At some point, we hid behind a loincloth made of leaves: that forever gave the soul its form. At some point, we accepted the gift of a garment of flesh. That forever made the spine our via dolorosa and the body our route of return. At some point, we jumped the walls of Eden and fled. It was a line in the sand that granted permanence to something impermanent, that pitted inside against outside and us against our false selves.
Who sees the true self sees Christ. Who sees non-self sees God. Who becomes totally one with sensation, (the one who knows its impermanence,) is consumed in the fiery Spirit of the Lord. And the fourth that appears is oneness, when the perceiver drowns in perceiving. The senses are the cleft in the rock: God's hidden glory is only visible to those who will give up ego for the sake of being, and being alone.
We only ever journey toward being, toward what was here the whole time. Impermanence is the gateless gate: no upper room is locked to those for whom there is no door. None need enter the tomb for whom inside and outside are one and the same. I am, and you are, and everything is the Christ who remakes all things: illumined by the truth, the flaw is the way. That's what I'm trying to tell you.
We believe the prophets: the Spirit speaks with seven voices, feels with seven springs of sensation. But what of it? What good is listening till sound and sensation are one? It's precisely the knowledge of impermanence. We do a good bit of work trying to assert a separation between ourselves and others, ourselves and God...that stress is unnecessary and self-imposed. But in the staring contest of existence, we won't realize we can change that until God blinks first and we see ourselves plainly.
Christ's body and my body, Christ's body and your body: all is one. The prodigal son returned to God "when he came to himself." When you and I "come to ourselves," through what do we perceive? What exactly do we see? [bxA]
In the body of Christ, we perceive God, and he perceives us, through illusion, desire, blame, contradiction, words, thought and time. These are the body of Christ's seven sense organs--and as the distance between us and God closes we're always journeying away from seeing things as we'd like them to be. We're going toward seeing things as they are. Illusion causes us suffering, and remaining in it is self-imposed affliction. Peering attentively into each of these is an important act of self-care.
Where the spirit of Fear of the Lord is, at the root chakra, God and you perceive each other through illusion. Under the influence of impermanence--and fully recapitulated-- this becomes reality. When Christ's recapitulation and your attention are not two, illusion grounds a practitioner in the truth of humility.
Where the spirit of knowledge descends and rests, at the sacral chakra, I exchange glances through desire. When desire is recapitulated, it becomes need. Basic human needs are rough. Security, nourishment, shelter, affection, power--all of these needs are important, and yet we can't coerce others into providing them for us. We have them only by a gentle combination of hustle, generosity, and receptivity. Jesus didn't cry out "I want, and you must provide" on the cross. His desire had lost its edge, and he was blatantly honest, saying "I thirst" instead. He simply admitted a need. We necessarily undergo the same losses.
At the solar plexus, where the spirit of might lives, the Lover sees his beloved through blame. In reality, blame causes suffering, and so does the daily grind of spiritual practice. When the suffering blame causes becomes apparent, recapitulation happens, and practitioners take responsibility. Even a single step toward taking responsibility puts us on our own Via Dolorosa. Taking responsibility hurts, both emotionally and physically. It's supposed to--and we can either explore that hurt (as we do any other sensation), or mentally stoke resentments. Hurt is a "grief emotion" and very natural to being alive. All grief is healthy when it's impermanent. (All grieving people eventually find acceptance, and cancer patients, taught to meditate through their pain, find that it transforms.) At the very least, taking responsibility is choosing a sacrifice, then shouldering and carrying it. Refusing to see my suffering as someone else's fault is an important first step in that direction. I will never take responsibility if, in my head, I'm shirking the burden.
Where the spirit of counsel speaks, at the heart Chakra, God sees his people through contradiction. A classical way to complain about the illogical nature of life is to frame it philosophically. "If God loves everyone," we ask, "why would he permit suffering?" If one thing is true, we want everything else to be false. It's not quite that simple. The opposite of contradiction isn't "things making sense." It's backing off of our egos enough to accept that everything and everyone is right, and everyone is wrong. When we learn that contradiction is designed to diminish ego, it becomes paradox. Incarnations involve grief. That can either soften our hearts or embitter them, lead to compassion or make us more callous. When we accept paradox, we feel an increased sense of compassion for all who suffer. We descend with our confused mind into our accepting and empathic heart.
At the throat chakra, where the spirit of understanding is, God's depths call to ours through words. All that a practitioner says of others, he is saying of himself. The mouth speaks out of the heart's abundance because, on some level, we're not aware of the heart, and need to become so. And when those voices are quiet, silence itself speaks and we descend with the mind into the heart, from intellect to intuition. Tongues speak and then are still. A voice cries out and then is quiet. Words, underneath their mental baggage, preach the truth of impermanence to those who can hear.
Where the spirit of wisdom is, at the third eye chakra, we behold divinity through thought. Thought is so routinely exhausting that we've dissociated from the stress it causes. But when thought is recapitulated, it becomes perception. Thought says "I am this" which makes everything else "that." Then we have to worry about what precisely "that" is, what its characteristics are, how we're related to it. When thought is recapitulated, when it becomes perception, that kind of dualistic oppositionality doesn't cause as much stress. We let go of "who we are" enough to stop worrying what everything else is...we see it, and we let it go. We hear words, but don't cling to or quibble over their meanings. Self-definition, as well as sensory data, becomes a tool we can put down when we're done working with it. Thought sees and clings, perception hears and lets go. Perception helps us relax deeply, and it's very healthy to remain on that level as much as we can.
At the crown chakra, where the spirit of the Lord is, we perceive God through time. Time is only linear from the framework of our egos. Past and Future are only constructs for our brains. Our minds say "past contains this and that" and "future holds that and this." When we give up ego, and experience non-linear time, some of the work our minds devote to upholding the illusion can come to rest. The fact is, the present moment is all that exists, and it contains all that is. All potential is realized, all places are here, all people are me, I am in all things and all things are in me. If I don't have to grasp after anything, some of the stress desire imposes on me diminishes. (The "trouble" is, I have to give up religious knowledge too.) Giving up my spirit at the place of the skull isn't just an imitation of Christ. It's a practical way to free some of my energy to have compassion for others, to actively practice self-care, to assure that I'm not ignoring anything I'm averse to or clinging to anything I like.
The oneness of things is rest-within-hustle. It's receptivity within generosity. It is Father, Son and Spirit within each of us, and us in them. If we ask "what, when we're with God, must pass away?" then we already have the answer. If we ask "must we suffer for our sins?" then the answer is both "yes and no." And when we are not two with him whose being replies to the question, we will know it altogether.
