In reading a recently published book, by an atheist, on spirituality without religion, I read him extolling the merit of selflessness and meditation as a way to this selflessness. Yet, the mention of concepts like Love are missing. He extols an atheistic spirituality, without believing in Spirit, and speaks of selflessness as a loss of the sense of a particular self. Yet, I simply wonder how can this be a spirituality with or without religion? And, what is the value of selflessness in itself - which, to me, would be at best a loveless relief from a sense of being person? Now, if selflessness gives us a glimpse into Oneness, or Love, untouched by a sense of separate selfhood, we are talking about something that can really not be religious or spiritual at all, but something we may not be enjoying more for trying to be spiritual or religious. That which is may choose to be many things, but it does not have to be anything for it is. Oneness is, and selflessness and enlightenment and salvation - indeed, all the religious and spiritual words - cannot begin to encompass It or even fairly represent It, even by the best of metaphor.
*Arem Nahariim-Samadhi
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Today, I was reminded again how soon you can recognize Oneness with others - better, how the Oneness that is the others and you recognizes one another, even if that is not being processed at the conceptual level, as it more often than not is not processed consciously for most of us. And this Oneness that is deeper than the skin, metaphorically and literally - clarified even more for me by the fact that I was the only white person present. And, also, I had never met even one of these persons before - it was the first time for us all.
After having gone in to assist the family, for the patient was actively dying, before I left these persons I had never met before were hugging my neck with gratitude and joy - the same wonderful people that I was not to associate closely with as a child in the Bible Belt of South USA - though those who preached that God loved all equally, somehow did not seem to include blacks as among the all God loved equally. Or, maybe, sometimes, it was just that God loved us all equally but we were not to do the same. How odd. And it felt so good to be hugged and loved by persons whom I could not eat in the same restaurant with when a young boy.
Why did such a connection happen so quickly? Why should it not? How odd that this is so rare that we find it the exception, not the norm. Possibly, one reason for this is we are simply - we claim - so busy. How sad, to be so busy getting things done we have forgotten the core of humanness is not work, but love. And we are principally here to be with others, and we cannot be with, if our focus is always on what we must do to meet our work goals. Again, how odd, too busy to be with, even if we are working with. We can work with someone all the time and never be with him or her. We can even do things like serve persons in need and never, not for one moment, be with them - and, of course, that allows us to be right there and, yet, as far away as the moon.
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Now, the how of this Communion is not something to understand. Oneness cannot be understood.... It is and It happens, and It would happen more if we would simply Love by opening our heart without an agenda to do anything but offer Love and Love - doing would, then, arise from being with. And, in so doing, we open ourselves to be loved, for the Beloved is Lover and Loved and the Love making Loved and Lover One. This is actually implied in the teaching of the Trinity in the Christian churches but usually so missed, for the churches have tended to literalize the Trinity and totally miss the depth of Meaning that is not at all dependent on the literalization. And, then, of course, oppositions can remain over the "One" in Islam and the "Three-in-One" in Christianity, when both are right in some way and wrong Absolutely, for Grace cannot be reduced or added to like in mathematics. Grace, or God, is not a number, whatever the number. - Even our use of Oneness is a really poor way of speaking of this Communion, but we live in a world of numbers, and understand much through numbers.
This Oneness, then, really is a deeper significance of the rite of Holy Communion as taught in the Christian churches, but a deeper significance almost always missed, due partly to too many in the churches, and their leadership, not having lived this - how can you, when you have turned this unknowable Love into doctrines and largely relegated these mysteries to historical significance, and not present Incarnation. In a sense, this must take on meat, get inside our skin, and live inside us and between others and us, or it just remains a grand idea that really has little, if any, significance for us.
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So, the moment this Grace happens, it does not fit in any doctrine or church or religion or spirituality. No preacher can preach It, no guru or rishi or rinpoche can give It, no rationalism can demonstrate that It does not exist and happen. No book can teach it, not even a Bible. Many things can point to It, but that is all. Grace shows Itself in you and between others - and not just human others - and you. This Communion of Heart, this Grace, purely is, and It takes us out of our heads and into our Heart - note, I did not say our hearts. And we are, then, transformed slowly by Grace into Grace. We be-come the Communion that is Truth.
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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.
