The Teacher destroyed the clingy causality of sin and death by submitting to it. For him, acceptance of things as they are was the climate in which the Spirit arose within him. Knowing that self is a good thing so long as we get rid of it at the right time, the teacher nurtured self in order to give it up, in order to avoid being the dog that returned to his vomit. He'd spent his life denying his attractions and encountering his aversions, but doing so without weaving a new identity out of it. Further, he'd developed the "Father voice" that rang through his psychological makeup so deeply that, when it came time to hand all things over to his Father in death, he managed to bear the agony of it.
This transformed anger, judgment and desire. To deal quickly with the first two: anger lost its edge and became an insistence on getting rid of distractions, a tool for being in the moment. This came out of Jesus' deep knowledge of his own distractibility. Jesus knew the part of him that simply couldn't afford to grasp at shiny objects. It's no surprise that later, he would talk about longing to run every which way after the lord, but learning to sit with it, until his day is like lightning from one end of the sky to the other. Judgment became, for Jesus, a tool for becoming attuned to the Spirit within. He learned to discern the promptings of the truth while distinguishing between one sensation and another, one emotion and another, one thought and another. Later, out of his own knowledge of the fruits of different kinds of thinking, he would say "if you call your brother a fool, you will be liable to the lake of fire."
We have no doubt that Jesus' own desires were purified--after all, he entirely ceased to manipulate to get his needs met, and was able, on the cross, to simply say "I thirst." But here, as a testament to how the Word has transformed us, instead of assuming we've measured the teacher's insights correctly, we wish to offer our own journey with desire. We knew that we usually only wanted things that were pleasant to us. We only wanted things that accorded with the system of expectations our minds had set up. Desire struck us as a terrific source of constant suffering because, well, we were making it that way. We could confirm this by the emotional tailspins that denial of desire and unmet expectations cause us. Then one day it struck us that we were going about it wrong. It struck us that desire was given us so that we could become devoted to things as they are. In other words, God says he'll use absolutely everything to guide us, and some of that won't be pleasant. God will teach through our aversions as much as through our attractions, and we will need a way to pay attention to both. Desire, it seemed, was our means of absorbing all of the lessons. The more we trained desire on acceptance of all things, without exception, the more desire itself became both a tool we could willingly both pick up and put down, as well as a gutsy form of prayer. Relating to desire in this way made us understand that a vow is performative language, and that most of the time, fulfilling that vow would involve dispensing with words in preference of listening.
Jesus surrendered his self concept. He did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself. He found willingness by abandoning willfulness. He ceased to cling to an identity formed by the desire for control. His language for this was paternal: he was "handing all things over to the Father." In Gethsemani, the teacher said "if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." We theorize that, for Jesus, "doing the Father's will" was a way Jesus had conscious psychological access to what his faith told him was always (philosophers would say "ontologically") true. There was a way in which "the Father and I are one" was the deepest truth of Christ's life, whatever might be happening psychologically--we students of Rabbouni make bold to think that this is true, not just of Christ, but of all people. The mechanics of that truth are for theologians to work out--we need only remain focused on being with Jesus by his own measure. In other words, it's only when we refuse to look up to heaven, but stand in the back of our places of prayer saying "Lord have mercy on us, sinners" that we will know what it means that "everyone, without exception, is the Trinity enfleshed."
We desire to do what Jesus did. Looking within, we see that our family relationships are full of conflict. We were fed up with that stored trauma making wreckage of our adult choices, so we began to work with it. We became, to ourselves, the kinds of parents we had always needed. When we realized that there was no loss that couldn't be reconciled, it allowed us the safety to become healthy adults, always engaged in the work of nurturing the wounded parts of ourselves. This psychological reparenting and reframing became the foundation of two aspects of Christian Tantra. We claim that every Christian has a share in the way Christ recapitulated all creation: in doing this work, we'll see vices turn to virtues. We claim that every Christian has a desperate need to turn their ears away from ego and superego, listening instead to the higher, humble self that is Christ within, constantly handing all things over to the father. This isn't a badge of honor, it's a tool supplied by wisdom. It's accessible to all, and if it's used at all, it's to be used in the service of the weak, and never for the garnering of personal adoration. Those who have it never admit to it. Instead they keep their sight on the one Christ said was "destined to be lost"--that is, on their own egos. And they pay attention to the teacher when he says, of the self, "if it is my will that he tarry until I return, what is that to you?" If you can hear this, we have this work in common: to follow Christ, without thought of the destination and regardless of objectives.
Remember, says the Logos, the words of the Teacher: "There were many lepers in Israel at the time of Elisha the Prophet, but not one was cleansed except Namaan the Syrian." Elisha bucked Namaan's expectations of how healing would happen. The great warrior thought Elisha would come and wave his hand over him and speak words of healing for all to hear. Instead Elisha refuses to meet with him, tells him to wash in the Jordan River seven times. Elisha bucked Namaan's system of attraction and aversion. The soldier, (who'd conquered many lands,) claims to know a great many rivers more grand than the Jordan. But Elisha asks him to immerse himself in the Jordan nonetheless.
Our logical minds represent, often by inverted symbol, the ineffable things humility beholds clearly. In silence we hear the Lord asking "Can you drink the cup of which I am to drink." Undoubtedly, our desire for a spot at Christ's side--for the pleasant bits of being with Christ-- will lead us to say "yes." This is why Christ says "It's the Father's job, not mine, to hand out spots at my left and my right." Jesus is alerting us that a hard teaching is coming: he's going to use our aversions to teach, as he once used our attractions. We're asked if we can bear a share of the worlds sinfulness that's more than we deserve to bear. As soon as we say yes, Jesus asks "what if enduring the sins of the world and being asked to take on too much at work are the same?" We're asked if we're willing to descend into hell with Christ. No sooner do we agree, than we're told that bearing with gossips at work (to purify our own opinionatedness)--this is what descending with Christ will look like. We're asked if we are willing to bear other people's purgatorial debt on their behalf. Full of our glorious self-righteousness, we agree. And we're immediately asked "what if assuming the debt of others and allowing the routine dependency of those we love are the same?" We have heard it said, "if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own." But Christ says to us "If we can't process the scandal inherent in the growth of our own humility, what inner resources will help us to perform greater works?" If God uses what is low and despised in the world--things that are not--to bring to nothing things that are, isn't it time we stop trying to pretend to be good when our ability to just be is critically impaired? We can formulate no response here, and it bows our heads.
We wash in the rivers of mundane daily tasks. We're given not seven cracks at it, either, but seventy times seven of them. If others, or if even our own egos feel the need to call us martyrs of any shade--God willing we'll, have the grace to wax nonsensical, to fry the brains both of others or ourselves. Followers of the buddha, when asked "what is budda" would spontaneously tie their sandals on their heads and exit the room. We followers of Jesus would be lucky to be so humble. At the least, our job is to listen. "When you have finished all that was asked of you" said the teacher "say "we are worthless servants, for we have done nothing more than what was asked of us." Then, when the quiet asks "who do you say that you are" may we only answer as silently as we were asked.
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