The world must become your church, life must become your ministry and humanity must become your congregation.
Before I begin, let me say that I am entirely indifferent to matters of religion. At worst, religion binds the
individual to a community defined by dogma, structure, zealotry and the
illusory identification with "the community of the faithful". At best, religion is merely a means to an end -and it is this end (identification with God, existence, the One etc.) as means that I am concerned with. Because of this, I do not discriminate among the different faiths -including atheism-, but instead, I examine the personal spirituality of the individual. Religion provides a language and a structure in which to express this spirituality but ultimately, spirituality is an individual's personal expression of how they relate to the divine/Self. One can participate with all one's efforts and energy in religion but have no spirituality -that is, no relation to the divine. Likewise, one can have no religion but be the most spiritual person in the world. To the society of his day, Jesus Christ appeared as the latter person. The son-of-man broke with the religious traditions of his day to such an extent that he appeared a dangerous heretic to all that heard him but did not understand. Jesus did not identify as an individual (he was/is Christ: he identified with/as God) but this did not mean that he wasn't afraid to stand out (in his society) as an individual: he spoke truth in an age and a society of lies. For this reason he was crucified.
Now more than ever, the righteous must not be afraid to stand out as individuals. Now more than ever, we find ourselves in a society of lies: the lie of the selfish consumer, the lie of false prosperity provided by the Federal Reserve, the lie of the false sense of power brought about by endless global war, the lie of the greatness of the wealthy and of celebrities, the lie of a society of atomized individuals. Like Jesus Christ before us -who refused to identify as born of the corrupt Roman/Jewish world around him, but rather identified himself as the one born of God (of truth, Identity, One etc.)- the time has now come for the faithful to forge a new society, and with it, a new identity by which the corrupt society of our time might know us. If I had to circumscribe myself as an individual (something I am loathed to do) I would do so by identifying as a libertarian (neither right nor left, capitalist nor socialist). Ultimately this identification as libertarian is more of a belief in the abandonment of one's own individuality -and thus the liberation of Self (God, Identity, One etc.)- than it is an identification of oneself as a lone individual.
The first step in moving towards this new society consists not of making war on our "enemies" nor silencing those who disagree with us (for these are the tactics of the followers of lies) but rather, personal spiritual purification. This consists not only of changing our lifestyle (involving ourselves more in the community and world around us, providing ourselves and our neighbors with more of the things we need to live, having a personal connection with the earth as well as with the sustenance the earth provides etc.) but also in changing that with which we identify:
When we fixate on "our" past and future, we bring "ourselves" away from the creator as we are drawn to the worldliness of creation. God is the creator (God is Identity/One). Though creation arises and passes away, the creator stands eternal -indifferent to the flux and flow of creation such that only God is capable of all creation and all creation exists only through its active revelation by the creator. All that is revealed is (in) God. Revelation/creation is ongoing. Sin is identifying as created. Jesus' ministry was founded in order to guide humanity away from identifying as created/worldly and towards identifying with/as the creator. Identity is God. Identification with Identity takes place as (in) God.
God Touches A Stone (Christ Revealed)
Suddenly,
A loving smile radiated from his lips
Whose truth they understood more than his
words:
“take,
eat;
this is my body”
Peter took the bread.
Peter put it to his lips.
Peter did not understand.
Puzzled stares
Dart towards each other
Finding no answers in their search.
The moment’s silence
Draws
Out.
(Though they felt his light,
they understood not his words.
But he could feel it in their eyes…)
His hands lifted the clay cup from the wood
table.
“drink from it,
all of you”
Peter stepped forward.
Peter drank from the cup,
Peter felt the warmth radiate from his center,
And yet he did not understand
Still fettered in the shackles of his worldly
birth
He watched
Puzzled
As the others put it to their lips.
The wine
Presented no sign to those expecting:
The simple drink from the rough cup
Sat humbly in the shepherd’s hand;
Worldly to those who did not yet know Him.
“This is my blood”
But no blood flowed from his veins.
No cut violated his body
And no bitter taste of salt and iron lingered
in their mouths.
But suddenly Peter understood
As his thoughts brushed against God’s
perfection.
Breaking free from the world’s tethers,
To accept his present, divine birth:
Given by Himself.
Given by Christ’s revelation:
He revealed himself in the cup,
In the wine,
In the faces of his followers,
In the dirt floor and thatched ceiling,
In the eyes:
For the first time
He shared the eyes of his beloved teacher
Who cast his gaze into the depths of his own.
Behind the eyes of the son of man
He saw the infinite identity of his father’s
smile
That bore itself on the son’s complexion
Who lived there in his father’s words
As they were given to him by his faith
That kept him in the moment of his father’s
unfolding creation.
I am living in
the city now. The city is a disease upon the earth and a self-inflicted
wound on mankind. It dampens the senses and isolates us more and more
in direct proportion to the extent to which it pulls us together. I'm honestly
surprised that I could even bring myself to finish this poem. I'm
afraid that it will be the last enlightened piece of literature that I
produce for some time. On the drawing board I have poems about
isolation in the city, the state, the first communion at the last
supper, and finally a poem about people who cannot stand to be in
silence with others. My inspired moments are far and in between but I will do what i can to change that and make the most of it when it does happen...
Experiment III
I give this poem
to you.
I wanted to tell
you what I am, what you are.
Though time and
space seem to separate us,
I tell you:
We are together
now.
It is Ourself
that I’m trying to impress on you:
The now in which the words pass by
Contains our voice speaking these thoughts;
The future as it becomes the past.
We are this future,
Which consciousness faithfully reflects
As it leaves our unthought Self
To dance in the firmament of the mind.
This future is the One
That holds the present and the past
As it reveals itself as everything
When we glimpse its shadow.
So drop this
poem from your hands
And drop these
thoughts from your mind
So that the
reader might take the time
To
free itself of words and listen…
God I can't stop listening to good Russian electronic music!
I found this passage the day after I finished this poem: “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” John 1:9.Note: capitalization matters! Experiment II And now a search comes upon the poem,
A search already possessed by what it searches for:
Floundering in the hallucination of its darkness,
Illuminated by the Light it tries to create.
(You are this Light
That illuminates the darkness of the search
For a light that it seeks to make
In place of the One by which it searches.)
It turns to the poem for guidance
Or amusement or distraction,
In its effort to create the light
It assumes itself to be.
(But this end that its ideal proclaims
Lies disobeyed by the means prescribed:
No search could find the light it tries to create
Unless it surrenders itself to the present from which Light shines)
If the search stepped into this Light
And ceased its attempt to replace it,
As if to own or dominate it,
Its light would burn.
(Here the search abolishes itself
As it ends its violent struggle:
As light-in-Light it finds its way to peace
And surrenders its hallucination of control to truth.)
