27The Sacred's purpose was for the nations to seek after Grace Herself and perhaps feel their way toward Her and find Her - though Grace is not far from any one of us. 28 For in the One we live and move and exist. As some of your (or, our) own poets have said, "We are the Creator's offspring." 29 And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of the Beloved as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.
*Acts 17.27-29 (Christian New Testament)
The ultimate leaving is the leaving of God for God.
*Meister Eckhart
Lord, teach me to see Thee and reveal Thyself to me when I seek Thee. For I cannot seek Thee except Thou teach me, nor find Thee except Thou reveal Thyself. ... Is the eye of the soul darkened by infirmity, or dazzled by Thy glory? Surely, it is both darkened in itself and dazzled by Thee. Lord, this is the unapproachable light in which Thou dwellest.
*St. Anselm
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In Hinduism the goddess Kali, notes the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, signifies "black" and "time." He explains the Kali symbolism:
Kali ... is that black abyss of mystery out of which all things come and back into which they go. ... Her principle image is that of dancing in the burning ground, the place where corpses are burned. This is dissolution. She is dancing on the body of her god, Shiva, her husband.
*A Joseph Campbell Companion. Ed. Diane K. Osbon.
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What a symbolism! What of this concept of deity trampling underfoot deity?
As with all myth, generally, we can see in Kali and her dance a spiritual truth by taking the portrait seriously but not literally. She is imagistic - as are all images of Reality. Spiritual Hindus - for some Hindus, like many Christians, literalize myth - see in Kali an aspect of Brahman, or God; she is a personification of an aspect of Truth.
Kali represents what the opening quotes speak of about "God," or "Goddess." That is, there must be a death of my deity, or intellectual image of the Sacred. Such a god must die through a crucifixion, so to be a resurrection, a new beginning. Mythically speaking, I, at some point of consciousness evolution, surrender my god to death, and, in this, is a dying of part of myself, likewise.
No, I am not saying this is necessary for all persons. However, all contemplatives declare it must be so for a person to be immersed in the dark faith, which is the very Light of Christ - or Love, or Buddha, or ... -, and enjoy blissful and faithful union with Grace, the oneness which we are ultimately called to share with Life.
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Eckhart says it well. I must leave what I image of god, which is a mental representation, not really the Sacred at all. If I am led to a detachment from (i.e., repentance of) the god-image and I refuse, I am committing a mental idolatry and turning away an increase of the Light that is present to enlighten my understanding. I, then, am clinging to a mental formation of deity, or Reality; that is as much idolatry as clinging to a wooden or stone image and bowing to it in worship. Many Christians would rail against materialistic idolatry - I have told of the protest of one church against me, its pastor, for my having a lovely hand-carved Buddha on my home altar, while it did not see its fundamentalism was based on an idolatry by turning the living Christ into an iconoclistic Christian-Jesus image. Indeed, fundamentalism is by nature, always, idolatrous, for it turns forms of faith into perceived exclusive absolutes, the formed sign into formless Reality.
St. Anselm speaks from humble recognition and sane reason of the Light that blinds the intellect, a darkening that is dark for the Immensity of the Mystery that submerges self in a state beyond all intellectual formation. This Light, which is the wisdom of the Word, immerses the memory, will, and imagination in a death to all their contents. In this dying is a being lifted from this dissolution, the self being content - even savoring - to dwell in Grace alone rather than in the memory, will, and imagination - though perceptions move in and out of the body-and-mind, like clouds moving through sky.
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This spiritual death, living out the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, eternally, Now, is not a final loss of images of the Sacred. Rather, the image is purged through being immersed in the spiritualizing Water: as signified in baptism in natural water. So, death is not cessation but transformation - or cessation is transformation. Afterward, the image, with new content, of course, can be held with an acknowledgement, indeed an inner realization not of mind but of the collective Self in Grace. One knows Grace as many Faces, each a reflection of the Divine Sun wherein we live and move and have our being. One has passed into Love by Love. This means the Resurrection of this god-death is the progressive re-union of form and formless, as even the Buddha taught just prior to his leaving Earth, after he had taught formlessness for decades.
In this baptism, one may lose any number of images of the Sacred, or all. One may, likewise, form new images or adopt images from sources once prohibited - such as, varied spiritual traditions or outside faith traditions. Most likely, the imaging of the Sacred will be more abstract in content, as the concrete arises with less evolved consciousness, both historically and within the evolution of the self - while imagelessness is still arising from an ever more evolved consciousness, which few of humanity have evolved to in the past and even to the present - we are still stuck in reason and struggling to integrate reason in a post-reason consciousness - this is one reason atheism is simply another form of reason-stuck-in-reason, as much religion is. Theism and atheism are much more alike than either would want to see or admit.
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Yet, as pointed to, this evolution of god-image corresponds to evolution of consciousness within the self. So, this is really one process, not really of Grace at all, for the Absolute cannot be but That.
My own experience has been past all images. I can use images, and do. Yet, I know the images are means of connecting to that Paul spoke of to the Greeks, the Mystery.
In my knowing I do not know, and in not knowing, I know. I know, I cannot speak of myself without speaking of "God," even as I cannot see you without seeing "God." And, yet, I see Something, but see and love Nothing.
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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.
