Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT ENOUGH

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I talk a lot about becoming “nobody” – about giving up my ego –
The identity I’ve developed over years of trial and error
While projecting my “self” out into the world
To gain an acceptance of my self-created identity.

Eventually, however, I start feeling inauthentic
For relying upon this self-manufactured ego
Which, one day, I hope to replace with a new, improved identity –
A “better” ego –
Which, of course, will also invariably turn out to be a dead-end.

Giving up one’s ego – completely – as the final step on the way to enlightenment –
Is never enough however,
Because becoming a “nobody,” by itself, doesn’t accomplish a thing –
The point of relinquishing one’s ego is to replace it
With love of God –
Along with an ability to take concrete steps to bringing God into the world.

In sum, relinquishing one’s ego is only the first step –
But what follows needs to be a life dedicated to “understanding” God
And God’s true nature as much as humanly possible –

For example, who is God, what does God want, and are there any exemplars of God
Appearing in the world today
Who make one’s heart “sing with joy?”

Starting this process of “understanding” God
Is the same thing as “falling in love” with God –
Both, however, entail a commitment to a lifelong process.

Once you’ve actually fallen in love with God
Means you’ll want to act in ways that God desires –
Jesus was able to do this –
Faced with a painful, disgraceful death administered by Roman troops –
He acted solely for God
Which resulted in an historically impactful release of Holy Spirit out into the world
Occurring simultaneously with his physical death.

This spirit of Jesus was transformed into a human “sun” –
That perpetually is creating more spiritual life in our world –
Often in ways not manifested during his earlier physical life.
Take Saul/Paul, for example, who was able to transform himself,
At least partially, into a brilliant reflection of Jesus.

So, enlightenment is not enough by itself – instead, we need to “fall in love” with God
And then commit our lives to bringing God, by our actions, into the world.

We lose nothing by giving up our egos
Because, without God, we’re nothing anyway –
All our other efforts – no matter how materially meaningful –
Don’t matter at all –
The only thing that truly matters are actions on behalf of God –
Everything else is – dross.

Every single human being, whether righteous or unrighteous,
Has the potential – while still alive –
To make a choice about each single individual act –
Whether or not to contribute something towards making God’s world real.

God began existence with a simple gesture
Unfurling out into the cosmos –
From its initial cosmic explosion, followed by evolving life, and then radiant spirit
All – moving steadily towards God –
Where, by the end of time, all of us will end up participating with God

Who is “Love”
Who is “Truth”
Who is “Justice”
Who is “Beauty.”

If you can do this, you’ll gain everything – and lose nothing –
Even if, by then, you’ll no longer have any personal identity or name –
Which won’t matter because, in your actions, you’ll have become part of God –
And God will recognize you and know your name – even if no one else does.

Jesus deeply understood this, and you can trust him about it –
That is, we need to love God the same way he did.

So, a loss of ego leading to enlightenment may be an important first step,
But, by itself, amounts to almost nothing –
While acting in the world for God turns out to be the only thing
That’s actually truly meaningful!

THIS IS WHAT GOD IS REALLY LIKE

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Sunday morning church is like a plate of sugar cookies –
Everyone chooses, eats one,
And is satisfied,
Since the cookie is their ego “self”
And it is good.

Church – a conventional
Once a week kind of thing.

But the God we’re supposed to meet – is wild –
Loving perhaps –
But definitely,
Dangerous.

Actually, you’d have to be insanely sane
To love God as much as you really could.

God’s wonderful joy and peace
May only be found through complete spiritual freedom.

When we discover this truth:
Nothing will seem safe anymore –
Except the holy spirit – grounded, as it is, in love, truth, justice, and beauty.

Afterwards:

We won’t meet a single person
Or experience anything at all
Without total astonishment!

This is what God is really like.

WHAT ARE MEN SO AFRAID OF?

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“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” 12 Mathew 32

The religious traditions that exclude women from a central role vis-à-vis God flagrantly sin against the Holy Spirit. By imposing strictures against women’s relationship with God, especially in preaching and teaching, men, in direct opposition to Jesus’ admonition, are forcefully diminishing the Holy Spirit by restricting it to one half of the human race – since the Holy Spirit is, of course, freely available to all human beings, not just to a single sex, and, certainly – not just to males.

So, what is it that men have been so afraid of? Is it that women’s natural love of nature implies they might also have the potential to be more intimate with God as well? And is that why men, so very long ago, felt an urgent need to manufacture a male “exemplar” God to prima facie exclude all images of women from the godhead? Or might it have been an even deeper fear – that God might actually possess strong feminine aspects?

There’s also been a lack of “inwardness” in our postmodern lives. It’s far easier to project human intelligence “outward” into science and technology, finance and politics, than “inward” where thinking inevitably has to confront emotions and feelings. Ironically, the outward “male” path is easier to follow than the inward “female” one because it’s so difficult for one’s rational thinking to sort out one’s emotions and feelings – especially when we become so “attached” to the latter. However, that’s where most of the “juice” in human life resides – along with an ability to get “real things done.”

Here’s the problem: in men’s traditional approach to religion, “spirit” has not been taken very seriously, while materialism has been avidly worshipped. As a result, the spiritual visions of Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed have, over time, become transformed by the religious institutions established in their name into a kind of ersatz spirituality – shading into frequently violence-tinged “spiritual materialism.” This has created the kind of spiritual imbalance that, one day, might flip humanity into a final tragic cycle of self-destruction.

The “hard” male-dominant social structures that have created this spiritual imbalance – i.e., the world’s vast, almost child-like, yet extraordinarily expensive military organizations, the constantly morphing multinational corporations, and the West’s “sacred” capitalist economic structures – by common consensus have now gone too far and are currently threatening humanity’s very existence.

In light of all of this, isn’t it time – even past time – to think about spiritually starting all over again – and modestly and respectfully requesting women’s help?

DANCING WITH A WILD GOD

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God is so wild,
That the authorities decided to seal the Holy Spirit up
Inside stone buildings with long narrow aisles
And steeples like tall
Pointy fingers.

God is so wild,
That people aren’t permitted
To say anything that’s not already been said a million times before.

God is so wild,
That we wear business suits
To worship –
In order to demonstrate our good order.

When we pray in public, we do it all together –
But, generally, quietly –
Because we don’t want to risk sending God
Over the top.

God is so wild
That we lock our hearts up in tiny jeweled theological boxes
So we’ll never be tempted to reject our lifetime of clichés.

God is so beautiful
So true, so loving –
That without all these solid protections:

We might start dancing, wildly, along with God –
Out there –
In the violet twilight
Of our beautifully naked streets.

SOME KALEIDOSCOPIC IMAGES OF GOD

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A plump, kindly old man with a full white beard sitting humming merrily to himself.  He’s dressed in soft red flannel trimmed with white fur, topped off by an amazing red cap hung with silver bells.  You sit on his broad lap and ask for all your secret wishes to be granted.  Some time later, responses come shooting down your chimney in the middle of the night while you’re fast asleep and least expecting their arrival.  Let’s hope your wishes were pure.  Who knows what you’d find in the morning if they weren’t.

 

Think emptiness.  Like a gas tank out of gas or a well gone dry – but emptier.  Empty even of emptiness.  Turn inside out and look again.  There’s still nothing!  It seems circular but isn’t it a fact that, originally, everything came out of nothing?  Moreover, isn’t this similar to a God who abides nowhere, yet exists everywhere?   Maybe, this is too much!  Instead, why don’t you imagine God as a gigantic metaphysical merry-go-round, spinning around, with lively music, reflecting mirrors and flashing colored lights – children rushing to get on.

 

Many in the past – some even today – visualize God as a powerful Man living up in the sky who doesn’t mind taking the time required to oversee all our daily affairs.   This God has traditionally been imagined as a strong male figure – but gigantic in size.  Mountain chains could be crumbs stuck in his teeth.  This God makes things – like daisy-chain universes, Alice-in-Wonderland dimensions, and way, way too many ungrateful people.  This God can say a single word and whatever the word denotes immediately comes into being – whether stars, green glaciers, or fleas.  It’s a good trick!  Given such power and creativity, God has to be very careful with what He says.  Everything He makes always comes out perfect – with the sole unfortunate exception of freedom.  When God tossed that bit into the mix, it fouled up all the pre-existing perfection.  But this wasn’t God’s fault, was it?  A perfect God-built universe just gone all to hell!  So, now, there’s God, just standing around, patiently waiting for us to get His universe back together again.  He’s kinda tapping his foot – an omnipotent, omniscient type of guy.  We should be awed, but it’s difficult to concentrate, given His infinitude.  Maybe God should consider greater finitude if he really wants a better relationship with us.  But perhaps He already tried that once.

 

Some people believe God is everything – one colossal unit.  You, reading this, are part of God; me too, along with my cat, Maui – we’re all God – just not individually.  It takes all of us, collectively, to make up God: the dust collecting on the dining room table, the doorbell’s electric buzz and even passing-by sweet cat farts, all together.  If we leave out anything, God would be incomplete.  So, given that God is everything, and everything consequently is holy, shouldn’t we begin learning to relate better to one another?  On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it, just experience it; hold it like a sweet mint under the tongue.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be God knowing everything else is God too?  Now, if we could only just get rid of all those tiny irritations hovering just beyond the edge of our exquisite spiritual sensibilities.

 

We’ve been informed, officially, that God is a close relative of select groups of people – maybe even a few unique individuals.  By longstanding reputation, these people have an “in” with God.  They’re considered almost super-human, even angelic, in comparison with ordinary human beings.  We ask them for what we want and they, in turn, pass on our requests to God who almost always stamps them “Approved” since God owes these people a lot!  Not many have done as much for God as they have, so God isn’t willing to cross them up.  It’s best to develop a one-on-one relationship with such people – for example by attaching a plastic statuette onto the dashboard of your car or installing a larger concrete version out on your front lawn.  Some people believe it’s impossible to reach God without first establishing this type of special connection.  Listen, everybody knows God hasn’t made any actual appearances in the world for a very long while.  Maybe God has gone away on a long vacation where days are measured in generations.  Or perhaps God’s simply ashamed of us and has taken to avoiding our company.  Or, maybe even, the problem is that God, without any formal notice, has taken out a final divorce and gone to live in some alternate universe and is now taking care of more reliable and loving beings.  It’s been said, at times even fervently believed, that long ago and far away people were able to speak directly with God.  Fortunately for us, they wrote some of it down and posted it in the form of an extremely long letter.  Since this is all we now have left, we worship it.

 

The Evangelical version of God is a lamb holding a lightning bolt in its mouth.  Peace and judgment in one.  Love and consequences.  Maybe the Evangelical God wants to keep us on our toes, especially since there’s nothing we can ever do on our own to reach God.  All our best actions fall short – absolutely.  Well, that leaves the Evangelicals just one ticket to ride.  But it’s inexpensive!  You simply have to say the right things about Jesus and everything turns out copacetic.  At the end of the line, we’ll find our family and friends (provided of course they also qualify as “saints”) waiting for us in a cosmic community center called “Heaven” – a pretty joyful, boring, kind of place.  How so?  Because the Evangelical God has only a limited imagination, valuing faithfulness more than any other known human quality.

 

Perhaps God is not even Christian, much less Jewish or Muslim.  Buddhists, for example, say that God is Not.  Maybe God is Ganesh, the Holy Elephant, with all the other world religions acting out a dozen blind men feeling around the great mystical elephant.  And isn’t it obvious that even six billion of us, using all of our five or six senses, could never, individually or collectively, picture God as God truly is?  That’s why each religion has carefully stored up all its singular encounters with God, derivatively sharing these experiences with the faithful through their own distinctive writings and sacraments.  Unaware of its own blindness, each religion believes that all other religions are vastly blinder than they.  Each believes that God can be found only in their pocket, that their holy tokens are the sole authentic ones, and that the passing whiff they once experienced must certainly be how God truly smells.

 

So, let’s face it, God will never be fully known by humans.  God’s existence, by definition, ranges infinitely beyond the farthest-most reaches of human understanding and sense – as a kind of super-reality.  The only way we’ll ever be permitted to get near to God at all is in a relationship, and then only if we desire it, even if that sounds obvious.  How it works is that whenever we reach out to God, God immediately reaches back.  Given the right desire, we’ll always end up in a relationship.  And depending upon the strength of that desire, we’ll be permitted to know as much as we’re humanly capable of knowing.  God will open up to us, directly and proportionately (and certainly in greater proportion) that we are able to open up to God.  Obviously, this is not a relationship of equals, but it should be the most important love relationship in our lives.  So while it’s true that we’ll never fully “see” or “understand” God, each of us does have the capacity to love God and to feel God’s love in return.  Every person on earth experiences this at some point in their lives, and all of us, in our heart of hearts, know that it’s real.

 

In the East, they have historically taught that God is everything and consequently that we “are” God if we’re but willing to recognize it.  This is true in part.  In the West, they have historically asserted that everything is everything, while God is God, the two being separate.  This is also true in part.  But, really, it’s not either/or.  God has never been restricted to logic in human terms.  God is transcendent and immanent; impersonal and intensely personal.  God is wisdom disguised as a holy fool.  Yes, God is separate from us, but if we’re willing to carry out God’s will, we’ll find that we are expressing God in human terms – just like Jesus did.

 

So even though God is not the same as everything, it’s true that everything is touched by God.  We can discover traces of God anywhere and anytime if we begin looking through the eyes of God – which are right in our own heads.  God looks at the world through us and sees God.  The world is not God, but God does see God when looking at the world.  So can you.  Sometimes this experience, rightfully, has been referred to as the “Holy Spirit”!

 

(Published in Issue Five of Tiferet, A Journal of Spiritual Literature (2007) which is a wonderful journal that all “Nones” should seriously consider subscribing to.)