Back to Basics ...
Posted: January 8th, 2005, 11:34 pm
spiritsong is absolutely right (in the discussion “Finding God in all the right places”), namaste is the answer to all of the questions raised these past few days, and I thank you for the post! As it says in TZF’s definition of the word, namaste provides each of us an opportunity upon meeting anyone or anything to remind ourselves that we and it, whether it be a person, animal, plant, event, idea, etc. are One and the Same One, differently appearing and distinct from us only apparently.
Once again, there is no escaping the logic that if God is Infinite, then God is all there is. And if God is all there is, then everyone and everything we perceive, encounter, experience, imagine, consider, or whatever, is Divine, is the Divine, wholly and in part (infinity being indivisible). There is no other way for it. (In Kabir's words, "All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop".)
As I suggested in that other discussion, most of us have no problem welcoming, even perhaps perceiving, the Divine in people, events, ideas, and so on, that are pleasing to us. Which means what? Usually, probably, pleasing to the body we seem to inhabit, the body which we identify as ourselves.
And the things we may find it difficult to namaste-ize are those which threaten the body in some way. The “negative aspects” of the events we have been talking about here – the earthquake, the tsunami, even Iraq – have to do with the body, its health, its mortality. And notice too that virtually all the concern is about human bodies. Anyone who reads the papers knows that over 100,000 humans have died in South Asia. Are there any reports about any other life? Horses? Fleas? Trees? If God is all there is, is a tree any less Divine than a man or a woman? Of course, it is unreasonable, even ridiculous, to expect the New York Times to report on flea deaths; but, I have to be honest, the thought has not entered my mind until just now. But reading the teachings of a True Teacher, say Ramakrishna for example, it is apparent that he is every bit as conscious of life however and wherever it manifests. And even as regards Iraq, many of us (Americans) know how many US soldiers have died there, but speaking for myself, I do not know, for example, how many British have died in Iraq. Why? Surely it is because the body I call “me” is what I call “American”. If I had been born in Liverpool (and maybe been one of the Beatles? Cool!), I’d probably know how many British soldiers have died, but I likely would not know about Americans.
Just so, the answer to the question posed by Bhakti (writing as “Guest” in the discussion “Terrible Death”), asking why it takes a catastrophe or other extraordinary event to bring us to consider questions like these, may be that as long as I behave as if I were the body I seem to be inhabiting, separate and distinct from other bodies (“I am me, and you aren’t”), I am more likely to be overwhelmed and threatened by 100,000 sudden deaths than by a single one. If just one person had died in South Asia, then, in the unlikely event that I would have even heard of it, my reaction would have been completely different. If anything, I might have thought, how wonderful, even miraculous, that “only” one person died.
Namaste asks us, how do we respond or react to the people, events, and things in our lives. And if our lives are ourselves seen outwardly, as in my experience they unquestionably are, then namaste forces us to ask, how do we relate to ourselves, who or what do we think we are, and do we behave accordingly? Here, consider the question Jesus asks of his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Of course, he knew that their answer about him would simultaneously answer about themselves, because he knows there is only One.
Speaking of the Gospels, in one of my favorite stories, the disciples James and John tell the Teacher about a village that has refused to receive him. They ask, “Do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?” Perhaps it’s just me, but as I read that story, it is clear those two are hoping for an affirmative response. I can almost hear them saying under their breath, “C’mon, Lord, can we, can we please burn it down?!” Of course, he refused them; and then he probably sat down with them, and explained once again what his Teaching is all about. As for him, he didn’t give their suggestion a second thought, for he is Namaste.
In a movie we watched recently ("The Four Feathers"), a British fellow is looked after under difficult, sometimes terrifying, conditions in Sudan (I think it was), and later, when the Britisher asks the other, who happens to be a Muslim, why he had cared for him, the man responded, simply, "God put you in my way".
So, is it possible that events such as these (South Asia, Iraq, etc.) occur in order to teach us to remember to remember. Are they put in our way so that we can, will, learn from them? Speaking as a body, that’s a terrible, outrageous, even perhaps an evil, thought. But is that perhaps the point? It seems so outrageous to us because we forget who we are, because we still have much to realize.
Once again, there is no escaping the logic that if God is Infinite, then God is all there is. And if God is all there is, then everyone and everything we perceive, encounter, experience, imagine, consider, or whatever, is Divine, is the Divine, wholly and in part (infinity being indivisible). There is no other way for it. (In Kabir's words, "All know that the drop merges into the ocean but few know that the ocean merges into the drop".)
As I suggested in that other discussion, most of us have no problem welcoming, even perhaps perceiving, the Divine in people, events, ideas, and so on, that are pleasing to us. Which means what? Usually, probably, pleasing to the body we seem to inhabit, the body which we identify as ourselves.
And the things we may find it difficult to namaste-ize are those which threaten the body in some way. The “negative aspects” of the events we have been talking about here – the earthquake, the tsunami, even Iraq – have to do with the body, its health, its mortality. And notice too that virtually all the concern is about human bodies. Anyone who reads the papers knows that over 100,000 humans have died in South Asia. Are there any reports about any other life? Horses? Fleas? Trees? If God is all there is, is a tree any less Divine than a man or a woman? Of course, it is unreasonable, even ridiculous, to expect the New York Times to report on flea deaths; but, I have to be honest, the thought has not entered my mind until just now. But reading the teachings of a True Teacher, say Ramakrishna for example, it is apparent that he is every bit as conscious of life however and wherever it manifests. And even as regards Iraq, many of us (Americans) know how many US soldiers have died there, but speaking for myself, I do not know, for example, how many British have died in Iraq. Why? Surely it is because the body I call “me” is what I call “American”. If I had been born in Liverpool (and maybe been one of the Beatles? Cool!), I’d probably know how many British soldiers have died, but I likely would not know about Americans.
Just so, the answer to the question posed by Bhakti (writing as “Guest” in the discussion “Terrible Death”), asking why it takes a catastrophe or other extraordinary event to bring us to consider questions like these, may be that as long as I behave as if I were the body I seem to be inhabiting, separate and distinct from other bodies (“I am me, and you aren’t”), I am more likely to be overwhelmed and threatened by 100,000 sudden deaths than by a single one. If just one person had died in South Asia, then, in the unlikely event that I would have even heard of it, my reaction would have been completely different. If anything, I might have thought, how wonderful, even miraculous, that “only” one person died.
Namaste asks us, how do we respond or react to the people, events, and things in our lives. And if our lives are ourselves seen outwardly, as in my experience they unquestionably are, then namaste forces us to ask, how do we relate to ourselves, who or what do we think we are, and do we behave accordingly? Here, consider the question Jesus asks of his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Of course, he knew that their answer about him would simultaneously answer about themselves, because he knows there is only One.
Speaking of the Gospels, in one of my favorite stories, the disciples James and John tell the Teacher about a village that has refused to receive him. They ask, “Do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?” Perhaps it’s just me, but as I read that story, it is clear those two are hoping for an affirmative response. I can almost hear them saying under their breath, “C’mon, Lord, can we, can we please burn it down?!” Of course, he refused them; and then he probably sat down with them, and explained once again what his Teaching is all about. As for him, he didn’t give their suggestion a second thought, for he is Namaste.
In a movie we watched recently ("The Four Feathers"), a British fellow is looked after under difficult, sometimes terrifying, conditions in Sudan (I think it was), and later, when the Britisher asks the other, who happens to be a Muslim, why he had cared for him, the man responded, simply, "God put you in my way".
So, is it possible that events such as these (South Asia, Iraq, etc.) occur in order to teach us to remember to remember. Are they put in our way so that we can, will, learn from them? Speaking as a body, that’s a terrible, outrageous, even perhaps an evil, thought. But is that perhaps the point? It seems so outrageous to us because we forget who we are, because we still have much to realize.