Andrew Cort's Blog, page 13

Pentecost

All across the world, Christians will celebrate Pentecost on June 8th, exactly 50 days (7 weeks) after Easter. Not all Christians recognize the holiday, but many do. Pentecost (which comes from the Greek word for ’50’) commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit to early followers of Jesus (for this reason it is often thought of as the ‘Birthday of the Church’). The name comes from an expression in Leviticus 23:16, which instructs people to count seven weeks or “fifty days” from the end of Passover to the beginning of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. This day is significant for Christians because seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus (at the time of Passover), during the celebration of Shavuot, the Book of Acts records that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the first followers: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak” (2:4). The languages were heard by thousands of pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot.

At some point, Peter stood up and preached his first sermon. He urged the crowd to turn their lives around and be baptized in the name of Jesus so that they, too, would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (2:37-39).

The Year of the Elephant

In the year 570, Yemen was ruled by an Abyssinian regent named Abrahah. Abrahah built a Christian Cathedral in the city of San’a, and he had hopes that it would replace Mecca as a center of pilgrimage. He used marble taken from the ruins of the Queen of Sheba’s palace, he built crosses of gold and silver, and the pulpit was made of ivory. All of this aroused anger in the tribes of the region, who had no intention of replacing the Ka’bah, the sanctuary that Abraham and Ishmael had built. One day, a relative of the Quraysh (the ruling tribe in Mecca) walked into the cathedral and defiled it by defecating on the floor.

Abrahah was furious when he heard this and swore he would not rest until he destroyed the Ka’bah. He set out for Mecca with a large military force that included an elephant. The Arabs had heard stories about elephants, and they were alarmed.

As Abrahah’s army marched, some Arab tribes north of San’a tried to stop him, but he chased them off and captured their leader, Nufayl. In exchange for his life, Nufayl agreed to be their guide.

When they reached the outskirts of Mecca the army stopped, and Abrahah sent out a plundering party which, among other things, stole two hundred camels that belonged to Abdul Muttalib (whose grandson, Muhammad, would be born later that same year). The leaders in Mecca held a war council, and realized it would be futile to resist the huge invading army. They could only leave the matter up to God and trust that He would protect His Ka’bah.

Meanwhile, Abrahah sent a messenger to Abdul Muttalib. The message said that Abrahah had not come to fight the people of Mecca, but only to destroy the Ka’bah. If he wished to avoid bloodshed, he should come to the Abyssinian camp.

Abdul Muttalib came, and Abrahah asked if there was anything he wanted. Abdul Muttalib replied, ‘I want you to return my camels.’ Abrahah was surprised at this request, and expressed amazement and disappointment that Abdul Muttalib cared about his camels but not about his religious sanctuary. Abdul Muttalib responded that he was the owner of the camels, but the Ka’bah had its own owner, and He would defend it. “He cannot defend it against me,” Abrahah said. “That remains to be seen,” Abdul Muttalib said. “But give me my camels.” So Abrahah gave orders for the camels to be returned.

Abdul Muttalib then returned to Mecca and advised everyone to withdraw into the nearby hills. He and his family went to the Ka’bah and prayed. Then they joined the others in the hills at places where they could watch the events in the valley.

In the morning, Abrahah brought his army, led by the elephant, to the border of Mecca. But Nufayl, their reluctant guide, had spent his time studying the words of command that the elephant’s trainer used. As everyone faced Abrahah, waiting for the command to advance, Nufayl whispered into the elephant’s ear the command to kneel.

To everyone’s dismay, the elephant knelt before Mecca. The trainer gave him new orders, but God had made Nufayl’s command imperative. They tried prodding and beating him, but he would not get up. He would not move, until the army turned about and began walking back toward Yemen. He then arose and walked away with them.

Abrahah then ordered everyone to turn back toward Mecca, but the elephant just knelt again. Then a great noise was heard and a wave of darkness came up from the sea and blackened the sky. God had sent a great flock of birds, all of them carrying stones in their talons and beaks. They swept over the troops and pelted them with the stones, which fell with such force that they tore through armor and killed many men instantly. The army fled in terror. Nufayl managed to slip away into the hills, and the elephant and his trainer were spared. Abrahah himself was severely wounded. They managed to get him back to San’a where he died a horrible death.

After that day, the Arabs began to call Abdul Muttalib’s tribe (i.e., the Quraysh), “The People of God”, for God had answered their prayers and fought at their side against the enemy.

***

To hear more stories from our spiritual and religious Traditions, and to explore their hidden inner meaning, you will want to read SYMBOLS, MEANING, AND THE SACRED QUEST: Spiritual Awakening in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Stories

VISIT TO A TIBETAN MONASTERY

Recently I visited a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Woodstock, “Karma Triyana Dharmachakra” (KTD), for part of their celebration of the Tibetan New Year (“Losar”). I had to be in Poughkeepsie in the morning and missed the 6 AM “Green Tara Puja “to pray for the world, asking that all outer and inner obstacles are pacified and that wealth and happiness increase”, but was able to attend a luncheon (which included some Tibetan music), followed by a Movie (“Bodhisattva – The Journey of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa”), and then spent some time in the Shrine Room.

The spiritual head of the monastery is His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. (The movie was about a trip he took to America). I had always thought that the Dalai Lama was the spiritual leader of all Tibetan Buddhists, but I learned today that there are four Tibetan Buddhist ‘sects’, each headed by a different spiritual figure. The Dalai Lama is only one of the four. He is perhaps the most well-known, because he is also the political head of Tibet.

The movie was about the “Gyalwa Karmapa” who is the head of this particular group, the Karma Kagyu lineage. It was quite interesting (I know very little about Tibetan Buddhism, or Buddhism at all). He is the 17th reincarnation of the Karmapa, and is only in his twenties. Each Karmapa is the reincarnation of the original Karmapa, Dusun Khyenpa, who lived from 1110 – 1193. According to tradition, this “Karma Kagyu” lineage of Tibetan Buddhism traces back to the Buddha, through Naropa, Milarepa, who taught Gampopa, who in turn was the teacher of Dusun Khyenpa.

The 16th Karmapa also came to America, and it was he who began the monastery in Woodstock. The 16th Karmapa, as all Karmapas have done, left a letter behind when he passed away that described where and when he would reappear, and even the names of his future parents. The 17th Karmapa was found precisely as the letter described. There are films of his childhood, and there are films of his predecessor. A most amazing part of the movie, was watching the young child (the 17th Karmapa) viewing “himself” in a previous life – i.e., watching film clips of the 16th. As the narrator mentioned, this is quite likely the first time this has ever happened.

Some of the highlights of the movie were learning that the Karmapa is considered an “embodiment of the activities of the Buddha”, that he considers his role to be an exemplar of love and compassion for all peoples everywhere, that he has learned to feel very little difference between himself and the world (i.e., ‘non-duality’) and strives to help others achieve this same internal realization. He was asked in one scene whether it is necessary for his followers to maintain strict adherence to Tibetan Buddhist forms here in his very different country of America. First, he joked that when he next visits he might sing some rock-and-roll. More seriously, he then said that Buddhism has gone through many transformations in different lands over the centuries, that all of this was to the good, and there is no reason why a form of American Buddhism shouldn’t develop over time.

After the movie, I went to see the Shrine. What mostly struck me was the bright colors (nothing somber about this place!), the beautiful intricate patterns in the artwork, and the enormous golden statue of the Buddha. I also saw that in front of the Buddha’s statue there were piles and piles of fruits, vegetables, breads and candies. This, too, was colorful and beautiful, and not like anything I’ve seen in other places of worship. Perhaps ‘worship’ is the wrong word. The Dalai Lama once remarked that Buddhism is “not a religion”, in the sense that Buddhism, unlike western religions, does not posit and worship a supreme deity. Nonetheless, there was clearly a feeling of being in a very sacred space.

EMERSON: “TRUST THYSELF”

At some point in our lives, most people come to the realization that envy is a worthless, foolish emotion. Living our lives in envy or imitation of someone else means that we have effectively given up our own life – Emerson calls this psychological suicide. For better or worse, one has only oneself. This is often thought of as a dreary realization, but what it actually tells us is that we are, each one of us, utterly unique. We each have the power, and the sole power, to sculpt our own life. “The power which resides in him is new in nature,” Emerson wrote, “and none but he knows what that is which he can do.” Nor does he himself know “until he has tried.”

When we forget this, when the influences of contemporary culture and education destroy the awareness of our individual uniqueness, we become “ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents,” and through a kind of spiritual cowardice we shrink from living up to our own deepest truths and aspirations. We feel strong and fulfilled when we really put our heart into something that is important to us and we do our best, but most of the time that is not how we live: instead, we belittle ourselves, and our lives become constricted, boring and empty.

Socrates said, “Know thyself.” Emerson added, “Trust thyself.” Accept what is best and highest within oneself and go forward to meet one’s destiny head-on, rather than fleeing from the difficulties of life.

But if we “trust ourselves”, what is it that is being trusted? What do these words actually mean? What is the nature of this ‘self’ on which our trust is supposed to rely?

It is an inner living ‘something’ that says “I Am”. It is the primary existential instinct that arises deep within our consciousness. We share this inner ‘something’ with all of life – it is the same source from which everything proceeds. “We first share the life by which things exist,” Emerson states, “and [only] afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause.” This shared living essence, he says, this elemental place within us that is One with all existence is the “fountain of action and of thought.” This is the source of human genius, the ground of spontaneous intuition, the root of inspiration. “In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin.” It is this that we must learn to trust.

But it needs to be fully understood that this is not our ‘ego’, it is not our ‘personality’ or our ordinary sense of self. It is something much more.

***

This article is an excerpt from my upcoming new book, THE BEAUTY AND NOBILITY OF LIFE: The Restoration of Meaning in a World Overwhelmed by Commercialism, Scientism, and Fundamentalism. You can receive a Free Preview Copy of Chapter One (“What Went Wrong?”) when you join my mailing list.

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A FREE GIFT for YouA Preview Chapter from my Upcoming Book:THE BEAUTY ANDNOBILITY OF LIFE THE RESTORATION OF MEANING IN A WORLD OVERWHELMED BY COMMERCIALISM, SCIENTISM, AND FUNDAMENTALISM


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Charles Fillmore and Spiritual Vegetarianism

[For over forty years, from the late nineteenth century into the 1930's, Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity School of Christianity, wrote passionately about the physical, mental, social, and spiritual harmfulness of eating animal foods, and the necessity of a plant-based diet for anyone serious about developing spiritual maturity and contributing to world peace. He and his wife Myrtle, the other cofounder of Unity, were conscientious vegetarians and encouraged their students to be so. Charles's writings on this subject have been rather neglected, but in the hope that they may be of benefit to sincere spiritual aspirants, a small sampling of them is reproduced here following. They are excerpted from the original sources which are in the library at Unity Village in Missouri.]

“Every animal will fight for its life. What then can be the mental condition of the animal that has been cruelly forced into contracted pens and cars, and finally deprived of its body amid the most terrifying surroundings? Can it be otherwise than that its entire consciousness is permeated by violent vibrations of terror that act and react upon all planes of animal life with which they come into contact. You think that you eat a material thing called meat, but the fact is there is no such thing in reality. The flesh may seem to your outer sense to be a dead, inert mass, but, could your soul eye be opened, you would behold mental currents pervading its every atom, acting and reacting upon each other in a wild, bewildered manner, like the animal of whose body it formed a part. You are taking into your temple elements that will unsettle it, elements that you will have difficulty in harmonizing.”

– “Flesh-Eating Metaphysically”

“We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food. The lust for blood has permeated the race and the destruction of life will continue to repeat its psychology, the world round, until men willingly observe the law in all phases of life, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

- “The Vegetarian”

(Quotations compiled by Dr. Will Tuttle/ Read the full series here: www.compassionatespirit.com)

And please have a look at my new book EAT HEALTHY: Live Longer, Love Kinder

Shavuot: The Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot (also called the “Festival of Weeks” because it comes precisely seven weeks after Passover) commemorates God’s gift of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai after the Exodus from slavery. This year, the holiday begins tomorrow night, the eve of June 3rd. It is customary to decorate synagogues and homes with flowers, to light candles, to enjoy a holiday meal, and then to stay awake all night and study the Torah. During the day, the section of the Torah that includes the Ten Commandments is read in the synagogue.

The Story:

As Moses, Joshua, Aaron, Hur, and the Elders looked upward to Heaven, they saw the Lord’s feet as He descended down to the mountaintop. God then told Moses, the awakened Mind, to come to Him, and said, “I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments which I have inscribed to instruct them.” Moses ascended into the cloud on the summit of Sinai, and remained there with the Lord, studying the Torah for forty days and forty nights. Thus did God and Israel unite, a symbol of the Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth – a huge step on the path of the soul’s Initiation.

According to Jewish folklore, when Moses first stepped into the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai, he was confronted by the angel Kemuel, known as the ‘gatekeeper’. Kemuel (the Guardian of the Threshold between Earth and Heaven), tried to prevent Moses from passing, claiming he did not belong there. Moses explained that he was there with God’s permission to receive the Torah, but Kemuel still did not want to let him pass, so Moses had to strike him down. (Thus did Moses open the door of the Threshold, so that all could follow.) Next, he met the angel Hadarniel, who, with his fellow angels (the Planets), angrily demanded to know what he was doing there. Moses cried out in fear and almost fell back into the cloud, but God heard him and became angry with Hadarniel, for Hadarniel had been very quarrelsome ever since Adam was created! When Hadarniel learned that Moses was there with God’s permission, he begged pardon, and even offered to escort Moses. He took him as far as the next great angel, Sandalfon, but he could not go further lest Sandalfon’s flame scorch him. Sandalfon (the Sun), who binds human prayers into garlands for God’s crown, is so large that it would take a human being 500 years to cross over him. Again Moses was frightened, but again the Lord came to him, and stood with him until he had safely passed the flames. After Sandalfon, Moses came to the stream of fire, Rigyon. (The river is the Upper Threshold between Heaven and the ‘Heaven Above Heaven’.) It is said that every morning the angels dip in the river, are purified, and arise anew. God came again, and by His Grace Moses passed the river without injury. Moses was then in the realm of pure Being. There he met the angel Raziel, whose job is to reveal the secrets of his Master, to make known to the world what is decreed by God. He stands before God, where he sees and hears everything. Moses trembled when he beheld Raziel, but God helped him pass unhurt. Moses then came to the Angels of Terror who surround the Throne of Glory, the strongest and mightiest of the angels. They questioned Moses about his mission, but God told him to hold tightly to His Throne and answer their charges. In the end, they acknowledged that it was right for mankind to receive the Torah. Moses stayed forty days and learned the Torah from God Himself, before bringing it down the mountain.

The Biblical rendition tells us that before leaving, God tells Moses to have the people “build Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” This is the Tabernacle, a Temple, which also symbolizes the internal Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth: it is a structure made from elements of Earth, but where God may descend from Heaven to dwell among us. The Tablets will be kept there, and the Tabernacle will serve as a dwelling place for the Shechinah, the Feminine ‘Presence’ of God in the world.

A Wee Bit About Atheism and Religion

I’ve often said that if atheism’s description of religion was actually all that religion is, I’d be the first atheist in line.

“Atheism is a necessary protest against the wickedness of the Churches and the narrowness of creeds. God uses it as a stone to smash these soiled card-houses.”

“How much hatred and stupidity men succeed in packing up decorously and labeling ‘Religion’!”

from Thoughts and Aphorisms by Sri Aurobindo

We are held in thrall by the things of this world, our attention dispersed into the world around us, and thus we turn religion into the superficial and formalistic worship of external objects and historical events, coupled with contempt for anyone who sees things a little differently. As our focus becomes more and more external, the lower rational mind gains strength and becomes more and more affronted by the irrationality of spiritual and religious claims. This is when the champions of atheism become increasingly vocal and adamant – not without cause!

WE HAVE IT ALL WRONG. WOMEN SAVE US FROM “THE FALL”

After the famous incident at the Burning Bush, when God told Moses to return to Egypt and free his people, he took his wife Zipporah and their two sons and began the journey. A very strange thing that no one ever mentions then occurred that very first night:

At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ legs with it, saying, “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!” And when God let him alone, she added “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.” (Exod.4.24-26)

(Bet you didn’t know that was there!)

A commentary in the Talmud suggests that it was not God Himself who tried to kill Moses in this startling story, but two Angels of Punishment and Destruction that He sent, who came disguised as snakes. They took Moses and swallowed his whole body down to his feet, and only gave him up after Zipporah circumcised her son and touched Moses’ feet with the blood.

Here is the customary interpretation: Moses had circumcised one of his sons, but not the other. This was because he was honoring an agreement he had made with his uncircumcised father-in-law, Jethro: Moses had consented to circumcise one child as an Israelite, while the other would remain an uncircumcised Egyptian. But now Moses had passed beyond the level of Jethro, and this ‘agreement’ was not acceptable to the Lord.

Others say that God belatedly wished to punish Moses for slaying the Egyptian taskmaster, or that God was still resentful at all the objections Moses had raised at the Burning Bush.

But none of these interpretations have a satisfactory ring to them when compared to the extraordinary bloodiness and eeriness of the story. I believe there is more.

God’s attempt to kill Moses means that something in Moses, which symbolizes something in the Initiate, has to ‘die’ and be ‘reborn’.

The Talmud adds that there were snakes involved. Snakes, or serpents, symbolize many things, including ‘rebirth’.

‘The Serpent’ has been imbued with meaning throughout the world’s mythology and scripture. It has been the symbol of wisdom and the symbol of evil, the symbol of God and the symbol of sin. Because of its ability to shed its skin, the serpent is a symbol of rebirth and resurrection and, hence, a symbol of Christ. Corresponding to this association with birth and rebirth, it has been the symbol of sexuality and the symbol of healing. It has referred to the world of the senses and the world of the spirit. It rises to the heavens as a phallic symbol, an emblem of power, potency and enlightenment. It encircles reality and swallows itself, indicating wholeness and completeness and Oneness. It dives into the earth, eating dust and signifying death.

Here, two vicious serpents try to ‘swallow’ Moses, trying thereby to bring him back down from his initiatory ascent to the realm of earth and mortality.

Initiation requires a profound inner change – a death and a rebirth. So God comes to kill him! It is Zipporah, the sacred inner Feminine, who must protect him and allow the new birth. So Zipporah performs the circumcision and he is ‘reborn’ by being disgorged by the serpents.

According to Jewish tradition, when a boy is first born he is a child of Adam. Only after circumcision, when the foreskin is cut away and discarded like the skin of a serpent, does he become a child of Abraham, and thus a participant in God’s covenant. In other words, circumcision symbolizes a death and rebirth – a child of Adam dies and is reborn as an Israelite. Later, in Deuteronomy, God will speak of the ‘circumcision of the heart’, and we can see that this symbolism of rebirth refers on a deeper level to the cutting away of the stubborn emotional shell that covers the divine spirit within us and separates us from God. This is the higher meaning of the covenant, the real rebirth that is required.

It is said in the Kabbalah that circumcision is the way to Heaven, which signifies that spiritual death and rebirth is the way to Heaven. We have to acknowledge the problem of this Biblical symbolism: literal physical circumcision only relates to males. One explanation for this is that females offer a similar blood sacrifice every month, without any need for an act such as circumcision, giving them a natural and exquisite comprehension of these things which men can only seek to obtain through the performance of imitative rituals. A further explanation is that all the scriptural lessons for ‘men’ and all the scriptural lessons for ‘women’ are really directed at the male and female aspects that exist inside each one of us regardless of gender: Moses and Zipporah represent two poles of the soul within each of us, and their story takes place within the psyche of both men and women. During the process of spiritual rebirth, this inner act of sacrifice must always be played out. The need to be reborn by ‘cutting away the emotional shell that separates us from God’ relates to all of us.

The symbolism of this story is magnificent in its symmetry. Consider the implications! The Mind and the Heart, represented by Adam and Eve in the story of the soul’s descent, are now represented by Moses and Zipporah in the story of the soul’s ascent back to the ‘Promised Land’ (ie., ‘enlightenment’). Once again, a Serpent, representing the Body, tries to draw the Mind down, which would again invert the soul. This time, however, the woman realizes the appropriate internal relationship, and acknowledges that the Mind, not the Body, is the Heart’s true “bridegroom”. Thus it is that on the return journey to Enlightenment, the Bible teaches that the Feminine saves the soul from a ‘Fall’!

If we are going to blame Woman for the ‘Fall’ in Eden, it’s time we gave her full credit for saving the soul from a ‘Fall’ here in Midian.

FULFILLING SCRIPTURE?

The Hebrew Bible is not a prophecy about the coming of Jesus, nor is it discussing or predicting anything at all about his life. For example, Isaiah prophesizes that a region of the Jewish state would one day be delivered from the tyranny of Assyria, and Matthew adopts Isaiah’s words as if they were a prophecy about Christ’s arrival in Caperneum many centuries later. That is not in any way what Isaiah was talking about. There is certainly nothing wrong with using the words of Isaiah, and other prophets, to help elaborate and explain the meaning and intent of the Gospel story. On the other hand, it is quite another thing to pretend that Matthew’s habit of doing so somehow proves that the Hebrew Bible was ‘really’ about Jesus. The author of Matthew was Jewish, and he was writing his story for Jews — most of whom had not joined his Christian sect. The purpose behind his transformations of Biblical statements was twofold: (1) partly it was a brilliant and useful literary device that helped shed added light on many of his statements; (2) it was also an attempt to appeal to his fellow Jews, so they would take him seriously and join his group, by linking Christ’s story with familiar scriptural quotes that he hoped would make his listeners comfortable. But in no case should this be taken literally. That is enormously disrespectful to Judaism, and frankly, in my opinion, extremely silly.

The Hebrews presented the perennial Wisdom Teaching in a myth about their ancestors that covered hundreds of years. The Greeks told the story through the adventures of fanciful gods and goddesses. What Christ and his disciples did was to perform the entire story, the entire initiation rite, the entire “Mystery Play”, on the stage of world history where everyone could watch it and participate. This was something new – Jesus decided that it was time for the sacred wisdom that had always been scrupulously concealed and preserved in “the Mysteries” to flow directly into history, to become the possession of all humanity. His great message for us was, “I did it, now you do it.” Since he was demonstrating the seven stages of initiation that were symbolically described already in the Hebrew Bible, this is what he actually meant when he said he was “fulfilling the scriptures” – it doesn’t mean that the Hebrew Bible is ‘really’ some sort of weird fortune-telling device!

On Memorial Day

“Valor, glory, firmness, skill, generosity, steadiness in battle and ability to rule – these constitute the duty of a soldier. They flow from his own nature.”

-Bhagavad Gita