You’ve got to “make right”

 I read a story the other day in which the governor of Connecticut cut down 180 trees to have a better view in his mansion. Luke 23:34 comes to mind when it comes to the rich and entitled, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” I still live on blessed land, while to our left are all the big mansions with much reduced yard and nature, to our right I still enjoy the view of small ranches built in the 50s surrounded by massive trees. When I look out of the window, I get routinely lost in them. That’s my little unitive experience. I look out of the window and drift into “no-thing-ness”.

 

Gerald May in “Will and Spirit” distinguishes four possible states: “First is the state of unity. The second is a dualistic state in which one is not aware of the dualism. This is a very common state, one that is characterized by being on a kind of “automatic pilot”, going about one’s business without any special awareness of one’s state of mind. The third is a dualistic state in which one recognizes the duality. (…) The fourth state (…) is a dualistic state in which one becomes confused and thinks oneself to be in a state of unity.

 

A unitive experience heralds awakening in most cases. Afterwards we have them all the time. We can actively invite them, like being in nature, or spending more time with the people we love, or pursuing the work that gives us meaning. The true spiritual work though is the third state that Gerald May describes, just recognizing duality at work when we know that it is an interference of our natural unitive state. That’s the opportunity to go within and remind us of our true nature or make a change in the environment that we are in.

 

We have it all wrong. A spiritual quest is not about seeking anything, it’s a “making right” on the outside and it’s about going within and realizing “we are That” already and always have been. I will probably move to a new neighborhood when the mansions have finally conquered the hill I am living on. Nature is my idiosyncratic Conversation with God, just as you have your special outlet to find Oneness in your little world. Unitive experiences are not something to be actively sought though. That’s when they elude us. They are also non-addictive, and when they make way to the mundane “dualistic state in which one is not aware of the dualism”, then that’s fine too.

Spiritual living is enjoying the ride in most cases, and about finding the root cause of an interference from our God-given natural state and about “making right” either by spitting the cause within or by making a change in the outside world. The troublemaker can always be spotted instantaneously, and the answers are always present within. That’s the power of now.