Last
week in my discussion with an evangelical Christian friend, we were
talking about the fact that conservatives (like himself) emphasize an
either/or life-stance, while liberals (like myself) tend to be both/and.
Every person is of course a combination of those two perspectives, but
we each have a tendency to lean toward one or the other. Then he
brought up the verse in the Gospel of John where
Jesus is seen exclaiming: "I am THE way, the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father but by me." My friend asked how I could still
hold a both/and perspective when the whole tenor of that verse tends to
narrow things down quite a bit.
In my response, I noted that it is important to ask: "Who exactly is the 'I' that is speaking in that verse?" Generally, we tend to think of the 'I' - that is, our sense of self - as a sort of self-enclosed billiard ball that has sharp boundaries and which travels through life bouncing off every other billard-ball self, causing us and others a whole lot of suffering. Often, our experience of that sort of self is tight and leaden, and - when carried to the extreme - makes us feel quite claustraphobic. The term that spiritual traditions use for this common experience of human identity is the "ego-self."
By contrast, all genuine spiritual paths seek to make the self translucent, and even transparent to the selves of all of the other creatures inhabiting the planet. In other words, they seek a more relational, all-inclusive view of self. This model of self can be seen in the "body of Christ" image, where one person is like a hand, another is like a foot, another is an eye, another is a beautiful head of hair, and so on. Here, the self is viewed as part of a larger whole, and each part understands its innate need for every other part. Similarly, Buddhists speak of the self as a part of the "Net of Indra," where every being is viewed as a node in a vast fisherman's net, and where each of these nodes contains a mirror-like jewel that reflects the jewel present in every other node composing this vast net.
The point is that Jesus, as a transformed, divinely human person, possessed a self that was transparent to the light coming from every other genuine self on the planet. In other words, it was not a solid, contricted, leaden, billiard-ball ego-self that spoke the words "I am the way." Instead, it was the expansive, transparent, all-inclusive state of consciousness that indwelt him which spoke these words, a state that indwells every other transformed being as well.
Often, when I give a response such as this, the other person will exclaim: "Wow, your view seems so COMPLICATED! I prefer a much simpler view of things!" However, I would point out that a translucent view of self is no more complicated than a billiard-ball view of self. It's just that the evangelical's billiard-ball view of self is generally unconscious and unexamined, making it seem "simpler." In other words, they aren't even aware that they are approaching life from such a view. In reality, it is actually much simpler - and much more conducive to a harmonious, peaceful life-experience - to see life from an expansive Body-of-Christ or Net-or-Indra view of self rather than from that of the constricted billiard-ball self that is so much a part of our everyday experience of conflict!
Photo: Snow-lily backlit by late-day sun, with Mount Alice in the background; Lion Lakes, Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; June 24, 2013
In my response, I noted that it is important to ask: "Who exactly is the 'I' that is speaking in that verse?" Generally, we tend to think of the 'I' - that is, our sense of self - as a sort of self-enclosed billiard ball that has sharp boundaries and which travels through life bouncing off every other billard-ball self, causing us and others a whole lot of suffering. Often, our experience of that sort of self is tight and leaden, and - when carried to the extreme - makes us feel quite claustraphobic. The term that spiritual traditions use for this common experience of human identity is the "ego-self."
By contrast, all genuine spiritual paths seek to make the self translucent, and even transparent to the selves of all of the other creatures inhabiting the planet. In other words, they seek a more relational, all-inclusive view of self. This model of self can be seen in the "body of Christ" image, where one person is like a hand, another is like a foot, another is an eye, another is a beautiful head of hair, and so on. Here, the self is viewed as part of a larger whole, and each part understands its innate need for every other part. Similarly, Buddhists speak of the self as a part of the "Net of Indra," where every being is viewed as a node in a vast fisherman's net, and where each of these nodes contains a mirror-like jewel that reflects the jewel present in every other node composing this vast net.
The point is that Jesus, as a transformed, divinely human person, possessed a self that was transparent to the light coming from every other genuine self on the planet. In other words, it was not a solid, contricted, leaden, billiard-ball ego-self that spoke the words "I am the way." Instead, it was the expansive, transparent, all-inclusive state of consciousness that indwelt him which spoke these words, a state that indwells every other transformed being as well.
Often, when I give a response such as this, the other person will exclaim: "Wow, your view seems so COMPLICATED! I prefer a much simpler view of things!" However, I would point out that a translucent view of self is no more complicated than a billiard-ball view of self. It's just that the evangelical's billiard-ball view of self is generally unconscious and unexamined, making it seem "simpler." In other words, they aren't even aware that they are approaching life from such a view. In reality, it is actually much simpler - and much more conducive to a harmonious, peaceful life-experience - to see life from an expansive Body-of-Christ or Net-or-Indra view of self rather than from that of the constricted billiard-ball self that is so much a part of our everyday experience of conflict!
Photo: Snow-lily backlit by late-day sun, with Mount Alice in the background; Lion Lakes, Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; June 24, 2013
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