You are the Space that God Shines Through
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Readings
Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Isaiah 29:4-7
Brought low, you will speak from the ground;
your speech will mumble out of the dust.
Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth;
out of the dust your speech will whisper.
But your many enemies will become like fine dust,
the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant,
the Lord Almighty will come
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
that attack her and her fortress and besiege her,
will be as it is with a dream,
with a vision in the night
Read the written message below with music videos
The once-famous scientist turned mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, wrote that during his explorations of the spiritual realm evil spirits could not attack and control him only because they found him to be nothing. Why is there such a trend with sages, this tendency to report on their “nothingness”? And how might it speak to us in this moment? Perhaps, inviting us to look past all the “somethings” we tend to identify with (in thought, body, and form), and returning our attention back to the very “empty” peaceful space that we are always looking from.
Our reading today is a fascinating one, telling us to gouge out our eyes if they “cause us to stumble.” I wonder how many ministers or churches have taken this literally over the years, cutting off body parts. I bet that no matter how literally churches say that they read scripture, it is still not very many! No, the natural tendency here is to somehow look at this as a metaphor. And personally, I have to agree with this tendency. If God wants my eyes, he’ll have to take them!
In a way, I think that this scripture ties into our theme today, asking us to let go of our habits and the identification-centered thoughts that they stem from. Christ, in his characteristically fascinating fashion, is telling us to lose the things causing us to turn away from our intrinsic knowledge and connection with God. Which, in its purely metaphorical sense, is an invitation to release our hold on these things, to release and even reject them as aspects of our being so that we come to know that they never were. Although Christ starts with the example of adultery of the mind, he isn’t fetishizing any one sin or distraction, indeed, he often highlights that it is our very way of thinking about things that keep us from becoming “awake.” Instead, I think the example of lust being adultery of the mind invites us to look more inwardly at all our issues, not just purely literally. If he hadn’t, I wonder what he would have asked us to cut off when it comes to that particular sin!
Christ, like many true sages across traditions, is inviting us to shed our identification with form and habits, to return to the very spaciousness (sometimes called nothingness) that allows God (known-by-many-names) to shine. Although at first this may seem like we give up ourselves, in fact, we’re told that this is how we truly open ourselves to our natural state, our true selves. And although finding the nothingness of who we are means finding the everythingness of the Divinity within, the oneness of all beings, it’s said that we still continue to have an external expression (in thought and body) of our individual nature. Further, there’s no need to switch religions or leave our families!
The hard part about following Christ’s advice here, typically, is that whatever our pet problems are, we have a hard time not getting caught up in the thoughts that lead to them. When we try to “cut” these thoughts out, they only come roaring or sneaking back just as strong as ever. This is the benefit of Christ’s listing of body parts, indicating that we may have many ways that we “miss the mark,” and all of these should be cut off. Exasperatedly we might respond, “take me to the butcher then,” but that is exactly Christ’s point! He is telling us to mentally give up our hold on everything we are and have, give up our limbs, body, and entire idea of self fully, and then we will not “miss the mark.” But you tell me, which sounds easier – giving up your hands or your identification with body and thought?
What’s funny is that giving up all over-investment with our thoughts (at least for spans of time), is much easier, even when it may seem impossible. And over time, it gets easier and easier, allowing us to shed our heavy psychological ponderings for a brighter, fresher, clearer, more peaceful mind. At first, this practice often involves taking repeat moments to try to truly notice where we are looking from, the empty space of perception, while perhaps also noticing the subtle sense of “I am.” This invites us to see if we can actually find “ourselves” within, or do we find that any sense of self is also seen from a place beyond seeing? As we do this, we start to “cut off our hands” by not investing in any line of thought or identification that arises but return to our inner inquiry and meditation.
Don’t get me wrong, practical thoughts and even the other thoughts are just fine. It is the over-identifying with them that we are releasing, we’re letting go of the tendency to follow our thoughts like a dog on a hunt. You can say that we are doing that by turning to the mystery of God within. It is the very sense of “this is my issue” or “this is my hand” that gets us into trouble, which keeps us in certain modes of behaviour, which is why Christ tells us to completely get rid of them by “turning within.” Even when they come up, from this space of peace or “nothingness” we know that these things are not ours. By our coming to know our nothingness, we can finally start to see the vibrant light shining on everything within, and become no longer deluded or distracted by the constructs of ignorance or the mind’s need to own and control.
Swedenborg believed that by coming to truly know that we are vessels for God, conduits of Divinity, we come to know that everything we thought of us “ours” was “evil,” or, in other words, misappropriated. As we come to release these things we find that we are ultimately nothing. He also put this in other terms, and like many sages said that our state of false, limited identity is pure delusion or “falsity,” which can keep us in our own personal hell instead of the natural heaven that always flows through us. What’s interesting is that although letting go of this false personal ownership of ourselves draws us into knowing heaven and a type of emptiness, according to him, at the same time this also allows us to feel that we are more ourselves, more original, truer. We could describe this as coming to know how the Divinity within us feels because we come to know that Divinity is not distant from us, all distance and personal constructs were delusional and passing, only appearances that point us back to God, love, and peace.
Both Christ and Swedenborg, like many sages, taught us to let go of our constructs and hard hold on what we think is true. Most of the time we think from a place of social conditioning and mental constructs, which may have their place but are often so over-identified with they keep us entrapped, slaves to our thinking mind. In different ways, these teachers point us to the true teacher within, the light of consciousness itself, so that we may escape our identification with the false teacher always speaking in our ear. It may seem strange, but our minds don’t serve us very well until we truly find that the place we are sitting is above mental constructs, not within them.
Thinking we are the clouds, we come to find that we are the sky. Seemingly nothing, but free, the space that all things arise within. This space allows the sun to shine, and it reminds the clouds, the earth, the seas, that their fundamental nature is peace and openness, love and wholeness. May we investigate this for ourselves, not taking it for another concept to put into our pocket, but as an invitation to return to our truer nature always at the root of life. Noting that all identity, all thought is changeful and passing, we can start to notice what isn’t passing within. And although imperceptible, we find that by dwelling in the spacious nothing that we are, we find everything, from Alpha to Omega.
Peace and love shine from you,
Rev. Cory