Marvin was a 80 year alcoholic. Everyone knew it but him. Yet, when his AA counselor met him for the first time and Marvin once again launched into his speech of how he is in control of things, his counselor simply said, ‘You sure talk a lot. Why don’t you sit down for a moment and listen.’ Amazingly, Marvin did just that and that was the beginning of his new life.
Benoit Denizet-Lewis shared this story in ‘America Anonymous’ and I realized reading this passage that we have that notion of failure and success, sin and holy, all wrong. Nothing is wrong with ‘sin’ if it opens us up for God. Michael Jordon described the other side of the passion spectrum in the following way: ‘Passion is,’ he said, ‘when you get on your knees begging people to give you what you need.’
Dajian Huineng (638-713) once said, ‘Empty your mind. Now, without thinking of good and bad, what was your original face before your parents met?’ This describes the experience of ‘beyond self’ that some of us are after quite well. In sin, we may become alive for an hour, yet when remorse and withdrawal kick in, we are forced to wonder, ‘who are we?’ Same with passion; sure we enjoy success, but how far do we go to get it?
The spiritual quest is not about getting what we want; not about being ethical or nice, it’s about transcending self; the friend telling us what we can do differently, or our self awareness as we kneel on the floor begging. There comes a realization, ‘This is not me!,’ a time when we nod smilingly, ‘This is so me!’ Life invited MJ in his prime and Marvin in his misery to be Home. Life always invites us to step out of our self.
‘Beyond self’ is here and now, no matter what your life situation may be right now. Up, down, stagnation, boredom, or confident excitement, it doesn’t really matter. Take a deep breath and be still! Be embroiled in life’s busyness and see the light merely flowing through you like you are a prism. Who are we? Who are we before our parents met? Who are we before our soul ventured on this Home-coming journey?
Jesus said in John 8:48, ‘Before Abraham was, I Am!’ That’s what is means, the ‘beyond self’ is at our disposal at any time. SELF—Serenity, Empowerment, Love and Fusion (with the Beyond)—is at our disposal at any moment. Life is the launchpad for the ‘out-of-self’ experience, always. Maybe you feel depressed like Marvin was before he took the plunge, or maybe excited like MJ reaching for his rings. No worries, you are Home!
Love is a no-brainer
Our morality is always balanced between the good and the bad. The good and the bad have been in conflict with each other for fifty thousand years or more.
Is the good related to the bad? If the good is related to the bad, then it is not good. Love cannot be related to hate, anger, jealousy. If it is so related, then it is not love; it is part of pleasure, desire, and so on. (J. Krishnamurti, Good and Bad, An extract by Vinod Mittal)
A book on neuroscience claimed that the pleasure center and the altruistic part of our brain cannot light up together. Maybe the logical inconsistency of ‘me versus Oneness’ has been hardwired into our brain. When it’s ‘me’, there is only the world perceived through the lenses of ‘me, myself and I.’ It might be an ethical ‘me’; maybe the ‘me’ is even pretty nice, but it’s not Oneness. Similarly, when there is Oneness, there is no ‘me.’ The two plane of consciousness do not meet.
Love and Oneness operate beyond our self. Let me ask you, did your right hand ever argue with your left hand about who should get the credit? That’s how love and Oneness operate—it’s a no-brainer.
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