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'Blue Above Blue Below'
Suzuki Roshi -
When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, "Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere."
*David Chadwick. Crooked Cucumber.
Little Johnny was in Sunday School at the church. The teacher asked the class where they thought God lives. A little girl lifted her hand. The teacher called on her. The girl said, "I think God lives in the sky because that is where heaven is." "That's good," said the teacher.
The teacher asked the question again, "Where do you think God lives?" A little boy raised his hand. After recognizing the lad, he said, "God lives in each of our hearts!" "That's very good," said the teacher, with a big smile.
When she asked a third time, Little Johnny was the only one who lifted a hand. Quietly dreading what he would say, for Little Johnny often gave embarrassing answers, the teacher spoke, "And where do you think God lives, Johnny?" "In the bathroom," he said. "In the bathroom?" she asked, puzzled. "Yes, because every morning my father beats on the bathroom door and screams, 'God, are you still in there!"'
* * *
More seriously, I refer to Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a Christian, influential scientist, and religious philosopher. He was considered a genius. At age twelve, even before he had received formal training in geometry, Pascal independently discovered and demonstrated Euclid's famous thirty-two propositions. Euclid was considered the father of geometry and wrote the most famous textbook in the history of mathematics.
When Pascal died in 1662, his servant found a small parchment sewn into his coat. At the top of the paper, Pascal had drawn a cross. Underneath the cross were these words -
In the year of the Lord 1654
Monday, November 23
From about half-past ten in the evening
until half-past twelve.
Fire
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob
Not of philosophers nor of the scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy, Peace.
God of Jesus Christ,
My God and thy God.
"Thy God shall be my God."
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.
He is to be found only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Greatness of the soul of man.
"Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee,
but I have known thee."
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
Jesus Christ.
I have fallen away: I have fled from Him,
denied Him, crucified Him.
May I not fall away forever.
We keep hold of Him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on earth.
I will not forget Thy word. Amen.
The parchment was Pascal's declaration of an intense, two-hour experience that he had kept secret. It had changed the course of his life. He kept his record of it in the lining of his coat, close to his heart. For eight years, he took care to sew and unsew it every time he changed his coat. A treasured happening it was, and something he could return to again and again.
* * *
"God" points to the Sacred, or sacredness. Pascal expressed his mystical opening in terms of his religious faith. Yet, the experience is universal, witnessed over time, place, cultures, and traditions. Hence, we do not deny a spiritual opening due to the experiencer's frame-of-reference. The teacher's question, "Where is God?" is a valid question for us all, regardless of religion or not.
* * *
The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Anam Thubten comments, in his Embracing Each Moment, regarding the sacredness fundamental to our world and human experience -
We are missing the sacredness. One of the greatest tragedies of the twenty-first century is that we are losing our connection to this truth of sacredness. ... [T]here are many things that we can praise about the achievements of our modern age. But there is a spiritual crisis happening, and that is losing our connection with ... the all-pervasive sacredness of everything.
Thubten proceeds to share of the nature of sacredness and the consequences of losing this sense -
Sacredness is not a belief system. It is a timeless truth. It is always there, just like the clouds in the sky. Just like the trees growing in the mountains, sacredness is always there. It is part of this existence. The consequence of losing our connection with this truth can sometimes be quite dangerous. And when we lose this understanding, we develop a very mechanical relationship with the world, within as well as without. We develop a very mechanical relationship with ourselves and also with the outer world, the world of nature, and with humanity as a whole. ... [A]nd we don't know how to feel love toward others. Then people objectify each other.
* * *
We learn what sacredness is partly through seeing the cultural caricatures of it. In naming the deception, we may better recognize the sacredness at the heart of life and how important it is not to run from it in fleeing its caricatures. We can live without religion, yet we are partakers of sacredness itself. If we choose, we can dispose of the words of religious faiths, including the word "God." Yet, we cannot escape sacredness and how integral it is to our well-being as persons and nations.
In the words of Suzuki Roshi's teacher, sacredness is like rain - everywhere. We cannot escape it. Wherever we turn, we meet it.
* * *
With the recovery of a sense of sacredness, we each can explore how to connect with this sacredness and, thereby, help heal ourselves, our world, and the planet. Likewise, we can see how right Little Johnny's answer is: The Sacred is in the bathroom, as well as everywhere else and in everyone else. We may not conceptualize the Sacred in Pascal's way, yet the rain is the rain, and sacredness is sacredness, anyway.
* * *
*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2020
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
*To contact Brian, write to LotusoftheHeart@gmx.com .
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