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* * *
One such experience was several years before, regarding the place I was vowed to the contemplative life and became an associate member - like an oblate in some religious communities. I had been considering releasing the vows. I no longer felt I was connected emotionally with the physical site and community. I had no contact with the place or members for many years, as I had moved out of state. I stood before the kitchen sink, contemplating abdicating the vows, that this might be the moral thing to do. Then arose a change in the energy around and within me. I could feel a message - I did not hear words. The word was the site of my vows had become internalized and, so, its felt-attraction as a physical, external place was no longer present. I decided to retain my vows.
I, now, live in the far Northeast United States, the site is in the Southeast. I may never again see it or anyone associated with it. I write one person at the site. I am at peace knowing the vows have worked in this internalization of the site, the community, and vows as an intimate, subtle experience of Grace. Once the external has become internal, the shadow unclothed, and, so, the real known and felt, one cannot return to the prior experience.
* * *
In leaving that Christmas morning early to visit my family, I experienced a sense of revelation, a fresh epiphany. Spontaneously, everywhere I looked was Eucharist - all Nature, everyone, everything. No one thing in itself was Eucharist, everything together, even the air, was one Eucharist.
This felt-experience did not make sense, yet this was the experience, and it spontaneously arose. This experience was a manifestation of Christ, of the Light, for the truth of Eucharist is the Light. Ironic it was for this to occur on a Christmas morning, this day being a celebration of the unseen Word being born the Word with flesh. A Buddhist could say I saw the Luminosity, the View, or the One Taste of all things.
This Eucharist, or Luminosity, showed all things in unity, nothing opposed or separate from anything. This View included the difference of each created being - from animate to inanimate. The heterogeneity, however, was not in contrast to oneness, or oneness to the heterogeneity.
So, this was not a Christian experience, not in a religious sense, anymore than a Hindu, Buddhist, theist, religious, spiritual, or natural opening to the innate Clear Light. That implied by the word “Eucharist,” as well as “Christ,” is not bounded within Christianity or Christian faith, anymore than Buddha can be kept in a Buddhist knapsack or Krishna hidden in Hinduism.
* * *
To meet Christ is to meet Buddha, the Truth, Love. Yet, to meet anyone is to meet the same Light. If one were to meet Jesus or Buddha, that meeting would be no more essentially sacred or luminous than meeting a stranger while you pass by each other walking along a sidewalk.
* * *
Respecting persons most arises from seeing each one as a window of the living Light. You are a window of the Beloved. When Buddhists say in seeing someone they see Buddha or Hindus say "Namaste" to someone, with folding the hands in a posture of oneness, this is substantially the same.
* * *
Like ordinary windows with differing degrees of openness to the Light and to share light, we each, to varying degrees, are means of the glory of Life. Some persons are more porous to the mystery of Grace than others. Yet, by this, the Light does not become less of the Light. And, that the Light is hidden, or almost so, does not mean the Light is not fully present. The Light, being Plenitude, cannot be less or more of Itself, be less than Itself wholly.
* * *
sometimes Loving
is acknowledging the Light in the other
a Light he or she may not be able, at that time, to acknowledge
the aptest way to communicate this recognition
is to respect the other as means of the Light
and one with the Light
nothing necessarily need be said
to affirm this Epiphany of the Sacred
the appearance of the other as a God-Manifestation
Continued... |
