Secrets of God

by Slawek Wojtowicz

  May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,

  A guide for those who journey on the road;

  For those who wish to go across the water,

  May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

  May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,

  And a lamp for those who long for light;

  For those who need a resting place, a bed,

  For all who need a servant, may I be a slave.

  May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,

  A word of power, and the supreme remedy.

  May I be the trees of miracles,

  And for every being, the abundant cow.

  Like the great earth and the other elements,

  Enduring as the sky itself endures,

  For the boundless multitude of living beings,

  May I be the ground and vessel of their life.

  Thus, for every single thing that lives,

  In number like the boundless reaches of the sky,

  May I be their sustenance and nourishment

  Until they pass beyond the bounds of suffering.

  May I attain Buddhahood!

  Teachers, Buddhas, Boddhisatvas, listen!

  Just as you, who in the past have gone to bliss,

  Conceived the awakened attitude of mind,

  Likewise, for the benefit of beings

  I will generate this self-same attitude.

  Jesus taught and lived the same path:

  “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20: 26–28).

  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5: 43–48).

  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5: 38–42).

  Once you begin walking on this path and detach from your ego-driven existence, you will start to experience and feel your body differently. Our bodies can be described as a visible part of our subconscious mind. They store negative beliefs, suppressed emotions, and damaging habits that eventually resurface as pains, aches, restrictions in the range of motions, or chronic diseases, such as cancer. If you neglect your body for too long, it will tell you that it sorely needs your attention, likely in the form of bodywork, exercise, stretching, rest, or perhaps better nutrition. A famous yoga teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar, taught that, “Unless freedom is gained in the body, freedom of the mind is not possible.”

  Incidentally, the story of individual Realization is saturated with paradox. On one hand, who can deny that individual awakening occurs? The student that practices conscientiously makes progress, while the one who doesn’t fails. Yet we are not isolated from each other; separation is an illusion created by our physical senses. If all existence is ultimately united in the One, no one can awaken alone. My guess is that when we fully awaken, we are freed from the self-imposed imprisonment in time—and emerge into the timeless, eternal NOW, where everyone else is already awake. There is no past or future there, and no death or suffering either. Another paradox: All people who you thought were dead are in fact still alive and well. That’s why Jesus said that God “is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22: 32).

  Heaven, hell, and paradise

  Heaven and hell are not destinations in the afterlife but rather states of mind that are experienced right here on Earth. Heaven is Oneness—an indescribable, ecstatic experience of being one with God. The closest most of us get to that is the peak experience of sexual orgasm—when separate people dissolve in ecstasy, their distinct identities merging into bliss.

  Hell is a state of separation from God and His love. Christian theology talks about the need for salvation, yet very few Christians ask why do we need salvation? The reason we need to be saved is that most of us are in hell—right here on Earth. What could be worse than living in hell and not even knowing that that’s where we are? As long as we are unaware of our true situation and our true identity and capabilities, we are hopelessly stuck. Once we realize that we are imprisoned, we can plan an escape. Children born in concentration camps couldn’t even imagine a better world outside barbed wires of their prison. They considered their imprisonment as something entirely normal—it was simply the reality that they were born into. Like these children, most of us didn’t have an opportunity to have even a glimpse of the freedom, peace and joy awaiting us outside of our prison when we awaken. Once we experience God, our condition becomes clear—we know that the single most important thing is to get out of hell, and thus all of our priorities change.

  People in the recovery movement (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous) have a beautiful saying: “Religion is for people who fear hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there already.” We live in a hell of our own making, since each of us has built barriers that prevent us from getting back to the Source. There is no hell waiting for us after we die—we are in hell right now and that is why we need salvation. Even if we are happy right now, our happiness is only temporary since nothing in this world lasts. We can’t control our destiny: We get sick, we lose the people we love, and we live in denial or in fear, secretly or openly dreading the uncertain future. That is what hell is. If we don’t awaken while we are alive, we return back to this world over and over again, suffering until we learn our lessons and decide to awaken. And nobody else can do it for us—each of us has to put in work to save himself/herself. Salvation offers the ultimate freedom, including freedom to take a break from the dream we live in. Let us imagine for a moment that this “reality” is indeed only an illusion or a virtual reality movie. If you could leave the “movie theater” whenever you wished, wouldn’t your life be much more enjoyable? Jesus and other spiritual teachers taught us how to do it. The rest is up to each of us.

  Paradoxically, Paradise is also right here and right now. It is our world the way God intended it—a magical world of adventures, full of peace, love, joy, and beauty. It is free of fear, loneliness, and suffering. It is the perfect world described in the first biblical story of creation (Genesis 1: 1–2, 4)—and it has been here all along, awaiting your awakening from the dream. One day we all will awaken, and life on Earth will be a very different experience from the one we are participating in right now.

  Suffering, sin, and Satan

  Buddhism tells us that the root cause of all unhappiness and suffering is our ignorance concerning the nature of reality. Most of us live in a state of perpetual confusion: We don’t know who we really are, we don’t remember how we got here and where we have been before; and worst of all, we don’t know how to get out from the trap we have fallen into. We suffer, since we chase after certain illusions (such as sex, money, fame, power, and many other things), and we are afraid of others (e.g., death), thinking that they are real. Unfortunately, suffering appears to be one of the very few incentives for people to start searching—we get lost in the dream so easily and tend to settle for much less than our true inheritance, instead of striving for ultimate freedom. Some of us are willing to suffer tremendously before deciding to change ourselves. It is so much easier to demand that others change! However, that approach is a futile one. As explained befo
re, from one point of view you are the only person that exists. Therefore, in truth you can change only your own mind, and that strategy is the only approach that will actually work.

  To help us change, some religions invented “sin.” What is sin? Christian theologians tell us that sin is a deliberate transgression of a religious or moral law, in disobedience of the known will of God, and a condition of estrangement from God resulting from breaking His rules. They teach that sins are offensive to God. According to those theologians, only God himself can forgive sins. Mainstream Christianity regards sin as something shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong. Curiously, some Christians still believe that sin can be inherited, not unlike a genetically inherited disease. They teach that through Adam sin entered the world, and it has been passed down through the generations of mankind; and that death and all suffering in the world are consequences of the original sin. It should be pretty obvious that this argumentation defies logic, unless God behaves just like Nazis did—punishing innocent people for the transgressions of others. With a God like that, what would we need the devil for?

  In contrast, Judaism teaches that humankind wasn’t created with an inclination to do evil. If God had created humans as intrinsically sinful, it would contradict the absolute goodness of God that all three Abrahamic religions profess.

  When we look at the etymology of the word “sin” as used in the New Testament (in Greek, hamartia) we discover that it means “to miss the mark” or “to miss the target.” Thus, the original meaning of the term “sin” is much closer to a “correctable error” or “mistake” than to a “mortal offense against wrathful God.” Jesus taught that we are perfectly innocent and sinless from God’s point of view (see the parable of the prodigal son). Mystics taught that there is no sin in the “traditional,” orthodox meaning of the word, since we can’t possibly do anything that would offend God. If you consider that God is the one and only Actor playing all the parts, it only makes sense that when we hurt each other, it is like kicking yourself in the leg: a foolish or insane thing to do. It would be crazy to hold a grudge against ourselves, wouldn’t it? That’s why God doesn’t even bother with forgiveness—it is meaningless from His vantage point. When we “sin,” we only hurt ourselves. However, forgiveness is very important from the human point of view: We have to learn to forgive others, as well as ourselves.

  Another interesting concept common in Hebrew and Christian tradition is personified evil, known under names such as the Devil or the Satan. The word “Satan” means “adversary” in Hebrew. In the New Testament, Satan is also interchangeably called the enemy or the devil. “Devil” derives from the Greek word “diabolos,” which means “slanderer” or “accuser.” Elaine Pagels in her book Origin of Satan: The New Testament Origins of Christianity’s Demonization of Jews, Pagans and Heretics traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where it becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, and finally the evil incarnate.

  In orthodox Christianity the Devil is considered the evil prince or ruler of this world seeking to lure people away from God and into hell and suffering (John 12:31 and 1 John 5:19). Yet in some mystical traditions the devil is not a fallen angel or an autonomous entity outside of us—it is our sick, selfish, righteous, arrogant, and murderous ego. That’s who God’s real enemy is. This is what tempted Jesus, offering him “rule over all the Kingdoms of the world” (Matthew 4: 1–10). By rejecting this temptation, Jesus was given to rule over the All.

  A Course in Miracles equates the ego with the devil, and teaches that the sick “ego is responsible for all the cruel hate, the need for vengeance, the cries of pain, the fear of dying, the urge to kill, the brotherless illusion, and the self that seemed all alone in the universe” (C-2.8).

  According to Eckart Tolle, author of Power of Now, humanity has been increasingly mind-possessed for thousands of years, failing to recognize the possessing entity as “not self.” Through complete identification with our body and mind, a false sense of self—the ego—came into existence. The strength of the ego depends on the degree to which you, the consciousness, are identified with your body and mind. The stronger your identification with the ego, the stronger is your sense of separateness from other people.

  The ego is very susceptible to insanity. It is easily infected by memes (ideas spreading from mind to mind just like viruses). Examples of memes include various insane ideologies (e.g., Communism, Nazism, Feudalism, Capitalism) and distorted religious ideologies that lead us to slaughter one another “in the name of the One, loving, kind, and merciful God.” Sheer madness! A sick ego that is infected with these memes is incapable in its blindness of seeing the suffering it inflicts upon itself and others. Unhappiness is an ego-created mental-emotional disease that has reached epidemic proportions on our planet. It is the inner equivalent of the environmental pollution of Earth. Negative states and emotions such as anger, anxiety, hatred, resentment, discontent, envy, and jealousy are not recognized as negative, but are judged by sick ego as totally justified, and are further misperceived not as self-created, but as caused by some external factor. Yet acceptance of personal responsibility for everything that happens to you is the first step towards freedom and salvation—this truth is stressed in many spiritual writings.

  Self-created hell is a familiar concept to many moviemakers. A disturbing horror movie Cube explores the idea of human-created hell and salvation. It offers a metaphor and a caricature of our insane life on Earth. Several people find themselves in a strange, alien-appearing maze, full of deadly traps. They don’t remember how they got there, but they realize that they have to work together to figure out a way to escape this nightmare before they die either of dehydration, starvation, or being chopped up into pieces. To their horror, it appears that the Cube was built by humans, instead of hostile aliens. Escape appears to be virtually impossible, since the rules of the game change continuously. The prisoners die one by one, while chances of escape seem to dwindle with the loss of each individual. Yet, there is hope—at the end one of the prisoners survives the ordeal and enters the Light.

  Dark City is another movie exploring concepts of hell, reincarnation, and the nature of reality. The story takes us to a city far away from Earth, built by aliens who are trying to learn what makes us human. Every midnight people lose their memory of their prior life and their identities are changed, as is the city itself. One day a person can be a rich merchant, another day a thief, only to become a gas station attendant the next day. The hero of the story, John Murdoch, awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a group of alien beings known as the Strangers, who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. He discovers that almost everyone else is completely unaware of what is happening. He struggles to wake up other people and eventually succeeds, freeing everyone from the cruel experiment. The good news is that we will also sooner or later succeed in our efforts to escape from hell. In this movie, just as in Cube and Groundhog Day, there is only one way out—a narrow and difficult path of selfless love. That path alone leads to salvation and full awakening. And since love has to come from within, our salvation lies inside of us, not outside. Fortunately, we are pre-programmed with the right clues leading us to the escape hatch: We feel truly happy and peaceful only when we choose the right path.

  Many of us end up going in circles, fighting with imagined enemies and wasting a lot of energy. Perhaps the most important decision one can make is whether we live in a hostile or helpful world. When we accept that everything that happens to us is meant to help us to awaken, life becomes much easier and much more purposeful. The Buddhist tradition teaches of the tripod of the illusory world known as “greed, hatred, and delusion,” and their antidotes in “compassion, love, and wisdom.” Wisdom is the road that u
ltimately leads to enlightenment, and it can be understood as the “information” attainable through spiritual experiences. The next step is translation of this information into action—love and compassion. The choice that we have to make in each situation is in fact very simple and can be reduced to this: We need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and put other people’s needs on equal footing with our own. When we change the way we behave towards others, we heal ourselves and begin the process of awakening.

  Death, rebirth, and reincarnation

  From the ultimate spiritual point of view, birth, death, and reincarnation are all illusions, just like the rest of our “reality.” They are just a part of a complex story line. It is very sad, though not surprising, that concepts of reincarnation, rebirth, and resurrection have been used by organized religions to maintain their power, to preserve the social and political status quo, and to prevent people from regaining their freedom. But these illusions are tools that can also help us on our path towards awakening. As we get older, our ways of thinking tend to get “petrified”—we become less flexible and are not as open to change and new ideas as younger people. Our minds and bodies suffer as a result of the neglect and abuse we heap on them. Overeating, unhealthy diet, smoking, lack of exercise and sleep, a stressful lifestyle, and negative emotions take a toll on our minds and bodies, causing diseases and speeding up the aging process. Death followed by rebirth is a way to start over with a relatively clean slate and more flexibility. Just as the trees shed their leaves in the Fall, we shed our used up bodies and minds to start over again on the path to God.