There is a dialectical relationship between revelation and revolution. Revelation may well be seen as an inner breakthrough that enables or makes inevitable withdrawal from the world. The revolutionary seems to be engaged only in the affairs of the world at the expense of his/her inner life. But these overly simplistic formulas presuppose a duality of revelation and revolution, the mutually exclusive opposition of a political life of struggle for power in the world as opposed to a religious or spiritual life of struggle for inner peace.
Both are abstract conceptualizations, not to mention false. Those afraid of the trauma of revelation resort to over-commitment to revolution. In like manner those afraid of the trauma of revolution revert to the hopes of revelation. The hysterical mind reverts to neither but becomes frenetically unconscious in the world of the "normal." The healthy mind stays conscious to the normal abnormality of everyday existence. It stays vigilant to the seductions of reification, everyday idolatry and the frustrations of enervating relativisms. That is, it stays alive to creative action, the inevitability of pain in the world and the power of Real Subjectivity, that is, one's own freedom. As Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." It is this "truth" which is spirit and which he said will be "with us" after his death.
So the dialectic of revelation and revolution is life in the Spirit bearing the burden of truth. Moreover this Spirit is the place of Love, the place where two or more meet "in his name," that is, in the name of the Word that creates all or any possible New Beginning: "In the beginning was the Word.....;" that is, the Word of the Spirit as Truth 'opens up the realm of the invisible and immaterial as opposed to the material present of the apparently given reality.
What revelatory, revolutonary Love is here is a love that opens up a love of the world as allowing the world its freedom to be other than it is, better than it is, new and unburdened by the idolatry of hopeless givenness, irrefutable "factuality," death as a function of the mythology of this as the 'best of all possible worlds.'
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
REVELATION AND REVOLUTION
The truth of a revolution unfolds in the reality of the day after. The false revolution unravels and regresses to the worst of the past. The true revolution begins to materialize the ideals that were fought for.
The true revelation also begins on the day after to permeate and integrate with life in the world, a world now lived from the perspective of the revelation, in the name of the revelation.
The true revelation also begins on the day after to permeate and integrate with life in the world, a world now lived from the perspective of the revelation, in the name of the revelation.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
PEACE OF MIND AND TRUTH
Peace of mind starts when "thinking-mind" stops. There's nothing wrong with thinking as such. I teach philosophy, or at least try. But we think only when true mind is operative, the mind that has entered into communion with Being and the Real.
False mind, thinking-mind, attempts to master Being in its own interest as the instrument of ego. It attempts to use the Real for itself or to create its own reality. Peace of mind as "true mind" is the "peace that passeth all understanding." It is the source of knowledge of the world that serves the good of the whole.
When the mind is at peace, only then does it really become interested in truth. Only then can it, can I, truly think about the truth of that which it thinks. False mind leads us around an endless labyrinth of agonizing ruminations that approximate what hell must be like.
Peaceful mind is really the pure consciousness of absolute Awareness. Whereas this Awareness is invisible it has no phenomenal qualities. Awareness does have qualities, but transcendental qualities: truth, beauty, freedom, happiness, peace. It is through these qualities that the world shows up as God intends it to be.
False mind, thinking-mind, attempts to master Being in its own interest as the instrument of ego. It attempts to use the Real for itself or to create its own reality. Peace of mind as "true mind" is the "peace that passeth all understanding." It is the source of knowledge of the world that serves the good of the whole.
When the mind is at peace, only then does it really become interested in truth. Only then can it, can I, truly think about the truth of that which it thinks. False mind leads us around an endless labyrinth of agonizing ruminations that approximate what hell must be like.
Peaceful mind is really the pure consciousness of absolute Awareness. Whereas this Awareness is invisible it has no phenomenal qualities. Awareness does have qualities, but transcendental qualities: truth, beauty, freedom, happiness, peace. It is through these qualities that the world shows up as God intends it to be.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
A LIFE OF MEDITATION
Living a life of meditation doesn't mean that one sits in lotus posture twice a day for 20 minutes with eyes closed silently chanting a mantra. Of course you may do that if you choose, whether as part of your "meditative" life or even the whole of it if that's the way you see it. Nothing wrong with that.
The way I see it is that the meditative life means to live life itself meditatively. Nor does this, however, mean that we go about our daily affairs in a certain psychological state of consciousness called "meditation." It means having become aware of the absoluteness of Awareness that makes possible all consciousness, manifest and unmanifest, intentional and non-intentional. It is this certainty and security of Self as such absolute Awareness that is "the stranger who has always loved you" as Rumi puts it poetically. It is living knowing you are loved by that "Stranger," perhaps God, that has always loved you. It is excursion, the journey outward away from home, searching; it is the return home to that place we never really left but "know it for the first time."
So to awaken to absolute Awareness is to find the Source of that happiness that enables being able to participate in a life of love with all people. This is the meditative life. Sitting in silence is beautiful. Living in the silent peace of the self that accompanies all experience of the world is heavenly. This Self of absolute Awareness remains untouched, even in forgetfulness, always yet returning to the Self, the self-same Eternal.
The way I see it is that the meditative life means to live life itself meditatively. Nor does this, however, mean that we go about our daily affairs in a certain psychological state of consciousness called "meditation." It means having become aware of the absoluteness of Awareness that makes possible all consciousness, manifest and unmanifest, intentional and non-intentional. It is this certainty and security of Self as such absolute Awareness that is "the stranger who has always loved you" as Rumi puts it poetically. It is living knowing you are loved by that "Stranger," perhaps God, that has always loved you. It is excursion, the journey outward away from home, searching; it is the return home to that place we never really left but "know it for the first time."
So to awaken to absolute Awareness is to find the Source of that happiness that enables being able to participate in a life of love with all people. This is the meditative life. Sitting in silence is beautiful. Living in the silent peace of the self that accompanies all experience of the world is heavenly. This Self of absolute Awareness remains untouched, even in forgetfulness, always yet returning to the Self, the self-same Eternal.
Friday, July 10, 2015
THE WAY BEYOND TIME (Part 2)
When in love and out of love we see the world as 'innocent' what do we mean? This can only mean that within the transcendence which is love, in which we do not enter into the struggle for power, to be right, to win, to acquire, etc., the hopeless ignorance of mankind shows itself. This vision is what Jesus saw and what he meant when he said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
It was a plea of compassion for the condition of mankind. We are not in control and the entire drama is quite sad, if not tragic, that we act with such arrogance and self-assuredness, yet are quietly desperate, in the dark and at the mercy of an overdetermined world. All that is left is forgiveness and transcendence while beholding the blessed beauty of it all.
Is not the "action" of the likes of Ramana Maharshi, who sat in satsang on his couch in southern India and walked the hills of Arunachala far more the answer to it all than all the intellectual, political and military aggression that presumes to act but reactively regresses behind the growing wall of ignorance.
It was a plea of compassion for the condition of mankind. We are not in control and the entire drama is quite sad, if not tragic, that we act with such arrogance and self-assuredness, yet are quietly desperate, in the dark and at the mercy of an overdetermined world. All that is left is forgiveness and transcendence while beholding the blessed beauty of it all.
Is not the "action" of the likes of Ramana Maharshi, who sat in satsang on his couch in southern India and walked the hills of Arunachala far more the answer to it all than all the intellectual, political and military aggression that presumes to act but reactively regresses behind the growing wall of ignorance.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
THE WAY BEYOND TIME
Time is the body, concretely speaking. No time, then no purpose. All is pure presence. All that is, here and now as its own self, is love. When I love, the past is gone; the future doesn't occur. I see it all as lovely, beautiful and innocent.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
THE DIVINE ORDER (Beyond Mahatma Gandhi, Part 2)
When an evil is seen as a necessity because it is construed as the order of things created by God, then God's "order" is seen only in given actualities and not in divine possibilities. When Gandhi justifies the existence of the Caste System as that which is ordained by God he commits a violence which his own ideology of non-violence would disavow. God is used all too often to justify violence, privilege and personal or cultural perspective, relativisms which justify all kinds of injustices. We should all revisit Plato's dialogue, the Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks the famous question: "Does God say something is good because it is good or is it good only because God says it's good?"
Sunday, July 5, 2015
BEYOND MAHATMA GANDHI (Part 1)
Gandhi once said that "the only evil in the world is that running around in our own hearts and that's exactly where the battle should be fought." That may well part of the truth. But the greater truth is that those who see evil in the world and do nothing about it in the world create an even greater evil. Of course Gandhi did act in the world. But to do something about evil in your heart is all well and good but to also deal with it in the world is quite better. The proviso, however, which makes all the difference and prevents descent into self-righteousness is that the action in the world as well as that in our hearts be done with love.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
THE WAY OF STILLNESS AND KNOWLEDGE
The one Old Testament verse which most everyone knows, especially meditators, is Psalm 46: 10. It may well be best translated as "Be still and know that I am God." Variations on this translation may however be instructive, especially to meditators.
Another translation says, "Let be, be still and know that I am God. So possibly the 'being still' does not fare well unless one can first let be, let well enough alone or surrender the illusion that the changes one fantasizes are really at all in your grasp let alone your control.
"That's enough. Now know that I am God." This version implies that after having tried and accepting that enough is enough, you've done your best, then one can stay in the now of pure presence and see that which does not change and does not need changing.
Several other versions suggest that God makes wars cease or that we should stop fight. In the end each war stops; so why do we endlessly start them again. Possibly we have not taken the next step when peace prevails to realize that in the heart of peace lay the Divine.
The God's Word Bible asks "Let go of your concerns; then you will know I am God. So here the secret lay in letting go of concerns, that is, all the worry that experience shows amounts to next to nothing. However such "stopping" as the Buddha suggests, is the condition of such transcendental knowledge.
The International Standard Version says "Be in awe and know that I am God." Here such knowledge is not ordinary cognitive insight. It is the illumination of truth that arises in the awesome vision of the Divine.
One translation adds the other side of stillness: "Stand silent and know that I am God." Silence is a well known meditative practice. However it is not the absence of sound or noise; it is the background permanence against which all sound can occur. It is the locus of rest, of immanent peace.
Or, "Attention all and see the marvels of God." As Einstein said, "Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle. Let me say, I'd rather go with everything is a miracle. After all, as Leibniz first suggests, "Why is there anything at all rather than nothing at all?" In fact is it not all a miracle? Paying attention is not a matter of being fully conscious to one's experience. Attention is appreciation of the miracle and marvel of it all. One might insist that a person can't live in such a state of marvel or awe. But then is the living without such awe really any life whatsoever? Without knowing the marvel of it all, are we not really just technically sophisticated animals wallowing in the "flesh failures."
"Cease striving and know that I am God." Another task, another goal, another project, another distraction, getting more, doing more, trying more: all rather exhausting, isn't it? Do you really want any of the things you desire? What more is there to really do, especially when it all returns undone?
Lastly, if we invoke the teachings not only of the Bible but of Ramana Maharshi, then we know that the "I AM" means "I am that I am," as God names himself before Moses in the Book of Genesis. So what we have in full is this: Be still and know that the I am that I am is God. That is that within which we find ourselves in our being, in the infinite enclosure of consciousness, is the the divine self of God. That Light, the self-reflection of consciousness, within which all that is can occur, is God. And it is that Light, the Light of lights, which is in itself still, silent, fully attentive and finally and fully in awe, marveling at the impossible manifestation that is, the miracle that we are.
Another translation says, "Let be, be still and know that I am God. So possibly the 'being still' does not fare well unless one can first let be, let well enough alone or surrender the illusion that the changes one fantasizes are really at all in your grasp let alone your control.
"That's enough. Now know that I am God." This version implies that after having tried and accepting that enough is enough, you've done your best, then one can stay in the now of pure presence and see that which does not change and does not need changing.
Several other versions suggest that God makes wars cease or that we should stop fight. In the end each war stops; so why do we endlessly start them again. Possibly we have not taken the next step when peace prevails to realize that in the heart of peace lay the Divine.
The God's Word Bible asks "Let go of your concerns; then you will know I am God. So here the secret lay in letting go of concerns, that is, all the worry that experience shows amounts to next to nothing. However such "stopping" as the Buddha suggests, is the condition of such transcendental knowledge.
The International Standard Version says "Be in awe and know that I am God." Here such knowledge is not ordinary cognitive insight. It is the illumination of truth that arises in the awesome vision of the Divine.
One translation adds the other side of stillness: "Stand silent and know that I am God." Silence is a well known meditative practice. However it is not the absence of sound or noise; it is the background permanence against which all sound can occur. It is the locus of rest, of immanent peace.
Or, "Attention all and see the marvels of God." As Einstein said, "Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle. Let me say, I'd rather go with everything is a miracle. After all, as Leibniz first suggests, "Why is there anything at all rather than nothing at all?" In fact is it not all a miracle? Paying attention is not a matter of being fully conscious to one's experience. Attention is appreciation of the miracle and marvel of it all. One might insist that a person can't live in such a state of marvel or awe. But then is the living without such awe really any life whatsoever? Without knowing the marvel of it all, are we not really just technically sophisticated animals wallowing in the "flesh failures."
"Cease striving and know that I am God." Another task, another goal, another project, another distraction, getting more, doing more, trying more: all rather exhausting, isn't it? Do you really want any of the things you desire? What more is there to really do, especially when it all returns undone?
Lastly, if we invoke the teachings not only of the Bible but of Ramana Maharshi, then we know that the "I AM" means "I am that I am," as God names himself before Moses in the Book of Genesis. So what we have in full is this: Be still and know that the I am that I am is God. That is that within which we find ourselves in our being, in the infinite enclosure of consciousness, is the the divine self of God. That Light, the self-reflection of consciousness, within which all that is can occur, is God. And it is that Light, the Light of lights, which is in itself still, silent, fully attentive and finally and fully in awe, marveling at the impossible manifestation that is, the miracle that we are.
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