Practice Heaven Now

The word "prayer" has often been trivialized by making it into a
way of getting what you want. But... I use "prayer" as the umbrella
word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to
experience faith, hope and love within yourself. It is not a
technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes
God happy, or a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more
like practicing heaven now.
- Richard Rohr

Vessel of Invocation

The first law of spiritual life is that if one is to know Spirit, then one needs to have (or be) an appropriate vessel in order to receive Spirit. Spirit must have a proper carrier, a vessel, or a temple in which to dwell. St. Paul understood this when he said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” and “your body is the temple of the sacred Spirit.” In each case, Spirit is embodied, and the body, far from being inimical to Spirit can become a temple or a carrier saturated with Spirit. This is the first law.

The second is that the sacred Spirit is not some abstract force, it is Presence with mind, will, heart, and consciousness in the same way that the people around us possess personal presence. When we engage another human being, we invoke (or call out to) that same presence inside of them that we ourselves possess. The presence in me calls out to the presence in you, and we form a bond of relationship. The Psalmist said that the depths in me calls out to touch the depths in you—this is the second law of invocation.

The Spirit, therefore, will be present if invoked by an appropriate receptacle in which to receive it. Since, when Spirit manifests itself, we can only recognize its presence through the power of our own consciousness, consciousness is itself revealed, in the human sphere, as the primary means and receptacle of Presence. A conscious being as a body or temple prepared, calling out to Spirit, is the central vessel of invocation.

Natural Mysteries

We live within a web of natural wonder, whether or not we are totally cognizant of it at all times. However, we have woven another blanket of human affairs, social construction, and technology around ourselves, which often hides the “first world” of nature to which we are webbed. Without that first world, all other life would be impossible including civilization itself and our own personal existence… and we forget this.

Jim Kimmel has brought all of this back into focus for me with his concerns for spiritual ecology and the work of the Order. I am grateful for the constant reminder that he and Jerry provide in this regard by being who they are in relationship to the world. This morning I was reflecting on these themes, when a line of a poem by Mary Oliver stood out strongly to me:

Take care you don’t know anything in this world
too quickly or easily. Everything
is also a mystery, and has its own secret aura in the moonlight,
its private song.

The world of nature is full of mysteries and song. We are webbed to it to learn these mysteries, to hear this music, and to learn slowly as we listen with “both ears.” We are privileged to be here within the web. The world of natural mysteries awaits our attention. One of our fundamental tasks is to learn the wisdom that is all around us.

The Real

To the question, "What is real? What is reality?" we often talk about facts and history and what is proven to be true? We want to know "what really happened" as opposed to what is unproven or a mere figment of our imagination. The issue of illusion and becoming delusional often comes up in common discussions about the issues and people around us.

Our spiritual ancestors also discussed this in relationship to things of spirit. They spoke about ignorance and sleep, about dreaming and awakening into Reality. Let's imagine, then, that there are layers of reality and illusion all around us and even inside of us.

Let's think, then, that at the heart of existence (and at our own hearts), there lies the most Real Thing--like a treasure, like a secret, hidden pearl around which there are less real things. We live in these outer layers of "the less real," which mirror and image the Most Real. But because there exists the Most Real Thing at the heart of All, and at our own deepest core, we can wake up and go there into that place, and as Yeshua said in his teaching, begin to do business in the outer world based upon its supreme value and availability to us. Notice this:

The divine Realm is like a man who owned a field with treasure hidden away in it. Unaware of it he died leaving it to his son who also knew nothing about it. After taking possession of the land, the son practically gave it away for nothing. But the one who bought it began plowing and discovered the treasure, and immediately started lending money at interest to whomever he pleased. (Thomas 109).

Sensitivity to Holiness

The great contemporary Rabbi, Adin Steinsaltz of Jerusalem, points out that one of the features that makes humans unique in the universe is that they have a particular “sensitivity to holiness.” What he means is that we can detect the Other, the divine, and that this capacity is both a gift, but also a curse for us.

Since our days in the mythical Garden of Eden, humans have been on a quest to know God, and even to become like God—to have God’s capacities, to know the divine qualities. It began when we were “tempted” by the notion that we too, like God, could know good and evil (which indeed we have come to know). But, as the Rabbi says, “The only thing that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge seems to have brought us is the heartache of being, at once, more aware of God” (through our sensitivity to “otherness” or holiness), but also of realizing that we are not any closer to God.

Our inner “God detector” works. We have that strange inner sense of the divine, but the divine does not seem any closer, necessarily, because of that sensitivity. And thus the heartache of being a human caught between these two awarenesses.

The reconciliation of these opposites comes when we continue our journey to seek the hidden face of God, but also when God “journeys” toward us, bridging the inevitable gap, and out of love, and in a way that is truly related to our own unique growth of awareness, manifests directly to us when we are ready and the time is ripe. This is the game of “hide and seek” that we play throughout life, both delicious in its own way, and maddening in another. But it also the inevitable outcome of having our own in-built “sensitivity to holiness.”

Visionary Journeying

This past weekend, due to the encouragement and generosity of Gail and Alec Wiggin, I made a pilgrimage to NYC for a conference on the life and teachings of Ibn al-‘Arabi and the Sufi Way of Compassion. It was an extraordinary conference held at historic Riverside Church and well attended. Ibn al-‘Arabi was a 12th century Muslim mystics, and one of Sufism’s greatest teachers. His work is voluminous and much of it is based upon the “Meccan Openings” (a visionary treatise of revelations made to him while in Mecca). Born in Spain, Ibn al-‘Arabi traveled East and made the rest of his life a spiritual and physical journey to the roots of his own deep seeing. His work and sight was the subject of this conference, and I hope to make postings on his life, work, and thought in the future.

In addition to the conference, we visited three separate exhibitions on display at various museums throughout the city, each carrying this underlying theme of visionary journeying. The first was the original works of William Blake on display in NY, clearly showing how a modern visionary sees the world as it is unfolding around us. Blake was one of the first of the modern visionaries who contemplated the fate of modernity and its aftermath through his etchings, drawings, poetry, and prose.

The second exhibit featured the recently discovered and published Red Book, of Carl Jung. Both the original and copies of it were on display and available for examination. What was striking was how Jung’s thought had evolved into visionary seeing concerning his own transformation as a human being and the ultimate transformation of humanity. His hand painted illustrations were compelling and beautiful and if you have not seen any, visit the Rubin Museum of NY’s website and see these powerful illuminations of Jung’s vision.

Finally, before the conference, we visited the NYU’s gallery to see a display of the iconic art of the Aboriginal peoples of western Australia. Again, these images from the dreaming past of these ancient peoples were an amazing manifestation of a men and women who made visionary journeying a part of their seeing and their “songlines” across the inner and outer landscape of the world.

I am reminded again of Yeshua’s words. Blessed are those who possess clarity of heart, for they shall see God.