 Fr. Bede Griffiths
"The ultimate goal of humanity is a communion of persons in love." Fear is indeed the mind killer (see Dune by Frank Herbert): but, fear does not simply kill the mind, for first, fear must annihilate grace in the heart... Death by fear working in the heart is most often a living death: a slow motion dying... but grace resists fear, and grace would replace fear with the icon of a smile... It is simply not true that we are powerless: it is true, though, that death would have us shrivel up and die -- before our death! So what do we do? How do we cultivate grace? And why should we dare the dream of the saints and open our heart to loving without limits? As Fr. Bede taught, there is a space within us: a space located in our heart, in which the entire Universe dwells (yes, you read that correctly!). It is mystically possible to slide outside of time and space, into that still-point, into that pause between breaths, and to entertain Reality... Reality is really the cohesion of cosmic inter-being... wherein Consciousness mingles with the breath... The beauty we see in clouds, mountains, rivers, trees, birds... in the curve of breast... in the swell of muscles... in every part and particle of creation: but especially in the evidence of intelligence and the gathering of life-wisdom... This beauty is the revelation that we seek: the divine food for our very hungry heart... The Sufis teach that the core of that which is really Real is hunger: more specifically, it is the hunger, the yearning, implanted in every heart (indeed, in every part and particle of possibility) for the union of lovers: human being with Divine Consciousness: Divine Consciousness with every human being: and both embracing all sentient being and all matter into Oneness... All separation is transcended into a breathing Sacred Unity... Fear is the mind killer precisely because it seduces us into "thinking" that separation is Reality: to "think" there is even the possibility that there can be an "other"... Whenever one sees through the veil of fear, all that remains is radiance, is ecstacy... This Kiss is the Face of God... Don't think that I don't know what I am writing about! Sometimes daily, occasionally weekly, and if grace was wild with blessing, it might have been a month between moments of knowing full-well that this moment, this breath could very well be my last... At first, with the first sixty-five sandwiches that Byron, Jane, and I took out the broken-glass strewn lot in skid-row Salinas, I was a do-good'er: high ideals completely untested (and un-taught) by life experience... and so it went, until... The day I had a migraine: a holy-hell of a migraine... and yet, I had soup and bread to serve... There was a long line of men, mostly men, with a few homeless women and kids in the mix waiting: I had the pot of soup on the serving table along with a bucket of sliced french bread... my head was reeling with agony... someone, as I dipped the ladle into the soup-pot, walked from the back of the line up to the front, demanding that he be served first... I simply muttered through my fogged-mind that he had to stand in line like everyone else: and to top it off, I added, "I'm not serving anyone until you go to the back of the line." At that point, he puts his nose right next to mine and says, "I've killed before and I could kill you right now. Serve me first." All of the folks within earshot were backing up saying they didn't care and for me to go ahead and serve him first... I said "No." Grace obviously intervened: he walked out... Young and foolish, with migraine blazing, I kept hoping he'd come back to continue our confrontation... He didn't. So, after ladling about a hundred bowls of soup, I went outside to look for him: there he was! He was sitting on the sidewalk, with his back up against the faded yellow of the old building. I walked up to him. He spoke first (now here's your chance to acknowledge that there just might be a "God", a Divine Consciousness): he said, "I've been sitting here praying for our reconciliation." Well, if you've read this far, you can imagine the rest of the story... Pick your fear, pick your enemy: is it a Muslim, a black, a Mexican, a lesbian, a Christian, a Jew, a Democrat / a Republican, whatever / whomever... How are we supposed to treat others? There are no others... The heart's religion is the communion of love: it is for this that we have each and all come into being: nothing else! We increase our capacity for loving by loving! By serving and building justice, peace, equality, nonviolence and compassion into our lives, and into all of our social institutions, we are making ready the "way of the Lord"... The Lord is not coming with a raised sword in the clouds: rather, as a thirteen year old boy getting shot... as a man with an officer's knee crushing his neck... as an immigrant fleeing fear... as a trans girl despairing of acceptance... You see, the Lord is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end: as the beginning, so too, the end: it is always all about loving: becoming agents of our own transfiguration by practicing the Lord's Way: whatsoever you do to the least among you, you do the exact same to me... I was hungry and you fed me... Blessed are the poor... Blessed are the peacemakers... Go, and do likewise...
0 Comments
 (Not a Photo of Paramahansa Yoganada)
I was in High School, in my old hometown of Salinas, when in my psychology class a "hippy" handed me his copy of Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha. Pat Mata was soon to become my best friend... I devoured that book like a hungry man would devour the finest meal: and everything suddenly and radically changed... With a new clarity, the world about me took on a radiance I had not considered possible. Yes, the country was neck-deep in an immoral war in Southeast Asia: students were being beaten and killed: blacks, browns, and Native Americans were protesting and creating revolutionary paradigms: and gurus from India were inspiring a spiritual insurrection... Ram Dass published his immortal book Be Here Now... Neem Karoli Baba's face imprinted in countless hearts... Swami Satchidananda, the guru of Woodstock fame, had us standing on our heads and meditating at UC Santa Cruz... My Mom was hoping that I would join the Army, but instead I was studying Mahatma Gandhi -- I filed as a Conscientious Objector, and pondered Canada or prison... My hair grew down to the middle of my back and I walked everywhere barefoot... Krishna Consciousness chanting and recipes and George Harrison's My Sweet Lord was sort of the hippy summit... and I was climbing... I don't remember if I skipped school or just happened to go to the Library (source for unending miracles)... Loving to read biographies, I slow-scanned the shelves... picking up a book here and there and putting them back with no idea as to the goal of my search... Nearing the end of the last shelf, I was in the "Y" section... leaning down, a book caught my eye: Autobiography of a Yogi... pulling it out of the tightly packed books, for the very first time I gazed at the face of my guru... I more than devoured this book! It's so hard to believe, but for fifty years now that book (in numerous editions) has been in my hands, in my day-pack, or first on my book shelf... And so it still is... It was with sacred intention that I continued and lived my yoga: oneness with the Divine is the immanent / transcendental goal and fundamental reality (the only real Reality)... I could become a Franciscan and Catholic Worker because God is Loving... I could quit my job and cook soup in my home for folks on the street... I could start a CW House and California Non-profit... I could organize several versions of a Soup Kitchen: open shelters, start summer camps for farm worker kids, get volunteer doctors and nurses to staff a free health care clinic, work with California State University, Monterey Bay to organize a community garden employing homeless folks, invite college students from across the country to come to Salinas and volunteer in an Immersion Program because God is Loving... While I do offer you my profound encouragement to get a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi for the delight of your heart and soul: I have learned that techniques of meditation, while useful, are only and at best, a reflection of what is already yours: perfect beauty and perfect love-possibilities... it is all about unfolding the real Reality in your life: by the Works of Mercy, Peace, and Justice (best summarized by the word compassion)... it is all about understanding that this unfolding is the most ordinary thing in the world -- it is exactly in the ordinary moments of the ordinary day that the revolution and evolution of consciousness occurs... You gotta want it, you gotta serve it, and you gotta set it free! It is now about ten years since I left my heart in Salinas... only to be resurrected in River Falls, Wisconsin... and Paramahansa Yogananda is here as well... what I most miss about my vocation days is the great gift of having lived in intentional community: I loved having a "clutter" of folks hanging around, eating together, working together, reading together, praying together and loving and, of course, hurting one another... but always beginning again... and living the dream of Dorothy Day's eternal wisdom-laugh: Beginnings are always exciting... I'll conclude with some words of Yogananda... but first, I know that a lot of folks live day-to-day with doubt or with troubling realizations of the many idiocies of religions: nevertheless, if it matters to you at all what I write, I affirm that we are all completely enveloped by the love-without-limits that is best described as Divine Mother... Now here are the words of my guru: Saints of all religions have attained God-realization through the simple concept of the Cosmic Beloved. Because the Absolute is "without qualities" and "inconceivable," human thought and yearning have ever personalized It as the Universal Mother... "taking refuge" in God, and "flinging oneself on the Divine Compassion" are really paths of the highest knowledge... (Autobiography of a Yogi) And finally, as to the above photo, meditation (loving attention placed in one's heart) is the core teaching and practice of yoga and really, of all mystic paths: it is all about tuning one's entire being to the wave energy of the Universe... it is all about what Ram Dass wrote: Be Love Now... She is becoming love, I want that as well, maybe you, too?  I woke up this morning, and per my usual, just wanted to linger in holding Michelle... However, the clock inevitably continued its march into the day, and as I have learned, every minute past 5:15 am, puts a strain on my morning chores... Something similar could very well be your morning experience, am I right? I'm unsure as to where I came across the above comic, although it looks like something from the New Yorker... in any case it always makes me chuckle... but, I jumped from that chuckle into a distubing thought: time is the rapist of our life... I knew many women (and also some men) who had been raped: quite a few as kids, and many more as young adults, and even some among the elderly... One can never make light of this horrible invasion of personhood... As I age, there is the inevitable slide into feeling one's age and with it the cultural temptation to accost time with the accusation of having stolen from me, my life... And yet, my heart is telling me a very different story: nothing has been stolen from me: I am not a victim of life... rather, I am knocking on the door of sacred timelessness... And no, I'm not going to play some sort of spiritual game like "just believe in Jesus and when you die you'll wake up in heaven!" Theologies that justify all the deep and flying shit of life as the required pass or fail course we all have to take in order to qualify for an eternal life of endless adoration are selling a salvation distortion... That they are deadly serious, puts me so far out of their salvation circle that I can only grab my hat and walk away as an always outsider... Never mind that Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you... and, of course, there are the parables like the one in Matthew 25 that comes with an entry fee for the kingdom, which turns out to have little to do with salvation theology and instead everything to do with revolutionary action: whatsoever you do to the least person among you, you do the very same to me... I other words, there will be a lot less deep and flying shit if we really just love one another and practice justice... Look around you! the kingdom of God is right here, right now! so one could easily imagine the Master proclaiming as he walked around, as he took on odd jobs to pay his rent, and as he shared food, stories, poems, and songs with his friends... Jesus was an outsider. Buddha was an outsider. The Song of Songs is all about mutual adoration and great sex in the woods. Mohammed was an outsider. Krishna herded cows and goats, outside of course. Lalla the Ecstatic Poet danced naked outside. St. Francis stripped in town and walked outside the city walls naked. Rumi spun and spun until he was drunk on ecstasy and poetry flowed from his mouth like wine from the lips of the Beloved. Peter Maurin slipped across the Canadian border to enter the United States: and Dorothy Day and Peter began the Catholic Worker, cooked soup, agitated for peace and social justice, and lived for years in tenement buildings as outsiders... More than a thousand years ago a Chinese Zen master wrote a poem: Magical power, marvelous action! Chopping wood, carrying water... (from Zen Forest, translated by Soiku Sigematsu). This very little poem takes us into the very heart of the matter! As an outsider, nature becomes the first Holy Book that we must read: we study the wind, the clouds, and the trees. We listen to the river speak. We value the birds and animals as spirit beings. Indeed, when we turn around and look again, everything that we had at first thought of as inanimate, they are each and all alive as repositories of great spiritual energy: do you doubt that crystals can sing? Instructed by nature, intuition and imagination ignite the stirring flame of reverence for beauty, for the benevolence of the Universe, and for the holiness of life: right here and right now... Leonard Cohen wrote some great poetry and songs: a wonderful line of his is this one: God is Alive, Magic is Afoot... Magic is Alive, God is Afoot... Outsiders know this experientially. Outsiders begin to awaken into the mystery of flow, of energy systems, and of the sacred soul that dwells within everyone and is, at the same time, united with the Oversoul (as Emerson put it) that is the pansacramental reality of everyone, everything, all of space, matter, and yes, even of time! Sacred timelessness is the now of Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth. Sacred timelessness is the experience of the sacred in the very midst of -- not separate from -- our every day lives... This dwelling place is the fountain of youth -- not agelessness or slick marketing -- but the absolute certainty of existence, bliss, and consciousness: unlimited and without prescribed definitions... sort of the child-life of always born... chopping wood, carrying water... magical! marvelous! |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
|
RSS Feed