We live in a world where peace is unthinkable.
Destruction, division and alienation are accepted.
We accept the physical world as more real than the non-physical world. We live by two instincts: the need to create and the need to survive.
We are messengers and co-creators of our own destruction. The battle has begun in the land of the Abrahamic Religions. And, within us.
Yet we are moving beyond dualisms. We can’t imagine that we have the power, but we do. The power we have lies in the ability to acknowledge each other as sacred.
We actually have this power. We don’t always access it. But we have it.
We don’t realise how easily darkness recruits people or how easily it recruits us. It prevents us from recognising the light within ourselves, let alone others.
Turning honest with ourselves limits our choices. This is why we resist turning on the light. We have to lay down our desire for and ‘right’ to revenge, bitterness, resentment, judgment.
We know its not good to judge, but we do it because it gives us power. Or so we think.
Turning honest gets down to the day to day: the ways in which we blame others, accuse others and adjudicate them. Not just in big ways, but also in the smallest of ways. Every time we turn to these dark forces, we weaken ourselves.
Forgiveness is a mystical act, not a reasonable act. In its highest form, far from making sense, it is the very opposite of sense.
Jesus was the full embodiment of as conscious as a human being can be. He had entered the Kingdom of Heaven, on earth.
If we are really to follow Him, we know that we are stripped of every single thing we can use to get even with each other.
In this life, we will experience betrayal, abandonment, false accusation.
He left us a template: non-blame and silence. In the face of this, Pontius Pilot washed his hands of Jesus’ execution.
In the midst of our crucifixion, we will feel abandoned.
Forgive them.
The only way to end all suffering is to never return suffering with suffering.
Never.
But we should allow it to bring out the desire to answer suffering with suffering. We should behold it in the light. And then
Crucify that desire in ourselves.
It’s our own crucifixion.
We each have a crucifixion to attend: our own.
Yes, forgiveness is a mystical act, not a reasonable one.
We get rid of the part of ourselves that spends our lives
Punishing others
Tormenting others
Returning suffering for suffering
Heaven will never come down when we are raging about justice.
But, if we say help me stop this cycle, we don’t want to hurt anyone with our pain, the divine help we get is unbelievable.
Our first chosen mystical act-going against reason and going against wanting to hurt those who hurt us-a commitment to crucify the desire to cause suffering to those who caused us to suffer, is the most powerful.
My mom used to say, be bold and mighty forces come to your aid. This boldness, this strength is other worldly. It’s the strength of moving in the opposite direction to everything the world has taught us. It’s the strength and courage to go the other way when it makes no sense to do so.
Some things are so egregious, so deep, such soul-level wounds that they really require mystical acts of forgiveness. Not just I forgive you for being late.
But father forgive them, they know not what they do level forgiveness in the face of betrayals, false witness and crucifixions.
Miracles are needed. Not just wanted.
Our sense that life is dangerous, the kill or be killed sense that we live with in so many ways, will never end the cycle of suffering.
At this survival level, nothing is ever enough.
At a mystical level, the more we empty our souls and give ourselves to the outer world, to stuff, the weaker we become.
In crisis, we enter fear and adopt a militant vocabulary, not a healing vocabulary. This is not a resolution vocabulary but a destruction vocabulary.
We need new words, new reasoning skills.
At the level of survival we are training to survive a rainstorm. The true work is surviving our relationship with ourselves. All intoxicants have one common drawcard-they help us escape ourselves rather than facing ourselves.
In crisis we need to ask ourselves what the situation is showing us. How are we driven by our cravings and addictions? Will we be driven by our cravings and addictions? Or will we absolutely confront them.
The big epiphany we arrive at: is it me?
When we spend time in prayer and silence, we begin to clear away each obstacle. Our appetites begin to change. We lose our appetite for revenge, for judgment, for accusation, to win.
The new world may not yet be born and we may still experience the dark night of the soul. Essentially this is the battle between the ego and the soul. The only true freedom lives on the other side.
We may rise up in the strength of
I will not haemorrhage all over you any more
I am not willing, any more, to cause suffering to others
Our guidance at this level is refined. It takes esteeming (trusting) ourselves at the deepest level.
It is in the chaos where the change comes, the shift happens.
The reptiles or inner demons gather and thrive on wounded psychic energy. We start to realise that we cannot afford to allow them a morsel.
Darkness will use what is already in us: our woundedness, our resentments, our desire to answer suffering with suffering.
Enlightenment is a liberation from the controlling influences of psychic fear and madness.
The light will use what is already in us.
We can give up
Blame
Entitlement
Stop sharing our wounds
We can get ourselves into the present and stop bringing our wounds into it.
We can make the most of each moment, grow a backbone of steel.
We get to know that we will always both be in grief and healing at the same time. We become willing to live the paradox.
And, to know that I’ve got a crucifixion to go to. And it’s my own.
Every part of ourselves that doesn’t serve us, that causes our own suffering and the suffering of others, will be crucified until we enter the Kingdom of God.
Which is within us.
[i] Adapted from an interview of Carolyn Myss on the Seekers Forum
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