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Seeing With New Eyes |
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August 11, 2003 By Rootsie It is an amazing thing to begin seeing clearly for the first time in one's life. There were so many things that I thought I knew, that I thought I was. And now I am able to sum them up in a single word: vanity. As in arrogance, but also as in 'in vain.' Worthless. Illusion. I was under the illusion that there is a 'God' who is greater or bigger than my own true self. At the same time, I resisted all teachers, thinking this 'getting to God' business was something I had to do on my own. That is simply impossible. It did not occur to me that I needed a teacher to help me connect to the divinity within myself, but there is no other way. I had reconciled myself to being essentially alone. I had reconciled myself to the necessity of suffering. There is a suffering that is legitimate as I examine my illusory assumptions, the mistaken ideas I have lived as Law, and grieve the errors I have made as a result. But that is a suffering which has an end, and is for a certain time only. The things I suffered as a result of my attachments, my illusions, were all unnecessary. My spiritual life was crude and idolatrous. By always looking outside myself for 'the answer', I ignored my own magnitude. Holding anything as more valuable or more worthy than my own self is idolatry. At the same time I was waiting for the love of a man who would save me. Well a man came. One like no other. And his one demand is that I save myself, that I gather up the loose ends of a life lived in disarray waiting for 'him', jumping at this one or that on the off-chance that it might be 'him'... I thought to enslave myself and him along with me. And I thought that this mutual enslavement was 'love.' I had the hungry need for affirmation from the outside world, for attention and recognition. When I finally recognized my true self, all of those outer forms fell away. I no longer need to affiliate to any ideology or belief system, or to belong to any 'counterculture' or group. I am content not to be noticed, and made sad by the false pride I see in most people, their naked attempts to build an identity based on the good opinion of others, because they feel, at bottom, so so empty. Well they are starving in a garden lush with ripe fruit, thirsty in a vast pool of fresh water. We all are possessed of everything we need. We are utterly loved. We are unconditionally accepted. As I grow further and further away from all the things of this world that have enraptured me, all the things I thought I wanted, I see that all along what pulled me and kept me so restless and full of yearning was my Source calling me home. There is nothing else I have ever really wanted but to be at home in my self. It is all anyone wants, but they know it not. This home is not a place of solitude, for in truth my self is the same identical self that engenders and animates all beings, all of life. And out of that recognition, there is certain conduct on this earth that simply becomes impossible. It is impossible to wish to 'possess' my man, my children, or anyone else. How could I wish to enslave or possess such beauty? All love is one love. This is who we are in truth. In truth, all belong to me, and I to them. It is impossible to desire anything for myself more than I desire it for others. This means that I work to show others what I have seen, to give them what I have been given. There can be no other work. It is impossible to qualify love in any way. All are equally deserving. No one more and no one less. It is impossible to be less than who I am. Or to rest comfortably with others who choose the lesser over the greater. But it is also impossible not to acknowledge that some still choose not to see. It is not my job to make anyone see anything, but only to help when I am asked. I learn the time for silence, the time for speech. The time for action, the time for circumspection. The time to give, and to withhold. To fight, and to retreat. To be generous, to be indifferent. I learn to examine my words, my actions, to purify my intentions. I learn that spiritual growth is less about mystic revelations and more about moment-by-moment integrity. I am truth, and so I must always tell the truth. Ones suffer here in their vanity, their vain illusion of separation. It's 'every man for himself'. It's being bigger, better, smarter, tougher, richer, prettier, holier, or else the defeated hopelessness and false reconcilement to being less. Ones are pulled constantly between these poles. Such exhaustion. But what is real is the still point, where all is seen as it is, in perfect oneness, animated by the same divine energy that keeps the planets spinning and the stars burning. The world of matter, of physical being, is impossible without this essential energy. To remain wedded to material being, with material aims, is to mistake servant for master. These bodies are receptacles of spirit. To make my physical/ emotional desires the guiding force of my life is to persist in misery, again to choose the lesser over the greater. In the natural order of the universe, we are born into the realm of matter and the journey to oneness with all that is literally lifts us out of matter. We then form a new relationship to the material world, and see that our bodies are tools of expression, and far from the greatest tools at our disposal. With these new eyes, I see the tragedy that has unfolded on the earth due to our misapprehensions of matter and spirit. The seed of all destruction is the belief that we are separate in any way from 'GOD'. This causes ones to claim they have closer relationships with 'Him' than others do, that they are 'Chosen people', that this piece of land or other is the 'Promised Land'. And thus ones who hold such crude materialistic beliefs fight and kill for land and its resources, laying claim to ownership based on historical covenants with God. Even in today's much more secular world, this core belief about a 'special relationship' persists, and the white race has used the argument of its inherent superiority to justify the destruction of non-white peoples and the robbing of their resources. When we know we are one, certain conduct is impossible. To destroy another is to destroy one's own self! To enslave another is to enslave one's self: it is always a two-way street. One cannot enjoy benefits gained off the backs of others. Whether we choose to see the truth of oneness or not, it is still the natural law, and we suffer and visit suffering on others if we are out of alignment with it. Vanity is the craving for material things and emotional props in order to achieve some manner of 'security' in a chaotic and suffering world. But the suffering we see is a direct result of these desires of ours. We are 'insecure' precisely because we go outside our own selves in search of security, the magic pill, the magic man, the magic religious teaching which will liberate us from our unhappiness. As the truth begins to dawn on me, there is laughter amid the tears for all that has been lost through our foolishness. I laugh because I have been yearning and searching high and low for my happiness, for paradise, when it has always been right here, as close as my heart, right here in my head, which pulses with the divine energy of creation. I feel at last the crown which is my birthright rising up out of my skull, receiving the essence as the essence of me rises up out of matter to meet and become one with it. This is God, and creation. Every single beautiful thing, which humans have ever created, is out of this divine relationship. Because we do not recognize the power we walk with we misapprehend all relationships. And when we do finally see the truth, all power of creation is ours. We have the world we created, whether we recognize it or not. The good news is that, as we embrace our magnitude, and help others to do the same, the world will be recreated in alignment with our highest understandings.   Copyright © 2003 rootsie.com |
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