We are all suns

From my other private blog"Clocks".......30 August /2013


1958.... 

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.” I think at heart Merton was more of a Buddhist than a Catholic--even by revelation of this epiphany.

Since I have emerge myself into Merton -I have come to a number of conclusions. We are all flawed human beings, non of us are extraordinarily special , but it is how we navigate our lives. Now the question for me--is there or is this simply the need of our human intellect to believe that there is more; has to be more to this human creation. I think I am past this to some degree, as I do believe there is more as I have personally have had validation for myself from--"God".

Thinking and reading more and more of Merton, I have concluded that he truly was a "man of all seasons"--a citizen of the world. He may have called himself a Catholic, but only in name only, for he wasn`t really--, though I hardly believe he thought so, as he just was a true light to follow under whatever religion he called  himself  --with all his imperfections,  flaws of being human in every way. As the Dalai Lama said of him: Merton was the only true awakened  Christian that he knew or had ever met .

But then came all the struggles as we all have with our humanity--one thing that I find odd in loving God is the notion that --one can love God only full heartedly --so says  "the cloistered" ; all of body, soul, spirit and all else has to be excluded, left behind and abandoned . Why? If God is all of existence, love--then surely all that exists is God, and loving those parts--all parts  of God brings us even closer into the relationship with God--or rather in that which we are present in , or abiding in-is God.

Why then the guilt, the torment, the betrayal and the "less than total love " feeling  for God when some other things that touches the human spirit`s surface? Even Buddha gave up asceticism, and embraced compassion and in some sense his humanity- his Buddha nature- awakened.

Merton`s  commitment to God, to Gethsemani, to writing, to peace, to human justice, to changing the world, to peace and in the end falling in love-- loving  a woman so passionately that it would in fact would have and did  propel him further into the heart of God--seemed to be a mortal sin in a sense , not to him but to the establishment. All of these things --that seemed to be so worldly, especially love would have made him more productive in achieving his vision, his mission and the requests from God--yet it ate away at him and his conscience was torn. So why the torment, the pain and the feeling of dishonesty towards God.

He was a renegade, a revolutionary, a poet, writer, theologian, philosopher, a deep thinker, a lover of love and above all totally dedicated to his heart`s cause, his mission--but above all loving God in the most deepest possible way, who was the conductor of his mission.

He tried bringing the world, the planet and many if not most religious institutions onto a platform of equality--and understanding and  forging peace, understanding and strengthening the commonality between faiths--acknowledging that there is only one God-no matter what the name is. His heart and mind was tied in close with Buddhism and that was a major problem --as well as many of the eastern religions and that did not lie well with the Catholic hierarchy. His enemies grew  by leaps and bounds.

Yet--he was a souls ever searching and ever pushing the boundaries, the limits of the present acceptance of the church at the time.  Thus--he became not a splinter but a huge beam in the eyes of the elites of the Catholic church.

Yes--and as such men of his time who for their ideals, beliefs and passion were assassinated , so was he.  This is my very strong personal view--and for many.  They killed him. I wonder if he knew at the end of the morning conference in Bangkok?--as he ended with the words:"And now I shall disappear". Was it a premonition , a warning from his higher self or an actual knowledge that he was going to be killed--and he offered up his life, as I am sure he thought it was what God wanted him to do, or planned for him--Sadly, I doubt that it was that really what God wanted--more so that some either at the CIA, FBI Vatican or even at Gethsemani that saw him as an enormous political threat--being a Marxist, renegade dangerous Catholic or a bad example for the Trappist order.

Thus God commanded him years before : "Thous shall be silent"--thus he was on the 10th of December 1968 finally. Though his works are even more popular today than they ever were--and his influence is ever increasing in the 21st century. So--was he really silenced at all? Often it is said that "people of influence" often  become even more popular once they have left the earthly realm--thus is with Thomas Merton.

I would presume that this a  fate that awaits a Zen Catholic Monk, that steps out of the Catholic circle and starts to think independently-- and especially ones that break all the rules that are often man made, I wonder what God thinks?

Now --the point of all this as this seem to be my sort of a journal, is not at all  about Merton at all-, but about life. Of personal conviction, spiritual growth and that no matter how we look at life, the universe or God-we are individual and individual sparks  of divine energy.

At times I am lost, at times I am totally found , thus this is our humanity. As most of us--we go back and forth because we question, question and question some more,  and at times we do not get the answers we expect.

So --as to why I brought Merton into the picture--and absolutely it was not about him at all in a deeper sense, only because he seems to me to embody all that is human within us--not religion, but God. He brings us to that which we already know deep within at time fail to realize--, he reminds us we are human,  we are fragile, vulnerable  and we are a part of God, but most of that all we are within the heart of God.

Holiness is being a compassionate human being--love for all that is living, all that is within the creation of God. Believe me this has had nothing in  anything really to do about Merton--but the way I see life, our humanity, us and God--which he so well expressed and brought to the world. And we should always only 'do only that which is good'--so says the motto of ULC .

Yes- we are all suns .