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Only those who do not see the cup
Can drink with me here
There is a fountain, you are standing in it, but
You will never drink until you are dying of thirst
At the end of religion
A Treasure waits
The Beloved’s lips will release your heart:
Be a rose opening to the kiss of the Sun
—Brian K. Wilcox, July 30, 2006
Prayer has become for me mostly a simple rest, pure opening in the One, beyond words or sacred thoughts. This is helplessness inside the Veil, surrender in the Most Holy Place, where few go. This helplessness is relinquishment of machinations of self-helping and religiousness into the Inner Sanctum of Love, where waits the Christ. Here I find the healings and nurturing of Universal Spirit, awakening me to the immensity of Love surrounding me from before birth, when I was a thought in the Mind of God.
This is counter-cultural and counter-religion, for this rest is an act of trust beyond the technologies of religion and spirituality. Here I am nothing, a nothing that is bliss and eternal life.
Why do few go into this place behind the veil? What is the veil? Going behind the veil is a threat to the ego, a threat to religion and the array of spiritualities. Words like helplessness, surrender, and relinquishment do not fit well in our religions or cultures.
And, what is the veil? Historically, the veil is that which separated the Holy Place of the Temple from the Most Holy Place, the innermost space. In the Most Holy Place only the priest could enter.
The New Testament spiritualizes this Temple:
So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain of heaven into God's inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the line of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6.18-20, NLT)
And so, dear brothers and sisters,] we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us. (Hebrews 10.19-20, NLT)
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Contemplatively, the veil is that luminous transition separating outer religion from inner spirituality. In Christ is the integration of external word and internal word in the Word. Inner spirituality is the integration of all in the living Word manifesting in and through all creatures, dissolving the illusory separation of secular and sacred, outer and inner, here and there, other and self, friend and foe, … All dualities dissolve in the One in whom is Unity. That is, the Word unifies, and in the Word we are unified with all unified in the Word.
Therefore, once I have entered inside the veil, I find that all creation manifests the Glory of God, and in seeing them, I see God, and in seeing God, I see them. I see creatures with a withinness that gives new depth to the most apparently mundane things. I do not see things as different than they really are; I see things more as they really are.
Sitting in the recliner this morning, again there is that temptation to resist this simple being. I keep reminding myself that this is exactly the loving detachment that I have been being schooled in for many years. How could I move through this turbulent time without this being anchored in the Holy of Holies, this gracious, free, and loving Withinness?
So, as I sit, I resists the temptation to conjure up an experience. I keep surrendering, breathing inside that Most Holy Place behind the veil, where loving faith has led me in love as aspiration for Christ. There Christ waits for me, there Christ meets me, and there I find freedom from even machinations of religion that can lead me to the veil but must be left behind to enter behind the veil. I see Christ in a manner I could never have seen Christ before entering this Most Holy Place. I am given what I could never find in religion. I am even more in Love, and Peace overflows, and joy, too. Amen.
Spiritual Exercise
Meditate and pray daily.
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
*Written July 30, 2006
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