The work of transformation

Mary and Jesus. Note that they look the same age. This is a useful ambiguity (but that would be a whole other post!). From Flickr user Steve Baker. It is used here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

It wasn’t until age 47 that I had an experience that demonstrated for me that there is a loving hand “above” us that can and does reach down to touch us. I’d been working for about a year in a mix of Zen Buddhist sitting and meditation, and a variant of what’s sometimes called the Western Esoteric Tradition, and sometimes called “magic” or, worse “Satans’ work!” (heh. As an aside, I’m used to being called a Satanist. As a teenager I played guitar and grew my hair long. I was also a good kid. Somehow, it was way more interesting for some people to imagine I was on a road to hell. I’m very glad I experienced this—it helped me think for myself).

Western esotericism has as it’s basis the Kabbalah, which impressed me tremendously. I’m grateful to have found it. It had the right mix of complexity and subtlety for my mind at the time. It’s a glorious “master API” for the interface between man and spirit. [I’m revealing my programmer background here. An API is an Application Programmer Interface — a way of passing information and requests across a system boundary]

But like all complex APIs, you can get lost in it…placing more value on expertise in the lore and deft usage of the API than in getting to where the API was supposed to take you. A real spiritual journey should create a union with God. This process, called Divinization by the ancient Greeks, is about searching out there for God, and then discovering that force inside you. And then, to flow that force out of you as God.

You could say God continually outflows—continually gives up what It Is, so that Life may do with that energy what it will.

So, anyway, bqck to my super-amazing-cool vision! There I was, sitting on a bench above the Oberer Stilfser Alm in Italy…

Image: here I was!

I was meditating, as I tried to do once a day on my hike. I was mentally in my Inner Sanctum, where I prayed in a clean robe and sought to invoke the graceful love and attention of my spiritual guide.

But who did I see before me?

Mary. The mother of Jesus…I saw in her beautiful face, and her tears, the knowledge of the World. The knowledge that this child of hers would be torn to pieces by the world to which he gave everything. And that she knew this. And that she accepted this. And that she continued to live with grace.

I am divided from knowing anything about her experience in many ways. I am a parent, but I’m not female. I’m not devout, in fact I’m a worldly person, keen to optimize my every arrangement, and full of ambition that led me here and there in the world.

But I saw in her, and experienced like a download into my own consciousness some momentary but unforgettable union with the consciousness of Mary. It slayed me, to use a term from my 1980s youth. Tears ran down my face. I never suspected that such…grace…could live in one body. I saw that this grace was Good beyond any measure I had ever walked. I felt that if I could only sit beside the fire of it, and gather the small store of twigs and branches that I could reach to feed it, then I would be at peace beyond measure. I would be joyful.

And behind Mary, now approaching me with a smile, was Jesus himself. I will never forget the coarseness of the cloth around his broad shoulders. It made him real for me. I felt his incredible patience. I felt that he would stand at the door of a collapsing World for an eternity to save one lost individual. I felt the greatest heroism, the greatest sympathy for error, the most complete understanding of how and why one might go wrong, and I felt an inquisitive and loving consciousness always ready to open any door and crawl through any tunnel to bring Light where it might help.

Jesus and Mary were particular. They were real people, not concepts. And this is what brought all of me running to them. Wanting to help. Because I have a body. I am vulnerable to my fears, to feeling sorry for myself, to many errors. And to see them, in their particularity, and that they’ve overcome what bedevils me here in 2018 with my phone and my take-out food and my reddit commenting…I want to honor them and help them.

At the end of this blissful union, I was surrounded by smiling faces in my Inner Sanctum. There was the impression of a party. I saw my Mom, and others. There was an impression of couches and glasses of wine. My guide, who resembles Jesus in a way, though with glasses and a smaller frame, was supporting me…me being half-collapsed in the style of a renaissance painting. A bit of self-consciousness returned. It was as if heaven was celebrating something.

Anyway…I came down from that mountain…I ordered pizza and drank too much. I got mad about this and that. However, I know what is Good. I know, and I will Return.

I want to say two things (at least!) about the fact of Jesus and Mary in my visions. Of course I recognize this is particular to me. Others will have their own Gods, saints, holy figures. But the first important thing I want to emphasize is the humanity of these people. It was the humanity of them that created in me an acceleration of love towards them.

Perhaps this was the “God in me” that loves it’s creations, and seeks to support them, I don’t know.

But what I do know is that to start the engine of that part of me which is (I think now) best, I needed to identify with the beings I saw…I needed to see shared, common vulnerability.

This, to me, is what Jesus and Mary are about. Bringing God down to earth, where we can touch, imagine and identify with her. In the Kabbalah, the central pillar has four Sephiroth. The bottom, Malkuth, is our daily life, where we live. The top is Kether, that most-unknowable aspect of God which can’t be described in words. The midpoint is Tiphareth-—this is where Jesus calls to us from. It is halfway to God.

Hang on you’ll say. Why are you spewing these ideas out as if they have any real basis? My answer: I’m speaking because I find the ideas “work.” They fill and name the dimly felt niches in the uncertain work of introspection. I’m a systems programmer in my day job. I do things that work. I regard this work as essentially the same.

Contrary to what you might think, your intellect must come along with you. You neither can nor should discard it. Isn’t your intellect among the greatest protectors of your integrity?

Of course. Well, there is a motivating explanation for the notion of “halfway to God” that may satisfy the intellect. The idea here is that God without a mediator is simply too “big” to fit in our consciousness. We cannot imagine how we would “be that,” and because our consciousnesses are geared towards manipulation of concepts in order to understand them, we are left with nothing at all to grip in this case.

So mostly, we don’t try. A figure like Jesus is right in between. We can imagine his life through his acts, his friends and words. But those words often have the shock of fresh, cold water in them. They come from some half-remembered space. From a simultaneous brand-new and ever-present.

Only through the particulars can we grasp the infinite. So…you must use a God the way you use a metaphor. You must enter an experiential space and try things. We’ve had lots of fun in recent years laughing at the phrase “What would Jesus do?” But it’s a good phrase. It’s a good idea.

Buddhism has a somewhat different idea. Buddhism seems to skip this intermediate point and get absolutely as close to the Godhead as possible. I think this is wonderful, however, for me, the process can become too austere. I see in myself a desire to manipulate the world “out there,” in order to understand it. I cannot disavow this desire. It seems deeply planted. My life as a computer programmer might be a reflection of it. A programmer lays his or her traps, then “runs the world,” feeling most alive when their understanding was perfect, and the “world” (the computer) runs according to plan.

This desire to manipulate in order to understand goes back a long way. In Dion Fortune’s telling, this mode of being is a particularly western one. The eastern way may be better, or it may just be different. In my own introspection, sitting in sesshin, I feel that the mind-space I enter is commensurate with the Sephiroth Binah…the third sphere (sephiroth), connected to Kether by one line…almost at the top, as it were!

Binah is the experience of seeing that force is divided into forms, and held there for reasons yet unclear. It is the deep Acceptance of the imperative of Form. Force wishes to zoom and swerve unrestrained everywhere with great freedom. But development requires constraint…even pain. It also means understanding.

Binah is the loss of capability that the fire of transformation may bring something new.

Binah is the cave which will destroy you…and forge you anew.

It is the choice to bind in order to create. Here there is loss, yes. How many sperm wither and die that one was accepted for the egg? Indeed, Binah is a principle that women always learn and men continually hope not to.

Okay, so in meditation I sit in Binah…seeing the “en-forming” of Force. I love the Force, for I see myself in it. I know what it is to want to move and to be held back. I know that it can experience it’s enforming as painful. And yet, I know that this is best. Watch…perceive in a loving way…hold this space…wait for an eternity: you are strong enough to do so. You are yourself Force being enformed – being ensouled.

This is Binah for me, and this is Zen. There is tremendous power to endure and accept in this.

But Tiphareth, now, is a different place. A different mode of consciousness. At the center of the Tree of Life, it balances and regulates all the connecting forces. Tiphareth represents the highest and most celebratory and loving life that is achievable here. It means Balance, Integration, Beauty. There is a “magical image” associated with each sphere, and Tiphareth is the most interesting one. It is three-fold:

A young boy, standing on a rock

A crucified man, chained to that same rock, in pain

An old and benevolent king on a throne

When I was held and celebrated in my Inner Sactum, on my Italian mountainside, what I didn’t understand, but which makes sense to me now, is that I was born as a child in Tiphareth. I “came to know it,” and in the Spirit world, this would be a cause for celebration. Many folks never get here, to judge by the millions of resentful and angry voices out there. I think it is part of our natural path, and so I want to do what I can to light a fire in people to reach this point in their own lives. Because dang…I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve had a wonderful life. However, none of my “doings” touch the joy of being in these higher states of consciousness.

The next image (crucifixion) is the scary one. But it must be travelled. As a child in the realm of God, you are given so much love. John of the Cross uses imagery of a baby at his mother’s breast:

“…God nurtures and caresses the soul, after it has been resolutely converted to his service, like a loving mother who warms her child with the heat of her bosom, nurses it with good milk and tender food, and carries and caresses it in her arms. But as the child grows older, the mother withholds her caresses and hides her tender love; she rubs bitter aloes on her sweet breast and sets the child down from her arms, letting it walk on its own feet so that it may put aside the habits of childhood and grow accustomed to greater and more important things. The grace of God acts just as a loving mother by re-engendering in the soul new enthusiasm and fervor in the service of God. With no effort on the soul’s part, this grace causes it to taste sweet and delectable milk and to experience intense satisfaction in the performance of spiritual exercises, because God is handing the breast of his tender love to the soul, just as if it were a delicate child.” — The Dark Night, St. John of the Cross

I read that and my ears turned red. He’s talking about me! About my love (lust?) for the sweet milk of bliss that I do not, not, not want to give up! However, I must grow up in heaven. I must be able to sustain love on the dark side of the moon. I must be capable of being left alone in darkness, and not faltering.

I must be tested.

I welcome the test, though I may fail, and slowly climb again for a thousand years. [Forgive me my over-dramatic phrasing. I grew up on cartoonish films!]

It makes sense to think about these things within a general framework of re-incarnation. I don’t want to emphasize that too much, or get into particulars, because folks find this the most irritating aspect of a mystical orientation. “What — I’m going to come back as a salamander?!” is a typical incredulous reaction to the idea.

Let me give you one practical reason to allow at least a gauzy idea of reincarnation to rest in your toolbox: you need to let go of any victory in Time.

You need to accept that you will fail repeatedly to live up to your highest aspirations. If you “don’t believe” in re-incarnation, you are likely to imagine that you’ve run out of “time,” or that you will if you don’t get it right very soon. [Aside: I’m using quotes around “don’t believe” to indicate that I’m not asking that you change from a stance of disbelief to a stance of belief. I’m talking about holding a space for a concept that’s useful.]

The fear of running out creates needless suffering, and it even prefigures failure. My proposal to you is that you accept some limited form of the idea that consciousness continues as long as you need it, possibly by changing bodies or through some other mechanism, just in order to let go of this fear. Heck, use the concept of a multi-verse, or a computer simulation. Anything to be able to think about your own consciousness on a timescale that leaves the human and approaches the geologic, because you need to foster the strength of resolve that can last and last. Without a whiff of eternity, who could imagine missing out on the many particular activities of our world? Reincarnation is a kind of shim or strut in the system that allows your higher aspirations to live more often and more deeply in your actions. If you still disagree, how about imagine that in your lifetime we’ll figure out how to put consciousness in computers, and there you can finally embark on the journey to the best you? I’m cool with that! I just want you to have a thang, y’know?

What will the test be? How will it come?

I already fear and expect the cessation of the answering love swooping down on me and wrapping me in it’s blanket. This is John of the Cross’s “Dark Night of the Soul.” At these times, I must continue to pour out love, even to my dis-memberment, so to speak. I asked for this.

I asked that I be “used up” in service to God, because I felt the goodness of God, through the intermediary of his messengers…the Son who came to earth, and the Mother who accepted that this be. She accepted the brokenness of the world to a degree that “man”-kind cannot. Menfolk don’t experience that brokenness so directly. Don’t have the “yes” torn out of them in a way that must press and thread their being into the very walls of existence. I can only grope through metaphor to Mary’s experience.

How else will the test come?

It will come from parts of myself which will appear as whiny devils asking for their due. These aggrieved personalities, built in me by my new specialness, tired of carrying out the burdens of daily life and doing the practical work while “I,” all “airy-fairy” think about God’s love. “Where was God’s Love when this or that happened?” they’ll say. “We were left to do the work.”

I don’t even know. I only know that the crucified man is ahead of me, and us. I have had emotional pain…it brought me to this quest, and so I’m thankful for it. But it wasn’t the unyielding thirst and abandonment that crucifixion implies.

Anyway, if I come before these tests, then I’m already joyful, because I know I’m at least in the antechamber of the Great House. Pray for me that I walk as you would walk.

Image: This is John of the Cross’s drawing of the crucifixion. It’s pretty scary, actually! There is a sense of the dessication of the personality, and an utter aloneness. I’m just a regular dude playing around at the “base” of these important matters, and I tremble to imagine such an experience.

The embarrassment of an old-fashioned vision

The other thing I want to say about the particularity of Jesus and Mary is that I was, frankly, shocked at the imagery of my vision, that it was so…“Christian.” I thought I was “bigger” than this religion. I thought of it as a domain of hypocrites, eternally judging others and sitting in a self-satisfied way on little thrones of virtue.

Now, intellectually speaking, I know enough about the world to understand that all institutions, no matter how sublime the original idea at their heart is, decay in practice to the common denominators of human existence and fallibility. If an idea is subtle, then it becomes open to interpretation. Interpretation is an opportunity to grab power, and then tribalism creates negative emotion around those different interpretations. Eventually, whatever original message was present is hopelessly obscured. And very hard to rediscover, because the world is now full of people telling you what this or that means, and very archly as well, since this “defensive” mode of consciousness was formed in the fires of intercene warfare and selected for by evolution.

So…if you want to understand Christianity, just be careful about talking to Christians about it. For every one who understands there are nine who deeply misunderstand. Who approach this body of knowledge from say, a tribal level. Or maybe, fearful of too much freedom, they go all in for literalism. This is just human nature, too, and it would be a mistake to get too upset about it. Getting too upset means that you have to write off vast bodies of cultural wisdom that would serve you well just because the people standing “around” those bodies are not very useful.

Imagine that a mountain is the knowledge of God, and to reach the summit is to at least understand enough to make your life on earth better, and to be helpful to people around you. There are a lot of people interested in mountain climbing, but few who actually slog through rain and snow to the summits. At the base of the mountain, people mill around in the parking lot, comparing equipment, judging this one reckless and that one exemplary. People who love equipment too much barely venture 100 meters from the ground. Always testing and trying again. Always promising “someday” to go to the top.

A teaching such as the Christian religion offers a way up the mountain. Each world religion at it’s core has enough information to get you walking. Because once you know a few things, you have to put in the walking time. This is contemplation, meditation, cultivation of the silence and the small voice within. It’s useful to speak of an eternal tradition at the heart of all these systems.

Anyhow, standing around the Christian “trailhead” are many busy and important people, and they all look at you and make judgments, for or against. You really need to ignore them.

I am sorry that I let people and their judgments keep me away from the trailhead for a long time. However, in another sense, it wasn’t really them: it was me. I wasn’t convinced that the path to God required me to submit all that I am to that which is greater than me. I was, to continue the metaphor, unwilling to pay any fee at an official trailhead, and hoping to find my own “way” up the mountain. A way that allowed me to keep my default mode of consciousness, which might be an optimistic one, and even a loving one at times, but not one that was willing to give up all of the special exemptions with which it looked out at the world.

My little piece of advice in this matter is than when you approach some spiritual practice, look at the parts of you that recoil and try to understand why rather than just saying “it’s not for me,” and moving on. A good practice will demand of you and be hard on your ego. Browsing in our modern spiritual marketplace, picking and choosing pieces of things may just be a way of wasting time. If you are free to pick and choose too much, you surely won’t come face to face with the source of your misery: your specialness. Your nervous preservation of all the “right” freedoms. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience, I’m not just blowing smoke.

Losing the way is natural. It’s the most natural thing. Take heart! For if the mountaintop calls to you, then it will sing to you at night, even as you wander around the base for years. Finally, in the end, from the beauty of the song, you will want the quickest way. And that is likely to come through things that you remember from your distant childhood. Perhaps I imbibed the stories of Jesus with more trusting imagination than I remember. So, in the end, despite my wandering in the ways of many approaches, it was Him who appeared to me, smiling, loving, and telling me with his eyes that I was in the right place at long last.

I bow to you and wish for your climbing to bring you to your summits!