Generally, we tend to think that we are some sort of "I" who is dangling within the universe, desperately trying to find a beloved other with whom we might relate. However, spending several hours in a slot canyon during my spiritual retreat last week gave me a sense that this dangling "I" is not our deepest identity. Instead, I realized that my being - and the being of everyone else - is already and forever grasped and held and known in love by the Divine, present within all of the beautiful things of the world. In other words, relationship is not something we have to wait for; it is instead ALREADY a reality that constitutes our deepest self. Here, the ray of light flooding the canyon during a 45-minute period between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon felt like a divine gaze in which I was persistently held as an object of love. In other words, I understood that my deepest identity consists in being a "thou" rather than an "I"; or, as Ramon Panikkar puts it, a "thou-I."
That night, sitting by a campfire under an overhanging cliff, I pondered the words of a medieval Zen master named Dogen. He said: "That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion. That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment." Or, as Brother David Steindl-Rast puts it: "What you can grasp gives you knowledge. What grasps you makes you wise." When the self - the "I"- tries to grasp and understand and possess beautiful things, the delusional ego - the illusory separate self so familiar to us - is always involved. However, when these same things grasp and hold our awareness - a reality we experience whenever we are attracted to beauty - then the true self or relational identity begins to manifest itself. It is here that we understand ourselves to be a beloved "thou" rather than a dangling "I." And it is here that we correspondingly empty out our sense of "I" into a realization that we are actually this beloved "thou."
Here, our "I" is actually a sort of echo of the "thou" which we are, a "thou" that is spoken eternally by the Beloved. Yet - speaking mythologically - we might say that even though this "I" is a mere echo of an identity given to us by the Beloved, it somehow is able to add "words" to that echo, or to speak that echo in a "voice" different from that in which the original word was spoken. In other words, even though our "I" is a mere echo of the "thou" which we are, we somehow - amazingly - possess a creativity that is able to add an intriguing sense of uniqueness and individuality to that word.
The mystery does not stop here, however. For the One who grasps us in love - the divine "I" - can be known ONLY in the second-person, through us! This occurs because the divine I is emptied out so completely into the speaking of the "thou" which we are. In other words, the reality that the Divine is an "I" who embraces us is a fact that is known only by US - as a "Thou"! Here, the Divine is OUR "Thou," just as we are the Divine "thou." Amazingly, the "thou" which we are, and the "Thou" which the Divine is, are both echoes of one another. And because each "I" - the divine I and our I - are emptied into the other, it is as though there is a ricocheting, echoing "T/thou," with NO original speakers - neither the Divine nor us!
People say that God is a projection of humanity. This is true, for it is we who give the Divine its own sense of "I." However, it is also true to say that WE are a projection of God, one that is embraced by God in love. Thus, we have two mirroring projections with no "I" to do the projecting. Two echoing "T/thou-s with no original Word. Such is the radical mystery of mystical union.
Photo: The Joint Trail, Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 25, 2012
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