"Missing the Mark" is Right on Target
The other day, my radio passed by a Christian station and the guy on air said "We're ALL prone to sin!" to which I smiled and shouted out loud "Of course we are!" See, the man was saying that we are are inclined to sin, but it shouldn't be that way. This is why it made me smile.
Take time to seriously consider what your life - what this life - would be like if everything was good, right, and perfect. There would be no surprise, no drama, no excitement, no horror, no ecstacy, no trajedy, no mistakes, no sucesses, no failures, no life. A complete being is comprised of light and darkness - how could it be any other way?
Of course, intentionally causing suffering to others through our "darkness" is a rather elementary way to live and has never been considered a "good thing." But there is certainly no need to look down on ourselves for our blemishes, dark places, failures, and times that we "miss the mark" (sin) - that is precisely what makes life LIFE!
Afterall, as Ken Wilber puts it: "The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate— each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are...not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other."
Category:
christianity,
general spirituality
Posts
10 comments:
I was just reading Watts on this exact subject (in his book on Taoism). He points out that if you take a magnet with a positive charge on one end and a negative one on the other (or whatever; my knowledge of magnets is, um, limited), and cut off the negative end, the new end that you've created will take on the negative charge. So with us: if we could get rid of everything that we consider "bad" right now, we would just start to identify new things as "bad."
Good and evil, yin and yang, dark and light--each implies the existence of the other!
But it's not about good or evil. Those are just labels. As you state, "It's about missing the mark of human existence." A lot of suffering is not necessary - getting angry with someone for cutting you off or driving too slow. Maybe Universal Consciousness wants you to slow down and enjoy the ride and is doing that through another human being. It's about empathy. It's about Love and being kinder and sharing a moment or a look or your bread with another human being. It's saying, "I love you" to someone you care about, and enjoying their presence now. Sooner or later they will be gone, or you will be, so was it necessary to get upset when they did something minor to irritate you? Big things start with little things. So much drama is bluster and useless waste of breath. No one wants to share one's pain, but we do in the form of anger, hate and other emotions all the time. The mark of human existence is an end to psychological pain and suffering. It's like Richard Pryor said, " Life is tough enough without adding the race card to the equation." That's where empathy comes in.
This is why I enjoy and respect the teachings of Taoism so much. I have pocket addition of the Tao Te Ching that I try to bring with me whenever I can.
"A complete being is comprised of light and darkness - how could it be any other way?"
A friend of mine from Unity is studying with Brough Joy and she has been telling me about understanding the 'shadow self'...how it's so important to being able to embrace the whole Self.
There must be an opposite to realize fullness... Yes, "how could it be any other way?"
Great post Trev- embrace everything, every part, every aspect...it's what we are comprised of!
Thanks everyone, for your thoughts! All good stuff.
One note - John, I hear you, totally - it's just that when you DO lash out, when you DO experience negativity - what I am saying is that (at least at that moment) it's OK - it makes you a complete human. Otherwise you get down on yourself (which interestingly enough, is more negativity). But I hear ya. :)
Trev,
If your little girl does something to irritate you after you've had a terrible day and you lash out at her, is that OK in the moment? That's teaching her not to ever bother Daddy when he's in a bad mood, whenever that is. It's also teaching her that lashing out at others when one is in a bad mood is OK. I'm in pain, I'll give you some of it. And around and around it goes. Bad karma circling around, reinforcing itself. Or, if you read the Greek tragedies, Agamemnon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia), cycles of bloodshed between families. We will still be those creatures of negative and positive, they color the World as you say, but just don't share the pain if you don't have to or hold onto it.
Maybe that's what you mean by letting it out in the moment. Kind of like Tolle's two ducks story where the ducks get angry with one another and then forget about the incident. Can one be insightfully "angry" or will anger as we know it cease to exist? The Buddhists seem to think anger is completely delusional. What about some of the other dark traits like possessiveness? If one is without ego, is there anything to hold onto other than One's Life, and maybe not even that? I don't have the answers, just questions.
Trev,
Right on. Thanks for the post.
Great thoughts. I will occasionally scan my radio and here some bizarre spins
on spirituality coming across the airwaves. Man, I am not sure how folks have taken the story of Jesus and twisted into the very thing that he opposed in relgion.
No answers here, either, John - just questions and assumptions.
"We will still be those creatures of negative and positive, they color the World as you say, but just don't share the pain if you don't have to or hold onto it."
That's basically what I am saying, yes. But like you, I am still wrestling with this.
No answers, for sure - but the journey of uncovering truth is a fun one! :) Thanks for being a part of it.
If everything were perfect, we wouldn't know as there would be nothing to contrast it against.
An idea that's been visiting my head again recently is one from my childhood:
Heaven must be boring. If God wasn't bored with it, why the Universe?
Post a Comment