Being Divinely Human

I walk down the patterned garden paths

In my stiff, brocaded gown,

With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,

I too am a rare

Pattern

                                    Amy Lowell

I have been meeting with people (psychologically and spiritually) for many decades.  I find it an honor to meet soul to soul, spirit to spirit, having real conversations that reach deeply into lives, psyches and unique soulful footprints.  

If I were a gardener, I would be waxing rhapsodic about the multitudes of the varieties of roses and hydrangeas or snow peas and pumpkins.  Walking in the woods I would be in equal awe at the barks and twists of the not-one-completely-alike trees.

As a psychologist and spiritual teacher, I am in equal awe at the beauty, differences and profound spiritual contribution in the human being.

As a friend, mother, grandmother and colleague I am in love with the uniqueness of each one.

I have had the great fortune of being in company with many awakened beings and often find myself gob smacked by how differently each one’s door to their true nature is. 

Whether we begin our journey with a teacher, with life’s challenges, a spontaneous cracking wide open, a guru, kundalini rising, month-long silent retreats or living fully in the relative and relational world; it all comes down to, equally, being fully at ease, resting as our true nature. It all comes down to will we unconditionally love from this limited form we call being human.

When I was in my early thirties, I found the Christian mystics and began to find expression for what I had intuited and been seeking since childhood.

I soaked up their words and rested inside their experiences of oneness with God.  Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich sang holy praises and I, for the first time, realized what I was seeking was expressible and to some degree knowable in the human being.

My seeking language was a desire to have a personal relationship with God.  Perhaps having been raised as a secular, culture Jew, I had never thought of God as a heavenly figure sitting in the clouds.

Somehow, even from an early age, I had “known” that God . . . some higher power or energy, source of everything, was alive inside us.  I longed to know this source, up close and personal.

Finding the mystics began to strengthen this instinctive knowing.

When I went back to graduate school, after my sons were grown, I was immediately drawn to Carl Jung’s work.  I used to say “I was born a Jungian”.   His understanding of the human psyche and his own introspection led him to the fully-alive ground of being deep within our psyche, underneath the personal consciousness and unconsciousness and underneath the archetypes and collective unconscious.  What he called the “Self” with a capital “S” represented that ineffable, universal, energetic Source that animates all life.  It seemed to imply to me that, by traveling deep inside our interior, by facing all we held as protections for our smaller selves, the most natural movement would bring us home.

He also wrote a lot about the “holy marriage” as did so many people who, having studied Jung, went on to contribute to this large body of work.  This holy marriage, often represented by a royal marriage between a king and a queen, pointed to our innate wholeness remembered when we have recognized and remembered the sacred oneness – not being separate from any aspect of life.  The awareness that everything comes from the same Source.

At the time I was introduced to the non-dual world the strong emphasis was on the transcendent.  In retrospect, I can see the value in this since it takes a radical perspective and lived reality to truly get through the density of us only knowing . . . only believing in . . . the relative and human world.  It is like having to be hit over the head and told . . . look, look, (inside) and remember who you really are.  Touch, taste, feel, recognize and remember the vast, silent, alive and compassionate nature that animates and unifies All.

The transcendent – living from the spaciousness of unity and love – is a state of bliss, a state of well-being that the mystics expressed beautifully.  No matter what is happening, all is well.  It is exquisite to the seeker’s ears to hear this harmonious symphony of well-being . . . to even imagine not suffering and to hear the truth of that small, quiet voice inside that brings with it the nectar of pure sweetness. 

The shadow side of the non-dual world is spiritual bypassing.  Given the limits by which most of us hear the message of transcendent well-being, the profound desire in all of us to not feel pain or suffering, and the fact that most of the early teachers said, in so many words, that this world is not real, we are a character in this worldly theatre; also not real, and that emotions were in the way of our realizations of our true nature, is it any surprise that the message was translated to bypass our humanity.

Paradoxically, while it is true, from an absolute perspective, that we are living out a character in a play, that, in the deepest knowing, our roles and feelings and actions, are fleeting and insubstantial, there is also the relative truth of our humanity.  Every one of us is formed from the same unbounded Source - so how can our humanity be anything other than holy.

We are unique beings and our living from our true nature is beautifully varied and textured, as only an ineffable, mysterious God can manifest.  In the final analysis it is up to each and every one of us to find our unique way of being divinely human. . . the mystics expressed their perspective, Jung, his, and non-duality theirs.

As humans we are driven by survival – survival of our bodies and our psyches.  To open up to our true home means a lot of letting go.  Letting go of our defenses and patterns that were intelligent protections when we needed them but are part of the veil covering the deeper reality of our beings.  Letting go of beliefs that allowed us to belong in this earthly school but are limiting our larger and larger perspective.

Letting go is also a very unique experience.  It might happen spontaneously; it might show up in therapy over a long or short time; it might become clear through meditation.  It might be an overnight experience; it might take years and years of building trust.  It might feel like annihilation, it might feel like a great relief or both terrifying and liberating all at the same time.

What matters here, is we are designed to fully live as free, unbound, clear and loving beings. There are doorways and hallways and portals to a greater reality in every experience of our lives – every experience.  What if we encountered every single experience we have (including resistance) as an invitation to grow, to expand and to unconditionally love?  To love ourselves as we love our neighbors?  For real!

Deepening and broadening into unconditional love appear to be forever. Regardless of how the opening happened, no matter how deeply the recognition or remembrance has gone, life will offer more wonder, more learning, more awareness. It is often not easy, since much is asked of us in the name of marrying our humanity with Source.  It is up to us to remain open.  

In our beautiful unique expression, we are called, like a magnetic resonance . . . to be real.  To show up authentically, to viscerally turn towards what is showing up in our lives in a radically honest way.  There is something quite extraordinary about trusting our matchless experiences as potentially orchestrating for the good. There is something quite freeing about seeing experiences as tailor-made – not having to look to someone else’s expression as our only guiding light. 

We are messy . . . we fall on our faces . . . we are often lost . . . it might take us lifetimes to choose love over fear more often than not. . . and, yet, most importantly, we get to blossom right where we are planted.

It is wondrous to live this human existence as an instrument for the divine to express itself.

Your bloom brightens the world as only you can