A Homily from India 2/17/05 Given at Shantivanam Ashram

I sometimes think that people push the whole non-dual consciousness of Jesus thing a little too far, and then every now and then it just smacks you right in the face, as clear as a bell, like today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew (5:43-48). To be perfect as God is perfect means to go beyond our categories of good and evil or, perhaps more accurately, go beyond our categories of repulsion and attraction. In the first covenant it was understood that sickness, old age and even death were a result of personal sinfulness, and wealth and old age and victory in battle were signs of righteuosness, but slowly we see the Hebrew mind understanding clearer and clearer, for example in the Book of Job, where even a righteous man suffers. We see Jesus argue against that understanding of God when he heals the blind man (“Was it his own sin or his parents?”) The culmination of course is that Jesus embraces death.

There is something beyond attraction and repulsion for the spiritual; there is a perfection beyond pain and pleasure, the perfection of God, who looked out and saw that it was good!

And so the teaching of the Upanishads of the two birds that live on the same tree, or, as the Katha Upanishad puts it:

In the secret cave of the heart two are seated by life’s fountain. the separate ego drinks the sweet and bitter stuff, liking the sweet, disliking the bitter, while the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter neither liking this nor disliking that.

The Svetasvatara Upanishad explains that “forgetting our divine origin we become ensnared in the world of change and bewail our helplessness. But when we see the Lord of Love in all his glory we go beyond sorrow.” Perhaps Jesus would say that we become perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.

Later in the Gospel of Matthew (22:16) the Pharisees say of Jesus that he shows deference for no one; “for you do not regard people with partiality.” James in his letter later will tell us that we should be the same way, as Jesus does here, “Because the sun shines on the good and the bad.” Our tendency is always to separate the world into the good people and the bad people, those who are in and those who are out. (See James Alison!) But we hear from Jesus the absolute core of the law: in some ways it’s even beyond, “Love your enemies.” It’s more like, “You have no enemies!” How could anybody be my enemy? We are all one, we on whom God showers the rain and shines the sun. Let’s pray for the grace to see that those whom we think of as our enemies our really our sisters and brothers, children of the same Lord of Love; and pray for the grace to not defend ourselves against our persecutors, but consider ourselves blessed by them, as the Beatitudes say, and pray also for their needs and intentions.

(Joy and David, pass that on to Brian and his friend who makes those great “No Enemy” t-shirts; now you know why I like them so much.)

I was thinking today after Vespers up in Abhishiktananda chapel that I don’t know if I have ever enjoyed playing the guitar and singing as much as I am enjoying it right now. I have to come up with a song every day for the sisters, so I digging into old favorites of the “folk-contemporary” ilk, which I am not the least ashamed of. Tonight I was in great consolation crooning Foley’s Only in God. And in the morning with the boys teaching them simple things like Though the Mountains May Fall and Gregory Norbert’s Hosea (“Come back to me with all your heart. . .,” which they love) shamelessly. Before dinner, Jonathan, the doctor from England told me he had enjoyed my singing for evening prayer last night and added “I can see that you are a frustrated musician.” I said, “No, I’m not frustrated, I’m a musician!” And I told him a little about what I am about these days and he said to me, “Right in the tradition of sannyasi, eh?” Yes, Jonathan, in the tradition of sannyasi. It makes so much (instant) sense to people who know the tradition.