Spiritual emergence, or growth or evolution, provides no specific way for everyone. This means, we will have experiences and transitions, along the way, and these may take many diverse forms. Many of these are befuddling, for to mind they make no sense. This is one...
In 2012, I began having three words to arise in silent prayerfulness, and these words seemed to contradict my value system and whole life. The words: "I don't care." Now, that made no sense to me. At this time I had been on a path of transformative spirituality, as a Contemplative Christian, for about 22 years, and one of the principal purposes had been to grow in compassion for all beings. So, "I don't care" made no sense. Yet, what became clear to me, when examining the words and feeling arising - and this message came up over a period of time, and always spontaneously -, were two matters. This was not the usual "I don't care," which is an egoic closure to compassion, to caring for someone or about something. Second, if this was not egoic closure, or denial of caring, then, this was a true, even though unanticipated, message arising from the spiritual evolving.
"I don't care"... but what or who "I"? If the "I" is arising from ego, we have an egoic "I," an "I" that centers on itself. If we have a non-egoic, yet, still "I," then, we have what some call True Self - self as centered in the Divine. This is still self, only self grounded in Grace, or God, the Sacred. Now, there is no other "I," for "I" drops beyond the self, even self as True Self. That is, True Self is still a temporary experience to die into the Ground, or Grace. There, there is no "I."
So, "I don't care," as I came to see it, was a transition. This transition was from a personal, or personalized, caring or not-caring (where you have one, you have the other, for "I" - where ego or True Self is still self and, so, still compassion is within duality). The transition was a True Self affirmation, "I don't care." That is, there was no personal, or personalized, caring about anything. Yes, there was compassion; indeed, at the time I was deeply involved in a ministry marked with compassion for men and women incarcerated, and was providing counseling, spiritual guidance, and classes in spirituality. Also, at this time I was undergoing a never-before experienced, pure sense of power in working for others. The power, however, was not a personal power. So, what seemed to be a contradiction, marked a movement from personal caring to transpersonal compassion or, we could say, the compassion was arising from Grace, resultant of a union with Grace, or God. Even the True Self could not claim, at some point, to be compassionate, for that aspect of self had given all itself to and into Grace (truly, had been given into, for self cannot of itself give itself), or the Divine, to the point of not having any ownership of even virtue. Yet, there is still duality, for union with implies two in unicity.
See, I share this partly to give a somewhat odd example of how Grace manifests and provides 'signposts' of transitions. I share, also, to point to a difference between the valid caring of ego and the valid caring of the ego-less, or True Self (presently, I see the True Self initially claims for itself, but True Self, in preparation to lose itself fully in Grace, slowly loses power to claim ownership of anything), which is simply the self now centered in the Ground, or Grace, or Presence. So, what you see is these changes have happened before you know, then affirmations in outer or inner ways, or both, confirm what has already happened. The confirmation will not fit the past, for the past is exactly what is now no more - you have been moved, by Grace, to a new domain of experience, or, finally, beyond what we can point to by the word experience.
Later, there evolved dropping of the "I" in caring, or compassion. There was no more any "I don't care." Why? The True Self was no more centered in the Divine - meaning, no more True Self. Some would say no True Self to care, for the Divine, which was center, dissolved the True Self, so no center - if Grace is all in all, all has no center, and we need not say all, or All, is center. The identity of True Self is no longer present; the emergence of the center loses Itself as center to anything, for there is no self for the Sacred to be a center for - if we were to place a circle on a piece of paper and keep extending outward the circle, soon the circle would be no more, for the circle would take in the whole paper. We could present, however, that, at least for some time, the True self, as experience, not entity - for self has never been a stabilized thing, only an inconsistent, oft-contradictory, happening, or experience of experiences - is subsumed within the Divine, not ceasing to be. With either view - ceasing of True Self or True Self within the Sacred-, there is no "I" to claim it cares or has compassion. Compassion is, and Caring is the Doing of Grace. This, later, was the experience of a non-egoic, even non-True Self, compassion. In actuality, here one no longer says "I care" or "I don't care" - unless for the sake of others in communication (certainly, I would not walk up to anyone suffering and say "I don't care," but my "I care" would not be a personalized, or personally grounded, compassion) but caring, or compassion is and happens, and the being and happening, or is and happens, is not separate, but a unicity. Is is the new Ground of happens, the play, or dance, of Grace, or the Divine. So, since the self is either gone or subsumed within the Divine, and, also, the Divine transcends I, no "I" cares. Caring spontaneously happens.
Finally, however, this Divine, this God, cannot be that crafted by either the ego or True Self, for as long as self had a belief in the Divine as subject and object to itself - which continues in the Contemplate union -, the Divine was an image of the self, even if a higher, more noble self than the self. We see this in all God-talk, how this 'God' is like an exaggerated idea, so image, of what the self sees as what would be a perfect self: 'God' is the big, perfect self, in other words, for the self can only image that like itself. There is no image for the Ground of compassion, which is, in some sense, Compassion Itself, for all qualities of anything must be an extension of the source. We see this in nature, everywhere - which attests to this truth: a common example is the sunlight being extension of the Sun. We could say they are one, we could say they are two, but we cannot say they are separate.
*Arem Nahariim-Samadhi
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The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
