuries his poems appear in a few anthologies, and he is mentioned by more than one literary figure as “someone special.” But it is somewhat of a miracle that so many of his poems have come down to us considering so little is known about him. He was born in 1272 and received the traditional Confucian education; he was headed to be an official of state. But when he was 20 he quit his studies and became a novice Zen monk. After 3 years he was ordained a monk and sought further instruction. In 1312, at the age of 40, he left established monastic life and became a hermit living in a mountainous wilderness.

Interestingly enough, unlike other Buddhist monks and Indian sadhus, Chinese Zen monks refused to beg for food but worked for their upkeep. Life was hard in the mountains, but Stonehouse lived there almost 20 years as a hermit when his reputation caught up with him and he was talked into becoming an abbot of a monastery temple. He did that for 7 years and then returned to his wilderness abode and the hermit life. He died at the age of 81.

Red Pine, who had done such a splendid job of translating Han-shan (and others), is the one who makes Stonehouse somewhat accessible to us. Not easy to do, but many thanks to him! Stonehouse does not appear at first glance as vibrant, as acute in his observations, and as “poetic” as Han-shan (I don’t know if that would be true in the original Chinese.) In fact at times he seems almost dull. But when you give him time his poetry begins to reveal an especially acute spiritual sensibility and a depth of heart that is hidden in the “ordinariness” of life. Let us listen to him a bit. (All translations are by Red Pine.)

“Don’t think a mountain home means you’re free                                                                                      

a day doesn’t pass without its cares

old ladies steal my bamboo shoots

boys lead oxen into the wheat

grubs and beetles destroy my greens

boars and squirrels devour the rice

things don’t always go my way

what can I do but turn to myself”

Comment: Stonehouse is nothing but down to earth–again and again he is that in his poetry. He is also at the same time very subtle. His list of problems in living in the mountains is simply a metaphor for all the aches and pains of life. “Being spiritual” will not necessarily mean that things go well for you; quite the contrary. The Gospel puts the same view in its own Semitic language and imagery. But regardless of what happens the road inward is always open, and in certain circumstances it is the only road available!

Stonehouse again:

“My hut is at the top of Hsia Summit

few visitors brave the cliffs and ravines

lugging firewood to market I slip on the moss

hauling rice back up I drip with sweat

with no end to desire less is better

with limited time why be greedy

this old monk doesn’t mean to cause trouble

he just wants people to let go”

Comment: Here he sounds very much like that earlier remarkable hermit, Han-shan. Slight echoes of the Desert Fathers here also. There is a very nuanced dialectic of inner and outer here–solitude and company; slipping, struggle, endless desire and greed. The solution: simplify and see into your situation.

Stonehouse again:

“The streams are so clear and shallow I can see pebbles

my gableless hut is surrounded by vines

gibbons howl at night when the moon goes down

few visitors get past the moss by the cliffs

the bamboos in my yard bend with spring snow

the plum trees on the ridge are withered by frigid nights

the solitude of this path isn’t something new

but grinding a brick on a rock is a waste”

Comment: The last line of this remarkable piece refers to a famous story in Chinese Zen. A Zen master walking outside came upon a young monk meditating. The master asked him what he was doing; he said he was trying to become a Buddha. The master sat down and started grinding a brick on a rock. The young monk asked what he was doing. The master said that he was trying to make a mirror. The lesson hit home with the young monk. In this tradition meditation is not some external tool or technique to “get” something; neither is solitude another “means” to some spiritual end. Again, very much in keeping with the spirit of the Desert Fathers.

Stonehouse one more time:

“A white-haired Zen monk with a hut for my home

the wind has torn my robe into rags

down by the stream I rake leaves for my stove

after a frost I wrap a mat around my orange tree

ultimate reality isn’t created

ready-made koans aren’t worth a thought

all day I sit by my open window

looking at mountains without lowering the shade”

Comment: A lot here. But I just want to point out Stonehouse’s subtle critique of his contemporary monasticism. It is prevalent in a lot of his poems, and it shows his very sober assessment of the spiritual life. Being a monk at a comfy monastery/temple does not impress him; and most of all he is critical of formulaic spirituality. Rather deal with what life brings you–this is the real matter of the spiritual journey.

Stonehouse:

“My home in the cliffs is like a tomb

barren of even one worldly thought

although I eat food and wear clothes

it’s as if I were dead but not yet cremated.”

Comment: Again, echoes of the Desert Fathers.

Stonehouse:

“I saw through my worldly concerns of the past

I welcome old age and enjoy being free

rope shoes a bamboo staff the last month of spring

paper curtains plum blossoms and daybreak dreams

immortality and Buddhahood are merely fantasies

freedom from worry and care is my practice

last night what the pine wind roared

that was a language the deaf can’t hear.”

Comment: The “deaf” here are of course “worldly people”–which includes monks also. Thus, when he says that he “saw through my worldly concerns” that also includes his monastic life. And it is not only a decadent kind of monastic life that he is referring to, but also to what one Tibetan lama called “spiritual materialism”–this penchant for turning the spiritual journey and one’s spiritual identity into another kind of possession or a concept in the head. Again and again Stonehouse returns to what’s in front of his nose.

Stonehouse again:

“I was a Zen monk who didn’t know Zen

so I chose the woods for the years I had left

a robe made of patches over my body

a belt of bamboo around my waist

mountains and streams explain the Patriarch’s meaning

flower smiles and birdsongs reveal the hidden key

sometimes I sit on a flat-topped rock

late cloudless nights once a month”

Comment: Stonehouse tries to hide the depth of his realization–doesn’t do a good job of that! He drops hints and clues to those whose heart is ready.

Stonehouse again:

“There isn’t much time in this fleeting life

why spend it running in circles

when my kitchen is bare I go look for yams

when my robe needs a patch I consider lotus leaves

I’ve put down the elk tail and stopped giving sermons

my long-forgotten sutras are home to silverfish

I pity those who wear a monk’s robe

whose goals and attachments keep them busy”

Comment: So obvious. But just to point out: the elk tail and the sermons refer to his time as abbot.

Stonehouse one last time:

“From outside my round pointed-roof hut

who would guess at the space inside

all the worlds in the universe are there

with room to spare for a meditation cushion.”

Comment: Recall the Desert Fathers: “Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” Happy Lent!