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You are Beyond Words, Fear, and Mind

by Rev. Cory Coberforward

John 12:12-15

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 

 

They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!”

 

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

 

“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

 

“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
   

see, your king is coming,
    

seated on a donkey’s colt.”

 

 

Mark 14:32-42

 

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

 

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

 

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

 

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

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We tend to think that we know what to do, what’s best, in any given situation – but what if I said that the mind that thinks it knows best and has so many opinions is diametrically opposed to your sense of peace and what many call the will of the Universe, or God’s will? When we have a sense of understanding it is a moment of relative peace and quietude, an appreciation for how things already are. Noticing the peace that we are is just like this, it lacks the angst of our personal identity and judgment, and yet, these things can arise to it. We only tend to miss God’s peace because we overlook it in its humility, as it is our very own spaciousness and light.

 

A sage’s teachings are designed for their time and the people that they are teaching. This is true from Christ to Krishna, from Emanuel Swedenborg to Eckhart Tolle. The point of these teachers’ teachings is to help their adherents find their inner core of peace and heaven, as this not only benefits the person but also benefits those around them in ways beyond comprehension.

 

The great scientist turned mystic Swedenborg wrote many spiritual tomes (really big books!), most of which sold very little and were designed for specific audiences and purposes. His greatest hit, Heaven and Hell, was an account of the afterlife and what people experience after they die. This account often highlighted our intrinsic unity and empowerment by the spiritual light of God, which is the light of Divine Love in the form of wisdom and ultimately, useful function. Useful in what way? Well, useful in the sense that God’s outward functioning (which is all physical and spiritual action) brings people’s experiences deeper into the folds of love that is heaven and God. We often call this the working of God’s Providence.

 

The heaven in Swedenborg’s accounts is an interfaith, as in inclusive, heaven – not demanding that its citizens conform to our earth’s forms of Christianity. We could call this a greater “Christianity,” if we’d like, as the term Christ only indicates that it is centered on the “Saving One,” or God, present within each of us and at the heart of all heavenly faith. This would be similar to calling heaven truly “Muslim” or “Hindu.” In today’s world, even these terms denoting the faithful become quite charged, which is why modifying these terms can be helpful for those of us who are truly trying to approach the faith from a place of openness and love, such as saying that I am an “open,” “mystical,” or “interfaith” Christian.

 

In Christ’s time, of course, the term for “Christian” even in his language didn’t yet seem to exist. During the celebration of Jesus that we commemorate on Palm Sunday, the Jews celebrating him were celebrating him as the promised Messiah of the Judaic faith, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And today, many who follow Christ still don’t identify as “Christian” and many that may enter Swedenborgian church doors may have a wide variety of beliefs regarding Christ and Swedenborg! And yet, their walk with the Lord may be very deep.

 

All that to say, words don’t do our reality in faith justice, and we may disagree on terminology, history, metaphysics, and labels. That’s ok! To the pharisees of Christ’s time, just the suggestion that Jesus was an embodiment of God was heresy, and yet they identified as Hebrew just as Christ’s followers did. Many arguments can be traced back to differing opinions on what a word or a phrase means and how or when it should be applied. Our minds can’t help but take many such discussions seriously, as our minds live in a world of terms, judgment, and a sense of defensiveness around the things that are “ours.” However, the light that shines on them does not share these traits; the love that we are exists beyond terminology and is perfectly at peace there. This is the same love and openness that Christ points us to in our “repenting” (“turning around”).

 

In the story of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see a return of Christ’s struggle with his mind, something that we last saw during his 40 days in the wilderness. In the garden, Jesus’ mind is struggling with what he knows his deeper self, God, is calling him to do. Although his mind (and ours) is not something separate from God (Swedenborg wrote, “all things are made of God”), it takes time for our minds to feel like they have come into perfect attunement with God’s deeper will, and struggles or temptations like what we see in aspects of Christ’s recorded life may arise. These struggles stem from our sense of personal identity and the inner personal dialogue that comes with it – which are now being called to be released, along with their tendency for personal defensiveness, pontificating, and self-regard. Or in other words, we are called to release our false sense of personhood for a greater expression of true “whole”-iness.  

 

As in Christ’s case, we often feel like we have a good reason for our defensive or judgmental reactions towards situations or other people – “Otherwise, I’ll die!” But, also in the mode of Christ, we are called to bow to our greater awareness of our unity with God and God’s will for us, releasing our defensive hold on the outward forms that may seem to define or ground us. Christ had to do this with his body, his surroundings, his feelings, how people thought of him, and his active bodily life with his followers, family, and those he sought to help, all because the will of God called him to it. This is what allowed for his glorified resurrection.

 

Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of our own Garden of Gethsemane, filled with doubt about the state of the earth and our own trajectory, or even battling what we might come to know is God’s will for us. But like Christ entering the city as a king on a donkey, sometimes we have to give up our own sense of controlling things and allow God to carry us forward. This surrender allows us to uncover our own royalty in the lineage of God, as Christ calls us “children of God.” Practically, just noticing the light of presence (“the light of the world” as Christ also calls us) that we are again and again, naturally allows us this shift from false personhood with all its baggage to a true awareness of the freedom of being.

 

Try it for yourself. Take a moment to release your hold on “the person that you are” and their issues and notice the openness that even these ideas arise in. Notice the true peace of the present moment. Note that Christ was never a stickler for words nor was he one to try to force his way, but instead highlighted the reality of who we all are. He expressed this intimately in his own expression of Divinity, putting aside his identification with his mind and its temptations, and allowing the fullness of being to bring him deeper into his destiny and who he always truly was.

Peace and presence to you,

Cory

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