One moment of seeing through the face of another, not just looking at the face, is a moment of seeing into the Eternal.
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Video can be accessed on YouTube via the upper left title below -
In looking for a place to rent recently, I considered for weeks accepting a room in a home in mid-Maine. I felt both a positive inner - soul - attraction, or sense, about the house and the person who owned it. After weeks, and one day from agreeing to rent there, I declined. There was sadness in declining the offer, mostly for I felt such a vivid spiritual-kinship with the renter. So, to write a decline letter was not easy, and done with much prayerfulness. In it, I wrote -
Hence, I respectfully and with sadness decline. I had sensed you would be someone I would delight to get to know more, one of like-spirit, and a person about more than business, treating your guests as honored guests, not merely renters or customers. I commend you for who you are and that to you the home is a way for it and you to be a blessing, not just a business enterprise.
Here was a person I felt a spontaneous affiliation with, for with her, as I have with others, I could sense a heart-with-heart sharing - this sharing is silent, in the background of words and actions. The way I discerned she approached her work, also, evidenced her kind and respectful way in which she treated those she rented rooms to in her B&B.
These heart-connections we have with persons are not explainable at the level of the psychological. They are truly spiritual, more subtle, purer, than what arises in the body-and-mind. Today, I speak of this Thou-with-Thou, or heart-with-heart, communion - our true home together in Spirit.
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An aspect of spiritual evolution of the self is the self having openings of felt-connection with others, which cannot be explained psychologically and arise and dissolve spontaneously. This is the Oneness manifesting through the inner aspect of self, or soul, appearing for our True Self is communion-with-others, and this, in turn, rests on the Oneness, or One. Hence, we receive these spontaneous arisings as evidence of our innate kinship with others. We come to see we are more than bodies sharing space; we are spirit-with-spirit communing silently in Spirit.
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Part of the challenge of the times in which we live now, with pronounced social unrest and the yearning for equality awakened across races, religions, sexual and gender differences, and nationalities is, with the demand for equality, we are to become what can sustain and deepen it. We cannot depersonalize the need for social equality. Otherwise, the need easily absorbs into a collective insistence, the masses, rather than accepting I am to become one who can live this justice.
Hence, I can share it with others through who I am, not only what I do. Who I am first, for equality is first a matter of being, not doing, of spirit, not society, so of within, not without. - Yet, within and without work together. - In each moment, I can choose to lean more into the equality I long for others, so become more a means of this offering of self-dignity, grounded in our Source, to others. For the same dignity is our dignity, a gift of Life to us all. We are all mirrors pointing to one Sky. The one who lives in this awareness, lives in Love.
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Communion happens simply by our Yes to let it happen Yet, truly, Communion does not merely happen but is happening Communion is always, already, we simply are welcomed to enter into the Sharing Grace-with-Grace heart-with-heart in Love
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We relate with persons based on our spiritual evolution. When I speak of heart-with-heart, to read that as an affective, or emotional, connection is incorrect. The emotional, or vital aspect, is a bodily expression, and this kind of psychological bonding is typical among humans. That it is grounded in the body-emotional means much pleasure and suffering. This is partly because the demands of Love on the self cannot be integrated except beyond the body, and the affections cannot embrace the purity of Love well.
Hence, the inner communion I teach, this is heart-with-heart - in this writing, also, Thou in relationship with Thou. This is beyond relationships based on others pleasing our egos. In the heart, we would prefer suffering for someone in Grace, than being pleased by someone simply to please ourselves. Relationships based on mutual-pleasure are not spiritual, they are not necessarily bad or unhealthy, only not spiritual.
Hence, while we may theorize or sense, even experience, heart-with-heart, we cannot sustain it unless we grow into the capacity to do so. The joy of Love, and possibly visits to this more rarefied, subtle embrace, encourage us to be more loving, thus more able to contain the divine Love for others and in our return of love to the omnipresent Spirit.
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Howard Thurman -
Deep within me, I want to be more loving - to glow with a warmth that will take the chill off the room which I share with those whose lives touch mine in the traffic of my goings and comings. I want to be more loving!
*Meditations of the Heart.
This yearning to be more loving is coming through the heart into the body, with its feelings and passions. To equate this yearning with fulfillment, however, is incorrect. The yearning pulls us onward beyond satisfaction living in the body and mind, with its personal affections for others.
Hence, as long as there is a felt sense of the "i," or ego-self aspect, saying, "I love you," - that is, love located in the i-sense -, the love, though true and good, has not been transmuted into the transpersonal love only Spirit grants from Itself. A challenge is to allow the i-sense to dissolve into communion with Spirit to the extent the "i" becomes "I" - meaning the "I" of all and in union with Spirit.
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I wrote a message to a new friend and colleague. I did not know her well and did not know how she would receive the "odd" message - "Hi Thou from Thou." She received the greeting with understanding, and so began some friendly dialogue.
Thou, Thee, Thy, Thine, used first before the 12th Century, arose from Greek and Hebrew personal pronouns, stressing the identification of the one addressed in exclusion of all others. About "God," the English Thou denotes respect, reverence, and recognition of the holiness, or totally otherness, of "God." This is why one of my religion professors in college refused to discontinue the use of Thou when referring to "God."
But what of Thou in the use of addressing my colleague and friend? Well, I did it somewhat jocularly, and somehow not so. I was being humorous - I hoped -, while knowing it was natural for me to recognize and respect her as an expression of the Totally Otherness that makes our sharing potentially a holy communion, not merely a relational interaction. That is, Grace lifts commonness to the category of Otherness, not as separation but as Sacredness, Mystery, Oneness.
Yet, Thou, or this Oneness, expresses Itself in communion - one-union -, which entails distinction. Thou celebrates Thou. Thou differentiates to mirror Itself in the otherness and return this otherness into the lived expression of Oneness.
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Strictly, Oneness is before Union, for Union still implies a joining of two or more. This is why some Christian theologians have spoken of the Oneness of Godhead as being the source of the three expressions called Trinity - three-in-union: Godhead being Oneness without any diversification, so in Itself no union. Likewise, Mahayana Buddhists posit the Dharmakaya, or Truth Body, as the "Buddha" beyond Buddha, beyond all Buddhas.
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So, yes, the contemplative expression of consciousness enjoys this play of communion with others, human and non-human, seen and unseen. Nonduality is not the negation of diversity and distinction. Oneness manifests as transactions heart-with-heart - the Communion.
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In all its forms, even birth and death, the play of Grace is the expression of Oneness and communion. As the Gospel of John, in the Christian Bible, reads, "And the Word assumed flesh," implies intuition of the I Am becoming I Am this-and-that. When this-and-that awakens to the Truth, into the kinship of all beings, not identity, holy communion can consciously emerge from within the heart, even in the gladdened embrace of the differences among us. Not identity, for, again, the self is enjoying union with the One, not claiming to be the One. In fact, in Spirit, the self does not claim to be the Divine or not the Divine. The Self is, for One is.
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The Divine appears to enjoy differentiating, seems to like to assume form to hide-and-seek with Itself and draw Its diversity back into holy - so, wholly - communion, which transcends all that would negate our togetherness as One.
To this sharing of within-with-within, we say "Yes" or "No," and our "Yes" means consent to be drawn back, or forward, through communion to the Source of the joy of sharing among ourselves - which is a sharing of ourselves. The Solitary enters into being, even happening, among and with. The Solitary becomes communion.
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Recognizing, then, communion as Sacredness sharing with Sacredness, our lives are lifted to experience and inspiration mere human interaction - emotional and cognitive, or body and mind - cannot provide us. We see others and ourselves differently when arises consciousness of Love-in-Love, a spontaneous expression of Thou-with-Thou, and in which Oneness rejoices in the array of forms in which formless Spirit appears. Forms we commune with become means for reuniting us with the Ineffable. Here, Love does not need us, for Love is Fulfillment, and we are drawn by need beyond need, in Love.
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Is there a way the descent of Spirit should happen? What can I expect?
The way I recommend for most persons is simply to devote, in the heart, yourself in loving the Beloved - a personal expression of the Absolute. The expression for me for many years was Jesus. I was raised to love Jesus. Stick with whatever Object of devotion that works best for you, faithfully; do not jump around trying out different paths. Humbly remain with faithful devotion, daily. Your whole life is to be oriented around this Center. If you do this, Spirit will show the way. Your role is to cooperate in preparing yourself to be aware of when that happens. So, never rush this. Enjoy the devotion, trust Spirit to manifest as Spirit chooses. Spirit shapes its expression to fit you. I am not saying everyone needs to follow this devotional path, but it is most helpful for most persons.
But are not these expressions of Spirit not objects? You often teach that, even saying Spirit is pure Subjectivity.
In devotion the Spirit manifests as Object, in which you are sometimes the subject and the Object sometimes the subject - even in human relations, the lover must have a lover to be a lover. "Lover" implies loving another. This is for devotion remains within the field of duality. Loving the Object assists in preparing for the nondual Spirit.
What if I do not believe in God, so that cannot be an idea that helps me toward the communion with others or the God you speak of?
God is not something you can believe in or not believe in. God is beyond that; all belief is in your mind, shaped by thought and feeling. Even the word "God" is a thought.
Do we need persons less as we grow spiritually? That is what I heard you say.
We need others less as persons. This less-need enhances the relationship. In the body, we struggle to realize how needing someone less would mean more intimacy, more availability and power to love them. Yet, in Spirit, intimacy is increased with less need. This is for Spirit is already fulfilled in Itself and by Itself. In becoming more spiritualized - or consecrated -, we become more like Spirit, need being transmuted into fulfillment, and we become more non-personally available to others. "Non" not meaning impersonal. And personal, then, expresses through the im-personal. Yet, as long as the personal is in the foreground of consciousness, the im-personal - or, transpersonal - cannot shine forth in its glory and power. It shines through, but is diluted, like the sunshine not seen in all its brightness due to smog in the air. Most of what we show to persons is not who we truly are, but masks that hide who we are, so hides Spirit. Only Spirit can transform this hiding by the self into the Effulgence of the Self.
How does this heart-with-heart fit into devotional spirituality?
Through love and loving - surrender to, worship of, adoration of - an image of the Absolute, this prepares the heart to open. The image of the Absolute - Jesus, Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Father, Mother, Sophia, Kuan Yin, God ... - provides a safe Object to be with and invite into the heart space. This allows the Object to be the means for the Absolute to "descend" into the self, for the love of the Sacred objectified purifies the lower aspects of self so the Ineffable can manifest to and in and through the self. The formless Spirit is "behind" the Object, being a form expressing the objectless Spirit. As the heart opens to the Formless, through the form of devotional Object, the heart opens to others. Others, then, become means of devotion and means to invite the Holy into self and life, inner and outer. Hence, the way of devotion is less difficult for most persons; few persons are prepared to take the path of direct knowing of the Ineffable: that is, to invite the formless Absolute into herself intimately.
Can other humans be the Object for us?
Humans are means of the Sacred, yes. Yet, most persons need a traditional Object that has been central to a spiritual tradition. For a human in your life to be the Object opens you to place too much esteem in that person. No one needs to be your supreme Object, it would be unfair to cast that big a role onto someone. Yet, we could call other humans, even nonhumans, sacraments of the Sacred. Anyone or anything that opens you to the awareness of Grace, that is sacramental. But do not turn your friend or lover, for example, into a Krishna, Jesus, or Buddha. The Object needs to communicate to the self a cosmic presence, transcending time and place.
Is not God that formless Spirit?
God is usually not that for persons. God for them is another Object in the mind. So, God, as object, can serve as the sacred Object. God, when not diluted with the mind - conceptualization - can refer to the Ineffable - but few relate with God in this manner. Their God is a big person. They are not ready to relate with formless, objectless Spirit. Yet, God as manifested in the self can, again, and is for many, an efficacious means to the Absolute. For other persons, they block Spirit, mistaking their God-Object for God, or Spirit. God as Object must dissolve in the coming of God into the heart, which is not actually an arrival in a spatial sense, but a more subtle manifestation of the Sacred already within you - we use relative terms of space and time as indicators in duality of a nondual Event.
Sometimes you use Love for God. Can that be an Object?
No. That is too abstract. Also, Love is easily misunderstood, for Love in the subtle domains is much unlike love experienced in the body and psyche aspects. Likewise, most persons need a concrete image Object - a form they can visualize. Love is formless. I do use Love for unmanifest Spirit, but not for the Object for worship. Now, I lean more toward seeing Love as an absolute Quality of Spirit, rather than as Spirit. Again, I do this for persons have so equated love with the affection experienced in the body and mind, so cannot comprehend a transpersonal, non-affective Quality of Love.
