Another View 7

In reading Ken Wilber’s Up From Eden, a book on the evolution of consciousness, almost in passing he suggested that the highest level of superconsciousness is the realm called radical emptiness. I was caught totally off-guard by this, and yet, why? What could be more true to the life of Christ than this one ultimate expression of Jesus’ own transcendence of himself. And while I know this at some deep level, most everything I live is antithetical to this, at least in practice of everyday life. Most every practice of mine is about keeping my immortality in tact, a denial of the death of this self-sense that continues to drive me to a belief that somehow, I will live and outlive life itself.

Here is how it is expressed. There are a variety of ways to deny and repress death -- and one of the most significant involves time. I’ve always been fascinated with philosopher Hegel’s conjecture that history is what the human being does with death. If Spirit is timeless, as we say in Christianity that it is, then there is no past, no future time. All time is simply now. So, if so, how is it so much of our conversations idolatrize the past and future, with the simple refusal to stay present? Of course, what arises, ultimately, is the question about “eternity.” Just what is that.

What if this has not to do with time, but rather “quality of life.” So, eternity is a condition of no future. And therefore, so is death. I mean, something which dies, which ceases to exist, has no future. Does this not mean, therefore, that when we human beings deny death in all the ways that we do so, we refuse to live timelessly. In denying death, we deny the condition of no future, and thus we deny eternity. To avoid death, we picture our separate self going forward in time. We want to meet ourselves tomorrow. It is a way we repress death, and therefore deny the very essence of what we call our faith that “there is no death.” Hmm.

All of our substitute gratifications are part of this self sense and its grasping for immortality and consequently, death-denial. Something in us will not allow us to abandon the ego, and give-over control. I cannot imagine, most of the time at least, leaving behind the things that terrify me. And, the stronger the ego, the more difficult this seems to be, doesn’t it?

It is said that mystical dying is a death that doesn’t know how to work out in the Beyond. It is a dying that leaves us no sort of hope for “the other world,” whatever we have projected that to be, real or unreal doesn’t matter at this moment. Yet, it is the dying we say that Jesus knows, has done -- you know, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit…” There is no wish for heaven here; no hope for being safe or protected. There is only release -- nothing else. Radical self-emptying, total loss and losing of control.

Amazing, isn’t it, that this seems to be just the place where humility steps in? Oh my, then we start using other vulgar words -- like surrender and such. Even in the places where it is dragging us into the depths of our not-knowing, we must let go?

This word humility comes from the Latin root humus, that is, earth, soil, manure. The word humor from the Latin root umere, that is, to be moist; the derivative umor means, moisture, fluid. So -- the fluid in any living organism is what gives it life -- like blood to the human being, or water. I wonder if humility is the very place where we are not to take ourselves so seriously. In fact, we do not even know that this humility is taking place. We are “absorbed” into union with that which has no fear, and so we are “most ourselves” at this moment, and lost to what we have thought to most be our self. Make sense?

So, the suggestion would be, “Why not surrender and keep your sense of humor?” By fighting for your ego’s death-denying self-sense, you become a bundle of nerves and we clutch the very thing that does not even resemble our very best self -- substitute life that will bring nothing but a loss of self. What if, when we give ourselves over to humility (which comes through practice, practice, practice -- i.e., surrender, surrender, surrender), in that moment we give ourselves over to the real truth about ourselves.

Well -- I didn’t say “this is easy.” We know the struggle. There is only one fear -- death. And all of our buying, degrees, knowledge, arrogance and entitlement, is the struggle to say that we are something we simply are not -- immortal. No wonder Jesus could give himself over to the soldier’s without struggle. No wonder Peter cut the guy’s ear off. Two different ways of seeing life and death, and Jesus’ view was simply Another View.