Becoming One, part 1
In Jesus’ time, people separated God, in the heavenly realms (such as Mt. Olympus or the more general “heaven”), and humans, down here on earth. For them, God (or the gods) was an extraterrestrial superbeing who blessed or punished us, depending on which side of the bed God awoke any given day. This ancient and limited view of God is still pervasive today. God, the alien scientist, is represented in pop movies like “Prometheus” or the upcoming “Jupiter Ascending.” These and other films riff on the Frankenstein mythos. Now, it’s entirely possible, I suppose, our planet was seeded by an alien civilization, but to me that has nothing to do with the nature of God, which transcends any sort of physical reality—alien or otherwise. Thinking of God as an alien scientist—or any being outside our very own being, is a mistake of the dual mind.
Jesus, like other mystics before him, saw past this dual mindset. It is not that God is a superbeing, and we are something else. For Jesus, the substance of God and the substance of matter are inextricably bound together as one. A couple of hundred years after he taught, this so confused his followers that they came up with the Doctrine of the Trinity to try to explain him. Needless to say, they missed the point. The Trinity separates us from God even more. It’s not three in one, it is simply one. All there is, is God.
There is no “God” and “Humans,” so there can be no “us” and “God.” This was the dualistic mindset of the ancient world. This is the mindset warned against in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil story (Genesis 3:22). This is the wrestling with our inner sense of self we do on the banks of the river (Genesis 32:22-32), the Jihad we wage against our own spiritual angst in the Qur’an. Duality is our battle against Mara sitting under the Bodhi tree with the Buddha. Duality is always defeated when we transcend the “us” and “God” mentality and realize ultimate Oneness with all creation. We are One, God is within, and sensing that truth changes everything. There is no enemy when we sense all is One with God.
Jesus taught this by showing how differently being human looks when we stop thinking of ourselves as beings controlled by the whims of very human-like gods. For Jesus, and many mystics long before him, God is an intimate part of our very being. So, Jesus would have never proclaimed himself the only son of God because his view was that we are all sons and daughters of God. He did not mean this in the mythological, demigod like way the idea has been applied to him. Jesus was attempting to teach an eternal mystical truth: We are one with God, and the realization of this changes us at our core. Once awakened to this truth, we cannot pick up arms, we cannot fight, or kill, or judge. "We are One" changes the world. It topples empires and dethrones despots, all without every throwing a spear or firing a shot. "We are One" never sacrifices others before we sacrifice ourselves and always puts the needs of the many above the wants of the few.
This was Jesus’ great revelation, and it got him crucified. This is the message not only Christians, but all seekers of a deeper, transcendent truth, need to reclaim and proclaim loudly, over and against the artificial “religions” that espouse war and preach hellfire and damnation to heathens. There are no heathens. A follower of Christ or Buddha, or Mohammed, is non-violent, always. A practitioner on the truly mystical path ultimately comes to realize that we are all connected by the very ground of our being, that perhaps impossible-to-define essence we continue to call God. This realization turns us into messengers of peace and love, not soldiers of violence for the empires of hate and fear.
Prayer: I pray not to ask for wishes to be granted, but simply to sense the presence of the Eternal flowing through my soul, and I meditate for that sensation simply so I might be a useful presence of love and peace in a world torn apart by the myth of separation. Amen.
Jesus, like other mystics before him, saw past this dual mindset. It is not that God is a superbeing, and we are something else. For Jesus, the substance of God and the substance of matter are inextricably bound together as one. A couple of hundred years after he taught, this so confused his followers that they came up with the Doctrine of the Trinity to try to explain him. Needless to say, they missed the point. The Trinity separates us from God even more. It’s not three in one, it is simply one. All there is, is God.There is no “God” and “Humans,” so there can be no “us” and “God.” This was the dualistic mindset of the ancient world. This is the mindset warned against in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil story (Genesis 3:22). This is the wrestling with our inner sense of self we do on the banks of the river (Genesis 32:22-32), the Jihad we wage against our own spiritual angst in the Qur’an. Duality is our battle against Mara sitting under the Bodhi tree with the Buddha. Duality is always defeated when we transcend the “us” and “God” mentality and realize ultimate Oneness with all creation. We are One, God is within, and sensing that truth changes everything. There is no enemy when we sense all is One with God.
Jesus taught this by showing how differently being human looks when we stop thinking of ourselves as beings controlled by the whims of very human-like gods. For Jesus, and many mystics long before him, God is an intimate part of our very being. So, Jesus would have never proclaimed himself the only son of God because his view was that we are all sons and daughters of God. He did not mean this in the mythological, demigod like way the idea has been applied to him. Jesus was attempting to teach an eternal mystical truth: We are one with God, and the realization of this changes us at our core. Once awakened to this truth, we cannot pick up arms, we cannot fight, or kill, or judge. "We are One" changes the world. It topples empires and dethrones despots, all without every throwing a spear or firing a shot. "We are One" never sacrifices others before we sacrifice ourselves and always puts the needs of the many above the wants of the few.
This was Jesus’ great revelation, and it got him crucified. This is the message not only Christians, but all seekers of a deeper, transcendent truth, need to reclaim and proclaim loudly, over and against the artificial “religions” that espouse war and preach hellfire and damnation to heathens. There are no heathens. A follower of Christ or Buddha, or Mohammed, is non-violent, always. A practitioner on the truly mystical path ultimately comes to realize that we are all connected by the very ground of our being, that perhaps impossible-to-define essence we continue to call God. This realization turns us into messengers of peace and love, not soldiers of violence for the empires of hate and fear.
Prayer: I pray not to ask for wishes to be granted, but simply to sense the presence of the Eternal flowing through my soul, and I meditate for that sensation simply so I might be a useful presence of love and peace in a world torn apart by the myth of separation. Amen.
