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Then There Is (A Mountain)
by Rabbi James Stone Goodman
In the darkness of the soul, there is only self. The door that closes
on possibility is the door marked me. It's me, of course, the door of
self. This is the oldest wisdom known to religion. Religion knows that the
way to Other is through, that is beyond, self. The paradox of religious
wisdom has to do with the relation of service and self awareness. Remember
the Buddhist proverb: first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain,
then there is. It is the journey into self, through self, back to self, to
return to the place from which we began, paraphrasing Eliot, and to know it
as if for the first time.
The spiritual teacher Ram Dass appeared in town recently. On the radio, he
was interviewed about his life, his teachings, and his foundation
which promotes service projects all over the world. The interviewer was
ready to sign off when Ram Dass interrupted him, "you haven't asked me the
one crucial question," he said. "What's that?" said the interviewer
rather incredulously. "The question my life asks is that after thirty years
of devotion to the inner work, how is it that I now give myself to service?
How is it that someone so devoted to the inner path comes to this place
where the focus is outer -- the world, the community, the planet, the
environment -- service?" "What's the answer?" asked the interviewer. "The
answer is that this is the culmination of the inner work. The inner work is
preparation for the work of the world -- the repair of the world, this is
what we have been moving towards."
When I learn a piece of music, I play it over and over, in the most self
conscious way imaginable. Every movement, every nuance of angle, attack
-- it is a most pedestrian activity. Repetitive, radically self conscious.
The goal of such radical self consciousness is that one day the music, as
it were, plays itself, and I am gone. The music plays itself. That is the
goal of radical self consciousness, that the music plays itself; I am gone.
How did I get gone? Through radical self consciousness, a kind of training
for the self to dispense of self, training for the time when self recedes
and the purity of the action only remains. The purity of the action only.
First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a
mountain. The purity of action only remains.
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in
all our affairs." Step Twelve is the culmination of the system because only
the radical self consciousness of the first eleven steps frees one of self
in order to practice these principles in all our affairs. The purity of
action that arises because you are a vessel, a fountain, and the goodness
that moves through you spills into the world. This is how it works. It is
not about you at all, on the contrary, it is about the absence of you.
Not-you. This is called humility.
Want to know the single greatest hindrance to recovery? You. Self. Me. The
burden of self. Most of us are so stuck on who we are that we never come to
the holy place of purity, service, like a vessel, like a fountain. The music
as it plays itself. You have to practice a radical self consciousness
without which there is no hope for transcendence. The door of self remains
closed until we roll up our sleeves and get to work. The dirt-work, the
radical self consciousness, the pedestrian lessons we may have missed along
the way, the dirt-work. The steps teach us. The group teaches us. The
stories teach us. You have to do recovery with radical self consciousness,
like a newborn, tentatively feeling your way through the most basic of human
behaviors. Rather, recovery does you this way. Learning to talk, to walk,
learning honesty, risking vulnerability, learning the basics, and finally
humility. The humility of knowing your place. The humility of
being a vessel.
We come to learn the paradox that the less (self) we are, the more we are.
The less I am me, the more I am. The more I am a vessel, a fountain,
a servant, the greater I am. The lesser I am, the greater I am. You
come there not by being nothing, but by being something, then being nothing.
To be nothing without being something is devastating, but to be nothing
after having been something is freedom. First there is a mountain, then
there is no mountain, then there is a mountain. There is me, I have come
here through a radical self consciousness, now there is not me, there is
only a vessel for something greater, which is the real me. The spiritual
reality of this journey is documented everywhere in the world's great
religions.
There is no room for God in a person too full of self. Self, you, me, is the
great concealer. Everywhere around us the lesson is taught. Not-you. The
world story is a great story. A powerful story. A deep story. You are the
story; but the story is not you. It is so much bigger than you. The greatest
self delusion we live by is that we sit at the center of the universe. Here
at the center we have certain specific expectations how the world, God,
nature, should behave around us. Reality does not often respond to our
expectations of it. Something has to move: the world, God, self, me, you --
who/what is going to move?
Guess.
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