I don’t often write about overtly spiritual things in my blog, but the spiritual life is something I think about and wrestle with often. In Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism, Jay Michaelson argues that the Divine is a verb not a noun. Rather than God or Spirit a better way to describe it might be Godding or Was-is-will-be or even Is-ing. Because, if this presence is all there is, then everything is it; all that has been, is, or will be. At the human level this is difficult to comprehend, because this means EVERYTHING is divine, not just the happy, jolly stuff.
As Michaelson writes about, and as I’ve written about before, it’s easy to be spiritual when things are going well—it’s easy to say it’s all divine when we’re happy, our relationships are good, the economy is flourishing and our bellies are full. But what happens when we are confronted with illness, despair, loss of a job, the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one? What then? Many in new thought gloss over these times with trite adages, “It’s all good, it’s all God” or “your consciousness created that, your consciousness can change it.” But, as Michaelson writes these “spiritual bromides” are really timidity. “The courageous religious life” he argues, “…is one which does not deny a thing; not science, not war, nor the capacity of humans to do evil.” Rather than look for happy endings, or live in the land of desire, living an enlightened life, requires knowing that “…What Is, simply is, whether I want it to be so or not. We do not accept What Is because it is acceptable; we accept it because it is.” Wow, to me this really captures the notion of what I try to teach and to live (although not very successfully and only in fits and starts).
I sometimes find it easier to grasp difficult concepts if I can attach them to experience. So, I offer this exercise to you as a way to grasp the notion of allowing What Is to simply Be. Stand naked before a full-length mirror and do not judge what you see—neither with positive nor with negative judgments—simply allow yourself to see What Is. Be with yourself intimately, really see your Is-ness. If you can get to this place of non-judging with your body of accepting what is, because it is, without positive or negative value judgment, you can begin to imagine what it is like to live naked before the divine. This type of living does not deny any human experience, rather it allows for us to experience the fullness of being human and to embrace it all. For, if we spent a fraction of the time we worry, fret, plot and stew actually experiencing our experiences, life would be much richer.
Life is all around you, in you as you—experience it now. Stand naked before the divine.
louisetallen 