Burning Bush and Whirlwind: A Teaching in "Being"

Quiet is difficult because, energetically and in terms of physical sensation, existence is intense. The skill of quiet is learning to sit with energy and sensation, no matter how intense, no matter whether the story we attach to it is negative or positive. I'm about to issue what I know is a big ask. (It'll make bible scholars with either classical training or baked-in prejudices wiggle in their chairs a bit.) Here it is: let's suppose that Moses' burning bush, and Job's whirlwind were both "inner phenomena." [bxA]

We can wrap a bit of "theological theory" around it, for people that dig working that way. Ekhart Tolle supposed that we each had an"energy body"--this could also be the "body of light" monks attributed to God during the anthropomorphite controversy, but I don't want to overtax the limits of your willingness for "premise granting"--regardless, plausible scenarios exist in which Moses went into deep prayer, had a non-dual experience of his own nervous system, and came out talking about a burning bush and a God whose name was "I AM." Job heaved his entire, rather intellectual process of "suffering management" into a whirlwind and came out convinced of the effort's inadequacy. He said "therefore, I despise my life, and repent in dust and ashes." He said it while still very much alive--perhaps he was actually referring to ego.

All that both men were doing was learning to deal with intense energy and sensation. Moses found a way to be not-two with intense energy, and Job learned to sit with sensation without "forming an identity" whose illusions included permanence and control.

Peddlers of wisdom have a vested interest in their audience's buy in to rightness and entitlement, but let's understand that's just "egos in dialogue." I see a bit of that in the clinging of modern debaters, in all manner of movements that turn identity into politics, in people of unconscious privilege. But let me give an example that's closer to home. When I say "Moses' theophany was an inner experience," part of me is listening for those who say "that's right on." When I say "Job, chastened, gained a bit of space and freedom from his false self," I'm watching for the heads that nod. Let's remember that, when the temple veil of ego is torn in two, we'll know that to be the emptiest of games we could possibly play. Ultimately, I'm not trying to sell you on a perspective.

Here it is: sitting still with intense energy and sensation with no efforts at "diminishment by manipulation" is a skill. Absent its acquisition, our ability to rest in existence is compromised. Experiencing "mind cancelling union with energy" is intense. We all spend more time being "selves who arrange things by preference"--and there can be a great deal of fear and disorientation in the moments before we finally or temporarily give that a rest.

People grieve all the time. They grieve when expensive appliances break, they grieve the loss of loved ones, they grieve life's big transitions. Sitting with intense energy and sensation ranks among the final bequests of our dying selves. The question is: if allowing "identity to be subsumed by the intensity of incarnation" were part of the curriculum, would you learn it? If failure to get cuddly with intensity renders your egoic autopilot bitter, would you adjust for the preservation of your serenity?

Today, that is our assignment. The Teacher awaits our answer.

Following the Guru: Finding Presence in Suffering.

Despite the flowery, romanticized musings of debatably-realized pundits: the present moment, for the part of us that has yet to give up self, is a real crucifixion. The truth is, the entirety of our incarnation is a cross to be borne--many who've longed to accept this have failed to. And it throws us back on the the shockingly conditional nature of our own acceptance. Jesus didn't say "life is suffering"--that was Buddha. There's a beautiful depiction, though, of Gautama weeping, and it scatters all the words. Whether pain and pleasure are the same, I don't know, God knows. This is the point: Buddha's anguish, Christ's agony in the garden, and the whole well of human sorrow--they are all one. And they are, at the same time, a death and a birth. [bxA]

Even in the best-case scenario, when our lives are full of ease, focusing attention and intention is hard. And when the day is bigger than we are, when our attachment to pleasure (and aversion to pain) dictates way too many of our responses, when making healthy moves in the direction of change leads too often to overdoing it--at times like these, urging attention and intention to receptivity is well-nigh impossible. We heap suffering on ourselves. It's simply a function of learning by trial and error. Among the overtly selfish, those who prize self-awareness have an uphill climb: to give up willfulness, to be willingly present and use the Spirit's energy skillfully. In the entire history of human awe, this has always been a cosmically unreasonable ask, but no matter how overwhelming the whirlwind, the indwelling Trinity is not receptive to feedback.

The dance of the Triune mystery, in which all things will be taken up, renders logic nonsensical. To the pure, all things are pure, and to the still, the quiet mind of Christ speaks clearly: "Remain in me." it says "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask what you will, it will be done for you." Satan, that unholy trickster, forgot to mention that the cost of indulgence was incarnation and suffering. Though our liabilities cry out from the ground, we have spent too long saying "I am not that" and it spiritually deadens us. Christ, who recapitulated all things, forgot to mention that hearing the stones' silence in the here-and-now will cost us our entire self. We have too often looked at our cravings and attachments and said "I am that," so that the way of life is always elsewhere. Christ's yoke is a burden that becomes increasingly lighter only as we identify less with the self that is carrying it. Eventually "I am what I am" becomes a word we can speak without moving our mouths. Maharaj-ji threw hundred rupee notes into a fire, watched them burn, then pulled fresh hundred rupee notes from the flames saying "all the money in the world is mine." This is the cosmic humor of the Cross as well: those who remain in Christ have nothing to ask for, and persecutions besides. He has increased, they have decreased, and when guru and devotee are one, Christ will give all things over to the Father. And all things, all at once, are emptiness and fullness.

Even now, many of us who are on the Way have yet to see. When the Almighty sandwiched his people between Egypt and the Red sea, (and it fanned their longing for liberation into unconsuming flames), Moses said "The Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still." The teacher said "you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, 'Look there!' or 'Look here!' Do not go, do not set off in pursuit." The moment of realization will be like lightning within us: seeing God requires absolutely nothing, because God looks out at us from absolutely everything. Learning that non-doing is the only thing worth doing is the start of transformation, not its end. Buddha's disciples are right, who say, "As it is before enlightenment, so it is after." Before, it was us chopping wood and carrying water. Now, the wood is chopped, the water is carried, but we know not by whom.

Whether we like it or not, all flesh shall see it together: silence, stillness, and patience will always be a position of tension. The Word says "Give up self, take up your cross and follow." As his passion neared, the Teacher said "not one was lost except the one destined to be lost." Even if we should yield fully to the Christ within, despite how thoroughly we descend with Jesus into our own self-made hells, regardless of how effortlessly we hand all things over to the Father, suffering will be part of it. We will struggle until the day we realize that "the one destined to be lost" blinks back at us, dimly and from the best of mirrors.

The Teacher's salvation is not an exemption from struggle. It's a use of struggle to troubleshoot how mentally absent we are. At different times, Jesus said both "the Father and I are one" and "Father, why have you forsaken me." The whole time, he was using the Father's presence or absence to gradually accept his own woundedness.  In the end, he didn't have to call out to the Father.  He could appear to his apostles,  say "these are my wounds" and allow them, at least, to be seen--if not painfully probed.  No defense was needed.  So the mind may prattle on about "the absence of God" but what the Spirit shows us is that the denial's our own. We don't require an idea of self to just be. Craving doesn't help us admit our needs. Getting caught in cycles of desire and fulfillment doesn't help us face our woundedness, admit our vulnerabilities, or keep ourselves safe.

But we can sit still. We can listen, breathe and get grounded in sensation. We can grow the skills to treat suffering with the same openness as pleasure, and choose our responses with growing deliberateness. There will be just as many who condemn us as mourn us. When the advocate comes, despite those who say "here he is," or "there he is" we will hear his voice. A mouth will speak,--after the question of "is it God's mouth or ours" has long ceased to matter--saying "Here I am." On that day, between listening and remaining with Christ, there will be not even the slightest separation.