Dead Set on Living

by Chris Grosso

  That resonated as something that’s always been important to me—staying in touch with my youthful spirit. I often joke that I’m an eleventeen-year-old and that I don’t ever want to lose touch with that playful side. I also appreciated how Mona talked about finding and experiencing God in nature. There are people who get so caught up in the transcendental and mystic experiences, which can be very important and valuable, but they miss the experience of God in nature or nature in general because they believe it’s all an illusion, so what’s the point? I’m with Mona—I see God in all things. Like Buddhism teaches, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Or, in the context of God, while God on the ultimate level has no ascertainable qualities, (s)he animates and imbues all things that take form. So form and emptiness, God and life, are one and the same.

  Mona heard where I was coming from. “Nothing is devoid of God. Even if you want to just look at it in terms of God as the creator or imaginer of all. Any time we say that something is devoid of God, that’s a separation, and it’s breaking the magic, it’s breaking the sacredness of the world as a whole—this whole universe, the seen and the unseen.”

  What Mona said is exactly why I titled my second book Everything Mind. It’s all a part of it, so I appreciated what she was saying. Obviously, God can be a very loaded word for some people, and I wanted to talk to her about this through the perspective of Islam. I’m not going to pretend I’m any kind of expert on Islam, and the little bit I know is that in Arabic the root word for Islam means surrender, and from this root word you can also derive the word “peace.” So Islam means the peace that is experienced when one’s life is surrendered to God. It seemed like a good place to start.

  Mona told me that was the Sunday-school definition of Islam. When she leads retreats with kids, she teaches them that Islam means peace. “It’s a nice sound bite: Islam means peace. The word Islam comes from the root word for peace, which is salaam. It’s how we greet each other: ‘Peace be upon you.’ The root word for salaam is safety, because when you’re at peace, you’re in safety. When you surrender, you’re also in safety. One of my dear teachers says, and I believe it is a quote from the prophet Muhammad himself, that when a human being surrenders themselves to the Earth, to the universe, and to God, then the universe will surrender itself for that person, but when that person is working toward something and doing and toiling and has not submitted themselves, then the universe will go out of its way to trip that person up and create roadblocks. If you’ve surrendered, the universe will be in service to you.”

  I’ve experienced this firsthand on a number of occasions, especially when coming back from a relapse. When I’ve finally been beaten down into submission and have no more fight left in me, all that’s left is surrender, and it’s from this place of letting go and allowing guidance from that which is greater than me (whether one calls it a higher power or simply the help of friends or a support group) that things do begin to come into alignment and fall into place. Piece by piece, I regain mental clarity, and then the physical healing occurs, all while the spiritual elements are being reconciled in their own ways (sometimes it’s prayer, sometimes it’s mantra, sometimes it’s meditation, sometimes it’s silence in nature, and so on). But the common denominator in all of this is letting go, surrendering—basically just getting the fuck out of my own way.

  “I find that huge for my theology—to say that Islam is about surrender—but it’s also about being at peace. It is the way of Jesus in that it is the way of love, because love is the way of surrender. There’s a saying, ‘To the one who loves, you have surrendered.’ This is because when you’re in love, your beloved can wish you anything and can say or do anything. Especially in the very pure and innocent early love stages, that person can do no wrong; they can say nothing that will move your heart away from them. So one of the prominent Muslim prayers is to say, ‘Oh, changer of hearts. Oh, turner of hearts. Make me steadfast. Make my heart steadfast upon this path.’ Our hearts turn and turn and turn, so let us turn toward the One and be steadfast in that, because we often take long detours when we haven’t submitted, when we haven’t surrendered, and the universe wants to catch us and say, ‘Hey! Give up, give in.’ So when we do, it’s a straight shot.”

  As I’ve said before, in my own life the universe has had to step in quite a few times and trip me up. The most recent and extreme example that comes to mind is, again, awakening in that hospital bed with the tubes in my throat while my wrists were strapped down. What an utterly horrific experience, but one that I’ve come to accept as a part of making mistakes and learning and growing. It’s helped me in a very deep way to continue softening my heart toward myself and being gentle with my process—with being this awkward and determined human being.

  I wanted to talk more about God. When it came to Islam, I’d heard the term “the One God,” and I wondered how it differed from other religions’ interpretations of God.

  According to Mona, not much! “The One God does not differ in any way from any other god or gods. God is the overarching Oneness, the total inter-being and total interconnectedness that is everything. It’s abstract because that God, that creator, created time and space, and because our minds are bound by that time and space, how can we understand that which is beyond time and space? In Muslim theology, it’s quite simple, because God gave himself.

  “We say ‘him’ because that’s how God is referred to in the Quran, but it doesn’t necessarily connote that God is male. This came from a patriarchal society, also a pagan society, but within the Muslim tradition. God often refers to himself as ‘we,’ and for me that ties back to interconnectedness. We learn about it as the ‘royal we’ because that’s how the monarchs refer to themselves in their decrees, but I like to see it as the we that ties us all together, and we essentially are the we, and God discusses himself in the Quran as the beginning and the end. How can you be both the beginning and the end? He discusses himself as the seen and the unseen. If you’re beyond time and space, you can do whatever you want. God is the most merciful and he is a punisher. He is the creator of all things and the destroyer, the giver of life and the taker. In all the polarities and extremes, there is God, so what about everything in between? Is God there, too? I would say yes. If God wanted us to believe that he is the beginning and the end, well then, isn’t he the perfect now?”

  I loved what Mona had to say! I drew so many connections to different wisdom traditions—Kali the creator and the destroyer came to mind. And when she spoke of the interconnectedness of all things, I thought about Thich Nhat Hanh and the Buddhist teachings, which I especially appreciated because some Buddhist practitioners take issue with the word God, but I think that’s a beautiful way of showing some relation, some common ground that can be shared with Buddhists, and perhaps even some atheists. And there’s common ground with the other Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity. What’s important to me is finding what we share. Rumi’s garden beyond right and wrong. Where’s the place we can meet upon and build on together?

  It turns out that Mona has lived at the Lama Foundation in New Mexico, an interspiritual community and retreat center with strong ties to the Hanuman Temple in Taos and to Ram Dass. So she had a deep understanding of what it means to be interspiritual. “If the spirit of that place is anything, it is the weaving of the cosmic tapestry of all traditions and all spiritualities. I learned to use words that were less dogmatic. I grew up in a Judeo-Christian society, and the common language didn’t necessarily sit with my brain, with my heart language. I loved the things I learned there, like inter-being from Thich Nhat Hanh and a lot of the other Buddhist teachings that resonated within me as a Muslim. People often ask if my Islam is lessened or threatened by my acceptance of other explanations of things like karma and reincarnation, but you know what? Hogwash! That’s a bunch of bull. It’s another one of these things that ties back to the use of language. It can separate us, but in the same way, it can also bring us together. I can use the language of the Buddhists
and the descriptions of the Hindus and remain solidly and devotedly Muslim, because I believe in the God of everything. I believe in the god of the Hindus—in Kali, in Hanuman—and the Buddha, and everything in between.”

  Mona spoke to my heart! She was articulating exactly how I felt. I love that when I read Meister Eckhart’s description of the godhead, it sounded just like the explanation of Dharmakaya from Buddhism and Brahman from Hinduism. It makes me feel grateful and connected to learn and grow from these other faiths and teachings. I struggle with labeling myself as this or that, and I probably resonate most loosely with the teachings of Buddhism. However, I have a deep love for God, and that’s very important for me. Maharajji has been and is very important in my life, as are the teachings of Ram Dass. Finding that place beyond reconciliation—where they fit together, but it’s okay when they don’t—is a place we can all grow from. It’s a beautiful conversation and dance we can have with one another.

  This was a great insight. Maybe those places where they don’t fit aren’t real. Maybe that’s ego. “We don’t want it to fit because it messes with our historical understanding and explanations of things. That all stems from a human desire for grandeur or exclusivity: ‘Mine is different and therefore better.’ I just don’t feel that way. I think we’re all the same. We’re all in the same shit. We’re all doing the same things. At the end of the day, we’re all made of the same earth stuff and we’ll all return to the same earth, and in between, let’s be kind to each other. I don’t care what religion you practice or ideology you live under. Even if you’re an atheist, if you’re kind to humans and animals and creatures of all sorts and the Earth, I think that’s what religion is—call it God or not. I think ego gets in the way; it’s our funny little twisted sense of self that wants to be special, different, and better than.”

  The amazing things Mona was saying and how she included atheism in her explanation reminded me of my friend who’s the humanist chaplain at Yale. He’s an atheist and wrote a great book called Faithiest. His name is Chris Stedman, and he is one of the most spiritual, good-hearted guys I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t call himself spiritual, but his whole thing is about working with people from all religions, finding where they can come together, meet, and be of service to humanity, to the betterment of us as a species. I think that’s tremendous. That’s such a beautiful thing. What he explained to me, and as he wrote in his book Faithiest, is that “faithiest” is a derogatory term that atheists use for other atheists who don’t believe in God but are willing to talk with religious people and work with them. How crazy is that? It’s ego, it’s dogma. I think it’s beautiful that there are faithiests in the world who just want to help and be of service.

  I was digging the insights via Islam that Mona was giving me, and it made me hungry for more. What could she tell me about Muhammad?

  It didn’t take much prompting to get her started. “The invitation to speak about my beloved and the beloved of God warms my heart. Sure, he was the mouthpiece of God, but through the angel Gabriel. Muslims believe in the seen and the unseen, so we believe in all prophets who manifested in this world as humans. We’re sent the same message. Muhammad is among his brothers in a long line of prophets. It’s important to note that the Quran stipulates that although it mentions specific examples of who these prophets were, there are innumerable ones who are not mentioned. So I believe Krishna was a prophet of God. I believe that the Buddha was. I believe that there are countless other ones who came with the same message the Prophet Muhammad did: the message that we are one; that this whole universe with the beautiful Earth we were amazingly given, and that we honor and love, is here as a Quran for us, as a spiritual guidebook. It’s like when you go into nature and experience biodiversity, you know that everything exists in the light of another. You know the different creatures and plants feed each other, and it all works together to produce a magnificent, glorious thing. The Prophet Muhammad said we are just one part of that. Humans are ambassadors on this earth, are caretakers of the Earth, and that is our vital role. Yes, our vital role is to know God, but it is specifically to know God through care of the Earth.

  “One of the things that makes me both happy and sad is to see Muslims on the forefront of the global warming and climate change activism and movement. I just love seeing Muslims who are active, because to me, that is an integral part of our faith, our tradition, but it makes me sad to see so-called Muslim countries deplete the earth of its natural resources like oil and call themselves Muslim, because that’s counter to what we believe. A huge part of what the prophet Muhammad taught was that we’re not separate from each other, we’re not separate from nature, and only when we see ourselves as separate can we lay so much destruction upon the Earth. We must work together to perpetuate the beauty in the world.”

  That took me right back to what we’d been discussing about so many of the wisdom traditions saying the exact same thing, each in their own language.

  “One of the things Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, God says about him in the Quran, we did not send you except as a mercy, or as unconditional love to the world. And this message of unconditional love, which is wrapped in mercy, that’s just not a message that I think is getting out there enough: that Mohammed was about love. Anything else is secondary. People want to talk a lot about jihad, and they want to talk a lot about sharia—well, I’ll tell you right now what sharia is, sharia is all the things I just said. Sharia is the path and trajectory to attain gnosis of God, to attain a direct relationship with the creator. And how do we do that? By being stewards of the Earth. That is the way. By wrapping ourselves in the cloak and in the blanket of that unconditional love and mercy and saying that we’re not separate from nature or one another, so how could we then harm one another? That’s the integral message, and also to see God in the other, because if you see God in the other, you could never harm the other. And you see that there is no other. That it’s just you and you and you and you and more and more and more, and it’s all love.”

  With all this amazing talk about love, I knew it was time to ask Mona a question I’d been holding on to. What was her definition of relapse?

  “My definition of relapse is to be attached to old patterns we know no longer serve us. Old patterns we’ve decided are in fact harmful and painful, but like muscle memory, we come back to them out of habit. Creating new habits is the key to ridding ourselves of the old ones. In Islam, it is said to take forty days to create a habit, and that the best of good actions is the one that is done consistently. So after forty days of doing something, we should set up plans of action that will help us tap into a consistency. The way to remove the possibility of relapse is to put something else in its place, something bigger and more beautiful, and commit it to memory and habit.”

  Once we begin to undo relapse, we need to address the damage we’ve done. It’s often been said that “hurt people hurt people,” as well as that true healing begins within—this is especially true in the context of relapse and repeating self- or relationship-destructive behaviors. I wanted to hear Mona’s thoughts on this. How we can extend our personal healing work into the world to make a positive impact?

  “Healing begins and ends with love. Many of us carry around our wounds and our pain like battle scars that we glorify and allow to reopen and fester when we become triggered or rehurt. There is a better option: In our daily lives and care, in our tenderness, we must apply salves and balms of love and healing to the places we know we have wounds by actively helping to remediate the harm done.” She broke it down into steps:

  • The first step is the recognition of the hurt.

  • The second is identifying what needs to be healed. Sometimes our pain needs acknowledgment before it can transform into beauty and restoration.

  • Third, we must actively apply the healing to the hurt.

  “Affirmations are great, sometimes bodywork is necessary, sometimes meditation and ritual, but generally if we ask the hurt what it needs, it will tell
us. We will want to do the thing that will lead to the healing whether we know to connect it or not. I know this sounds abstract and perhaps out in some outer-space la-la land, but it’s real. I’ve seen it done, and I’ve done it myself. It works. Often those same wounds and the places where the wounds live become some of our greatest sources for building and working toward a more beautiful world. It’s sort of magical.”

  This made me think of a note I wrote to readers in my second book, Everything Mind:

  I want to give you my insides—unfiltered and undiluted. Along with this raw offering come—and in complete clarity, I might add—my imperfections. I write from this place of vulnerability because I want you to see me in all my humanity—all of it. I am a real person who would never pretend I have all the answers or this life thing entirely figured out. I don’t. On top of that, I have no shortage of flaws, though I do try my best to be a little better each day, and I think there’s something to be said for that. It’s important for me to be real with you about this because I hope it encourages you to be real with yourself while doing whatever you need to in order to be a little better each day as well.1

  For me, those words were an homage to the beautiful wounds we all have and will continue to experience as life goes on being life. I believe wholeheartedly, just as Mona said, that these wounds—these painful, wretched, life-affirming, beautiful wounds—can “become some of our greatest sources for building and working toward a more beautiful world.”

  After healing comes forgiveness. I’ve talked about it a lot in this book because it’s so important—without forgiveness, we’re fucked.

  Mona agreed: Forgiveness is a key to the alleviation of so much suffering. She went on to share, “My mother always encouraged me as a child never to hold on to hurt inflicted on me by others. She always reminded me that my holding on to that hurt, that pain, was more than just toxic to me, it was in fact toxic to the people I love, and yet it would never hurt who or whatever hurt me.” And then she brought me back to love—self-love, to be precise. “We must choose to love ourselves enough to be free from the shackles of grudges and pain, and forgiveness unlocks those shackles. It’s not so much a process of rationalizing anything, but instead of examining our feeling hearts and actively releasing the pain and hurt. It doesn’t always work right away. Sometimes it takes a concerted and consistent effort to make it happen, but it’s so possible. Once you’ve done it one time, that liberation is exhilarating. It’s a real spiritual high that doesn’t have a crash. We can all become masters of forgiveness, and when we do, we become lighter, more agile, more awakened.”