This group of sayings starts off with the exhortation to find the interpretation – or as it says in the translation I am reading: live the interpretation. In the commentary on this verse, Leloup suggests that to live the interpretation is to, “…become One – if only for a moment – with that Meaning. This moment of unity awakens in us the Presence of the Uncreated and the taste of something … beyond death”. I was delighted to read these thoughts, because they express that joyful recognition we are surprised with on those (sometimes rare) occasions when a sacred text burns into the soul and unveils eternity nestled within our hearts.
The next saying (11) reassures me that I come from Unity. It seems to speak of the process of integration: recognizing the duality within ourselves and traveling along the road toward a rediscovery of who we truly are in relationship with ‘otherness’ and ‘the One’.
The final saying in this group seems to wrap it up in a shout of exaltation reminding me of the end verses of Romans 8. (Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And the poetic rise to climax in those last glorious verses) He who lives in the Living One will know neither fear nor death…and why? Christ answers: Whoever has self-knowledge, the world cannot contain them. This process of self-knowledge – the dropping away of veil after veil, the being changed from glory to glory as we look into the face of God – reveals to us not only who we are as the ‘eternal-created’ woven inexplicably into the ‘Eternal-Uncreated’, but also gives us a tantalizing taste of who we shall be when these few moments of unveiled wonderment multiply into the fullness of a life lived perpetually in God’s Presence.
I like how Leloup describes it, “We see things no longer as we think and imagine them to be, but as they are. Our little world that we have created begins to crumble and we enter into the real one. A proverb says, ‘Those who are asleep live separately in their own worlds. Those who are awake live together in the same world’”. Perhaps that is why in describing their vision of Reality, the holy mystics of diverse spiritual traditions seem to see with the same eyes.
(I am leaving Monday on a solitary three week road trip covering 2,500 miles and offering little or no contact with the Web. I’m having withdrawal pains already! See you again the first part of November. Peace to you, friends.)
5 comments:
Enjoy your road trip. We'll be waiting for you when you get back.
If Leloup and you are right our eternal destiny hinges on the glimpses in this life -- mystical experiences. Such things -- for me -- are too few and far between for me to stictch a life together on. So I'm rather hoping you're wrong.
I don't mean to say our eternal destiny hinges on our experience of God in this life. But I do think that our glimpses behind the veil are a tiny foretaste of what it will be like to be with God in eternity. Sorry, I must not have expressed myself very well.
All langauge is an approximation, Twyla. By all means take responsibility for what you say. But don't feel obligated to take responsibility for my reading of you. Checking in with each other about what we mean is a good practice.
Ohhh Twyla, I'm going to miss you. Fare well, Friend.
What a lovely post you have written here. LeLoup sounds like a good read.
I think her suggestion to live the interpretation is wonderful. It is like Rilke suggesting that we "live the questions." We really must jump into this, to really let go of all that we have known and thought to be true, and listen for that deeper, much more provacative voice that is beckoning us into shared presence. This is a process of true integration, reconciling the duality of our experience in our relationship with otherness. This wisdom of non discrimination is self knowledge. We drop those veils that keep us thinking we are separate, and in so doing we see that we are the other, that we embody divinity. At this juncture, we look directly into the face of God, and see our own face reflected there. This is to be very awake. Who is to say that this reality cannot be lived right here, right now, day in and out?
really let go of all that we have known and thought to be true
I'm really not convinced this is possible -- for me at least. I'm aware that thinking I know can become a barrier to further learning but at the same time I also see that new learning -- under most circumstances at least -- is built upon the old. And when it doesn't -- when it calls for tearing down the old ways of thinking -- the old ways of thinking were essential to carry me to that point.
So instead I try -- often unsucccessfully I'm sure -- to hold onto what I know or think I know -- as lightly as possible -- treat my knowledge as provisional and tentative.
Mostly it works. Though perhaps in the spiritual life -- this is not always good enough.
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