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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. This writer is an interspiritual-contemplative Christian. Interspiritual is open to the wisdom and practices of varied faith Paths, and does not see any one Path as the sole means of relationship with the Divine. I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here, and this site can contribute to the unity of faiths in a world that needs religions to be a vital means of healing. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual-Contemplative Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
This writing is dedicated to all the spiritual Teachers, of all faiths, who are giving heart and soul to help lead the human race toward healing and peace among us all. May they each be blessed and honored for their love and labors. Amen.
Quote
Below are words from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his introduction to his masterful treatment of the Song of Songs – also called the Canticles and the Song of Solomon.
Only the touch of the Holy Spirit can inspire a song like this, and only personal experience can unfold its meaning. Those who are experienced in the mystery may revel in it; all others should burn with desire to attain to it rather than merely settle for learning about it.
*St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Trans. Jon M. Sweeney. Almost Catholic.
There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts.
*Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Circles." In The Spiritual Emerson.
Spiritual Teaching
The Master told a story of a priceless antique bowl. This bowl was worth a fortune. The bowl was used by a homeless person who ended his days in poverty. He was unaware of the value of the bowl in which he received the pennies from his begging.
A disciple asked the Master, “What does the bowl stand for?”
The Master said, “Your self!”
The disciple asked the Master to elaborate. “All your attention,” said the Master, “is focused on the penny knowledge you collect from books and teachers. You would do better to pay attention to the bowl in which you hold it.”
*Anthony de Mello, SJ
* * *
First, to transcend thought, or mentality and mentalism, does not mean thoughtless. In Integral-Transpersonal Spirituality, transcendence is a more mature development embracing all previous ones. Thought, then, is enhanced, and relationship to thought changes. In conventional awareness, thought is clung to emotionally; thought is easily another ego attachment. In postconventional awareness, thought is seen and taken for what it is - important, but a rudimentary aspect of the body-Self process.
Part of growing into this new relationship is practicing emotional detachment from thought. The chief means is through meditation. In meditation we see thought for what it is, nothing more, nothing less.
The issue here is symbiosis, or merging. When we are attached emotionally to anything, we cannot see it for what it is. When we cling tightly to our thought - as in teachings, ideas, ideology, doctrine, ... - we cannot have a healthy, mature relationship with it or those who differ from us. Why? Our identity and our ideology are one. In postconventional, transpersonal, this identification is dissolved in a higher embrace of knowing.
* * *
Below, I share some words, and comments on them, from a letter. In the letter, I am seeking to get the person to consider there is a higher knowing than intellectual knowledge, and one in which we can loosen our feeling of being right and the other wrong. This knowing is a pure faith, and provides a place for us to meet in peace and goodwill, shaping our characters to Love, rather than our relationships being founded on agreement in thought:
I am a spiritual director to persons, and I have no interest in keeping others "right" in doctrine; at least for me, that would be arrogant - ... I am interested in a person's relationship with the Divine, and as evidenced in over-all life, and how I can encourage that through practical means.
Certainly, knowledge of the mind is important. Acquiring knowledge is a revered means of Grace in all major faiths. Ignorance is not bliss, not at the mental level. Yet, again, when we move beyond emotional attachment to our thoughts, our teachings, our doctrines, we can relax and learn from others of differing paths and teachings, without feeling threatened or feeling we must be right and defend the right – of course, as my group or I see it, or both.
* * *
I have not found a positive correlation between so-called orthodox (according to which group, person, …?) doctrine and living. Possibly, that is because doctrine is a beginning point. Though it does not transform, it can help a person feel right and see others as wrong, and it can help a person feel safe in such a changing, unsure world. But, thinking, which pertains to doctrine, cannot but be a starting point that leads beyond to a wider Embrace of Spirit - a place where agreement on doctrine is not as important as it once was to a person.
Thought can never transcend itself, yet, it proves again and again divisive. At the level of mind, we cannot unite, for unity is not mental. Mental can be agreement, conformity, but not unity – not among persons of a world with many different ways of relating to the Divine. Yet, again, every faith movement has a doctrine, even if it is “We have no doctrine.” Teaching is important for self-definition, and without some set teachings, how can we relate to anyone else in a fruitful way? If we stand for nothing at the level of mind, we have nowhere to stand beyond the mind.
Mind is a lower faculty to other aspects of development, and in that sense part of the foundation for more advanced consciousness and Love. When someone says, “Oh, it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere” … well, that person does not begin to get how important the mind is as preparation for more inclusive development. The same applies when a person says, “Well, it's no one's business what I believe.” This person has not even gotten to the level of a healthy development of mind. Still, again, noting the importance of mental knowledge is different from having an emotional attachment to what one believes.
* * *
Someone might say, “But, I read my Bible and have the true teachings.” Or, "My sect of Islam interprets the Koran correctly." This is how most religious persons act. Yet, this is not loving, this is not gracious. In the following paragraph, I contend, rightly, that with all the talk of correct doctrine in Christianity, there has never been one doctrine. And the creeds represent majority opinions, not necessarily truth.
"Doctrine" - whose doctrine? What doctrine? The church, from the beginning, has been in strong disagreements, for fallible human beings are the church on earth - and many of these appeal to the same scriptures. There has never been one doctrine. Even the Protestants, who claim, on the radical side, to go back only to Scripture, have never had a single doctrine. We cannot get beyond, in this life, the relativity of belief - and doctrine is belief, belief is doctrine. One needs, as I see it, to move beyond doctrine, to that which only brings unity and peace. To hold too strongly to doctrine is to become creedal, and creeds have always divided and left one saying “I am right, you are wrong.” Creeds [or creedalism] have started wars, Love and compassion never have.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a creed. Many Protestants oppose creeds, yet, they have a creedalism – a creedalism is simply a fixed, illogical, emotional attachment to a set of beliefs. A person can hold to a creed without being creedal; a creed can be an opening to transcend the mentality of the creed, and the creed can point to mysteries beyond the mind. And a person can be without a creed and be dogmatically attached to what he or she thinks, or his or her group says. For many persons the Bible has become a creed, a foundation of creedalism. Sadly, this is true. Rather than the Bible being an inspired story opening persons beyond the Bible, to mysteries words can not contain. In the latter sense, the Bible is a means of, not an end of, faith.
The whole falsehood of one true orthodox teaching, held by one group, cannot be the basis of unity among us. This can console persons who do not want to grow on up, but not lead persons to the heights of unity and Spirit that await us. That might be good for sects, but not for peace in our world. Why? Again, those who seek orthodoxy do so at the level of the body-self of mind, or mentality, where such unity cannot be – mind.
I do not claim to have the one right doctrine. I seek to see the Divine in the beauty of varied ways of seeing things. I believe humans are more concerned about getting it right than God is for us to get it right - in regard to belief; God seems more concerned about principles and wisdom, than doctrines. These principles can be seen in faiths who do not agree on doctrine.
Mythic-tribal faith says our "god(s)," as we understand it, them, are the only. Such faith says our tribe is the only true tribe. Such is much in religion, including a large segment of the churches [yet, this occurs in politics, also].
We cannot find a way around one fact, one truth: all we believe is shaped by many factors, most unknown to us - including unconscious/subconscious ones - and those factors are not in a world interpreting God perfectly. Doctrine comes after God, and, thus, I would say is not to be believed in, but respected as a guide, among others; such as, the holy Spirit, ... I would add: "Did Jesus leave us a doctrine?"
Here, above, I address important matters to go beyond mind. The image of God as concerned and impressed with our supposed getting-it-right needs to be questioned – many assume this hyper-concern of God, based largely on literal readings of Scripture. I am not confidant God is concerned, when I meet another person, and he or she and I share in Love and Grace, who is Buddhist and who is Christian. Yet, I am confidant the Divine would be more approving of a compassionate Buddhist than a Christian who is judgmental of the Buddhist. Frankly put, Spirit does not fit in any faith, not even my Christian faith. All it takes is some willingness to see and humbleness for us to come to agree on that.
The fact remains all faith is two things: relative, and after the Divine. Relative does not mean wrong, simply it means not without the shaping of time-space. Nothing you say you know to be true came to you without many influences from the culture you were born into. If we are in Love with the Sacred, we cannot place priority on belief.
* * *
What is left? We choose between two ways of faith. We can choose a faith of belief or a faith of transformation. The former is based on thought, the second on spiritual practice that leads to changing us at levels from matter-body to beyond mind. The first leaves us at a rudimentary level of mentality.
I challenge you to consider the difference between a spirituality of belief and a spirituality of transformation. The latter, even in the churches, will be the future.
Regarding "defending" the faith. …. Persons now are looking to experience to validate - not appeals to texts or teachers or teachings -, and many who claim to believe the right things - to be doctrinally sound - have left many outside the church unconvinced. One reason, belief, again, is not transformative, regardless of how valid it is. So, we have churches filled with un-renewed persons, who can say the "right" things, and many trying to serve as leaders of the churches - untransformed pastors, bishops, whatever.
I know this may sound harsh, but what I write is true. Why? The church is often filled with good and sincere persons, but clerics have not led them beyond the mind. For much of the Protestant church, the teaching has been simple: “Get saved, and you go to heaven.” This gap leaves churches filled with fine persons who long for more, but have no idea of transformative practice. This is often, sadly, the blind leading the blind; or the seeing only to the mind level unable to lead others beyond the mind level.
* * *
Our experience of the Sacred, individually and together, is much like the bowl in the opening story. We can cherish a wonderful experience together, without getting caught up in the pennies of the brain. To do this we have to pay more attention to the bowl: you and me. We work on that bowl, as the divine-human vessel of Spirit.
I have led persons in church and small group meditation, also, where we widely differed in belief or did not even address formal doctrine. I have seen in those same situations an amazing intimacy of Love grow, and quickly, as we practiced together beyond the mind. In that Heart, we are One. When we are There together, we cannot look at another through the eyes of mind, we look through the eye of Unity – the Eye of Spirit.
* * *
OneLife and being interspiritual is not about not taking seriously the importance of belief. Yet, taking seriously can become too seriously, another ego-trap to look out onto others as with us or against us. Our world is torn by ideologies political and religious, and these are at the level of mind. There will never be peace through the mind. We, of all faiths, and each one of us, must relinquish our insistence of seeing others as right or wrong through the lens of our little brain, and the traditions of our group, and see all persons through the Eye of Spirit. We cannot teach people this, each person, each sect, must go there through a discipleship based on experience – individually and together enacting proven means of spiritual practice that will lead us beyond self and group, to all in All, equally sons and daughters of Love. Amen.
Responding
1. Go back to the opening quote from St. Bernard. How does it relate to the writing for today?
2.Do you agree with the writer that unity cannot be found at the level of mind, or mentality? Explain your reason for agreeing or not.
3.Do you engage any post-mental spiritual disciplines? What are these?
4. What are some ways we each can as persons and groups seek to prepare ourselves better to advance peace within a world of differing cultures, religions, teachings, …?
5. What are examples of persons who have moved beyond the mind to work toward peace among all peoples?
* * *
*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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