The glory of God

Is the human person

Fully alive.

 

Irenaeus, Philosopher and Theologian

 

In Corrogue there are times when I miss the target.

 

This target is a target of invisibility.  It is the ability to walk in this world with a light footprint.  Not wanting too much other than to know what is beauty.

 

In this modern age what many of us desire is an idea of success or fame.  We do not focus on being fully alive.  As John O`Donoghue writes in his wonderful book Anamcara, “This is the greatest sin of all.”

 

In some ways this writer is a reactionary.  There are words that make me react like Pavlov’s dog to the ringing of a bell.  One such word that causes this belling ringing for me is the word “sin.”  It is a word that has wounded many hearts and caused deep separation from the beauty of life.  It is a word that has burdened the vulnerable with a deep sense of guilt.  It has been perverted in ways never intended by the Christ.

 

Having been raised in Northern Ireland this word has been one that I have heard shouted from pulpits, from school platforms, whispered threateningly by those I loved and perverted by those in charge of children.

 

Sin and sex went together.  The beauty of the body was denied by those who advocated that one was and a miserable sinner.  There was delight in the depth of misery that the ego could wallow in.  There was no delight in allowing this animal body to do what it loves.

 

We do not love the body.  Mostly we love the body image.  From an early age we are locked out of the beauty of the body.  As children we become separate from the flow of our divine energy.  Our work in this world is to return to this flow. This is the source of our joy.  To imagine that we are sinners, and that we are wrong in our being, is a prison house from which no one is saved.

 

Do you think you are required to plead for your life with the Beloved?  This is a foolish distortion of the word ’sin.’ This word simply means ‘to miss the target;’ in one sense we all miss the target.  Only you are not required to feel like a worm.  You are only required to wake up and see how beautiful you are.  You are only required to take another shot at being the beauty you are.  This is the target practice of awareness without attachment to results.

 

The great Jelaluddin Rumi invites us to come into the circle of love.  Do not beat yourself up with false illusion.  To think that you are wrong keeps you in the prison of the ego.  To think that you can do anything to enter heaven is a false hope.  You cannot enter heaven until you disappear.  Make your target practice a practice of disappearance into love.

 

Make this target practice a celebration.  Find your way to the centre.  Know that if you are made to feel wrong, then the teaching is wrong.  If you feel wrong then you are attached to the words and have not bathed in the perfume of self-knowledge that is beyond words.

 

At the heart of all religion is a paradox.  This is the paradox of forgiveness.  All religions teach forgiveness but the paradox is that there is no one to forgive.  When you know who you are then there is only what is in all its’ beauty and glory.

 

Religion that teaches guilt is not religious in the true sense.  If anyone suggests that you are a sinner with an implication that you should somehow feel wrong then kindly remove yourself to a place that teaches you love.  You are not born in sin.  You are born in the light of the Divine.  Your work is to come back to the centre.  Your work is to return to the source of your being.  Your work is to know that no only are you loved forever but you are love forever.

 

This does not mean one cannot feel wrong for an action one has done.  However, one cannot be wrong no matter what one has done.  The focus on sin is a magnification of the ego that thinks it can manipulate the Beloved by convincing It that such a wretched sinner deserves mercy.  

 

If you feel guilty about your life then you cannot live a full life.  Your life cannot manifest the glory of the Divine presence. Your focus on sin is an error.  It is negative.  It is illusory.  To get back on target, simply begin to see the beauty at the very centre of your being.  This will make you laught at the very idea that creation that created you in Love would ever judge such creation wrong.

 

 

 

0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

No Comments »