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Now, to the experience from sitting in a Quaker Meeting this past Sunday, or First Day, which speaks of the capacity of spirit to transcend time and space, for time and space are in spirit, not spirit in time and space.
During a time of exploring membership as a Friend, or Quaker, I have visited varied congregations in the region I live in. Today, sitting in another Meeting, the Durham Friends Meeting, I was surprised by the sense of inspiration that arose in connection with the Meeting I identify as my home Meeting, the Brunswick Friends Meeting. We were sitting silently, in the Silence. When the remembrance of the home Meeting arose, I felt this subtle, alive energy fill the body. What arose in the body was more than a feeling, an emotion. One of the closest of remembrances to this was standing alone beside the bed of a patient under my care, who had just died, and I stood in this subtle, powerful, but gentle peace, a peace alive, and felt like I could simply remain quietly there, not moving, forever.
Then, sensing this peaceful aliveness in the Meeting with others, remembrance of a scripture from the Christian Bible arose to mind. The scripture is found in I Corinthians 5.3 ~ “though absent in body, I am present in spirit.” This is attributed to the apostle Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, second half of 1st Century CE. “Spirit” is the same Greek word for “wind, breath, spirit, Spirit” and is often used in reference to holy Spirit, or Holy Spirit.
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In oneness
a communion of with arises
we become withing
for communion is happening
moment to moment without interlude
prior is oneness
the communion possible for
the oneness is already present ~
the oneness is Presence
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Sitting there, I could not be bodily with the Friends in the Meeting I usually attend and identify with. That is, I as person, personality, or psychological self could not be 15.3 miles away in Topsham, Maine, while sitting in Durham, Maine. Spirit, then, that unspeakable depth of being is the only way that the sense of joyful connection could arise at a distance. This is not the same, however, as the emotional closeness we feel for someone near or at a distance. This latter is a natural emotional response to someone we feel close to, while spiritual connection is other, for grounded in spirit. This meaning, in spirit, there are not a variety of spirits. When we sense the spirit of another person, we do for that spirit is our spirit ~ the same spirit.
Hence, the belief that each human being has a soul is misleading, for the one soul envelops all human beings. Likely, we would be more accurate saying, rather than the body having a soul or the soul being in the body, all bodies are within the soul or the soul has many bodies. So, when a person dies, only person dies. Also, the soul, or spirit, not of time and space, we may sense goes somewhere. This is not necessarily true, only true based on our interpretation within the time and space our consciousness experiences and interprets from.
Different religions refer to this spirit, or soul, differently. Many Quakers speak of that of God in everyone, and this one could say is spirit, or soul. Hindus speak of Atman (the one Self). The Buddhists speak of Buddha mind, Buddha nature, or Buddha. These each point to the single essence of all beings.
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