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*Brian Wilcox. Androscoggin River Series ~ No. 22
Questioner: What do you think about God?
Sage: I prefer not to think about God.
Questioner: Why?
Sage: I thought about God until I could no longer think about God.
Questioner: What happened then?
Sage: I fell in Love.
* * *
Let go, and you find God.
Hold on, and you get theology.
In the beginning darkness
was on the face of the Deep.
Know this and you know all.
*Marshall Davis. The Tao of Christ.
* * *
A man bemoaned before the Sage, "I've tried to be reasonable about my relationship with God, learning all I could, doing all the good I could do. But it does not seem to be working. I don't feel satisfied."
The Sage said, "Let me tell you a story about the wisdom of being unreasonable."
The man did not like this idea of being unreasonable. To him, the "wisdom of being unreasonable" sounded, well... unreasonable. How could that be wise? Nevertheless, he listened.
A rich man had befriended a clown many years earlier. The two enjoyed a peaceful relationship, untarnished by the years. The clown made the older man laugh every time they met, and the wealthy man made sure the clown had enough goods and money.
One day, the two met, after the older man had heard the clown married a woman regarded of ill-repute. The rich man asked, "My old friend, there're many well-respected women in our community whom I know personally. Why didn't you tell me to ask for the hand of one of them for you? Why did you rush into such an important decision and marry a disreputable woman?” “Sir," the clown replied, "you must know I've married nine reputable women!” He said this, trying to hide a smile. He continued, "You may have also noticed not one of them was faithful to me. I had to divorce every single one! Each time, I suffered a broken heart. I couldn't tolerate another cheating wife. Therefore, I decided to marry an already disgraced woman, without even knowing her, and take a chance. I've already tried my luck using my mind and my reasoning power; this time, I'm trying out madness instead!”
Said the visitor, "I don't get it. It just sounds like a silly story. What does that have to do with me?" "Possibly," said the Sage, "you need to stop being so reasonable." "How do I do that?" inquired the visitor. "Drop out of your head and into your heart, that's how."
* * *
We can get caught up in the power of reason, like a personal mini-version of the Age of Reason. We may think, as the intellectuals did in 18th Century Europe, that our way to freedom is in our capacity to think: so, in our brains. Did not Descartes, foreshadowing the Age of Reason, say in 1637, "I think, therefore I am," rather than, "I am, therefore I can think"?
Good things came from the Age of Reason, including a decrease in the power of religious institutions over the thinking of persons. Science made advances it could not have before. Now, one could think for himself or herself, without fearing the stockholders of divine truth would execute them.
Yet, have we not seen the limits of reason socially? Have we not felt in our selves that there is something more to life than our best ideas? When we are captivated even by a thought, is not this being-captivated arising from other than our capacity to think? What rejoices when one celebrates coming upon an idea for the first time, after much seeking?
* * *
An example of a religion that leans away from the mind, while not denying it, is the Quakers, also called Religious Society of Friends or Friends. I have attended six Quaker fellowships over the last ten years. In a Sunday, or First Day - as Friends traditionally spoke of Sunday, and some still do -, the central part of the Meeting is sitting in Silence. Each person is present to the Light within, to experience the Light, not think about the Light. The Quakers grew, at least partly, out of reaction to the intellectualization and institutionalization of the Church. Rather than Church hierarchy being the divine Voice for people, Quakers believe the Voice speaks within to anyone, for the Light is in all.
In this Silence, there is no God-talk. Anyone who receives from the Light something to share with the people can speak that forth. He or she is not to elaborate. Just speak briefly, then hush, not elaborating, so allowing each person present to discover how the Word speaks to him or her. This waiting, receiving, and sharing is intimate and experiential. In each Meeting I have attended, I have not once heard someone speak from the Silence what could be called theology, not in the sense of doctrine or dogma or a sermon.
The Quaker ideal is experience of the Heart. Many persons, so-called reasonable persons, would think this unreasonable, even weird: "What? A group of persons that sit together waiting on something called the Light?" Yet, what I have witnessed in Quaker gatherings, as well as other similar gatherings, is how reasonable this Heart-experience can be.
In essence, the Heart has its reasoning, as does the brain. Yet, we allowed intellectuals to define for us what reasonable is. Rather, we need to merge the logic of the Heart and the brain in a communion of Truth.
* * *
Many of us who are children of absolute faith in the brain have cut ourselves off from the voice of Life. If so, our hope to feel alive again and close to the Sacred, others, and Nature is a return to what is closest to us: the Heart.
The Heart is not illogical at all, even if following it makes us appear weird and unreasonable. Rumi, the love-intoxicated Sufi, while being a skilled thinker, knew of this madness of the Heart, one he did not consider in contradiction to his intellectual propensities:
Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.
*Coleman Barks. Like This.
* * *
Marshall Davis writes of our knowing all, when we know one thing. The one thing is darkness was on the face of the Deep. He refers to the primordial chaos at the beginning of the Story of Creation in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Reality remains veiled from the mind - it can find no entrance. We are like eyes looking at the surface, thinking about Reality, while seeing only darkness. We can experience the Deep, however. We can know the Deep intimately, for the Deep calls to us, loves us, and in knowing the Deep, we know ourselves. The Deep is Home.
When we dive into the Well of Love, we no longer wish to argue about what Reality is or is not. Love wills only to Love, for Love wills to commune with Love, wanting nothing to disrupt that intimacy.
Love knows
Itself
by Itself
not needing
to know
Itself
from outside
Itself.
©️ Brian Wilcox, 2020
*Story of two friends from Rumi. The Book of Rumi. Trans. Maryam Mafi.
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