33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, "He has a demon"; 34 the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" 35 Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
*Jesus, Gospel of Luke 7.33-35 (NRSV)
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Rifqa Bary, in Hiding in the Light, her autobiographical account of moving to Christianity from Islam, tells of a time in her middle school years. She was living in desperation, feeling her life was worthless, and cutting herself, preferring the physical pain to the inner pain. In describing herself, she wrote, "I wanted to want." Her statement comes from being raised in a fundamentalist Muslim sect and home and, likewise, feeling cut-off socially from others. And, her words could apply to many persons of religion or no religion: "I wanted to want." So, this is not merely about Muslim; many professing Christians have felt the same negation of both their person and their capacity to desire, all in the name of "god." A myriad, I am certain, have been shamed by simply having personal desires not in alignment with perceptions of virtue esteemed as holy and righteous by other adherents.
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I came up in a similar family as Rifqa, the main difference that my family was Christian. I recall, when a senior in high school, asking a lovely girl to go with me to the junior-senior prom. After this kind, beautiful lady had said "Yes," I mentioned my plans to my dad. He did not tell me not to go, but that such a place was not a place for me. There was no explanation why such a place could not be a place for me. To take his word for it meant, just that, it was not a place for me - for some reason. - Anyway, dancing had been viewed by many in my culture as a threat, for it might arouse sexual desire. Of course, no one addressed the long-term consequences to merely repressing sexual desire. Somehow, it seemed, getting married automatically made sexual desire okay, but until then, it was to be denied as a legitimate feeling. - And, like in so many such families, I simply was not to question what my dad said. He had come up in the same kind of family, and he would never have dared question his dad. This, to persons in other families or cultures, might appear unreasonable, but inside fundamentalist systems of thought and culture, there is a divine order presented as "god's" will and, so, simply to be obeyed and not questioned at all. The one thing you do not do to the "god" is question "His" orders. And, that trickles down to the male patriarch of the family system, who represents the authority of "god." I am not meaning here, either, to speak badly of such parents, for they, too, in an odd way, are victims of a fundamentalist worldview that hinders them loving their children as children need to be loved - including, letting children know that desire, including physical desire, yes sexual desire, is a natural expression of the goodness and holiness of Life. Now, back to my story...
So, I backed out and told the girl I would not be going to the dance. I did not, and continued my socially isolated life apart from others my age, more defined by the desires I repressed than the desires I expressed. In fact, in my life, desire was a real problem, for from desire would come a host of evils. Desire was the tool of "satan" - that invisible boogey man that seemed to be everywhere and trying to deceive everyone through desire.
Then, on the opposite side of "satan" was "god." So, to please "god" seemed more about what I said "No" to than "Yes" to. But, is this not the same story of many Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, ....? Is not the inevitable result a focus on self that leads to an unhealthy self-righteousness? An I-don't-do-things-like-that-so-I'm-better-than-you-and-others-like-you? Does this not lead to separation? Grace is about connection, is about our living together - and this is not about physical space, but a matter of the Heart. True? And, such Love is principally a matter, not of negation or repression, but of expression, celebration, and affirmation of Life.
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So, this is an essential, empirical fact of spiritual emergence: To transcend the self, one must experience the self in a healthy way. That is, self-transcendence is not a mere self-denial; rather, the self merges into a more expansive, compassionate embrace that includes other creatures with the self. Pure Love, then, cannot be based on denial, or self-repression. A healthy, spiritual self-denial must be in harmony with a healthy self-affirmation. Indeed, the human being can grow spiritually in such a manner as to transcend the duality between denial-of-desire and expression-of-desire - yet, those who do this are the rare exception to the common experience of the vast majority who live in the duality of "good" and "evil." There is a transcendence of both, and Life can take us There, once we are exhausted with the impossibility of harmony in the opposites set up by cultural systems and that are internalized and create divisions and chaos within us - which, then, are projected into societal aggression and conflict. Wanting arising from Love can never be in conflict or disharmony with the good of others and self. This is why St. Augustine could say, "Love, and do what you want to."
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*Lotus of the Heart is a Work of Arem Nahariim-Samadhi ~ a Hospice Chaplain, interspiritual author, writer, poet, and bicyclist. He is someone in love with Life and inviting others to that same ecstasy of Love ~ and, by the way, herein is nothing he claims as his own.
