Saying For Today: What is this non-otherness? ... I do not know. It is unspeakable; it is wonderful. It is Spirit's eloquence.
'Stepping into a World of Light'
Bath, Maine
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An Invitation
As I peruse the news 3.14.2021, I see: "Record number of migrant children held at US-Mexico border" [in cages] (CNN), "Remembering Brionna Taylor 1 year after her death" [murder] (Goodmorning America), "In 45 States, GOP Proposes Limits On Voting Access" (NBC NEWS), "London police face backlash for dragging mourners from vigil" (Reuters), and "Funeral Held For Mandalay Protestor As Crackdown Continues [Myamar militants kill seven more by shooting live ammunition into a crowd of protestors] (Bloomberg Quicktake.Now). We could write pages about the bad news on this one day.
Hence, with such news surrounding us always, why speak of our oneness? Of world peace? Why not despair, bowing before the altar of nihilistic rationalism and consumeristic materialism?
The Gospel of John 1.4 reads, "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not been able to overcome it (or, cannot overcome it; has not been able, or cannot, understand it)." We speak forth the Truth, and the bad news is not the Truth. We speak forth as modern social prophets and prophetesses, men and women and children of all colors, races, religions, ethnicities, ... - for nothing can captivate and dissipate the Light. The shouts out of the darkness do not silence the ones living in the Light. Even in silence, we herald the good news - "We... are... One!"
The darkness is shouting into darkness, its residents yelling into the night, while Light-shiners speak, sing, write, dance, laugh, cry, and live the world that lives within the Heart-of-hearts. We live out this Light, giving it shape in the shapes of our world - only lovers can do this. We are sacraments of Life, yet everyday, ordinary means of supernal Grace.
Despite all appearances to the contrary, we are one, and each person cannot escape the choice of "Yes" or "No" to this fact. We are revelations of each other. Wishing it otherwise cannot change this inevitable truth. Glory to the Light!
Hence, I invite you to read the following. Hopefully, therein is encouragement for us each.
Brian K. Wilcox
Easton, Maine
3.14.2021
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Saying:
You are other than I am, yet you are not other. We are different - not other.
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I used this song a few days ago, but it is so attuned with the writing for today and timely, I invite you to listen again.
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My late dad was raised in a 'world' where persons were supposed to look and act alike - this he learned, as we did, after birth. Anything outside the look and act alike was taboo. I was taught that same 'world.' And I was taught if I was good, I would go to a heaven filled with persons looking like and acting like I did. But what, then, of all the others - meaning most of humankind -, who did not appear and behave like we were supposedly supposed to?
When my dad was born a baby in 1934, this bias was not so for him. Later, he would speak critically of persons who, for example, dyed their hair 'unnatural' colors. He often spoke of persons who were obese. He was taught and believed Christians were the God-chosen and all non-Christians the unchosen - I was taught this. He and I came up in a 'world' where persons of black skin were a lower caste - in a 'world' denying it had a caste system while practicing as the pure and superior white-elite caste. Color defined persons of color for life, even before one allowed herself to know a person of unlike color. And pictures of Jesus hung in our churches, not looking like a Mediterranean sage, but a white hippy. I think we all believed God to be white, too - like us.
I knew - and witnessed many times - my dad was a person who cared about persons, even those he had been taught were other from him. He enjoyed helping persons, regardless of how he seemed different from them. He loved persons, even those different from him, the best he knew how. For that, I respect him.
Where did this seeing others as other arise from? Was the prejudice my dad ... dad = prejudice? Or was it something alien to him, attached to him like an heirloom from the past ... dad + prejudice? - Was it me, or not? - It was not him; it was unnatural, added, foreign to him - as with us.
We are all in on this. We have been taught, directly and indirectly, to see others as other than us rather than different from us. I think that is true of all of us, though there may be exceptions.
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The prejudice and social elitism are in the mind, but present. It leads to wars, political partisan fighting, police killing blacks for blacks are black, white elitism, genocides, Christian colonialism, religious bigotry, and conflicts worldwide. War has arisen out of the mind.
If we saw what we see to be the other as not-other, all wars would cease, now. Warring would be impossible, for in war, we are killing ourselves by killing the one we have been trained to treat as other. To kill the other, we must enact the ultimate distancing through the objectification of self and other - for in making another other, we do the same to ourselves. In violating the Sacred in the other, we violate the Sacred within ourselves. We cannot harm with words or weapons without leaving that imprint on ourselves - we bear the 'karma,' the 'sin,' of it - individually, collectively. War is a stain on any nation. Our warring with words is a stain upon ourselves.
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Any spiritual path worth being recommended as a path is a means for the Friend to confront us with our biases against our fellow earth brothers-and-sisters, wean us off prejudices, and teach us the beauty of the otherness we saw as other. Nothing can deface our kinship with all living beings, not just humans.
We are kin, and we cannot do anything to escape that. To feel it, we do not wish to escape. We want to grow more deeply in-Love with everyone, including those we do not like - like-and-dislike is of the self, while Love is a grace before preferences which determine like-and-dislike. So, to move closer to Love, we honor like-and-dislike. Like-and-dislike, then, can be swallowed whole by Grace.
Then, we enter into other 'worlds,' and our 'world' is enriched thereby. What we feared becomes the means of liberation - love -, for freedom cannot come upon us in isolation from community, the world community. We see our many 'worlds' are ways Spirit shows Itself to us. And, ironically, the more we see the other is not-other, the more we see the beauty of how she manifests one Life in her distinctiveness.
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I was gifted to live in a Quaker community house with four women. I was the only male. I was one of two heterosexuals and the sole non-Quaker. Other Quakers visited, often staying for a time. Two dogs and five cats lived with us. At times, the cats brought varied beings into the house: primarily snakes and birds. A community member would take them out into their natural habitat. The cats did not want to kill them, only play with them.
I was graced by all this array of unlikeness, a community which would be judged as not-okay by those who taught me in my childhood and youth. The culture and religion would have forbidden me to live in such heterogeneity.
The glue for the community was found in our likeness, our already-belonging-together - ... for that is who we humans are: we are a belonging-together. I cannot be without you; we arise, and the whole universe appears with us. So, in that house, even the cats and dogs were arising with us humans. They were community and treated with respect, even reverence.
We were much unlike each other, yet, not-unlike. That is the way of Beauty - right there in a Quaker house, Spirit moving among our differences. That is our world. I see that Quaker community now as a world model for us all to live in together.
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The venerable Ananda was the Buddha's attendant and closest disciple. He and the Buddha were passing through a village. Ananda was thirsty, so he walked toward the village well. He saw there a young girl, and he asked her for a cup of water. She, knowing of Ananda, said, "Oh, great monk! I'm unworthy of giving you water. Please don't ask this of me. I would make you impure. I'm a child of the lowest caste in this village."
Ananda saw her through eyes of compassion. He said, "I did not ask you for your caste. I asked for a drink of water."
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The "castes" among us are solely in the mind. From the mind, all this comes that divides humans based on appearances - surface structures. These appearances include race, color, ethnicity, religion, political alliance, economic status, sexual orientation, ...
In the mind, some are less valuable, some more. The self-clinging self fears equality, hence fears love. It fears what appears unlike "me."
Yet, what happens when we realize the other is not other? What happens when the white realizes the person of color is not other? What happens when the wealthy realize the impoverished are not other - the homeless on the street and the prince are not other to each other? What happens when the straight realizes the gay is not other? What happens when the Christian realizes the Muslim is not other? What happens when the male realizes the female is not other, and vice versa?
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Rabbi Mordecai was in Minsk expounding the Torah, or Divine Teaching, to some men hostile to his path. They laughed at him. "What you say does not explain the Scripture verse in the least!" they exclaimed. "Do you really think," he said, "that I was trying to explain the verse in the book? That doesn't need an explanation! I want to explain the verse within me."
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This realization of equality springs from the heart. We see as we are. Hence, we offer ourselves to the Beloved for conversion of life. Only the Spring of our unity can show us oneness. Oneness shows us Itself. So, seeing our oneness must arise from inner work, wherein we are retaught our native harmony. Nothing outside ourselves can do this. If holy books or sacred rites could give us this inclusiveness... but they cannot. Yet, the Word is written on our hearts.
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Racial elitism - as all elitism - is a thought. These thoughts register an accompanying feeling-response in the body. That you are better than someone else, where is that? Can you find it? Well, go try to find that better-than, if you think you can. You can think and feel hate, for example, but no one can find it - still, it does untold harm.
So, equality cannot spring from the mind. The mind divides. Oneness is known only from oneness - before the contents we call the mind. No amount of information and education gives Ananda's insight, yet it is always there. No public policies provide us with kindness and appreciation for one another.
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What is this non-otherness? When you know it, you might call it love, Buddha, Christ, Spirit, Holy Spirit, Atman, True Self, ... I do not know. It is unspeakable; it is wonderful. It is Spirit's eloquence.
Varied spiritual paths provide wisdom teachings and practices to assist in emptying the mind of other. These help us move beyond oneness as a platitude or enlightened idea to the realization of unity as oneness, and, in this, oneness draws back into itself the other of otherness.
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Indra's Jewel Net is a metaphor for oneness. Indra was the king of the gods in Vedic culture in India during Gautama Buddha's time. Mahayana Buddhism often refers to Indra's net. Indra's Jewel Net spans the universe - infinity to infinity. It signifies inter-being. In each eye of the net rests a shining jewel. Each jewel bears the reflections of all other jewels. And each reflected jewel bears the image of all the other jewels. This net has been likened to a spider web; if you touch any part of the web, the whole reverberates from that single touch.
Hence, being is inter-being. We inter-are. I AM includes every I. We ignore this to our peril. We honor this to our bliss.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, predominantly Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
