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Last, does this realization of being-in-Spirit, even beyond with-Spirit, mean a human being can live free of longing? One can conclude this in either of two ways.
First, longing remains a potential for the human being. Then, human destiny does not include a final consummation of potential for emergence. So, as intimacy increases in a knowing more embracing than prior, more complete than prior, a longing arises corresponding to that intimacy. So, more intimacy, or belonging, leads to a longing to fulfill that intimacy, which leads to a more in-depth belonging. We could postulate that oneness, in the sense of the human, is experiential. Here, "I am one with God," meaning not a fixed, final state, but "I am experiencing oneness with God," for experience is not the same as being.
Can the human species transcend, so conclude experience of Spirit, or not? Is the human being destined to become un-human through evolution, so, become God, meaning Spirit return fully into Spirit? If so, we cannot speak of a human being becoming God, only unbecoming humanness. And there would be no human being to claim identity as God, for that would un-God God. Absolute simplicity admits no opposite, no one would remain to see himself, herself, itself as anything. And, of import, oneness with God and identity as God are not the same matter. A human being could say, "I am one with God," having realized oneness with Spirit, and not be identifying as God.
Second, some appear to teach a human being can reach a state of complete oneness with God, as God, one beyond longing. Longing only arises from a sense of being a fragment, being separate. If one experiences himself or herself in the Totality of Spirit, so goes the logic, one is free of longing, annulling potential of longing again for belonging. Still, again, if one is one with God, which could be claimed to undo the potential of longing, this does not mean one has to be God or become God, absolutely, to enter in a Withinness in God negating longing. The logic here being, the intimacy within Spirit brings a completion that lifts the self from its separation, consciousness as a self, into this oneness. The self loses itself in this oneness, loses itself, so dies, in God, not as God, God being the Totality that communicates totality that undoes the separation of the before fragment. Here, again, language breaks down. We cannot assume that the matter has to be settled within the allowances our language provide us, rather we can allow language to lead us into the pure unknowing of non-language, which is wisdom, Silence. In Silence, Silence is the answer, and one feels no need to arrive at conclusions on questions that cannot be known but in a direct unknowing.
Concluding this matter, I appreciate the usage of the late Joel Goldsmith, in Beyond Words and Thoughts, as he appears here, and elsewhere in his Work, to recognize an intimacy in which we remain a particularized humanness, yet more, like the Buddhist maxim, "Not one, Not two." So, in pure Grace, we share with God what is true of God, being "Not this, Not that." So, in the dissolution of particularity, particularity is able to arise as form, a body of Grace.
Continued... |
