AWorldwide Emerging Christian Network E-pistle
Offering to spiritual seekers the private and deeper teachings of Jesus,
and
understanding them in the context of humanity's Great Nondual Wisdom Tradition.
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In This Issue ...
Secular Vs Religious Spirituality ~ Tolle
Breaking Free of Belief ~ Jessica M.
The Serenity Prayer ~ Video
Death and Resurrection: A Gnostic Perspective ~ Hager
That Which Sees ~ Wilber
Heartfelt Words ~ Humor
Total E-pistle Read Time: 19 minutes
Secular Vs Religious Spirituality
Q: I heard the Dalai Lama say that secular spirituality is more important than religious spirituality. Do you think your teaching belongs to this category?
A: It’s a good distinction. Religious spirituality is usually associated with a long tradition and certain stories. Secular spirituality is basically this: It doesn't deny God or the transcendent, but it doesn’t mix God or the transcendent with
stories that one needs to believe.
Of course, you can have spirituality within a religion. You can have religion with spirituality, and you can have religion without spirituality -- which also happens quite often. Religion without spirituality is just ideology, such as certain belief structures in the
collective mind that one identifies with, and that’s not helpful.
And then at other times, religion may still have its stories and rituals, and even beliefs, but they are no longer so dense that the light of consciousness cannot shine through. Religion can be an open door into the realm of the transcendent, or religion can be
a closed door, depending on how it’s used. Then comes something relatively new, which I suppose is secular spirituality. We can call it that.
Although he represents ancient religious traditions, the Dalai Lama seems to be moving in that direction. He once said: "I believe deeply that we must find, all of us together, a new spirituality. This new concept ought to be elaborated alongside the religions
in such a way that all people of good will could adhere to it."
There’s no need to give up your religion as a result of this teaching, but you can deepen it. As the Quaker writer, Ralph Heatherington, once put it ...
"Spirituality seems to refer to something inherent in the individual rather than in the institution, developing from first-hand experience rather from a culturally loaded system of beliefs acquired from social training. It speaks of awareness, sensitivity,
openness, and compassion. It's a marker of personality development towards wholeness and realisation of our Potential. The term religious experience would, in this sense, mean spiritual experience in a religious context."
Also, the wise words of Indian philosopher and statesman, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan seem relevant in closing ...
"Religion" he wrote, "begins for us with an awareness that our life is not of ourselves alone. There is another, greater life, enfolding and sustaining us. Religion, as man's search for this greater self ... will not accept any creeds as final or any laws as
perfect. It will be evolutionary, moving ever onward.
"The witness to this spiritual view is borne, not only by the great religious teachers and leaders of mankind, but by the ordinary man in the street, in whose inmost being the well of the spirit is set deep. In our normal experience events happen which imply
the existence of a spiritual world.
"The fact of prayer or meditation, the impulse to seek and appeal to a power beyond our normal self, the moving sense of a revelation which the sudden impact of beauty brings, the way in which decisive contacts with certain individuals bring meaning and
coherence into our scattered lives, suggest that we are essentially spiritual.
"To know oneself is to know all we can know and all we need to know. A spiritual as distinct from a dogmatic view of life remains unaffected by the advance of science and criticism of history. Religion generally refers to something maternal, a system of
sanctions and consolations, while spirituality points to the need for knowing and living in the highest self and raising life in all its parts. Spirituality is the core of religion and its inward essence, and mysticism emphasises this side of religion."
~ Eckhart Tolle
Breaking Free of Belief
For awhile I lived a very comfortable religious life. I believed I had some sense of experiencing God. Experiencing God was that warm fuzzy feeling one felt during worship, or maybe praying with others or during a good sermon. That was the extent of what
I felt experiencing God amounted to. I was perfectly comfortable living out taught beliefs.
There came a time after I had incorporated meditation into my spiritual disciplines and began to really encounter the presence of God within that I no longer found these taught beliefs and doctrines fitting in with my sense of what I was beginning to feel was
true.
I struggled to find ways to incorporate them in the new paradigm I found myself merging into. I tried rationalizing and twisting them almost beyond recognition in order to conform. But it was to no avail. The pursuit amounted to being as futile as trying to jam
the wrong puzzle piece into the wrong space. They just wouldn't fit.
The struggle to believe in my presupposed ideas based on the doctrines I was ascribing to and their conflict with the truths I was receiving was becoming the source of my undoing. This process was suffocating me spiritually to the point where I was
ceasing to find life, light and meaning in my beliefs at all. I could just see walls, like those of a prison, hindering the full view of which I had only caught glimpses of through moments of meditation. Walls, that had to come down.
I realized I wasn't after hollow doctrine. I was after truth and thirsted to experience that truth first-hand. I wanted God, not man's words about God, to reign in my heart. Contemplative prayer and other forms of meditation allowed me to realize that that
was truly possible.
I would, however, have to let go of all that I once held dear in order to find the greatest treasure of all buried within my soul: God Himself. I would have to sell all of my land just for that one field where I knew the treasure to be buried and then spend the rest
of my efforts in separating dirty ego from divine Self in discovering it.
Imagine God being like a powerful river swiftly flowing. It was as if I was relying on people's interpretations of the river and merely viewing it from a portrait that they had painted of it. And then, still more, reviewing charts regarding the facts that defined it.
Memorizing the rules that determined its nature and the outlines of its topography and where one could swim, where one couldn't and who was allowed to swim. The problem was, there was no swimming going on at all.
It's as if I stood by the bank one day realizing the beauty and reality of the river and decided that rather than studying it from afar it'd be tons more fun to just jump in and let it carry me away, becoming one with it's flow and rhythm. My experiences of
meditation up to that point had gotten my feet wet. Now I wanted to saturate my soul as well.
I wanted no more barriers between myself and God and at last decided it was time to strip myself of the dogma that clothed my sense of what was real spiritually and take the plunge into the swift waters. Doing so has released in me the sense of merging
into the great I Am and given me glimpses of what it's like to live in the great We Are. Not fully, but enough to know it's possible.
There are still rocks I reach out and cling to in desperation, as I feel truth sweeping me in its current and my own inner insecurities resisting it, trying to slow it down because it's all so much to process in one experience.
There are a lot of analogies that use the illustration of the river to symbolize truth, reality and God. Just the other day I was having a conversation with a friend regarding the truth and how it cannot be contained ... only experienced. The book I'm currently
reading, The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts, illustrates this idea perfectly.
"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that
you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To "have" running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God."
For so long I hadn't just tried to "capture truth in a bucket" but I allowed it to be served to me on a platter. Served to me in the form of other men's words and visions about God without experiencing my own. I had to learn to surrender myself to God and the
process of understanding unhindered by labels and superficial rules.
I had to trust my own inner voice and not the voices of others. I felt my subconscious beckoning me to cease my struggling and to flow with the current and not resist it. For God is the current itself, the ever changing flow of what Is.
Alan Watts talks about 'the law of reversed effort' and how when we struggle against the water we sink but when we stop struggling we float. Finally, when I stopped struggling to cling to my preconceived notions of belief, trying to fit them in to interpret my
experience, I rose to the surface of the water I had been submerged in and my spiritual lungs began to fill up with the air they so desperately needed.
Filmed in Toronto in 2011 by Jurek Wyszynski. For more on Paul Hedderman, see his Web site.
Death and Resurrection: A Gnostic Perspective
At Easter, the thoughts of many Christians turn to the doctrine of inherent sinfulness and the need for a savior whose spilled blood could atone for humanity. The Bible leaves no room for another view, but another group of Jesus’ followers, now known as
gnostic Christians, saw things in a completely different way.
They viewed ‘sin’ as ignorance. Instead of making up for Adam’s sin, Jesus restored the understanding of universal oneness that had been lost when we chose separation over unity with the Divine. The Gospel of Truth, (one of many early Christian
documents not included in the New Testament) recognized Jesus as “a guide, a person of rest who was busy in places of instruction. He came forward and spoke the word as a teacher.” The Gospel of Truth also explains his mission:
"When all have received knowledge (the gnosis), they receive what is theirs and draw it to themselves…In time unity will make the heavenly places complete, and in unity all individually will come to themselves. By means of knowledge they will purify
themselves from multiplicity into unity."
Since it was understanding that was needed, not bloody sacrifice, Jesus’ gnostic followers realized that they needed to be their own savior. Since no one else can ‘wake up’ for us, the Dialogue of the Savior (another early document) advised:
“Enlighten your mind. Light the lamp within you. Walk upon yourself as on a straight road… knock on yourself as upon a door and walk upon yourself as on a straight road… Open the door for yourself that you may know what is…Whatever you will open
for yourself, you will open.”
Although Jesus and his gnostic followers knew that no sacrifice was necessary, when circumstances brought Jesus to suffering, he used the opportunity to show in an undeniable manner that all suffering is an illusion. For those followers who believed this
earth is our reality, Jesus’ death was devastating. For gnostic followers who had learned through their own experience that the material world is a virtual reality, the death of Jesus’ material body meant very little.
In The Acts of John, Jesus said, “You heard that I suffered, but I suffered not…One pierced was I, yet I was not abused. One hanged was I, and yet not hanged. Blood flowed from me, yet did not flow.” Although a projected image of a material body
suffered, the true Self that had been Jesus, felt nothing.
The Apocalypse of Peter also contains a description of Jesus’ death that differs drastically from the New Testament gospels. When Peter sees Jesus being arrested he asks, “Who is the one smiling and laughing above the cross? Is it someone else
whose feet and hands they are hammering?”
Jesus answered, “The one you see smiling and laughing above the cross is the living Jesus. The one into whose hands and feet they are driving nails is his fleshly part, the substitute for him. They are putting to shame the one who came into being in the
likeness of the living Jesus. Look at him and look at me.”
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth reads, “It was another who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another. It was another upon whom they placed a crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height
over their error. And I was laughing at their ignorance.” Likewise, The Acts of John reports, “I have suffered none of the things which they will say of me.”
Some critics of gnostic writings claim that another person was substituted for Jesus and died in his place, but Jesus was talking about the difference between the little self that masqueraded as a body compared to the true, infinite, immortal Self that could
never be harmed.
Considering that Jesus’ teaching was based in love, it’s impossible to even consider that he would cooperate with any plot to have someone else take his place. Instead, gnostic followers understood that Jesus was no longer experiencing through the false
self or body and the Self was beyond all physical suffering.
Although Jesus’ gnostic followers would certainly have missed having their teacher with them in the flesh, they understood that their seeming separation was no more real than the illusion of the bodies they all projected. They knew only the immortal Self,
unlike material illusion, was real and could never be harmed.
Jesus had won his freedom from duality and illusion and was liberated from the cycle of birth and death. He set an example every one of us can follow. In the Dialogue of the Savior, Jesus explained that our natural dwelling place is a “place of life”
where “the true mind dwells” that is “only pure light.”
For most Christians, their belief system hangs on Jesus’ literal resurrection. Without that, they have no hope of salvation. But for Jesus’ gnostic followers, the resurrection had nothing to do with the reanimation of the body or a transformation from body into
spirit.
Instead, The Treatise on Resurrection tells us, “The world is an illusion! The resurrection is the revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and transition into newness. Flee from the divisions and the fetters, and already you have the
resurrection ... Do not suppose that resurrection is an illusion. It is not an illusion, rather it is something real. Instead, one ought to maintain that the world is an illusion.”
Mainline Christians must continue to belief that Jesus was crucified, resurrected and carried his spilled blood to heaven to atone for their sins. There is no proof that happened. Jesus did not return to vanquish the Romans and set up God’s government in
the 1st century, and he has not returned to earth since that time even though most Christians continue to feel certain that he will.
On the other hand, Jesus’ gnostic followers held no such hopes. They understood Jesus to be a human like them, who experienced the Divine and encouraged them to do the same thing.
What if Jesus were no different than you or me? Would his parables and sayings lose their value if he was an obscure, rural wisdom teacher who was killed by fearful politicians? Even if he performed no miracles and his body was not resurrected, what
real impact would that have on us?
We would lose a savior, but Jesus’ gnostic followers learned from him that we all must save ourselves, just as he did. We can cling to a version of Jesus that condemns us as sinners and imprisons us in fear, or we can follow Jesus’ example and come to
our own rescue by waking up to our innate oneness with 'the Father.' The choice always has been, and always will be, ours.
That which is aware of you right now, is God.
That which is your own innermost awareness, right now, is God.
That which sees but is never seen, is God.
That Witness in you right now, ever present as pure Presence, is God.
That vast Freedom, that great Emptiness, that primordial Purity, your own present state of awareness, right now, is God.
And thus, most fundamentally and forever, it is God who speaks with your tongue and listens with your ears, and sees with your eyes,
This God who is closer to you than you are to yourself,
This God who has never abandoned you and never could.
This God who is every breath you take, the very beat of your tender heart, who beholds the entire majesty before your eyes ...
Yet is never, never seen.
~ by Ken Wilber
Heartfelt Words ~ Humor
Back in pioneering days a pious old farmer had a sturdy Clydesdale plough-horse which he named Elijah. He'd trained Elijah to start when he said, "Praise the Lord," and to stop when he said, "Amen."
Toward the end of its working life, the horse was almost blind, a fact not fully appreciated by the old farmer.
One evening, about this time, he was riding Elijah home after a hard day's work in the paddocks. Believing the horse would find its own way, he let fall the reins and shut his eyes: the better to pray and meditate.
When he opened them again a short time later, however, he was horrified to find the horse had taken a wrong turn and was plodding steadily toward the edge of a deep gully only a few metres away.
Instinctively, the old farmer shouted, "Whoa!" but this had no effect on Elijah. Then he remembered this horse only responded to religious language, but he was so unnerved by the precipice right before him that for a second or two he could not think what
to say.
Suddenly, it came to him. "Amen!" he shouted and the horse stopped instantly with one enormous front hoof poised over the chasm.
The old farmer wiped the perspiration from his brow and was so relieved that the horse had halted in the very nick of time, he exclaimed loudly, "Praise the Lord!"
Edited and
published monthly by: Pete Sumner, Fremantle,Western
Australia.
If you found this eZine interesting, you may like to see our other eZine: The Seer
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