Ten Principles To The Zen Of Attraction

1. Promise Nothing
   Just do what you most enjoy doing.
   Hidden benefit: You will always over-deliver.
2. Offer Nothing
   Just share what you have with those who express an interest in it.
   Hidden benefit: Takes the pressure off of wanting other people to see you as valuable or important.
3. Expect Nothing
   Just enjoy what you already have. It’s plenty.
   Hidden benefit: You will realize how complete your life is already.
4. Need Nothing
   Just build up your reserves and your needs will disappear.
   Hidden benefit: You boundaries will be extended and filled with space.
5. Create Nothing
   Just respond well to what comes to you.
   Hidden benefit: Openness.
6. Hype Nothing
   Just let quality sell by itself.
   Hidden benefit: Trustability.
7. Plan Nothing
   Just take the path of least resistance.
   Hidden benefit: Achievement will become effortless.
8. Learn Nothing
   Just let your body absorb it all on your behalf.
   Hidden benefit: You will become more receptive to what you need to know in the moment.
9. Become No One
   Just be more of yourself.
   Hidden benefit: Authenticity.
10. Change Nothing
    Just tell the truth and things will change by themselves.
    Hidden benefit: Acceptance.

- by Graham English

Seek, all of you, after the Light, so that the power of your Soul that is in you may live. Do not desist from seeking by day and by night, until you find the purifying mysteries of the Light which refine the body of matter and make it a pure Light very refined. Do to all men who come to you and believe in you and listen to your words what is worthy of the mysteries of the Light, give the mysteries of the Light and do not hide them from them. For he who shall give life to a single soul and liberate it, besides the Light that is in his own soul, he shall receive other glory in return for the soul he has liberated.
- Book of Sophia

Advent, originating from the Latin adventus meaning “coming”, is the season of preparation for the coming birth of the Divine Child. It serves as a separated space of time where we say to ourselves, “Shhh! The Light is coming! Release, surrender, prepare: the time has come again.” We prepare for this new cycle through repentance of our sins, reflection on the lessons learned over the past year, and resolutions for the righting our path for the year to come.

It is a time of focus on the inner work of cleansing and purification, of re-dedication to the Light so that we may fittingly celebrate the birth of the Divine Child and the re-emergence of the Light in the world again. Advent has its roots in our Pagan past, where candles were lit in honour of the dying sun and in anticipation of its rebirth at the Winter Solstice, a time of the year where the days cease getting shorter and the hope of spring and the return of life is renewed.

As Gnostics, our awareness is rooted in our gnosis, and in this darkest time of the year, we retreat to the Sacred Flame within us, to reflect and meditate on the cycles of life and learning. We benefit greatly from this period of mindful and deliberate preparation as it allows us to fully appreciate when the Light arrives once again. It is a reaffirmation of our path and of our faith that God is ever with us. It is an awakening of the Light of Gnosis in the seat of our soul.

Looking into one’s own nature, as here understood, is not an introspective effort at examining one’s, mental processes; still less does it require us to submit to the ministrations of a psychoanalyst. An inner task is certainly involved before we can experience what has been called the “opening of the third eye”; but this again, is no psychological miracle. It is the gift, so simple yet so rarely possessed, of looking directly at reality, so that we see it as it is, in its “suchness.” It is the capacity to bring all our powers of perception to bear on what is before us – including, be it noted, our own actions and experiences – without any subjective admixture of personal feelings, prejudices, alien thoughts, wishes, attractions, aversions, memories, hopes, fears, and, in general, that complex amalgam of emotions which habitually prevents us from observing what we are looking at, clear and unclouded. The result of such “enlightenment” is to remove the sense of alienation from the natural world, from other people, from our selves, and consequently from God, which lies at the root of our distress. Once a harmony has been established, on the basis of that nature “which makes the whole world kin,” there is a sense in which the Christian also can make his own the tat tvam asi (That art thou), and, in enlightened compassion, find relief from an at times seemingly unbearable weight of suffering.  – Dom Aelred Graham, Zen Catholicism (1962)

Without trying particularly hard, one can easily see that what he is talking about is gnosis. This is extremely important to understand, that gnosis is NOT something to be obtained, realized or found. It is a way of seeing, it is knowledge of the Heart. I know I might be sounding like a bit of a broken record here, but I believe this cannot be under stressed. Gnosis does not belong to Gnosticism. Gnosticism is simply a tradition that focuses on the process of living in gnosis, but it does not hold a monopoly on it. Another mistake is to limit oneself to the term, for there are a plethora of traditions and religions that all focus on living within an ideal state of being, and they all reflect gnosis to some degree. They are all speaking of and working towards their own facet of the same jewel. Gnosis is an eternal and timeless mode of understanding the reality of reality and our place in it.

This is an important thing to realize. When we limit our understanding or limit our scope of searching for understanding, we limit not only ourselves, but the where we can go and who we can become. When we declare that the fifth step of the ladder we are on is very high, the likelihood of us taking the sixth step becomes less. Many find their way to Gnosticism through a discontent with the “establishment”, but this is a childish thing and should be cast off as soon as it is convenient. It is limiting and unworthy, to be blunt. The discontent, when looked at truthfully, is not with the administration or the perceived constrictions of that administration but ultimately reside at times within our own limited understanding of our own perceptions and projections. When one dines in a restaurant, does one look with resentment upon the waiter who tells you where to sit, makes sure you dine with a certain level of decorum, and insists you pay for your food before exiting the building? Of course not, so why then do so many resent a tradition or religion for having “rules”?

There is truth everywhere, all religions hold a sacred carriage. As Gnostics, we attempt to be consummate “universalists”. All knowledge is worth having, all ideas are worth exploring and we do not deign to limit ourselves to terms or appearances. Gnosis is truth. Truth is within. If this is the maxim, there can be no borders.

You are the future,
the red sky before sunrise
over the fields of time.

You are the cock’s crow when night is done,
you are the dew and the bells of matins,
maiden, stranger, mother, death.

You create yourself in ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff of our days –
unsung, unmourned, undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.

You are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
To each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

- Rainer Maria Rilke 

Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. You have to be able to transcend your knowledge the way people climb a ladder. If you are on the fifth step of a ladder and think that you are very high, there is no hope for you to climb to the sixth. The technique is to release. The Buddhist way of understanding is always letting go of your views and knowledge in order to transcend. This is the most important teaching. That is why I use the image of water to talk about understanding. Knowledge is solid; it blocks the way of understanding. Water can flow, it can penetrate anything. – Thich Naht Hanh

I wanted to share this with you because I think this is something we forget constantly. It is the greatest flaw and weakness of any religion, tradition or system of understanding. Our tendency to create rules and guidelines for ourselves is limitless. If I behave thusly, I shall achieve this affect. But this is not the case with things spiritual. Spirituality and understanding is both/and. Things that appear opposite can in fact be true at the same time. Knowledge is either/or and there is no room for either/or and black/white thinking in a spiritual life. All things must be brought into harmony and all things must find a home in peace.

“Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.” – Gospel of Thomas

What else can this passage be directing us to? God is the resolution of opposites, that ultimate reality where all things exist as one in absolute and perfect wholeness. Gnosis is nothing more and nothing less than a way of seeing this in our reality. A way of seeing the inherent wholeness and unity in all things based in their basic existence and participation in the Creation of God. Christ saw this way, and he is the template by which we make our own Christ-nature manifest in this physical reality. He is not the only way, but in many ways, the one best suited for our western way of thinking and behaving. Gnosis is universal, it is not the property of Gnosticism. You can find gnosis everywhere and in any tradition or religion.

When we assert that we “know” something we are in affect closing the book on it. There is an ending implicit in this statement. When we know something then there is nothing more to learn. We close our minds to further understanding. There is a Buddhist teaching story about a father who went to the market one day and left his young son at home alone. While he was away their village was raided by bandits and the man’s son was taken away and forced into slavery. When the man returned home he found his son missing and his village partially burned. He searched and searched and eventually came upon the burned body of a child in a home that was burned and mistook it for his own son. He wept and grieved for his dead son and buried that body and did not search for his son.

Eventually his son escaped the bandits and found his way home but found the door locked. He knocked and called to his father to let him in, but his father refused to believe that it was his son. He cried, “Go away spirit and leave me alone!” After a few more tries the boy left and never saw his father again. When we cling to knowledge we cannot accept truth even when it knocks on our door.

Gnosis is a process of casting off what we know and finding a way towards understanding. But understanding is hard to express without phrasing it in terms of knowing. This is why expressions of gnosis are so varied, so oblique and so hard to understand. They make complete sense only to the person who expressed it. Much of the Nag Hammadi is this way, just written down expressions of gnosis. To take much of it as truth or knowledge is to guard your mind from finding it’s way to it’s own understanding. Understanding is more than just mind. It is heart as well, and it must be brought into harmony with mind. We must become as open windows so that the truth can come to us unchallenged. By clinging to knowledge we close that window, and whats more, we focus instead on the glass rather than the view beyond.

I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know; and this is very difficult to do. You listen to something, and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding. Just observe yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient. You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life. You are not actually listening at all . You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn’t react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then, in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding. If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or for a few seconds – in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It is the interval that is the new brain. The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary, animalistic sense. When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain acts, and it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain.

Jiddhu Krishnamurti

I thought I’d post a small message explaining the re-design of this blog. As some or many of my readers(?) may know I was a member of the seminary of the Apostolic Johannite Church. Due to family considerations I have withdrawn from the seminary but will maintain an active relationship with the AJC. The clergy of the AJC was and will continue to be integral in my spiritual formation and are among my most special co-religionists. But this wasn’t right for my family and even if it doesn’t necessarily match my own personal wishes, leave I decided I must. Wish me luck on this new leg of my journey and stay tuned for further musings!

The word “sacred” is derived from the Latin sacrare, which means, “to make sacred, consecrate.” The word “space” is derived from the Latin spatium, which means “room, area, distance, stretch of time.” So Sacred Space could be defined as a consecrated or holy area, distance or time. This definition could be taken in many different ways. The most common application of the term is in an area that is set aside specifically for rituals or moments of a specific spiritual or holy nature. A church or altars are good examples of this.

When each of us attempts to live a spiritual way of life, it is common and in some ways necessary to create a stretch of time that is dedicated to holy or sacred endeavors, which usually include contemplation, meditation and/or prayer. This often naturally dovetails with the setting aside of a specific place in one’s home or in going to a specific location to perform these things. So a Sacred Space can be both a physical space and an appointed time frame both of which contain this activity of a spiritual practice.

As one’s spiritual practice gains maturity with practice and dedication, you can begin to discern a mindset or “state of being” that will come over you during this allotted time and often can become attached to this place. It is possible to sit or reside within this space outside of the usual time of your practice and feel something of that state of being within it. It can include feelings of peace and wellbeing, of calmness and compassion. So as we move forward with our practice what was once only a physical space or an allotted time, is now burgeoning into a state of being, or “feeling”.

In the Scripture, Jesus has a name for this, the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. In
Luke 17:20-22 it says:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Thomas 3 and 113 has this to say:

Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” “It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it.”

The Kingdom is not a physical place but indicative of an interior landscape. Just as our own spiritual practice becomes mature and it is no longer the actual space or time, but an interior reality that has blossomed within us, so to is it with the Kingdom. We become the Kingdom and possibly more profoundly; we realize that we always were the Kingdom. It is through this way of seeing what is before us, through the lens of God’s love, our inherent connection to the Mystery and knowledge of the Heart, that the Kingdom becomes a reality, not by “careful observation” or by “watching for it”.

The Kingdom can be understood as a state of being or a way of perceiving that gains us access to God and allows us to re-unite with Him in wholeness, and also AS that state of wholeness. It would not be worthwhile to understand it as being a physical place. The Nag Hammadi tells us in several places that the Kingdom is not a place we can see or go to, but a reality we can perceive if we wish to do so. So to does the Bible though perhaps somewhat more obliquely.

When understood from this vantage point, we can begin to gain an understanding of the somewhat hidden nature of gnosis. Gnosis is not (or is rarely so) an “Event Horizon” with its world shattering implications. It is little different from the state of mindfulness described by the Zen Buddhists. We practice gnosis every day in the things we do, say, think and act on. Gnosis is a state of mind, a way of living or attempting to live with a unitive understanding of the people and things around us. Gnosis is peace, compassion, kindness, and love.

Every step we take can be an act of worship, mindful of the impossible gift being conscious of that step is, and the obligation every step and every action we take carries and the responsibility we have to those around us. Being better or less than someone else is an illusion. There is no better. There is no less. There just is.

If we can practice in this way, then we live is such a way that gnosis is every step, every word, every emotion. The Kingdom is here with us now and with it the ability to understand and partake in the sacredness of the mundane, in the holiness of the moment. Each of us is a conduit, a doorway by which the Divine can participate in His creation. When we see this and embrace it through gnosis, we enter the Kingdom, we become the Kingdom and we ourselves become a Sacred Space. They are all different facets of the same gem, different shades of the same Light.

For wisdom is quicker to move than any motion;
She is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.
She is a breath of the power of God,
Pure emanation of the glory of the almighty
So that nothing impure can find its way into her.
For she is a reflection of the eternal light
untarnished mirror of God’s active power
and image of his goodness.

- Book of Wisdom 7:24-26

Contemplation can be defined as “meditation on spiritual matters, especially as a form of devotion”. Contemplative practices are tools by which one pursues contemplation. This can include meditation, prayer, study, music, and art…essentially anything that has one attempting to get in touch with our inner landscape and make it available for an outward expression.

Paul tells us that “faith without action is meaningless” and Thich Naht Hanh reiterates “mindfulness without engagement is useless”. We need to outwardly live our internal revelations. This is, I think, a critical indicator in whether or not what someone has experienced and/or realized is gnosis rather than an epiphany. And there is a definite difference.

Epiphanies are wonderful, like a door opened onto a winter landscape, they bring a gust of refreshment and invigoration. But they are not gnosis. Why? Because even though epiphanies bring important realizations and understandings to the forefront of our minds, they do not inherently and irrevocably change us. Gnosis does.

Gnosis isn’t so much a “thing” as it is a frame of mind or a way of perceiving our reality or even a previously hidden understanding. Jesus tells us “there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.” One does not obtain it for this implies you were missing it. It’s like stating you have “found God” when He was with you all along. Just because you suddenly noticed the nose on your face doesn’t mean it wasn’t always there.

Gnosis is a gradual lifting of the veil of our senses and our ego, so that for the first time we are able to see and understand the nature of True Reality, that which IS free of our prejudices, judgments and self-interests. It is a symptom not a completion. The goal is Theosis, or total surrender of Self and union with the Divine. Gnosis is the road signs along that path.

So if a person has truly experienced or is experiencing gnosis, then they cannot help but be changed. Through your gnosis, if you are in tune with the nature of our inter-being and oneness with all people around us, then anger at them is no longer possible. Compassion is a natural replacement, and with compassion comes humbleness, kindness, love and a desire to help and serve. It is obvious then from this standpoint to see the difference in those that have mistaken epiphanies for gnosis.

So why do I bring up this distinction? Because I think it is possible, for those of us that have experienced gnosis on a much more subtle level to not live our gnosis in its entirety. We are programmed beings, in many ways mindlessly carrying out robotic actions and reactions based on stimuli and situational behaviours. But our gnosis gives us the ability and the desire to lift off our veil of ignorance and apathy and to begin to live as we ought to, not necessarily as we are expected to or programmed to.

A regular and commited spiritual practice makes it easier to implement these changes in our external lives instead of containing these changes within ourselves. There is also a certain liberation that can be felt by openly living our understandings and gnosis, allowing the example of our lives to speak more clearly then our words ever could. Daily meditation or prayer, for example, gives us the opportunity to engage our gnosis and within it, live in mindfulness in the moment throughout the day. Deprogramming ourselves is hard work and can and will take a lifetime especially with the the pressures of social life and gnosis will not do this work for us, it simply provides a mirror and a template by which we can accomplish this task.

This is a step, I think, that is a trifle overlooked and perhaps neglected in modern Gnosticism. In discussion forums you see people new to the tradition trying to figure out what gnosis is and how to get it. Talking about it is not the way, but living towards it is. There is a certain value to discussion and debate, for learning will naturally serve to augment our understandings, but it cannot and really should not replace an active personal spiritual practice. This can be as simple has faithfully observing the Aurum Solis Solar Practice or running through a Rosary once a day, Catholic or Gnostic, or just sitting quietly in a special space for 10 minutes every morning.

The power behind the practice is not the practice itself but the intent it represents. It is the intent to carve out a space in your life for it, to pattern your life around it, not fitting it in whenever it’s convenient. It is creating that link of mindfulness between yourself and God. It is beginning that relationship with a part of yourself and of the world around you that has always and will always be there. A spiritual practice is like finally focusing at the landscape visible through your window, rather than constantly focusing on the glass fitted between the panes.

OKAAAAAAYYY.

So I can see that I’m still getting some traffic here and some of my checker-outers might have wondered where all my posting went.

Well I’ve been developing a Gnostic version of the Divine Hours. What are those you ask? The Divine Hours, or Divine Office, is a monastic tradition (though used by laity as well) wherein you recite and pray a series of readings, prayers and intentions 7 times a day.

With the resurgence of  contemplative practices, there are been many modernized versions of the Divine Office and a few have truncated it down to 4 times, those being: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and before bedtime time. This is what I’ve done, it’s just easier for those of us with careers and kids, and still serves the function it was intended.

Over the next little while I’m going to be delving in depth into what contemplative practices are all about and where we can hope they will lead us. I will share some excerpts of what I’ve developed and after a bit of test-driving, I will share the smaller version (one week cycle) with you all.

The larger version  (31 day cycle) is more robust and less repetitive and will be available as well though I’m debating whether I will post it to Lulu.com for a nominal fee (it’s quite big and printing it on your computer at home will be largely infeasible). I guess we’ll see how folks dig the smaller version and go from there

Peace

No way is hard where there is a simple heart.
Nor is there any wound where the thoughts are upright:
Nor is there any storm in the depth of the illuminated thought:
Where one is surrounded by beauty
There is nothing that is divided.
The likeness of that which is below
Is that which is above:
For everything is above:
What is below is nothing
But the imagination of those that are without knowledge.
Grace has been given for your salvation.
Believe and live and be saved.
Hallelujah!

Odes to Solomon 

I see this thought over and over again. That traveling a path towards Gnosis is a lonely one for us poor misunderstood Gnostics. That Gnostics are categorically misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, and ostracized. Now I am painting things with a broad brush but this vein of thought is very much present and prevalent within modern Gnostic thought and praxis.

So let me ask the question. Is it lonely because we’re misunderstood, or is it lonely because we want it that way? How much of this perceived loneliness is self-satisfying poor-me-ism? Is it a kind of back handed self-righteousness or is it just the “way it is”?

With the pending publication of Jordan Stratford’s+ book “Living Gnosticism: An Ancient Way of Knowing” wherein he strives to clearly annunciate what “Gnosticism” actually is as a modern and relevant spiritual tradition whose roots and history are at par with Christianity, one has to ask oneself, am I a participant in this growingly accepted definition of Gnosticism the Religion or am I a solo seeker of Gnosis? A seeker of Gnosis does not a Gnostic make, unfortunately.

If one draws inspiration from the writings of Thich Naht Hanh, does that make one a Buddhist? Of course not. If one perceives truths in the writings of St. John of the Cross, does that make one a Catholic or even a Christian? Nope. So why then do those that feel a kinship with Gnosticism yet decline to follow even the basic tenets of the religion, insist on calling themselves Gnostics? Why the ongoing redefinition of it as a tradition?

Why, in this day in age, do we feel obliged and even entitled to push, prod, pull and stretch pre-existing ideologies to fit with our own personal world view and perceptions? Are we so arrogant as to think we know best? Are we so spiritually advanced that we can or should even make these decisions? As Jesus says, “Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.” And this is an incredibly important point.

Accepting a tradition in it’s totality is not to yield our necks to the yoke of another’s will. It is surrendering what “you think is best” is the name of walking in the steps of those that have mastered a path whose intricacies and subtleties you may know nothing about, no matter how many books you’ve read and despite how many meditation seminars you been to. It is suspending your disbelief as it were. It is saying the Universe, “Teach me, allow me to learn, show my your secrets” in a state of submissiveness and humbleness we just cannot achieve if we constantly interject what we think works better. This is not to say that you should do this indefinitely, but how can we learn if we do not at least try? As we learn and perceive we then can make adjustments or choices based on knowledge rather than opinion.

Gnosticism tells us that there are two parts to our spiritual practice. That of an individual and private practice, consisting of contemplation, meditation, scripture and/or writings, and prayer, in any combination or order that works with your individuality. The second part is that of communal expression, of liturgy and the sacraments, and of community good works. To adhere to only one of these parts is to miss the larger picture. Both provide it’s counterpart with a larger or more refined context. It’s no different than a family. Can an individual who spends their entire existence alone truly partake in the larger variance and multiplicity of human experience? And can someone who spends their entire existence wrapped in the protective cocoon of family and people ever truly discover and profit from the hidden depths of our own individual human expression? The answer to both has to be no, so how then we can expect to do the same in our spiritual lives?

Being understood or misunderstood by those around us, or concerning ourselves with persecution or the same, within the context of spiritual life is counterintuitive to what it means to live a spiritual life. The desire to be understood implies a need for acceptance. Concerning ourselves with being persecuted for our beliefs implies a need for belonging. We’re told to worship in private and in secret for good reason, which is ultimately because our relationship with God is intensely personal and not about self-aggrandizement or self-congratulation. It is about satiating a deeper need for a connection for that which has created us. A deeper appreciation and participation in the Mystery that is behind all things, large or small.

Participating spiritually within a community setting as well is not about “one up manship” but about celebrating the Divine within and without together. It’s not about who’s more Gnostic-ier than who, but about sharing our journey with one another, not because we can show how more spiritually mature we are than others, but because doing so adds dimension and richness to our own experience.

Gnosticism does not have to be a lonely journey, nor should it be. It is one full of love, compassion and community. Since embarking on my own path of self-awakening I have experienced more of these things than I ever had previously before in my life, even with geographically being separated from my brothers and sisters as I am. Am I saying I don’t have moments of being misunderstood or maligned for my beliefs? No, that would be silly, but these moments only have power if I let them, if I feed my ego’s desire to be recognized and revered. But if I walk a path of humbleness, secure in my budding relationship with God and my growing understanding of the Divine in how It relates to me right now in this moment, these things hold no power over me and blow away like so many dandelions in the wind.

In order to have pleasure in everything
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything
Desire to know nothing.
In order to arrive at that wherein thou hast no pleasure
Thou must go by a way in which thou hast no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not
Thou must go by a way that thou knowest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not
Thou must go by a way that thou possessest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou art not
Thou must go through that which thou art not.

- St. John of the Cross 

Like so many terms and notions in spiritual contexts, the terms Belief and Faith have become incredibly skewed. Belief has come to mean to be committed to an idea or notion to a degree where we would willingly defend it, but do not technically “know” it to be true. Faith has come to mean blind submission to doctrine and dogma as true, even though we have no possible way of “knowing” it to be true. This couldn’t be further from the truth of what these terms actually mean.

In the US, to use them as an example, over 90% of the population (from a recent poll I read) “believes that God exists”. Whereas to some this may indicate the profound religious convictions of a vast majority of a country’s people, it says something entirely different to me. It is my opinion that in today’s culture we have been told and sold on the idea that we can do and be and have whatever we want. That all things are possible for us. Consequently that has lead to the false idea that we can also “believe” in whatever we want, and that that belief is by default true, or at least true to us. I can believe my toaster is a water buffalo, but it’s still going to toast bread and it most definitely will never moo. The high numbers of believers in the US (a shining example of Western Lifestyle where rampant consumerism and materialism are the norm) indicates to me that the belief in God has become a part of being American and has little to do anymore with actually being religious minded. It’s a catch phrase rather than a spiritual conviction.

So what then is belief? Belief used to mean “trust in God,” while faith meant “loyalty to a person based on promise or duty” (a sense preserved in keep one’s faith, in good (or bad) faith and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of the Latin “fides“, took on the religious sense beginning in the 14th century translations, and belief had by the 16th century become limited to “mental acceptance of something as true.” In essence faith and belief are the same thing, with different overtones.

So if belief is the acceptance of something as true, then is a belief then in fact something we develop on our own, or is it something presented to us for our consideration? And on what faculty or evidence do we make this determination?

Enter Faith. Thomas Merton had the following to say of the notion of faith:

The mind of man is, by its very nature, a participation in the intelligence of God, Whose light illumines the conclusions of rational discourse. Words can be sadly mistreated and misused; but they could not be false if they could not also be true. Language may become a suspicious instrument on the tongues of fools and charlatans, but language as such retains its power to signify and communicate the Truth.
Faith, without depending on reason for the slightest shred of justification, never contradicts reason and remains ever reasonable. Faith does not destroy reason, but fulfills it. Nevertheless, there must always remain a delicate balance between the two. Two extremes are to be avoided: credulity and skepticism; superstition and rationalism.
If this balance is upset, if man relies too much on his five senses and on his reason when faith should be his teacher, then he enters into illusion. Or when, in defiance of reason, he gives the assent of his faith to a fallible authority, then too he falls into illusion. Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.
It is absolutely impossible for a man to live without some kind of faith. Faith, in the broadest sense, is the acceptance of truth on the evidence of another. The essence of all faith is the submission of our judgment to the authority of someone else, on whose word we accept a truth that is not intrinsically evident in our own minds. Human or natural faith is the acceptance of truths on the authority of other men. Supernatural faith is the belief in truths revealed by God, on the testimony of God, and because of the authority of God Who reveals these truths to us.

Even atheists take their beliefs on faith, since as they hold, we believers cannot prove that God exists, so too must the reverse be true. Faith is not the blind submission to doctrine and dogma that it has come to represent. We take things on faith everyday. Every time we buy a product because a commercial has told us that it’s the latest and greatest. Ever found yourself saying “I heard this is really good” but in the back of your mind you know that I heard = I saw a commercial that grabbed my attention or I really like the packaging? And this is the root of what Merton is speaking about…we’ve given up our ability to reason. Is it reasonable to take the words of someone trying to profit from our buying practices entirely on faith and to swallow them as true? Absolutely not. But we do it everyday.

So why then, in terms of religion and spirituality, do we find it so hard to do? What about religion and spirituality makes us reject it so casually? It is my opinion that it is what comes with it that is truly the issue. All religion/spirituality requires things from us, that we are not prepared through our mindless need to satisfy our every desire and want to give up. Even the most PR friendly religion, Buddhism, complete with the peace-filled and ambivalent smile of the Dalai Lama, requires us to live a certain way. But to treat everyone we meet with grace and compassion and loving kindness, to protect the Earth, to help those in need would require us to set our own whims and desires aside for the needs of another. Religion demands that we shift our perception from selfish narcissistic materialism to holistic compassion for all sentient beings and the benefit of the community. I consider it one of the greatest travesties of our time that the idea of giving up our Starbucks and SUVs to give rather than take is greeted with such knee-jerk and absolute rejection.

We’ve become a generation of children who refuse to eat our vegetables based on nothing more concrete than we think they are yucky. If we would just try them we would be introduced to a world of wonderful flavour, health and dimension. If we would just trust what our elders are trying to impart to us backed with 2000+ years of religious and spiritual exploration, experience and revelation, we too could enjoy a life far more fulfilling than mindless grubbing for material trappings. Even the Dalai Lama, the world’s greatest spokesman, encourages everyone to partake and participate actively in some form of religious tradition.

Never has human kind lived in an age where information is so accessible, ideas so prevalent, and open acceptance of traditional and non-traditional notions so complete. And yet, never has human kind been so completely absorbed with ourselves. Global warming, poverty, slavery, child soldiers, hunger, social inequity, disease epidemics, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, religious intolerance and fundamentalism could all be countered and abolished completely if we would just try our vegetables.

So, care for some broccoli?

This past weekend was my first Conclave, as well as the first time meeting several members of my the AJC face to face. It was a joy and an honour to watch two of my brothers be raised to Deacon, it was incredibly validating to finally meet my bishop, and it was a pleasure to strengthen relationships that had already been made.

During the Mass/Ordination marathon, +Mar Iohannes spoke to us about service which led to a later conversation with one of Father Jordan’s+ parishioners. I spent some time pondering not only my bishop’s words but this conversation as well during my long ferry ride home.

There are many forms of service and I always find it odd that most people almost always, and often unconsciously, equate it to “seeing to another’s needs”. I have also often noticed that when one enters or practices this type of service with altruistic intentions, they often find themselves in a position of subjugating their own needs for that of the person they are trying to “serve”.

It is a noble intention indeed to sacrifice your own needs and desires for the well-being of another. Blessed are they that willingly seek out these opportunities to help those around them, but in some ways this can also be a bit misguided as well. It is completely natural for a sense of resentment to build up over time when one is practicing this form of service to others, particularly when this is being offered to the same individual time and again with little apparent affect. For example if you have dedicated your capacity for service to help a friend who is in a bad place or has made a series of bad decisions.

Does resenting someone you have altruistic and helpful intentions towards make you a bad person? Absolutely not. It makes you human. All but the very greatest of us ever totally transcend the little voice of our ego and without constant mindfulness and attention towards the keeping of our “little self” in it’s place and proper context, our ego can and will re-assert itself in our daily psyche. The Demiurge and the Archons aren’t sneaky and subtle and ruthless in our Gnostic myths for nothing!

Serving someone in this capacity could be considered an exoteric form, or literal understanding of the notion of service. I often come back to Jesus’ teaching of the plank in my own eye vs. the speck in my brother’s eye. Our intention to serve another will often naturally lead to attempting to help them with their problems. It is a beautiful thing to find compassion for another’s suffering, in fact it is in many ways a very necessary step in our journey towards spiritual maturity. But one of the most profound understandings I have realized in my own journey and in my own altruistic intentions with those around me is, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Sometimes the best way to “help” someone is to let them know you are there for them when they need you and to just leave them alone.

If you are neglecting the plank in your own eye, then it is increasingly easy for your compassionate intentions to another to turn into resentment and frustration as you watch them to continue to choose the path of suffering, despite all you are trying to tell them and all that you are trying to do for them. By being there for them as a resource rather than as an intervention, you are providing support to them in a more subtle way. It may, even unconsciously, provide that person with a measure of security to know that they have a place to turn.

By resolving your own shadows and quieting our own internal spaces, we are then able to better allow that internal work to shine forth to our external reality. We can become an oasis of calm, love, peace and compassion and in this way we can serve not only those closest to us but anyone we come in contact with. Our positive energy and aura can also pour into the Universe as well and provide a service to all sentient beings. A thimble full of water added to the ocean raises the water level, even if it’s infinitesimal.

Jesus spoke in parables to make us work for understanding, for it is the journey that teaches, not the answer. An answer is easily forgotten all by itself but the milestones of a journey are branded indelibly on our soul and they provide a needed context for us to truly appreciate the profundity of the answer. But more profound than his words was the example he made of his life. Even if he spoke no words to us all, it was all there to be learned by the example he provided us patterned in his everyday approach to life. As gnostics, we understand this also on an even deeper level, realizing that our own path to salvation from ignorance and liberation from suffering lies in following this example and becoming Christ-like ourselves.

Buddhists from the beginning have understood this, Mystics through the ages have understood this. By removing the plank from our own eye we will see more clearly the way to remove the speck from our brothers eye. We will see that by removing that plank, by resolving internally our shadows, we provide a real and tangible example for others to follow, and that the real point from the beginning was that the speck we saw in their eye was in fact simply and profoundly nothing other than a reflection of the plank in our own.

This, in my opinion, is the definition of service and the highest calling we could find in our lives today.

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life…

He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf is evil — he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied: “The one you feed”.

Happiness and suffering come from your own mind, not from outside. Your own mind is the cause of happiness; your own mind is the cause of suffering. To obtain happiness and pacify suffering, you have to work within your own mind.

- Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “The Door To Satisfaction”

Belief in the Jesus story was originally the first step in Christian spirituality — the Outer Mysteries. Its significance was to be explained by an enlightened teacher when the seeker was spiritually ripe. These Inner Mysteries imparted a mystical Knowledge of God beyond mere belief in dogmas. Although many inspired Christian mystics throughout history have intuitively seen through to this deeper symbolic level of understanding, as a culture we have inherited only the Outer Mysteries of Christianity. We have kept the form, but lost the inner meaning. Our culture has suppressed the fact that the miracles and stories of Jesus were symbolic mythic motiffs that were intended to convey ‘truths’ as opposed to facts.
What had started as a timeless myth encoding perennial teaching [has been improperly converted into] a historical account of a once-only event in time. From this point it was unavoidable that sooner or later it would be interpreted as historical fact. Once it was, a whole new type of religion came into being – a religion based on history not myth, on blind faith in supposed events rather than on a mystical understanding of mythical allegories, a religion of the Outer Mysteries without the Inner Mysteries, of form without content, of belief without Knowledge.

– Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries.

We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it by theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos”inside bags of skin.

- Alan Watts