BEYOND TRADITIONAL RELIGION: THE REAL MIRACLE OF EASTER

First, let me tell you what I can’t and don’t believe about Easter. I don’t believe that Jesus literally and bodily rose from dead. I like what the now retired but ever-iconoclastic and controversial Anglican bishop Dr David Jenkins [pictured left] said about that idea. He called the notion ‘a conjuring trick with bones.’ How wickedly funny! 

I do, however, know this---Jesus rose spiritually from the tomb. Punishment and death could not destroy the power of his personality and his spirit and his message. Jesus lives today, not so much in the lives of those who purport to follow him (most of whom show little or no resemblance in their daily lives to Jesus at all), but in the lives of those persons, the bulk of whom would not want to label themselves as Christians, who give constantly of themselves to others in practical service and self-sacrifice so that the troubles of suffering humanity might be relieved.

I now want to say a few words about what I refer to as the ‘macro and micro’ of the Easter story.

In a previous post I have written about the ‘macro’ of Easter, namely, that the Crucifixion is an 'object lesson' and acted parable or dramatization of the ongoing cosmic sacrifice---the self-limitation (crucifixion) of life itself---in which the spirit of life, the one absolute reality which antecedes all manifested things, ever descends into matter, ever offers itself, and ever gives of itself to itself in manifestation, so that life, in all of its multiplicity of forms, may be perpetuated. It is a mystery. It is a wonder. It is divine. What a tragic and terrible thing it is that conventional, mainstream Christianity has so totally literalized and carnalized this truly sublime myth, distorting---even destroying---its true meaning.

Now, the ‘micro’ of Easter. Easter, as we all know, is about dying and rising again. The end of every day is a ‘death’ of sorts. It is gone forever. Now, that is a very good thing, for if it were not to happen there could be no tomorrow. Every new day is a rising of sorts. But it’s even deeper than that. Every new moment is a new beginning---a resurrection of life. We must constantly ‘die’ and ‘rise again’ into newness of life.  Most importantly, we must die to self each moment of the day if we wish to be free from the bondage of self. I have often said that we are in bondage to self. All our problems result from that. Freedom lies in constantly dying to self and being resurrected into newness of life. No, not even Jesus can do that for you, despite what some misguided people may have told you. You, and you alone, must do ‘it’ for yourself. You, the person among persons that you are, can and must break the bondage of self---the prison-house of self you have made for yourself---if you want to really become the real person you were destined to be.

May you be resurrected into newness of life this Easter.

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'Because God is full of life, I imagine each morning Almighty God says to the sun, "Do it again"; and every evening to the moon and the stars, "Do it again"; and every springtime to the daisies, "Do it again"; and every time a child is born into the world asking for curtain call, that the heart of the God might once more ring out in the heart of the babe.'

 

So wrote one of my favourite prelates, Fulton J. Sheen (pictured left), in Life is Worth Living. He often said those words in his sermons and public addresses. They are beautiful words, speaking as they do about the renewal---or renewing---of life each day.

Yes, life is all about death and renewal, and as we approach Easter it is appropriate to consider the matter.

Living is all about dying. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. We all must die, death is the gateway to life---all that sort of thing. No, it’s much deeper than that. In order to live fully we must learn how to ‘die’ from moment to moment, that is, to die, not just each day, but each minute and each moment of each minute. Jiddu Krishnamurti (pictured below) wrote:

'How necessary it is to die each day, to die each minute to everything, to the many yesterdays and to the moment that has just gone by! Without death there is no renewing, without death there is no creation.'

We cling to our likes and dislikes, our memories and beliefs, our predilections and prejudices, all of which is---the past, as well as the ‘self.’ The tragedy is not so much that we hold on to these things---although that is bad in itself---but we try to experience life through these things whilst clinging to them. The result? Everything becomes blurred and distorted.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, which marks the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion. As Jesus entered the city, riding on a donkey---how rich in symbolism that is----the crowds shouted ‘Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The word ‘hosanna’ means----save now. It refers to a calm surrender and submission, a letting go, a ‘not my will but thine be done’ mindset. Yes, it’s a bit similar to the Arabic word ‘Islam,’ which has the same idea of letting go, calm acceptance of what is, submission, and surrender.

The ‘secret’ is to practise dying---psychologically, that is---from one moment to the next. Dying to all our psychological images (our likes, dislikes, beliefs, predilections, prejudices, etc) and conditioning, in order that we might see things-as-they-really-are, not as we might want them to be. Unless we die to the past on a moment-to-moment basis, not only do we fail to see things-as-they-really-are, but those psychological images will simply be reborn again and again, further distorting our vision and experience of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next.

So, practise dying---psychologically, that is---until it becomes habitual. How? Don’t ask ‘how’---when you ask ‘how,’ you are seeking a method, a technique. Methods and techniques are conditioning---the past. Just do it. Look, choicelessly, at each image as it arises. Don’t identify with it. Don’t judge, evaluate or analyze it. Don’t try to drive it away. There must be no desire to change anything. Just look and observe. Stay with it---the feeling or whatever---until it is fully explored and understood. Then it will be discarded---finished. It dies by attrition, so to speak.

This is the only way to live. All religions teach this important truth---the need to die to self in order to be resurrected into newness of life. The wonderful thing is this---we can all be resurrected into newness of life whenever we start practising the gentle but noble art of dying from moment to moment.

Try it---today. Do it. Now!

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THE TRUE MEANING OF EASTER: THE ETERNAL COSMIC SACRIFICE

A number of Buddhist writers have expressed considerable disquiet with the Christian doctrine of the Crucifixion. It is so unBuddhist-like, they say. Something so violent could never have been the cornerstone of Buddhism. Like so many Christians, these Buddhists fail to understand the true, ‘inner’ meaning of Easter.

The Crucifixion is an acted parable or dramatization of the ongoing cosmic sacrifice---the self-limitation (crucifixion) of life itself---in which the spirit of life, the one absolute reality which antecedes all manifested things, ever descends into matter, ever offers itself, and ever gives of itself to itself in manifestation, with the result that life, in all of its multiplicity of forms, is perpetuated. It is a mystery. It is a wonder. It is Divine.

In this sacrificial outgiving---the putting forth of the eternal principle of life as the Logos which freely offers Itself as the ensouling life of matter---the one life manifests itself in all things as all things but ever remains. Said the great avatar, Sri Krishna: ‘I established this universe with a portion of myself; and I remain.’ This is the 'eternal oblation,' the 'enduring sacrifice by which the world is nourished and sustained' (Holy Eucharist, Liberal Catholic Liturgy). This is the sublimest 'myth' known to humanity---the ‘man crucified in space’ of Hindu mythology, the ‘lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ of Christianity---the very self-givingness of life.

In this cosmic sacrifice or crucifixion, the mythic ‘life-giver’---the eternal and immutable principle and spirit of life itself---is, as it were, crucified upon the cross of matter and imprisoned in form. This is a continuing and never-ending process in which each of us has a part. This is the true meaning of Easter. What a tragic thing it is that conventional, mainstream Christianity has so totally literalized and carnalized this truly sublime myth, distorting its true meaning. Then, to make matters worse, there’s all the ‘butcher shop theology’---the ‘Jesus died for your sins’ stuff---which, at least in the form in which it is ordinarily presented, formed no part of Jesus’ original teachings but has its origin for the most part in the mystery religions. Forgive us, Jesus, for what we have done to you and to your teachings! The famed Baptist minister Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick expressed it well when, in an iconoclastic sermon entitled ‘The Peril of Worshipping Jesus’ (in the collection The Hope of the World), he said:

The world has tried in two ways to get rid of Jesus: first, by crucifying him, and second, by worshipping him. The first did not succeed. …

The world, therefore, foiled in its first attempt to be rid of Jesus by crucifying him, turned to the second, far more subtle and fatal way of disposing of great spiritual leadership---it worshipped him. … [T]hat has always been the most successful way of getting rid of Jesus.

Back to my theme. We must never forget the one, common life in ourselves as well as in all that is. Yes, we are all one. All life is one and indivisible. Every form that exists is a symbol of the one, supreme, eternal, never-ending oblation---the spirit of life forever giving itself to its world that it might have life. Yes, the spirit of life, which breathes into existence all that is, is both transcendent and immanent in our universe, forever suffering, dying, rising again, evolving, acting with and through all life. Alfred, Lord Tennyson put it beautifully when he wrote:

That God, which ever lives and loves; One God, one Law, one element: And one far off divine event to which the whole of creation moves.

This is the ‘ancient wisdom, the truth behind all true religion---the doctrine of the One Life. As Theosophist and Liberal Catholic bishop Dr George S Arundale (pictured left) often pointed out, ‘The One becomes the many, that the many might know themselves as One.’ 

Easter is about endings and beginnings. It is about love overcoming hate, hope prevailing over despair, and life triumphing over death. Easter celebrates the fact that the spirit of life is indestructible. As I have said more than once before, we are forever part of life’s self-expression, so we can never cease to be. Yes, we will change form and vanish from view, but we---that is, the spirit of life in us, as us---can never cease to be. Never. Never! We cannot be separated from life. We cannot be less than life. Never!

We read in the Rigveda:

One sun lights up the whole world,

One dawn reveals all this,

One reality has become all that exists.

May you all have a happy and, more importantly, holy Easter.



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