Tag: inner work

THE SOFTNESS OF GOD

The mythologist Joseph Campbell’s view of God is hard/

transcendent/anonymous – a God untouched by pain

and life is a horrendous Divine Comedy

in which “all things take place by strife” (Heraclitus).

 

Paul Tillich’s approach to God is theological/psychological

and Raimundo Panikkar’s is interreligious/philosophical –

Panikkar believed in ‘cosmotheandrism’ –

the nondual inter-being of created and divine realities –

both approaches lend themselves to soft compassion.

 

Muslims believe all truth – including Jewish

and Christian truth – was simultaneously present

in Mohammed’s enraptured soul –

critics bewildered by the randomness of the Quranic Suras

try to grasp the Ocean of Prophecy

with the Thimble of Rationality.

 

All of us have five processes simultaneously happening:

cognition (awareness of what is)/

morals (awareness of what should be)/

the full range of emotions/interpersonal relations/

and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs –

plus, according to psychologists

we all think 60,000 thoughts a day –

no wonder we are so complicated/conflicted/full of strife!

 

We work on ourselves in order to help others

and we help others in order to work on ourselves –

to accept the parts of ourselves – our homeless shadows

and inner prostitutes – we have rejected

and this inner work is hard.

 

Among lovers, true love is to shut down your options/

tie the knot/give your all to one person

in a world of infinite choice/infinite insatiability

where everything has its price –

this too is hard

very hard

and requires help from God

who is Infinitely Soft

Infinite Softness/Infinite Tenderness/

Infinite Mercy/Infinite Motherhood.

 

TRANSFORMATION VERSUS VIOLENCE

According to Bernard Lonergan

the new foundation for knowledge is subjectivity.

Only subjectively transformed people

can see things objectively

without all their biases

muddying the water.

Inner work – knowing/healing/harmonizing

our inner life – is the essence of spirituality

and influences all our perceptions/

desires/thoughts/actions.

The False Self is ensnared in craziness –

the lies and constant striving of the world –

‘samsara’ in Hinduism. The True Self knows

it is always here: “I am a child of God” –

nothing left to strive for.

But if you refuse the call of the Divine

the Hound of Heaven pursues you until you either

cling to your False Self in hell

or you let go and let your small self

your ego, annihilate in God.

To get ego out of the way

only one thing is necessary:

stop judging which endlessly divides everything

into your likes and dislikes.

Then you discover fundamental richness –

the holiness of ‘being-itself’ – that is always here

and belongs to everyone like sunshine –

the sun shines on both saint and sinner

but saints see holiness and sinners judge.

Religious fanatics are super-judges:

to overcome doubt they surrender their freedom

to some absolute ideology or religion

then become anxious when confronted

with people who believe differently

and violently attack them as ‘infidels’ –

‘unfaithful ones’ – oblivious to the fact

that their violence makes them unfaithful

to the God of Compassion

they profess to believe in.