A direct experience of the spiritual life is preferable to an indirect – or a mediated – experience. Five years or so ago I was called by God to change my life. The dominant characteristic of that change has been the mode of contact. I do not approach Jesus “slant,” as Emily Dickinson might have put it. Indeed, awakening or salvation seems to hinge on a more direct method of apprehension.
What does this mean though? And how is that sort of change brought about?
For one thing, for me, it has meant consolidating my intellectual energies. It has meant saying no more often. I used to read voraciously – anything and everything. It scratched an itch for sure, but it also had a fragmentary effect. If I read a cool essay by a Buddhist, I would grab fifteen books on Zen from the library, buy a dozen more, and dust of my zafu. That would last until I ran into Elaine Pagels or Krishnamurti and then another about-face would be called for.
Under the guise of open-mindedness and intellectualism – two of the ego’s favorite proxies for the dubious goal of self-improvement – I was effectively avoiding a) choosing a path and b) following that path.
A direct experience of God is not possible until one commits. It is as Scottish explorer W. H. Murray wrote,
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
In a halting and stumbling but sincere way I made a twofold commitment to Jesus. The first element was simply to accept that my “path” was a Christian one. No longer would I apologize for that and no longer would I try and make it otherwise.
Within a few months of that decision, a series of loosely Christian texts and writers appeared in my life that essentially converted my spiritual practice from the arid and intellectual to a rich and multidimensional (evolving and imperfect, yes, but you get the point) relationship with the Divine.
I was led from “about” the experience to the experience.
The second element of my commitment was to accept that I didn’t know from God. I saw that all my study and practice to that point had done nothing but demonstrate conclusively the futility of my own efforts and on that basis I renounced all future efforts. I resigned as my own teacher.
It sounds paradoxical but revelation is made possible by the realization that we neither can – nor need – do anything.
Increasingly, prayer and meditation look like nothing so much as a state of alertness, an intense awareness bent on Heaven. One’s sense of time begins to crumble, becomes less horizontal than holographic. Thought becomes transient indeed when not tethered to past or future. God is.
Please hear me say that this is a process, one that takes time, one that involves the activity of the body, one that involves little retreats, the occasional side trip. That’s okay. Once you accept the main road, your passage on it is sure and always welcome. And it is there, in the traveling – however hesitant, however guarded – that one begins to understand what Jesus meant when he said,
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. …if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well.
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
Our commitment to a direct encounter with Christ – and, by extension, God – is what makes this radical acceptance that Jesus proposes possible and not just theoretical.
{ 0 comments… add one now }
You must log in to post a comment.