Skip to main content

The Impossible Yearning

“Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”

Sri Ramakrishna


I am comforted and encouraged by the first part of Sri Ramakrishna’s statement. My path, which to me doesn’t seem that unique or strange now, is certainly outside the bounds of what was acceptable in the religious context in which I grew up, and may perhaps still seem strange to many who profess faith in Christianity, particularly in this part of the country. I am continually grateful to have the loving words of great masters like Ramakrishna, Swami Ramdas and my own teacher, Eknath Easwaran, to remind me that there are indeed many paths to God. What is less comforting is the second part of the statement, that one must “sincerely and ardently” desire union with God in order to reach the goal. Despite my strong and increasing commitment to spiritual practice and inner growth, I confess I still lack the deep and all-encompassing yearning for complete liberation. It’s too frightening a prospect to my ego. And it should be. Total liberation, according to the teachers mentioned above (and many, many others) means simply and precisely the death of the ego.

How can I wish the death of that with which I am still so strongly identified? I can’t. I must have God’s grace and mercy for such an impossible task.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casual Holiness

About a year ago I was on my way into a church to attend a meeting. As I approached the door I passed a woman sitting on a red, overturned milk crate near the door. She had dark hair, and she was leaning forward, her bottom coming off the crate, her hands reaching just off the edge of the sidewalk and toward the asphalt of the parking lot. She appeared to be slowly falling forward, tumbling off the crate in slow motion. I had stopped to hold the door for a man who was entering the church just behind me, and as I watched, he approached the woman on the crate. "Here's two of them," he said, handing down a carton of Marlboro Light 100s. "Have a good day." I realized then what the man with the Marlboros must have recognized immediately: the woman had no doubt been reaching for a discarded cigarette butt that someone had tossed down on their way into the church. I felt awed by the man's simple act of compassion. Without the slightest trace of judgement or distast...
2 comments
Read more

A Sabbath Day

I am thinking of the mulberries we picked today,           nearly black knobby fruits,           their juice spilling so easily from thin skins. I held a branch down while you picked them double-fisted,           dropping them into the empty bottle where they crashed,           spurting tiny jets of juice. The girls ate them by the handful,           stuffing the dark sweet berries into their small mouths,           purple smears like bruises blooming on their hands, legs, cheeks. We had hoped for ice cream but were foiled,           and returning from that failed trip           we found the trees, dangling their fruit in offering. We ate, and it was good. It was very good.
1 comment
Read more

A Living Body of Poetry

Reading and listening to the news makes the Psalms come to life. Children threatened with separation from their families, international tensions, indigenous people displaced from their homeland. Even in this too-brief sampling of common headline topics a person can find plenty of reason, as the psalmist did in his own context, to shake a fist at heaven, tear one's garments, beg for mercy and cry out for justice. When I am caught up in my own mostly comfortable life, the Psalms are hard to reach, both their anguish and their ecstasy remote from my daily grind. As soon as I graze the surface of human suffering, however, the words of the Psalter become vivid, potent, a living body of poetry pulsing with human feeling and desire. Here is at least one good reason to read both the news and the Psalms: to remember that I am part of the human family, which is also to remember my responsibility for the welfare of that family.
Post a Comment
Read more