The Way, the Truth, and the Life

One of the joys I have found in writing a blog, is a cathartic effect. Taking the ever active thoughts that circle in the monkey mind, streamlining them, and bringing them out into the world. Sometimes the mere act of writing encourages clarity and perspective to enter in. It sorts through the cobwebs and untangles the knots. I feel at least for the moment a little lighter and more free than the moment before. Another sweetness added to the pot is the exchanges they foster with others. Sometimes my husband, Calvin, and often my aunt Suzanne.

My aunt Suzanne is actually not my aunt at all, but somehow that is how I have called her and that is what stuck. She is a brilliant being, actually my mother's first cousin. My grandmother and her mother are sisters. Suzanne literally and figuratively dances through life with joy and positivity. She, like me, comes from an atheistic French mother, but somehow we have both landed in Jesus and Christianity. I love the feedback she shares, and her perspective always makes me think a bit harder and probe a little deeper. It is a cherished gift. She is that "other" that I have spoken of, that other that uplifts and inspires. That other that makes the difference that we cannot make on our own—the continued and ever present need for the other, that completes our lives, and the cycle goes on, round and round.

Recently she sent me this from "Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth :

Getting back into that Garden (of Eden) is the aim of many. When Yahweh threw man out of the Garden, he put two cherubim at the gate, with a flaming sword between them. Now, when you approach a Buddhist shrine, with the Buddha seated under the tree of immortal life, you will find at the gate two guardians—those are the cherubim, and you're going between them to the tree of immortal life. In the Christian tradition, Jesus on the cross is on a tree, the tree of immortal life, and he is the fruit of the tree. Jesus on the cross, the Buddha under the tree—these are the same figures. And the cherubim at the gate—who are they? At the Buddhist shrines you'll see one has his mouth open, the other has his mouth closed—fear and desire, a pair of opposites. If you're approaching a garden like that, and those two figures there are real to you and threaten you, if you have fear for your life, you are still outside the garden. But if you are no longer attached to your ego existence, but see the ego existence as a function of a larger, eternal totality, and you favor the larger against the smaller, then you won't be afraid of those two figures, and you will go through. We are kept out of the Garden by our own fear and desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life.

I found this to be such a profound and interesting paragraph and it sparked so many thoughts. On the one hand I agree with the writer that we can draw parallels and find the common ground in religious figures and stories. I definitely agree with the sentiment that inspired the sharing of the text in the first place, the ego's role in our lives, and it being a part of the function of the larger whole, and not the center of what is. But in another sense when I think of Buddha and I think of Christ, I see so many distinct differences.

It seems there are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to religion and their practices. Aside from those who reject religion altogether as some kind of man-made evil, or merely as system designed for power, control and manipulation (which I think is disingenuous, unexamined and overly simplistic), it seems for those, that at least in part embrace religion on some level, there are those that believe all religions are essentially the same. They believe that all religions are saying the same things and using different methods towards the end goal (to know God). I do agree there is some truth to this, and I think that a while ago I would have fit squarely in this camp. Then you have some people that are convicted that their religion is the true religion and all others are sorely misguided. There is also another area, where one can see the similarities and unified goals, but also recognize the unique subtleties and what those shades of color may or may not produce.

I used to feel frustrated when Calvin would dig his heels in on a passage or a point. Often after a sermon I would come out with a broad understanding of a spiritual implication that spoke to my understanding of truth. Calvin would focus in on the passage in a much more scrutinizing way, really insisting on the relevance of a certain turn of phrase, or often the context in which the passage was written and how that context subsequently would not allow for such a broad and sometimes simplistic over-arching truth. Rather it would point to a very specific application. Over time after many a heated discussion and back and forth, and often after letting go of my version of truth, I would not only see his understanding, but really appreciate the largeness in the subtlety of the detail. Sometimes the drops in the bucket add up and overflow, and each drop is it's own pearl of wisdom leading to the water of life.

When it comes to the specific writing example above, I can see a through-line in the idea that we are all made in God's image, the Buddha nature, the yogi's saying The Divinity in me salutes the Divinity in you. Buddhism to me seems like a very practical approach to life. How to master the mind, so the mind is not the master of you. How to live by it's simple straightforward, yet profound and noble truths, how these truths perhaps clear the individual consciousness from its own neurotic, self-sabotaging tendencies and make a path to experience something larger. Christ says "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto to the father but by me" (John 14V6). Now one can understand this in a very limited way, and it still be rooted in perfect truth, but there is a way to understand this in its broader context too.

Who was Jesus the God-Man; what did he teach; what was his essence; how does his very being show us what God is and help us in our humanness to understand with such subtlety, yet clarity? When we read his words, the parables, study his lessons, that which is so much greater

is illumined through him. It is that illumination which leads us to the Father. And yet.... there are those that proclaim his name, without any of that understanding and their lives begin to change. Those that claim that Jesus came to them in a dream. The mystery, the miraculous.

There is an openness and expansiveness in seeing the connected synergies of all things. While there is a mutual goal in seeking through one of the varying paths and ways, for me there seems to be something unique about this self-proclaimed "son of man". I personally cannot put Jesus Christ in the same category of every other teacher, healer, and enlightened guru as many do. Maybe I am biased because of my personal Bhakti devotional nature and my own experience of the Risen Christ, but to me he stands out. There is something supremely unique in his way that touches people of so many different paths. Something very personal.

Buddhism does not believe in a personal God, but Christ calls his Father Abba (Mark 14:36) and encourages us to do the same. Not to merely bask in God's divine presence, but to be in conscious relationship with ultimate consciousness, perfection, the creator, the I-am-that-I-am, the alpha and the omega (Rev. 1:8). To me there is something unique and special there.

I was in a period of darkness in my life some years ago. I think I had been seeking a long time, my whole life, in a way. Always had a firm faith in God and spirit. On my trip to Peru with a missionary friend she kept talking about a prayer to ask Jesus Christ into your heart. So I did, what did I have to lose? My life changed dramatically (not eventually), although there were some changes that took time to manifest and continue to deepen and grow to this day. But in Peru after that day—literally, immediately in the days that followed—my life was forever altered. Truth was revealed in a clarity that was unparalleled. My eyes that were blind could see and I was given ears to hear (Matt. 13:16) . Why? Years later some new-age type friends mentioned the energetic component to Peru, and maybe that plays into things too. Maybe all those years of seeking found the ripe moment to bear fruit? “Seek and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). But maybe that is just another facet of God's greater plan when synchronicity is beyond logic. I can not explain it, but I experienced it, so the mystery can remain, and I am fine with that. Maybe that too is part of what it is all about, being OK with knowing and not knowing so much in simultaneous harmony.