Endless Love

The metaphor of Jesus as God's Son has struck me in a new way. Why would God have a son? Well he wouldn't except in the sense that we are all creations of God, all God's sons and daughters. But also it apparently is Jesus who claims so intimate a connection as to be One with the Father. As far as I know Jesus never claimed that he was God's Son, as we understand it, though he refers to God as Father. Actually we could all declare ourselves sons and daughters of God if we knew his love as deeply as Jesus did. Of course in Jesus' time the son is more important than the daughter for a lot of cultural, historical and probably religious reasons.

But as I think of the metaphor in terms of what my own sons mean to me, I know that I would give my life rather than have theirs taken. God would too, except that God "so loved the world" that his love is possibly best understood in terms of a love so great that a father would even give his son to the task of demonstrating that love. Jesus makes God vulnerable in his suffering and death. God suffers in seeing this death. But God suffers in seeing the pain and suffering and unnecessary deaths we all cause one another. We love desperately as if there is not enough love to go around. We love as if God's love is not infinite. We love in small boxes and tight places. We love forgetting that Jesus asked us to love one another as he loved us. He obviously had the faith if not knowledge that such divine love is possible even for you and me.

The Compassion of Consciousness

The Un-consciousness of deep sleep is not the absence of Consciousness but the very gift that Consciousness bestows on a mind and body that cannot rest in Consciousness itself.

To Be Like the Sun

"The sun has no intention, but by its rising all the world becomes active."
Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj

Nobody Knows My Troubles with God

My most recent struggle has been with 'communicating with God' or "praying" if you will. When I fall into doubt and fear, however, I do still turn to God in the end. At such times my first feeling is one of shame, doubt and hypocrisy. When I feel good and strong I forget about God. My better "self" and higher consciousness tells me there must be a god. But as a philosophy teacher and researcher, as a thinker, I have never really tried to "believe" in God through logic or even really faith for that matter. I've at times concluded that consciousness or "definitionless Awareness" is the endpoint, highest Self or Source of "divinity." But I suspect there is something more...God.

The truth of the matter is that even though my 'conversation with God' is considerably illiterate, so to speak, it still has its moment of presence in a simple silence and vigil of waiting and presencing. But the fact is, I'm not doing it. It happens within the circumstances, usually of trial and tribulation when I know I'm not doing a very good job of doing this life of mine.

God, I am assuming, in my actions, in my way of being, is there for me. But God's being there for me is not demonstrable in any way especially for myself. I fall silent, mute, dumb in this moment, embarrassed and dare I say even humbled. But I don't trust myself not to betray this connection to God. I guess I want to know how to secure it, especially when I egoistically presume that "I am doing it."

So I guess my question is: what exactly is this connection and communication with God? How does one practice it and reconcile it with all the possible ways of spiritual being that there are. This may be my dark night of the soul. I just don't know.

The Nature of Happiness

Does happiness exist? Stupid question? Well, not at least for those who feel they are unhappy. And of course for those who believe they are happy, it may well not be a stupid question because they can offer a resounding yes to the query.

So if you're still with me, there is a difference, isn't there, between happiness as an object to be experienced and experiencing life from the perspective of happiness, no?

. I believe that I choose happiness but at times peak experiences of 'happiness' seem to just happen and at that moment no matter what I am doing occurs within that mood or mode. My concern was the over-objectification of ...happiness as something we are seeking out kind of like a thing unto itself. Or presuming that there is some one thing or kind of thing that will 'make' us happy while others will not. While it does seem to me that some things stand in the way of happiness, it doesn't seem that there are other things that will necessarily promote happiness.

I don’t know if contentment is an alternative to happiness which is better or not. It seems to raise the same questions I have about “happiness.” Of course in the living and knowing of such things on an ordinary, everyday basis, it’s not an issue. But given the occupational hazard of philosophy professor it raises certain issues. On the other hand, it wouldn’t really be a philosophical issue if it wasn’t a lived concern. I have a certain kind of resoluteness about happiness, contentment, etc. And yet, something does remain unresolved if I’m really honest with myself. It’s not that I’m searching for it, like the right answer. But it is kind of like continuing to breathe. If I don’t breathe, I don’t live. If I don’t think/write/discuss I’m not alive in the fullest most robust sense of that experience.

A friend responded to me with this: " "Seeking "happiness", I believe, is that subconscious part of our Being that longs to re-member itself with Oneness that we came from while we are here experiencing duality. A type of homesickness for our Spirit. The ego, which is the reason we feel separated from Oneness filters "happiness" as something to be gained from material things and attaches an emotional "score" to all things desired." "

So, according to the latter view, 'happiness' isn't a goal but a means or a link to Oneness and presumably something, so to speak, that transcends happiness, something like Bliss, Ananda. Happiness then would be a healthy state pointed in the right direction spiritually. Lastly I would interpret the notion that "the ego filters happiness" as a short-circuiting of happiness by treating it as a goal rather than a means. It quantifies happiness and seeks better happiness in terms of more, even though it doesn't see it as ending up being nothing more than "more" of the same but not better.

Avatar as Bodhisattva

"By virtue of emptiness everything is able to arise, but without emptiness nothing whatsoever can arise." (Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarika)

"He, who at this moment, before my eyes is shining alone and clearly listening to my discourse--this man tarries nowhere; he traverses the ten directions and is freely himself in the three realms. Though he enters the transformations of every state, no one of these can divert him. In an instant of time he penetrates the realm of truth: on meeting a buddha he persuades the buddha; on meeting a patriarch he persuades the patriarch..." (Rinzai, 13th Discourse, The Record of Lin-chi)

The "directions" are space and the "three realms" are the three ecstasies of time, past, present and future. Emptiness abides beyond space and time but occurs as space-time in that space and time abide as one in it and as it.

So, as Harry Palmer contends, only from source consciousness can we create.

But do I have to understand my belief before I can believe what I believe and therefore act to realize it?

Time and Decision

"...time is constituted only in the instant of decision. ... Only in relation to decision is there past or future. The present is decision, discrimination... Before it there is not time, not even as simple flow, for even flow would imply a direction, a going toward, and thus--already--the distinction and discrimination that only decision can institute. Decision is not in time, we must therefore conclude, but time in decision." --- pp. 32-3, Dialogue with Nietzsche by Gianni Vattimo.

Would this mean then that in meditation one need not transcend time; one need only not decide, not choose either for or against in order to overcome time?