A few days ago I used the term “religion-less religion” in a "I'm working on my Wu" post. Over at the Yoga Loft, they’re asking, “See It Three Times, Is It More Than Coincidence?”
I don’t know. Could be a cosmic synchronicity. Could be a random happening. Could be something else. Regardless, I enjoyed what the Yoga Lofter had to say about religion-less religion. The first time this term came up was in a conversation with his or her mother.
We agreed that all the world's problems seem to stem from people trying to stick the concept of God into religion. So many wars, so much blood, so much ego, so much waste--all in the name of God.
Amen to that. This morning I picked up Meister Eckhart, the medieval Christian mystic, and read:
Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God.If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance, and by falling into ignorance, you become like an animal since the animal part in creatures is that which is unknowing.
If you do not wish to become like an animal therefore, do not pretend that you understand anything of the ineffable God.
What then should I do?
You should sink your “being-you” into his “being-him,” and your “you” and his “him” should become a single “me” so that with him you shall know in eternity his unbecome “isness” and his unnameable “nothingness.”
Wu. We always come back to Wu.
I poked around Yoga Loft while I was there and also liked this post about “Allowing Ourselves to Be Penetrated.” Yes, guys, it’s OK. They’re mainly talking about life here.
Hi Brian,
Here is an article by Swami Vivekananda on the topic of bhakti or devotion.
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/complete_works.htm
Go to volume 2 and then on Bhakti. It discusses what it means to love, what it means to long for God. Worth reading.
Posted by: Manish | May 11, 2006 at 04:35 AM
We also come to "isness". The window useful for being emptiness in a wall, the cup useful for its empty place to hold... something.
"One and simple in every way is the one God whom charity loves in all things - nothing else outside him and beyond him!" Eckhart posits the eternal purposefully.
Omnipotent, omniscient - oh, and containing all outside of time. Truly, I do see Joshu's "mu" when face to face with this beyond the beyond. So much reality, there must be a grand pause somewhere/somewhen.
I live with this picture: an unstoppable love, (call it energy, attraction, awareness) that amplifies every time I am conscious of being. I contain, ala Whitman, universes.
Kudos to the religion-less, liking their tea on the balcony, rather than their coffee by the TV.
Posted by: Edward | May 11, 2006 at 06:13 PM