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LOTUS OF THE HEART
All is Welcome Here
Living in Love beyond Beliefs
*Ephesians 4.10, Christian New Testament
The One who went down is the same also who went up far above all the heavens, that He may fill all things.
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The birth of paradox, seen as ascent and descent, is beyond itself, for it itself - like a Zen koan -, means nothing and serves to witness to the ineffability of Truth, Christ - not merely Jesus and as historical event, but not excluding, either. This birth being beyond itself means that which is thereby seen is the same that gave rise to the paradox; without Ineffability paradox would not arise in regard to Truth. The paradox in itself is useless, the paradox as birthed for the birth, Truth birthing Truth, is the linguistic means to disable the linguistic mind, the reasoning and linear mind, so what is seen and known by the higher intellect, or heart, will receive what was already seen and known unknowingly, now consciously. This is mystery of Incarnation, Now, and Eternal Moment, a Timeless Happening.
So, the paradox of Jesus and Christ, as One, has no answer, or it would not be paradox, and, then, contemplation is a plunging into the paradox of Life - Christ -, as it manifests in life - Jesus. This Path likely will begin for most of us as a denial of part of life, for we are aching for the other polar of the polarity of Manifestation. That is, we will dive thankfully into the repressed passive, into the going within, the ascending. We may even see the active life as hindering our anticipated times alone and in quiet. For some persons, this negation of attachment to the active and outward is essential as preparatory. We have been bogged down in mental and actional attachment to the outer, visible life, and the redressing of that arises initially through a going within, or an ascent: in this we hold, still, to see sacred and secular, inner and outer, active and contemplative, work and prayer, ... as opposites - we have traded one pole of the one Incarnation for another. The healing of the split is by focusing, at first, on the repressed pole of reality, as an expression of Truth.
Then, with the exhaustion of this focusing on the qualities linked, as we think, with the contemplative, we find ourselves being drawn back into the opposite again - but, this time, the contemplative strengthened and integrating of the descent. The Christ, or Word, marries to Itself Jesus within ourselves, our experience.
Why this? For the descent cannot integrate, or marry to itself, ascent and, so, dissolve the polarity: Jesus came after the Word, not before, and the Word was clothed with the human, the descending life. The two become one in One only through the contemplative Quality. This is a reason organized religion is oft lacking in depth, for it generally proceeds from descent to ascent, or outer to inner, or simply approaches the inner as outer. The most graceful of ritual is most rightly appreciated and celebrated when one from withinness approaches it as signifer or means of the Grace arising through withinness, from Wholeness Itself - in That, Whom, is no polarity, no paradox. So, here, withinness speaks of a quality of Truth, as intimate, not in opposition to outside or outer.
In the Wholeness, or Fullness - "fills all things" - we are made whole, we fill all things as we are filled by things. In moving within, the wedding of ascent and descent occur, and there is no more, purely speaking, ascent or descent. In Wholeness, then, we learn how to be with the dance above the paradox, reminding of the dance of Lila in Hinduism or the dance of the Trinity in the Greek Church - yet, the dance of the Trinity, or the Principle of multiplicity, arises from the dance of the One - the dance of the Trinity being the dance of One, not vice versa. There is no loss here of the experience of outer and inner, only that the healing of the split ushers in a joy and immersing oneself in life as an expression of Life Itself - a Life that includes all things, all states of mind, ... everything, in Harmony. In some way, we can say, "I see the ascent in the descent, and, as well, the descent in the ascent" - but, really, in Wholeness as, not in, is more accurate. But words, again, fail us here, for language is designed from and for the oppositional relationship of the polarities: paradox, in whatever form, is entered for freedom from the polarities, by and into and with Wholeness.
*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title. Lotus of the Heart is given by a Hospice Chaplain, who offers this Work to encourage in a spiritual, inclusive life to embody and encourage peace among all, as each is an expression of one Grace, a single, sacred Life.
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