As I write this, my aunt is actively dying, peacefully at rest in the care of hospice nurses in a Philadelphia hospital. She was one of the relatively few people to genuinely inspire and influence me as a child, and later as an adult.
Aunt Irene was one of those people who moved through hardships, possessed an incredible entrepreneurial spirit, took ownership in her circumstances and then did something about them.
She achieved a personal level of success that has always made her one of my heroes, along with my father, my partner Craig, Blessed Mychal Judge and His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
Several folks, with well-intentioned hearts, offered their words of consolation last night, when we were told by the doctors that Aunt Irene would be dead within an hour of their removing her from life-support. In their sincere wishes, they often said things like, "You'll see her again one day..." and "She'll be in a better place in heaven...", etc.
But while the sentiments and sincerity behind such wishes are very comforting and much appreciated, such superstitious concepts themselves are without merit or comfort for me, since I consider such ideas primitive, baseless and delusional.
"But how can you believe such a thing as a monk and priest?" some inquired. Don't you believe that Jesus died so that we could have eternal life?
No. I believe that if the stories of Jesus' crucifixion actually occurred, which I am not convinced is the case at all, then Jesus' died because the authorities murdered him. Period.
There was no magical plan for "eternal life". No zombie-tricks on the third day. Simply a brutal and horrific murder, much like the murders being carried out by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the False Flag Operation Bush ordered against the World Trade Centre on September 11th, 2001.
As a Successor to the Apostles, I believe the mythos of Rav Yeshua (Jesus the Nazarene) has significance, but also believe most organised religions have missed that significance by a longshot.
The Jesus Metaphor is a story about Incarnate Love.
Love, they say is stronger than death, for it is the Eternal Principle. Although love cannot stop death from happening, no matter how hard death might seem to try, it cannot separate people from that Universal Love. Neither can it separate us from the loving memories we hold of the departed.
When someone we love reaches the end of their lives, they die. Period.
There is no magic playground like the the religious and superstitious would hope. But that doesn't mean love has not triumphed in the end over death. This is the message of the great spiritual masters... Jesus didn't do the alleged zombie trick, it was his memory that lived on beyond his death, in the hearts of his Beloved. Love conquered death.
Love Incarnate, represented metaphorically in the person of Rav Yeshua, could not be killed when the physical body was beaten and killed. The body died, but Love lived on... and continues to live on today.
That is the message of the Eucharist... that the Divine Love, which became incarnate in the person of Yeshua, is accessible every time we come together to break bread. That because Jesus was not the Christ alone, the Living Body of Christ is manifest in and as each of us, because the "Body of Christ" is Incarnate Love.
Of course, the desire to manipulate, distort the truth and control the masses, by the original institutional churches (the Roman and Orthodox Catholic sects), and later by the further distortions that occurred in Protestant spin-off sects, only served to further obfuscate this celebration of truth that occurred within the context of a sacred meal... something which occurred every time bread was broken between friends.
The result was that instead of learning the Way to end suffering, we perpetuate that suffering, with absurd and primitive tales of imaginary places, such as "heaven", where the "good people" are rewarded. The concept is actually vulgar in my opinion, for anyone to have the hubris to suggest that we should worship their imaginary god, who is a big enough asshole to only allow a limited number of beings (and worse yet, that all of those beings must be "people") into their childish notion of "paradise" or "heaven".
I would never consider worshipping, let alone smiling at any deity who was such a spiteful, judgmental prick.
But of course, that story exists because, despite their claims to have been created in their god's image, we know that these unsophisticated, irrational and superstitious primitives actually created their gods in their own images. So a petty people ended up with a petty god.
As for me, I remain unconflicted about living my vows faithfully as a Buddhist monk and lama, along with my responsibility and vows to uphold the Way of the Apostles. I am a disciple of Buddha and of Rav Yeshua. I am a disciple of the Ways of the Ancient Peoples, who embraced all of life as sacred, but who had not yet codified the concepts of this groundlessness and eternal principle into the metaphoric representations of gods and goddesses.
And inspired by my Aunt Irene, it is my intention to continue to speak the truth I embrace, and share it with those who truly desire peace.
In fact, it is my intention to find a means of relocating back to the Greater Washington, D.C. area, securing the funding to create a truly post-denominational, post-religious, post-sectarian intentional community of people dedicated to CHANGE... dedicated to bringing about TRANSFORMATION and PEACE.
We'll call this "The PEACE Project" -- with PEACE being an acronym for our principal focus:
- Partnering with Communities
- Educating the Next Generation
- Assisting the Poor and Marginalised
- Caring for the Sick and Dying
- Empowering Servant-Leaders
My gratitude goes out to the people of Christ's Home Retirement Centre, where Aunt Irene made her home for the past couple years, and to my cousin Jeannie and Aunt Martha, for their being there so often for Aunt Irene.
Yes, our hearts are heavy with selfish sadness over the hour when Aunt Irene will leave her body and return to Love. We will grieve for ourselves, not for her, because she will cease to exist. All phenomena are impermanent, and that realisation still stings, when those to whom we still hold attachments are taken from our grasp.
But the only way to prevent suffering is to move toward that grief and sit in it mindfully for a time... allowing it to wash over us, as we gently acknowledge it, and move through it. Grief, like all phenomena, is impermanent too. And as it passes, we will emerge a little stronger, a little clearer, and a little lighter than before.
And there will be work to be done.
Namasté!
-- dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda
No comments:
Post a Comment