"What do you seek?" asks Jesus, the first words he utters in the Book of John (the Eagle). "We want to know where you live," respond the two disciples.
Be careful what you ask for. Are you sure you want the consciousness of a holy one? Wouldn't you rather be a tight little, snugly self-contained Walmart shopper and fulfiller of the American Dream? Wouldn't you rather just go on as you have been, getting your orgasms in small doses? Are you sure you are ready to open to life with loud and joyous cries of ecstasy?
"Absolute extinction in the void!" exclaim the Taoist and Zen dudes and dudesses when queried by sincere seekers. "Hunh-uhn! No way!" many say, and jump over the monk-y wall to the pleasures of the town.
Are you sure you want to live where God lives? "God is a circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere," say the early theo-philosophers. A void, a very fertile void. Don't you want to keep wearing your circumferential girdle?
Can you live without your precious persona, the one you have so carefully assembled over the years, your character-ological disorder, the face you present to the world, the story you have told yourself so long? Better just hunker down and keep living in the world of appearance.
Hafiz, that wild man Sufi poet, begs to differ. He says come on in, the water's fine. He says "God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing."
God, you, the boat, all disappear. Only the laughter remains.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
To avoid a void,
ReplyDeleteThe flowing river is dammed;
A leak has begun...
--MCB