It occurred to me right at the outset that God was asking us to commit our whole lives to Him, just as a partner demands this of us in marriage. Nothing is to be left out, we must commit all.
Never is this put for directly than in Luke 14:26:
“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
The word for hatred is μισέω. But Luke uses it relatively to mean that God comes first even to the point of hating the most precious people in our life. Or to put it another way no Earthly love can match the love we have for God if we are going to succeed as a disciple. So we do not diminish our worldly loves, but we must find an even greater love for God that is not compromised by any worldly interests. The list is backwards, cos the greatest love we probably have is for ourselves, unless we have children for which there are many who would sacrifice themselves for. But even compared to children we should be prepared to sacrifice all for God. Which brings us right back to the beginning and Abraham. This is how total and undivided our focus on God must be if we are to be worthy.
Now one thing that Christianity does well is really hammer home how deep our commitment needs to be. I have been told by Buddhist monks I need to amplify my focus and intensity of practice. But if you are weak at all, its good to know this is a marathon. As Buddha himself says to the sitar player: if the string is too right it will snap, if too loose it will not sound. Middle way is Buddha's great insight. You get to the end by missing the extremes and passing through the middle untouched.
And yet while we need a middle path in our efforts, a right effort Buddha says, we must never-the-less give ourselves 100% to the path. Any worldly distraction will draw us from God.
Now given all this its commitment, tempting not to enter the door in the first place. The path is too hard and the commitment is too great. Interestingly while knowing this I did initially give myself 100% and resolved to do my absolute best every moment of every day. Not to shy from what I should do, and step into all challenges with full commitment. It went well. Within a few months of simple prayer and commitment to daily life I achieved a jhana. But then I crashed. Too much too soon. And this is always the risk, like Icarus we fly too close to the sun and its a long way down again. I have seen other people make remarkable progress in meditation only to reach a point where the draw of worldly loves becomes too great and they crash back to Earth. Achieving the right escape velocity is actually a very tricky and skilful thing to do. A little caution is worth while.
But with all that said the only way to be a disciple is with 100%. If we take the dial back to 99% and leave 1% around for an easy time, to explore the world, and rest up then we will not make it. Welcome to the next 40 years of my own life.
And then there is craziness. Perhaps we know that "lets go crazy feeling", where we get drunk and just max out on a good time with no rules. The Bacchanalia of old. It's interesting in this very rational society we have in the West that there is no official room for Bacchus. The nearest thing we have is a late night drunken party or drug fuelled clubbing till the early hours. Reading Festival being near the end of the festival season ran into the usual mayhem and while its easy to criticise, do people not understand? Ever since the dawn of mankind there has been craziness, especially in the youth seeking to blow apart the walls of that chrysalis of "childhood" that still appears to hold them back.
But craziness has consequences that we turn a blind eye to at the time. Perhaps at Reading Festival someone gets burned in the fires and in the morning when we find out we have to live with that regret. Indeed I live with the regret of damaging tents once, some I discovered were presents from parents. I always wondered at the Mysteries that surrounded Bacchus festivals how many children were born the following year. Was there regret at the liberated events of the evening's revelry. Although one feels that ancient Greek society had built in mechanisms for dealing with that type of thing. What did happen to the babies of Bacchus? I don't know.
Ultimately we start to realise that craziness never goes the right way, and if we survive it it is always through luck.
The only true way is actually the way of God. And fight as we might, gradually as we get wiser that 0% becomes 10% becomes 50% become 90% and onwards. The path of God only bears good fruits, unlike all other worldly paths which are very hit and miss. But to walk it takes great wisdom already.
But thankfully God is forgiving, and with repentance of our foolish unruly ways, we can even improve our standing and strength in the path.
Now this links with the blogs on Law and Custom and Esther. As we walk closer and closer with God we are going to come into conflict with the world. It will not be a path of peace, and we must be prepared to hate all those things we hold dear. And this may well bring us into conflict with the Worldly Law. Become an illegal in the name of God is a new type of craziness that many shy away from.
And that links to criticisms of The Jew. In fact I understand A Jew is the a word for anyone who obeys the Law of Moses. But a robot can do that. What it really means is someone with their heart 100% on God. And anyone can do that. Which means that when the Nazis rounded up Jews they should have been looking for people who were committed to God. What they ended up rounding up were the fake Jews, who believe they have a special standing with God by virtue of inheritance or other worldly signs that God does not care for. Do people really think that cutting your child's penis before they even know what is going on will save that child from God's wrath and vengeance? well perhaps I don't understand God but its a rather poor deity who can be won over with a bit of body mutilation. Wouldn't it be interesting if when the Last Judgement comes that Jerusalem and Israel are razed to the ground and their inhabitants sent off for a final time for eternal slavery in Hell. Like a new Sodom and Gomorrah isn't this what all the prophets said would happen anyway to the corrupt and ever more hypocritical Jerusalem.
Being 100% committed to God really demands wisdom and is not to be taken lightly, with gestures and simple "proofs" of worthiness. But if we persevere step by step always trying to keep our mind on God as best we can we can make it.
And interestingly no religion on Earth would disagree with that. That first commandment "Have no gods before Me" really is the commandment. And the meaning is that we put nothing above God. And this can even mean not to put "Yahweh" above God. We are in SRH/reference territory here.
There are many arguments over the nature of God and the name of God. All we know is that there is God (can debate that in another post, but if there is not God what is there... you will find all answers equal God). The debate is only over the name of God. Is God = "Nature"? Is God = "Science"? Is God = "Yahweh"? Is God = "Om"? Is God = "Allah"? Well the category mistake is obvious. God is God. All the things in quotes are just names. Actually religions know this and do away with representing God. I believe some Jewish texts simply write - when they refer to God as He is beyond name. And when we get to the true Noumenon the thing behind all the names and phenomena we are so beyond worldly concerns like religions and forms of the Deity. To argue about "who" is God or what God is "like" is really missing the point. We set our hearts on the indefinable, but the staircase to that indefinable comes in the many cultural forms that different societies are familiar with. Its a long journey. In the West, as a child, we may start believing in a white bearded man sitting on a throne in the clouds. But as we walk the road that image keeps changing. How much use would a religion be if the form the religion took when we were a novice remained the same through the whole journey? What would the point be? We may as well not even start the journey. The day we die we can be sure the Indefinable that we believe in then will be entirely different from our first recollections. But all the while as we changed one thing was true: we had our heart set on God. This is why God forgives. We change continually, we let our old self go like a snake sloughing off its skin (and that is the good analogy of the snake to contrast with the serpent in Eden). We repent and get ever closer to God. So those who fight over the name or God really are the Hypocrites, who care only for outward form and worldly show. That first commandment tells us to not put these false idols before God.
Now I will trip myself up. So what of the Law of Moses and circumcision then? New Testament writers like Paul say exactly what is said above, that God does not care for worldly displays of affection and allegiance. We may circumcise, we may tattoo what God really cares. The risk is that these outwordly signs may become for us God itself. "I am circumcised" therefore I am Godly we may be tricked into thinking by the Devil.
“Someone who looks for me in form
or seeks me in sound
is on a mistaken path
and cannot see the Tathagata.”
Buddha makes that very clear in the Diamond Sutra. I wonder what the Jews themselves think, but is Israel a travesty of Law of Moses. And do people in Judaism hold to tightly to ritual and custom and miss the whole point.
I pick on the Jews because they set themselves up as First Among Nations and the People of God so naturally are the example, and the ones we look to for correctness and understanding. But obviously all religions fall short here.
But it is a path. Many people enter the Buddhist temple for the first time seeing the statues and the incense and meditation postures and this for a while becomes the path. But gradually things are revealed and the form of the religion changes. Eventually we learn arriving at the nothing where the religion is indistinguishable from their life, and the Buddha indistinguishable from themselves.
In Christianity that is less clear. Does the profound follower of Christ become indistinguishable from Christ in the end. He said follow Him. One wonders at the end of the road whether we are with God.
But actually that is speculation. We will know when we get there. For now the vector is all that is important. 100% Love of God without distraction.
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