The Dawning Light

Over the past few posts I have been writing about what feels a lot like a transformative path. As a part of that process I have been becoming aware of my senses - especially my emotions - in a whole way. It's not that I didn't have emotions; I just did not experience them this way before. 

We all have emotions – they are part of our basic programming for survival. However as with all other things, the emerging ego seizes them for it’s own purpose. Thus the three survival instincts, survival/security, affection/esteem, and power/control, become self-referential in service to the ego. That is, instead of emotions that give us information about safety or security, they become emotions that protect the “well-being” of the ego and turn narcissistic. Emotions like love and affection, which are part of our DNA as relational beings, become schemes for the ego to gain praise and further aggrandizement. No wonder why we don't trust our emotions!

Psychologists tell us that by the age of five we have learned 90% of our total vocabulary. But while we were learning those concepts about the world, most of our world was bigger, faster, and smarter than we were as little children. Therefore, as the ego is forming, it begins working on how to protect itself and how to get what it wants for its self-perception, all of which are based on what Alfred Adler called our perception of “inferiority” as little ones. By the age of four or five, when the ego differentiation is completed, and most of our beliefs about the world (and our place in that world) have been formed, the ego has seized control of our emotional tools and turned them into self-referential and self-centered gimmicks. Innately, we know that this is wrong and for the bulk of us who have not done the inner work of clearing out that narcissistic tendency, we begin distrusting our full set of emotions. We have emotions but they are off-kilter. Oh, granted there are those among our species who don't suffer this malady, and they are truly blessed. But I have not been one of them; in fact, it took a long time to get here!

But here’s the clincher: when the ego is finally killed off – whether through the dark night of the soul or through some deep wound to its self-constructed idolatry – we break through that superficial level of emotional responses back into the real true level of emotion. In this deeper, pure level of emotionality, unencumbered by the need for praise, or coddling, or ego-stroking, emotions are true barometers of the world and directional indicators for effective living. What’s more, we no longer have to “obey” the emotional information (as the tyrannical ego demanded) but can take it in as part of what we need to be listening to as we make our way through the present moment.

That is the part I have been trying to find words for: that breakthrough to a deeper level. And as an added benefit, with the death of the ego, intellect is freed from it’s demand to show up as the smartest kid in the room and can be in service to others.  Freed from ego's tyranny, my emotions and my intellect can be used as they are meant to be. My inner witness just needs to keep ego out of the room and both intellect and emotion can inform my whole self in right action, right work, … It may be the beginning of what the Buddha called "the eightfold path."

The Error of Ego

There is a wisdom that only humility can teach. But it does not come in the form of some factual knowledge - some thing to be possessed or known - that the ego would love to grab hold of and claim as its own. Tis wisdom is merely an opening through which far more than the ego could imagine flows.

I cannot claim to know that wisdom, because my teacher has told me it is not mine to hold or mine to claim and name. It is something that only has existence in letting it go and in giving it away. This wisdom is quite simple in its message: that I am a human, like every other human on this planet. In learning this, through humility, one has to accept that what lives in the most wretched terrorist is also resident in me. It is easy to claim brotherhood with the mystics (and loads of fun for the ego to claim as his understanding!). But to know that I am no different - NO DIFFERENT - than the poorest of the nameless untouchables or than the foulest and most hate-filled zealot, is the humiliating (humbling) lesson.

But least I get ahead of myself, let me walk you through the steps of getting here. For whatever reason and by whatever means, I have been recently opened up to a new level of understanding and feeling emotions. And with that level of perception came the awareness of other people's emotions as well - not some people's emotions, not just my friend's emotions; all people's emotions. It is the one thing we all have in common, irrespective of circumstances, history, culture, gender or any other aspect of life. The bottom line of the human experience is that we are blessed or cursed with that region of our brain that produces emotions.

Now, truth be told, many are not aware of their emotions, or if aware of them, do not know how to access them, or may not know the full extent of what they are and how they work. But we all have them. That translates into something like seeing a picture of a Syrian father grieving the death of his child and knowing full well that you do not need to know his religion or speak his language to
understand his pain or well up with tears.

But if that is true - that we all are given the same capacity of emotion - it levels the playing field. It means that we are actually, on some level, all the same; created the same, evolved the same. We all bleed the same and die the same way. By placing myself apart from, or different from another human (which is what we do when we outcast them, vilify them and make them "them") I am living in the state of egoic superiority and denying my fundamental humanness. I guess I can no longer do that.

And now that I have painted myself into that corner, we are left with the question of what to do. I will try taking that on tomorrow.

Fragile Power

With apologies for continuing the metaphor...

As I emerge from this transformation, just as the butterfly begins to open its wings, there is an sense of unknowing that lives just above the level of abject terror that arises from within. There is nothing in my memory as a caterpillar that has anything to do with wings, let alone flying. This new body seems far less rugged, in fact it feels frail, thin and vulnerable. And I have lost that voracious appetite for any and all things.

Yes - it is kind of like that. Only I can't seem to connect with the DNA that would instruct my wings to work yet and I've yet to experience a gentle wind that would lift me off this branch I seem to be so desperately clinging to. Perhaps I am not suited for butterfly life. Worm life was simple: eat, shed, grow, repeat, eat, shed, grow. This life seems not only fragile but finite. Something in me knows that there is not a next step after this form. And most certainly there is no way back.

But there must be some power in these wings. If only I can figure out how to use them I might begin to see what this branch is attached to and where it is in the bigger picture. With the power of wings I can see well more than the ground or leaves I walked on. I think that might be a great new perspective. But this fragile new power is very much an oxymoron. I have no clue what Paul meant by, "When I am weak, I am strong." Though I think it is dawning on me that "I have died and something else is living in me."

How Wings Are Formed

At this point, I am pretty certain, though I have absolutely no hard evidence to support this certitude, that there is absolutely no intentionality on the part of the caterpillar when it comes to forming wings. Most certainly though it is in the DNA of the caterpillar-turned-chrysalis that when guts are cooked for enough time inside the protective layer of the cocoon. But that operative word there is cooked.

This business of being transformed is not easily done nor is it without any associated discomfort. In fact I feel like it is as violent a process as the actual formation of the chrysalis in the first place. I was meditating last Sunday when the image of the crucifixion came into my mind, and instead of letting the intruding thought image float away down stream as I normally do with other intruders, I looked at it, and took it in.

I had always seen this image as one of death and pain - an execution of an innocent man - as well I should because that is what was happening. But this time I saw it differently. It is a very powerful image indeed, but not as an image of the scapegoat upon whom we placed our collective transgressions so that we could be cleansed. Nor was it significant as an icon of the "savior" conquering death so that we mere mortals now could have a free ticket to some beautiful vacation land called heaven. Not in the least!

It was an image of a man with his arms wide open - the posture we take when we see a long-lost friend - ready to embrace the beloved - welcoming whatever stories and hurts they brought back with them. Only this man, this one on the cross had no alternative, as his arms were nailed wide open. It suddenly occurred as THE message of the crucifixion - the "follow me" message. What if my arms were nailed wide open; what if I had no other choice than to welcome and accept whatever life threw at me with open arms?

Rumi's poem "Desire" starts with the line, "A lover knows only humility, he has no choice." While it is often taken as a purely love poem, ecstatic Sufism speaks of the Divine One as the Beloved and brings it down to the visceral corporeal level. I might paraphrase Rumi to say, the crucified knows only humility, he has no choice. The chrysalis knows only humility, he has no choice. Wings are forming and I must receive whatever this life offers - in full humility - I have no choice.

Wings, What Wings

Though I have never asked a caterpillar or a chrysalis or a butterfly for that matter about the formation of their wings, I am quite certain that their development is a process that happens without the respective bug-phase's awareness - if said creatures can be said to have awareness at all.

What one may notice about the development of wings is probably akin to what one notices about the transformation through which they may be going. From the inside nothing seems to have changed - I am still the same man, still married to the same woman, and still struggling to lift my emotional body out of the swamp of sadness over my "losses" at it were. But what seems different is what others say to me. "You sound different."

"Really, in what way?"

"Oh I don't know - you seem different, more introspective, quieter." But I don't want to be quieter. I need to be my powerful self in order to deal with the clients I had - despite the fact that I am trying to bring out a different message. My new message is that coaching and leadership first must come from the heart, not the intention of a zealous ego. But more importantly, I have to walk the talk. I understand now what my teacher Richard Rohr means when he says "unless you allow yourself to be humiliated by life's trials, you can't understand the bigger life."

Ending the Madness

"No one's religious anymore. Not anyone with any sense. Religion incites hatred, starts wars, and vilifies anyone who challenges its narrow-minded views." So starts an article in the Huffington Post UK version (by Felicity Morse). But where Ms Morse ended up with her article is not where I would go. So with thanks to her lead, let me turn a different way.

You're right, Felicity, and I hate it! I am sick of the divisiveness created by religions and religious sects. I am embarrassed when someone calls me a Christian and they mean that type of a person who thinks others are soiled, unclean or despicable because they don't say the right words.  Or when the mean some sort of narrow-minded bible-thumping "religious" fanatic that uses verses to their own defense and to the exclusion of others.

I can no longer find a religion that I can claim and yet I love God, and I do my best to follow the teachings of Jesus.  It's just that I do my best to also follow the teachings of the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zoroaster, and just about every other wise sage that ever graced this planet. And I do not believe that I am special if I believe in the resurrection of Jeshua, the Nazarene, or that I am damned to eternity in hell if I don't.

That type of dualistic thinking is the root of the disease that we now call religions. But that was never the message - not the message of the Nazarene, not the message of the Buddha, not the message of Hillel, not the message anyone who has ever listened for God has ever heard. In fact the message of all sacred texts is one of acceptance and inclusion - not hatred and out-grouping; one of forgiveness and compassion - not revenge and hatred; one of care-taking and respect - not one of dominion and dominance. Where we went wrong and got off that path, I don't know. But I do know that our very survival depends on getting back to it.

It is time for ministers and preachers and spiritual people everywhere to speak out that we are one.  It is time that we link arms and stand squarely in the path of those who would divide and vilify others. It is time we all band together and shout "Enough! No more! No mas muerta!" It is time to work for healing and bridge-building and forgiving. My heart is breaking - we cannot continue the way we are going.

Please - if you read this, pass it on! That's how we can turn this around. It's like Marge Piercy wrote in her wonderful poem, The Low Road:

It goes on one at a time,

it starts when you care

to act, it starts when you do

it again and they said no,

it starts when you say We

and know you who you mean, and each

day you mean one more.

Another One Bites the Dust

For years I have been trying to get it right (whatever "it" is). It was a journey to perfection that I thought would refine my being. If I could only get this right or that perfect, then... Then what? I would be perfect, or right, or whole? I don't think I really thought much about the "then what" part.
But lately I have begun seeing that perfection is a false idol. It is idolatrous to pursue getting it "right" in the first place. God never tells us we have to get it right or perfect - not ever. Oh from time to time in the Bible there are human references to living the pure and chaste life. But those are man-made rules, not god-rules. God's rules are simple: "If and when you screw up, you get another chance - I am the reset button, just come to me and I will reset you."
What the quest for perfection creates, in reality, is separation. It creates a state of better than and worse than - a caste system of being and doing, if you will. Seeking perfection is seeking to rise above the masses, to get better and better and to reach a level of god-like-ness. It is trying to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Perfection.
But there is an alternative path that has been coming into view. When I let go of the drive for perfection,I begin to seek union, oneness and joining of the shredded and torn-apart life we live. Unity is embracing the "bad" with the good. It is the making whole from all of those parts I want to divorce from myself and pretend don't belong to me. Unity is god's commandment - but not just out there, in here as well. Unity demands that I embrace all of me, and do away with the distinctions of good and bad altogether.
And overarching all of this, the search for perfection is a search for certainty - the quest to know completely that this is it, the best, the fullest! In such a place there can be no doubt, and without doubt, there is no need for faith. And then where would I be. When I arrived at that thought - the thought that I would have no faith if I continued my quest for perfection, the wall came crashing down. And then the wall of divisiveness, came down, and then the insistence on good and bad, and me and other, each in turn fell. And one after another, as Freddie said, "Another one bites the dust, and another one gone, and another one down - another one bites the dust." Oh happy holy day!

Non-Dual Living

Father Richard Rohr drives a great (albeit a phenomenally universal) concept of non-dual living. The basis of non-duality (oneness, in Eastern thought) is that there is no this-and-that, no right-and-wrong, no good-and-bad. We are called to live in completeness of embracing our whole selves and our whole being. It is the step after the AA Seventh Step Prayer where one says "I am now prepared to give you all of me - good and bad." It is that "all of me" thing that throws us humans.
We think that goodness is somehow apart from badness and that we can strive for being just all good.
But that is not the message of the masters. Yin and yang are inextricable from each other. Good and bad are part of the same beingness. What that means is that in striving to walk the straight and narrow, in striving to do the bidding of god, I need to recognize my dark side. Any less, and I am deceiving myself (because certainly I am not deceiving the all-knowing eye!). Then that being the case, the question becomes how do I actually embrace my less-than-sacred self, my profane self?
And that is where we actually discover compassion. Not in the feeling sorry for the less fortunates of the world. No. Compassion is what is found when we actually look inwardly at our own wanting, and lust, and selfishness, and willfulness and, seeing them all for the beautifully human characteristics that they are, we gently reach out and embrace them - and hold them, and comfort them and tell them that they are okay and forgiven.
In truth, we cannot know compassion without knowing our own fallibility. Compassion levels the playing field. In non-dual living, we come at last to full acceptance - of others and, finally, of ourselves!

Undoing the Self (part II)

In recognizing that the self, which we have so long identified as who we are, is not the authentic self; and in stripping away layer after layer of evidence to that effect, we are left standing naked before god and the universe. The question we face in our nakedness is, "If I am not that, then who am I?" Our introspection leads us to what might be called our potentialities. But even these have taken on a different quality. No longer do we see our potentialities as what we can or might do or accomplish. Our true potential is to be used in whatever service each situation might require of us - to be an instrument of god's workings.

When I stop to think of that, I am forced to realize that I am not all powerful, I cannot "do" everything and this aging body certainly is not capable of what it once could do. That notwithstanding, the requirements of being an instrument of god's workings in the world seem far larger than any of that which my ego-driven self has been or ever will be able to perform. But that isn't the issue. It is god working through us, not our (willful) working of what we think god wants of us. There is a difference. I think that the 12-steppers slogan of "let go and let god" means that (though their arrival at that slogan and interpretation of its meaning may vary greatly).

This is no blind faith, It is a step out over the void like the Indiana Jones scene before he throws dirt on the invisible path. It is Moses in the desert saying "Okay, but I don't know why you would pick me!" It is the blind Saul going to the home of his enemy, Francis stripping off his clothes and stepping into the arms of his bishop. No slogans here! Just fear and trembling... and stepping forward, saying "Here I am, take me."

Why Do You Call Me Good?

Can you say humility, Neighbor? I knew you could! (I miss Mr Rogers) Today's scripture lesson in church was the story of the rich man who asked "Good Teacher, what do I have to do (yada yada yada)?" and is often the springboard to a homily about not being attached to worldly possessions, and so on. But did you ever notice Jesus's response starts with a simple and confusing question: "Why do you call me good?"

'Scuse me? The speaker of that phrase is either the Messiah (if you believe in him) or at the very least one of the most value-driven, ethically pure and selfless men to walk the planet. What is wrong with this picture? Why would he say that? He is the good one and I am allegedly the bad one. So it is I who should say, "aw shucks, don't call me good. I'm just a worm." But that is the problem. You see, I don't say that. In fact I do wish people would recognize the good things that I do. I try to do good in the world, hopefully to offset the not-so-good I also do. But deep inside I hope and pray that the good outweighs the bad enough so that at least someone will notice and call me good.

And then I read this, and there is a hollow in the pit of my stomach. Who am I to be called good, to wish to be called good when he won't even allow that adjective for himself. Oh don't hear that as some in-bred Lutheran or Calvinist guilt. It just hits me like this huge lesson in what humility is really supposed to be like. It is doing all those same things without ever thinking of or wishing for praise. I can and often do all the right things for the wrong reasons. What I have to get to is that station where I just do them because they are what I do. Oh my, I do have such a long way to go on this road!