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Objective truth, God, concrete conceptual ideas perceived through the subjectivity of humanity
is simply that: subjective. The perceptional views of man are born from mental interpretive filters that we erroneously
consider as objective reality. To define God and so called truth in what the Jewish theistic minds and subsequent
Christian theistic minds conceived, is to take on a literal meaning with one-sided direction that acts as inflexible,
exclusive thinking residing in that of a vacuum. Yet to see beyond the literal attempt, that of the thinking of
outdated, antiquated and illusionary thinking of a former era, is to see the value of the heart, those expressed
ideas that can never be captured with intellect and can only exist as moving experiences, rediscovered as new each
and every time one touches them. Experiences that must pass through without capture, without hold, without positive
grasping hold of the intellect as the cool pleasure of the wind can only be felt while it passes through, never
grasped, never contained, unable to retain in mental storage, as a possession, for a future time.
So to question: Is God's Kingdom a literal government?, is to attempt
to literalize truth in an objective form, to create formulas for security, when in reality doctrines, creeds and
theological formulations, are only in existence because of fear of freedom and the inability to have the interior
courage to live IN live, and not apart from it with doctrines, formulas and creeds and that of words elevated to
exist from a supernatural means above reality. As these act as pointers to truth but never hold truth in itself
and are always slanted under both the "straight jacket" of linguistic barriers and that of human interpretive
filters of subjectivity that reduce relativity to objectivity with limited perception from one dimensional life
itself, and the mental barriers of cultural, social, political, geographical and religious perspectives, and their
particular era of time their words are written in. Words articulated under the narrow and constraining concepts
of outdated and former insights, insights that are always growing, always changing and always clouded by the confinement
points under the human frame of reference.
The biblical literalist will look at Daniel and it's context as it shows
the Kingdom of God to be a rulership or kingship set up by God, that will replace and put and end to human rule.
The context shows a statue representing the succession of world powers, ending with God setting up a rulership
which destroys the last existing ones, and then rules forever.
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"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up
a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people.
It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite." (Dan 2:44) |
Enter a kingdom hall of Jehovah's Witnesses and you will hear short,
simple concise answers. A literal government, equal to human governments, this one being ruled from heaven. The
entire earth becoming a paradise. Scriptures read of Jesus' words stating he is a king along with the beauty of
Revelation 21:3-4 is read repetitively over and over again,
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"With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say, 'Look, the
tent of God is with mankind, and he will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out
every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. the
form things have passed away." Revelation 21:3-4 |
Over and over, repetitively drummed in, indoctrinated in the minds,
are these thoughts, so simple, so precise, a literal government and a paradise, the promise of Revelation 21:3-4
reduced to a limited one sighted vision, illumination of God's Spirit demoted to physical fundamentals. Everything
is centered around this teaching.
Taking paradoxical and symbolic truths and making them into short-sided,
simplistic meanings, with quick repetitive answers, appears on the surface to the fundamental mind, seemingly right.
Yet this reduces God, the Kingdom of God, the paradise and the very nature of man into
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Our life force and power of being, gives us the choice
to trust our intuitive divinity to deaden our egos, to become "alive in Christ." For this Jesus could
rightly say that the "Kingdom of God is within us." Luke
17:20-21
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a one-sided, elementary and fundamental, "black verses white," way of thinking. Supplying a quick and
easy definition of the Kingdom of God as a simple literal government, equaling that to human governments, with
the accompanying short "quick-fix" of the earth being a physical paradise with no sickness and death,
puts paradoxical agape-charity
of unconditional love and the inner transformation of men and women into a narrow surface meaning, into certain
formulations and secure doctrinal creeds that lacks the untold depth of God and ambiguous mystery of life itself.
God's Kingdom is neither a simplistic fundamental teaching nor is it a detailed, intricate theological pretzel.
What is to inspire, is the deep interior enlightening of mystery, the uncertainty of prayer, solitude, meditation,
and internal growth that allows an intimacy and love that is "beyond all understanding," "ways that
are higher than man's ways," above and beyond all forms of human government. (Eph 3:19). A peace inside us
that becomes the "paradise" of our hearts, a transformation into new creatures in Christ, who lives in
us and all life. We can then repeat Jesus' words, "the Kingdom of God is within us." God's Kingdom cannot
be reduced to a simplistic literal government similar to that of the flesh, that of human governments. On the contrary,
God's Kingdom is a spiritual paradise, transforming hearts, shaping men and women to be sons of God, brothers of
Christ, royal priests and spiritual beings with direct communicative powers in touch with their intuitive selves.
God's Kingdom is the acceptance of humanity to an all inclusive community, black/white, male/female, gay/straight,
Buddhist/Jew, a way of life that embraces the universalness of unconditional love and charity, the very embodiment
of God within ourselves.
God's Kingdom - An Experience, Not An Explanation
God's Kingdom is an experience, not an explanation, lying far apart
from the linguistic straight-jacket of verbally transmitted accounts, later written by men in books called scripture
and claimed to be that of infallibility, which somehow captures and contains (while in reality grossly restraining),
objective truth.
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In the first two chapters of the first Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul distinguishes
between two kinds of wisdom: one which consists in the knowledge of words and statements, a rational, dialectical
wisdom, and another which is at once a mater of paradox and of experience, and goes beyond the reach of reason.
To attain to this spiritual wisdom, one must first be liberated from servile dependence on the "wisdom of
the speech." (1 Cor. 1:17) This liberation is effected by the "word of the Cross" which makes no
sense to those who cling to their own familiar view and habits of thought and is a means by which God "destroys
the wisdom of the wise." (1 Cor. 1:18-23) The word of the Cross is in fact completely baffling and disconcerting
both the Greeks with their philosophy and to the Jews with their well-interpreted Law. but when one has been freed
from dependence on verbal formulas and conceptual structures, the Cross becomes a source of "power."
this power emanates from the "foolishness of God" and it also makes use of "foolish instruments."
(the Apostles). (1 Cor. 1:27 ff.) On the other hand, he who can accept this paradoxical "foolishness"
experiences in himself a secret and mysterious power, which is the power of Christ living in him as the ground
of a totally new life and a new being. (1 Cor. 2:1-4, cf. Eph. 1:18-23, Gal. 6:14-16) (1a) |
This power of Christ that lives within, as the ground of life and that
of a new being, that is of a mysterious power, far apart from formulas and conceptual structures that are falsely
labeled and relied upon as "inerrant" and "infallible." For God's Kingdom can not be captured
and constrained with the human language and that of theistic tribal mentality, but rather acts as an awe inspiring
experience in the very ground and center of being in opposition to the ego-centered mind that seeks formulated
scripture with eschatological meanings and prophetic renderings that bring illusionary fulfillment within the interior
mind.
Here it is essential to remember that for a Christian "the word of the
Cross" is nothing theoretical, but a stark and existential experience of union with Christ in His death in
order to share in His resurrection. To fully "hear" and "receive" the word of the Cross means
much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for our sins. It means to be "nailed
to the Cross with Christ," so that the ego-self is no longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now
proceed from Christ living in us. "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal, 2:19-20; see also
Romans 8:5-17) To receive the word of the Cross means the acceptance of a complete self-emptying, a Kenosis, in union with the self-emptying
Christ "obedient to death." (Phil. 2:5-11) It is essential to true Christianity that this experience of the Cross and of self-emptying
be central in the life of the Christian so that he may fully receive the Holy Spirit and know (again by experience)
all the riches of God in and through Christ. (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15) (1a)
The Christian experience is not that of theological certitude and explanation
of moral behavior, ethical control and future rewards, but the experience of inner meaning beyond structure, outside
formulated systems, within empirical and existential insight.
Christianity begins with revelation. Though it would be misleading to classify
this revelation simply as a "doctrine" and an "explanation" (it is far more than that - the
revelation of God Himself in the mystery of Christ) it is nevertheless communicated to us in words, in statements,
and everything depends on the believer's accepting the truth of these statements.
Therefore Christianity has always been profoundly concerned with these statements:
with the accuracy of their transmission form the original sources, with the precise understanding of their exact
meaning, with the elimination and indeed the condemnation of false interpretations. At times the concern has been
exaggerated almost to he point of an obsession, accompanied by arbitrary and fanatical insistence on hairsplitting
distinctions and the purest niceties of theological detail.
This obsession with doctrinal formula, juridical order and ritual exactitude
has often made people forget that the hart of Catholicism, too, is a living
experience of unity in Christ which far transcends all conceptual
formulations. What too often has been overlooked, in consequence, is that Catholicism is the taste and experience
of eternal life: "We announce to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us. What
we have seen and have heard we announce to you, in order that you also may have fellowship with us and that our
fellowship may be with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:2-3) Too often the Catholic has
imagined himself obliged to stop short at a mere correct and external belief expressed in good moral behavior,
instead of entering fully into life of hope and love consummated by union with the invisible God "in Christ
and in the Spirit," thus fully sharing in the Divine Nature. (Ephesians 2:18, 2 Peter 1:4, Col. 1: 9-17, 1
John 4:12)
At the same time, Christian experience itself will be profoundly affected
by the idea of revelation that the Christian himself will entertain. For example, if revelation is regarded simply
as a system of truths about
God and a explanation of how the universe came into existence, what will eventually happen to it, what is the purpose
of Christian life, what are its moral norms, what will be the rewards of the virtuous, and so on, then Christianity
is in effect reduced to a world view, at times a religious philosophy and little more, sustained by a more or less
elaborate cult, by a moral discipline and a strict code of Law. "Experience" of the inner meaning of
Christian revelation will necessarily be distorted and diminished in such a theological setting. What will such
experience be? Not so much a living theological experience of the presence of God in the world and in mankind through
the mystery of Christ, but rather a sense of security in one's own correctness: a feeling of confidence that one
has been saved, a confidence which is based on the reflex awareness that one holds the correct view of the creation
and purpose of the world and that one's behavior is of a kind to be rewarded in the next life. Or, perhaps, since
few can attain this level of self-assurance, then the Christian experience becomes one of anxious hope - a struggle
with occasional doubt of the "right answers," a painful and constant effort to meet the sever demands
of morality and law, and a somewhat desperate recourse to the sacraments which are there to help the weak who must
constantly fall and rise again.
This of course is a sadly deficient account of true Christian experience,
based on a distortion of the true import of Christian revelation. (1b)
Rulership - of Each Individual's Inner Transformation
The word "kingdom" comes from the Greek term , basileia, which does not have
the modern sense of a "government" which the Watch Tower Society would like to give it. As the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
states,
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"The term basileia, "refers to the being or nature or state of a king, i.e., his dignity,
and secondarily the expression of this in the territory he governs. The sense of dignity is primary in the LXX,
Philo, and the NT." (1) |
The stress is put on a person who is a king, or his kingship, his reign, his royal dignity, not the idea of
a human governmental organization as Jehovah's Witnesses today so
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All those in Christ, are those aware of their inner selves, their no-selves,
having a guarantee, a token, of their absolute, unbreakable and unshakable promise of their inheritance, knowing
they are one of God's sons or daughters, one of Christ's brothers or sisters, to perceive the heavens in their
hearts, transformed as new creatures in Christ, "God's Kingdom is within them."
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narrowly define and teach in one-sidedness. The expression the "good news of the kingdom" is primarily
speaking about Christ's example of living, loving and being, focusing on the person
of the son of God and his lordship. He and his followers can
live fully, love beyond prejudice and cultural norms, transcending religious exclusiveness, rising above cultural
restrictive teachings and align themselves as unified sons of God, as a dignified royal priesthood, as special
people, having control, ownership and rulership over themselves, transforming themselves. not over others in a
literal government. Earth would be inhabited by men and women who transcend their differences in inclusivity and
wholeness, seeing Christ first in themselves, enabling them the ability to see God in all others, knowing all are
one in him and he is one in them. As each individual reaches higher levels of consciousness, gifting them with
the insight and spiritual perception to gain awareness of God's universal Spirit within them, connected to all
creation, as they allow themselves transformation into new creatures of Christ, becoming God's sons, recognizing
their own divinity as imperfect humans housing a perfect God, knowing they are Christ's brothers and sisters, knowing
God lives within them and each other. Learning how to transcend differences, which does not mean to obliterate,
but literally means to "climb over" them, as living expressions of God's will is the Kingdom of God.
The Spirit of love is a token, of their absolute,
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"Are
you a God?" they asked the Buddha. "No," he replied. "Are you an angel, then?" "No."
"A saint?" "No." "Then what are you?" Replied the Buddha, "I AM AWAKE."
—HUSTON SMITH
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unbreakable and unshakable promise of inheritance to be one of God's
sons and daughters, one of Christ's brothers, to live the heavenly realm that lives beyond the ego within
the interior self transforming them into new creatures in Christ. "God's Kingdom is within them."
Rulership is of the self, transformed into the unification of God's family, the brotherhood, the royal priesthood,
each individual receiving the authority and dignity to be in themselves, godlike, that is, the awareness of knowing
God lives in self and all, the Christian, the Buddhist and the Jew alike, that we and the father are one. Our rulership
in nothing short of our trusting in the unseen divine intelligence, God, that exists in us all, transcending our
differences in the spirit of unconditional love. The kingdom of God is not a place that we go away to, separate
in the heavens, but rather, a choice we make, that of our godship that cry's out "Abba" within our very
selves, our awareness of oneness, in turn, seeing it in all of creation, recognizing that the life force, that
is, the unseen divine intelligence, is nothing short from being the impartial, non-judgmental and completely neutral
force of unconditional love, the very fabric of life that holds the entire universe, the cosmos, together.
The expression "good news of the kingdom" simply means "the
good news of Christ's rulership, dignity and control focusing on Him as a person. It does not imply a government in the human sense of the word, as the Watchtower Society teaches.
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"God is a Spirit and those worshipping Him, must worship Him in
Spirit and truth." John 4:24 |
In truth we follow our intuitive hearts beyond the written words of
fallible men, in the spirit of unconditional, non-judgmental love. Our perception outside, beyond and above the
written words of men, are in agreement to a living Spirit that lives both inside our selves without form, color
or image, teaching with an inner knowing, a presence that speaks in our silence and interior solitude where true
wisdom resides. This Spirit speaks in our experiences, through other people, events, circumstances, and unexpected
occurrences that enter in our paths. Through our suffering, our joys, even our dreams, our visions and through
other people and events, we are inaudibly spoken to us in silence, in our inner convictions, The invisible presence
of comfort within ourselves, all move beyond the Bible or any words of men to larger principles that can be derived
from the many faiths of which the Bible and other writings are a part of, but for which these cannot possibly be
a substitute. Far from a systematic, fundamental and legal dogma, frozen from a bygone era entrapped with theism,
but from the living Spirit of discernment, discretion, mercy, flexibility and agape, our bodies becoming "temples
of God," earthly vessels housing this power of wisdom, becoming transformed into new creatures in Christ.
Each and every person that gains the awareness of his or her higher self, that self apart from the ego, the Christ
within, accesses Spirit, the divine within, knowing "to live is Christ," and Christ lives in us, for
we are controlled, not by our sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in us.
St. Paul speaks, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
he does not belong to Christ" (Rom 8:9). Yet can any man live without God's Spirit, Jew, Muslim and Hindu
alike? This is an impossibility, as no men or women can live apart from their universal spirit that lives in all
creation, and of man, his or her intuitive direction apart from their egos that separate in competition and exclusiveness.
Our choice is to live as detached observers or to allow our egos to separate us, the choice of the Kingdom being
ours.
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Letting
go of our egos, allowing the divinity within us, to transform us, we glorify God in ourselves and bring his heavenly
Kingdom to earth. This is what we pray for when we say "Thy Kingdom come."
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To live within the unconditional love
of Christ, is to be inclusive to all, to act in brotherhood, and to live as a family, despite our evil we face.
We can symbolically "rule as kings and priests with Christ Jesus for the thousand years" making up this
kingdom when we live in harmony and peace with one another. Not a kingdom in the human government sense of the
word, and not a literal "thousand years," under Judeo/Christian theism, but a rulership of transcending
barriers that separate nation from nation, culture from culture, religion from religion, one of unified inclusiveness
and emptiness in example of Christ.
Revelation 5:10 from the writer of St. John relates: "and you made
them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth." And from
the writer of Daniel: "the holy ones of the Supreme One who will receive the kingdom and they will take possession
of the kingdom for time indefinite, even for time indefinite upon times indefinite" mentioned in Daniel 7:18
and 27 (Rev 20:6). Ruling over/on the earth from the theistic framework of the culture and mentality of a by-gone
era can be seen symbolically as to the transformation from religious and tribal barriers to inclusive love and
acceptance of each other. This is the inheritance we can chose, freely exercising communicative power to speak
directly to a God without image, to each other, as humans aware of their higher consciousness are intended to do.
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"Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born from
God and everyone who loves the one that cause to be born loves him who has been born from that one." 1 John
5:1 |
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God's Spirit is our spirit, as all life is part of one universal energy, one collective unconscious.
Being "one" in union with this, is for those who choose to align themselves with this unseen divine force.
It is our free wills that choose to become aware of this connection or stay under the ego that convinces us we
are separate.
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St. John expresses that "Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God," all having
his Spirit, in the only "one hope" and promise: to enter into the "kingdom of the heavens."
Yet what is believing in the Christ? Is it faith in a theistic God and a supernatural son who walked on water,
healed the blind, and resurrected the dead? Hardly, as this is simply wishful and illusionary thinking, the product
of first century Jewish mentality that can only be described in theistic terms. Or was this Jesus a man who loved
beyond a Jewish system, beyond a theistic structure, apart from a religious society that condemned all those outside
of it and those under it's framework who failed to live up to the laws and criteria of it's restrictive teaching?
This is a man who lived fully, who loved beyond the capacity of self, in stark contrast of both the social structure
and religious culture, a person who had the courage to be all that one can be, transcending tribal prejudices and
loving others in non-attached existence. This is what the Christ was and this what we can be as faithful and discreet slaves , as all of us can call ourselves "I AM." This is what the Kingdom
of God is.
We can bury our fears in the hope of a literal government that will
restore a physical paradise. We can hide our anxiety of the seemingly meaninglessness of life in the symbolic words
of men, literalizing their first-century and prior thoughts of limited and inadequate nature, to that of a
supernatural theistic God, external to ourselves. Or we can have the courage to be, to give up our egos, to live
fully IN life, to love beyond our self, beyond our societal structure, beyond our religious culture, transforming
ourselves with the courage to be what we know within our deep interior selves to be the unconditional love that
transcends all national and tribal barriers, all cultures and sexual orientations, all racial differences and all
forms of exclusiveness. This is what the Kingdom of God is. This is how it "comes to earth as it is in heaven."
Rather than being a one-sided literal government, there is a life of
agape-charity. Our Spirit of divinity anoints us as God's children, something we have always been all along,
despite our doctrinal acceptance or rejection of religious creeds and scripture, our culture, our sexual orientation,
religion, race and creed. We have the choice to remain separate from others in self-centerness or subject our selves
to our inner divinity of compassion, that is, the Spirit that dwells within us, the self apart from ego, the no-self
that leads us to the whole.
St. Paul describes the battle as:
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"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by
the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong
to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And
if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but
it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will
die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by
the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you
received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with
our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with
Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." Romans 8:9-17 |
Our ego's want us in exclusive competition, separating us, one from
another, yet our choice to obey our inner selves is the choice to use our free wills to deaden the false concept
of being in separateness from God and others, to that of becoming whole, "alive in Christ."
For this Jesus could rightly say that the "Kingdom of God is within us."
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Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would
come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say,
`Here it is,' or `There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21 |
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Our awareness of Christ within
us, God's Spiritual inhabitation, allows us the Transformation of His Body, His Church, we as individuals. He answers
our prayer: His Kingdom comes to earth as it is in Heaven.
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Heaven on Earth is a choice
we must make, not a place we must find. It is our choice to live with the God force flowing unrestricted through
us.
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What we seek in prayer is
our the experience of co-existing with God. Prayer is our communication of readiness for the desires of this sacred
energy - God's Holy Spirit - to manifest through our human form. No separation, no absence of God within, simply
the presence of this force within ourselves. (4)
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An invisible transformation of the heart and mind is within ourselves to
choose, transforming us into new creations, uniting us as one with the collective in awareness and emptiness, joining
us with one hope, one purpose, one will, to reflect and glorify God. the universal mind. As we become transformed
in awareness we are "new creatures that recognize our inner selves of wholeness, that of Christ, we reveal
God's glory in ourselves. Thomas Merton relates:
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"Hope seeks not only God in Himself, not only the means to reach
Him, but it seeks, finally and beyond all else, God's glory revealed in ourselves. This will be the final manifestation
of His infinite mercy, and this is what we pray for when we say "Thy Kingdom come." (2) |
We can use our wills to do both good and evil. As we let our inner nature
use us in compassion and non-judgmental life, we glorify God in ourselves and bring his heavenly Kingdom to earth.
This is what we pray for when we say "Thy Kingdom come."
Meditation and recollection makes us present to God, and to ourselves
in Him. The desire for this inner realization of the Kingdom to be glorified in us, is the desire to preserve the
deepest movements of our soul for God alone, to direct them away from ourselves and from His creatures, and concentrate
them entirely in the fulfillment of His will, making us in a special way present to God.
We pray that God will transform us. That through us, He will deliver
the whole world from evil and transform it in Himself: by prayer, by confession, by charity, and, above all, by
mercy. God, who is all holy, not only has had mercy on us, but He has given His mercy into the hand of potential
sinners in order that they may be able to choose between good and evil, and may overcome evil with good, and may
receive His mercy for their own souls by having mercy on others. This is what we ask for, when we pray for God's
Kingdom to come to earth as it is in heaven.
God's kingdom is not an objective reality that can be found in our finite
realm as "defined" and "delimited" with clear boundaries. The infinite God has no boundaries
and our minds cannot set limits to him or to his love. His presence is then "grasped" in the general
awareness of loving faith, it is "realized" without being scientifically and precisely known, measured
by our intellect and logical frame of reasonings. We simply cannot verify God and his kingdom with words of men,
concepts of language, obtaining objective truth with "exact knowledge." God eludes us with an invisible
awareness beyond the grasp of explanation in the interior realms of silence in the darkness of faith.
God's kingdom is not of visible and sensible objects but resides in
mystery beyond intellect. Thomas Merton brings out the following quote from St. John of the Cross speaking of mystical
"unknowing," of the soul:
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"The soul must not only be in darkness with respect to that part
that concerns the creatures and temporal things . . . but likewise it must be blinded and darkened according to
the part which has respect to God and spiritual things, which is the rational and higher part . . . It must be
like to a blind man leaning upon dark faith, taking it for guide and light, and leaning upon dark faith, taking
it for guide and light, and leaning upon none of the things that he understands, experiences, feels and imagines.
For all these are darkness and will cause him to stray; and faith is above all that he understands, experiences,
feels and imagines. And if he be not blinded as to this, and remain not in total darkness, he attains not to that
which is greater - namely, that which is taught by faith." (5) |
St. John Chrysostom writes of the "incomprehensibility of God"
and his kingdom:
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"Let us invoke him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible,
invisible and unknowable; let us avow that he surpasses all power of human speech, that he eludes the grasp of
every mortal intelligence, that the angels cannot penetrate him not the seraphim see him in full clarity, nor the
cherubim fully understand him, for he is invisible to the principalities and powers, the virtues and all creatures
without exception: only the Son and the Holy Spirit know him." (6) |
St. Gregory of Nyssa describes the "mystical night":
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"Night designates the contemplation (theoria) of invisible things after the manner
of Moses who entered into the darkness of God was this God who makes of darkness his hiding place. Surrounded by
the divine night the soul seeks him who is hidden in darkness. She possesses indeed the love of him whom she seeks,
but the Beloved escapes the grasp of her thoughts. . . Therefore abandoning the search, she recognizes him whom
she desires by the very fact that his knowledge is beyond understanding. Thus she says, "Having left behind
all created things and abandoned the aid of the understanding, by faith alone I have found my Beloved, and I will
not let him go, holding him with the grip of faith, until he enters into my bedchamber." The chamber is the
heart, which is capable of the indwelling when it is restored to its primitive state." (7) |
And Evagrius says: (in
the Treatise on Prayer, long attributed to St. Nilus):
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"Just as the light that shows us all has no need of another light
in order to be seen, so God, who shows us all things, has no need of light in which we may see him, for he is himself
light by essence."
"See no diversity in yourself when you pray, and let your intelligence take on the impression of no form;
but go immaterially to the immaterial and you will understand . . . Aspiring to see the face of the Father who
is in heaven, seek for nothing in the world to see a form or figure at the time of prayer." (8) |
Resuming to the mystics of the Rhineland we find John Tauler saying
typically:
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"All that a man rests in with joy, all that he retains as a good
belonging to himself is all worm-eaten except for absolute and simple vanishing in the pure unknowable, ineffable
and mysterious good which is God, by renunciation of ourselves and of all that can appear in him." |
And the 14th Century, Flemish Mystic, John Ruysbroeck:
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"The interior man enters into himself in a simple manner, above
all activity and all values, to apply himself to a simple gaze in frutive love. There he encounters God without
intermediary. And from the unity of God there shines into him a simple light. This simple light shows itself to
be darkness, nakedness and nothingness, the man is enveloped and he plunges in a state without modes, in which
he is lost. In nakedness, all consideration and distraction of things escape him, and he is informed and penetrated
by a simple light. In nothingness he sees all his works come to nothing, for he is overwhelmed by the activity
of God's immense love, and by the fruitive inclination of Spirit he . . . becomes one spirit with God." (9) |
Thomas Merton goes on further to say:
"In a word, God is invisibly present to the ground of
our being: our belief and love attain to him, but he remains hidden from the arrogant gaze of our investigating
mind which seeks to capture him and secure permanent possession of him in an act of knowledge that gives power
over him. It is in fact absurd and impossible to try to grasp God as an object which can be seized and comprehended
by our minds." (10)
God, unattainable, incomprehensible, always compromised under human
subjectivity the moment he is attempted in explanation under the limitations of men. To put God's kingdom in the
limitations of a human government can be equated to equaling the sun as a night lamp in an interior room, to measure
time and space of the universe and contain the cosmos in a bottle. The mystery of God's revealing presence is that
of renewal from moment to moment. It is no-thing that rests in nothing, something we can not possibly possess as
obtainable knowledge to hold in our intellects, having the right of ownership, but an invisible and renewing grace
that comes from the depths of our nothingness coupled with humility.
The action of God's Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth is with the birth of enlightenment,
the higher awareness, that is the ability to open up the doors of perception beyond the attachment to concepts,
theology, philosophy and teachings of others. The birth of God's Kingdom takes place in the realm of the cosmic
mirror, that is, the realm of the vast open space of the unconditional. This is a place beyond thinking, beyond
thoughts, for thoughts are nothing more but an interpretation of individual perception, where as the cosmic mirror
of the unconditional is the complete non-judgmental and non-partial vastness of freedom that expands beyond limitations.
Some call it unconditional love, others call it energy or spirit, while others will call it God. This open unconditional
energy is that of nonduality, the non separateness of being, "isness," the nature of existence.
God's Kingdom, that is, heaven on earth, is not purely the result of training, theology
or philosophy, but rather it is the relaxing of the mind into the unconditional purity of the cosmic mirror, which
is perceived through meditation. This results in experiencing unconditional wakefulness, free from the ego, removing
confusion, depression and doubt, thus being totally awake. In turn, this brings on tenderness, compassion and generosity
for others, seeing the unconditional, non-judgmental goodness in all human beings and life itself
At this point of awareness, resulting in experiencing the unconditional and seeing
it in all others, God's Kingdom of the heavens is joined with earth. One develops complete confidence in oneself
without arrogance, beyond selfishness, beyond ego into a passionlessness, transcending desire, a state of humility
and patience in working with others. Patiently you wait in working things out, letting things take shape in their
own time, never loosing faith in the goodness of others and their ability to actualize "nowness" - the
present moment - and sacredness in their lives, beyond ego and aggression bringing the kingdom of the heavens to
earth within themselves and those around them.
"The recovery of paradise is the discovery
of the "Kingdom of God within us," to use the Gospel expression in the sense in which it has always been
applied by the Christian mystics. It is the recovery of man's lost likeness to God in pure, undivided simplicity." (11)
Man's fall from grace can be equated not to a literal account of separation in regards
to man and external God, in the theistic framework of tribal mentality and antiquated thinking, but rather of the
direction of man's choice of his separate ego apart from the divine self that is aware of God's Kingdom within,
the no-self or inner self awareness of impartial acceptance, apart from judgment, apart from interpretive meanings
on good and evil in the clear unconditional framework of the cosmic mirror, reflecting all that is and simply because
it is
John Cassian of the 4th century describes God's Kingdom as:
"The Kingdom of Heaven consists in possessing an incorrupt and pre-eternal
knowledge of created things through perceiving their inner essences. It concerns the consummation of created things."
That is to say, God's Kingdom is the perceptional awareness of the inner emptiness
of wisdom, that essence which lives beyond both the self and the empirical ego in the incorrupt and primordial
wisdom of the unconditional, that which lives in all things and is transforming itself through us. It is the ability
to empty oneself of attachment and become that of a non ego-involved observer, not in quietist narcissism, but
in active charity, experiencing the paradise that lives within us all, bringing us to wholeness.
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FOOTNOTES: |
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1a
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Thomas Merton - Zen and the Birds
of Appetite, p. 55 |
| 1b |
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Ibid, p. 40 |
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1
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Theological Dictionary of the New Testament |
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2
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Thomas Merton - No Man Is An Island, p. 23 |
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3
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Peter J. Gomes - The Good Book |
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4
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Wayne W. Dyer - Manifest Your Destiny,
p. 33 |
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5
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Ascent of Mount Carmel, II,
iv, 2. |
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6
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Incomprehensibility of God,
III, p. 166. |
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7
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P.G. 44:892-893. |
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8
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See Hausberr, Les Lecons d'un Contemplatif (Paris, 1960), p. 145. |
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9
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The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,
II. |
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10
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Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, pp. 80-82 |
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11
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Thomas Merton, Zen and The Birds
of Appetite, p. 102 |
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