=kit029.txt

KIT 29 - On the Champs - Elysees

Sitting on the Champs-Elysees doubtlessly has its very special
Parisian charm. People do this for various reasons, if nothing
else, to get out of the confining offices of shops or factories.
More ponderous minds find this a perfect opportunity to watch the
moving scene of life. For me, here is a prompt to reflect upon
what is going on in the souls and hearts and minds of so many
different types of people, what relevance to spirituality here?
Musing on my rather more metaphysical grasp of what spirituality
really means in my high tech, modern aluminum cave in the Pyrenees
helps me x-ray - what strikes the eye, as the ceaseless crowds
criss-cross right in front of me - a living film on the moving
scene of life

Remember, I say to myself, the real cave is not carved in the
stone, but an attunement (that paradoxical psychological chemistry
of the objectivity of detachment with the subjectivity of
involvement). How can I understand these beings if I do not
recognize their idiosyncrasies in me? Of what value are my
subjective impressions of them unless I were to involve myself
with them, at least talk to them? "La ufe est un noeucl de
relations. Life is a network of relationships", said St. Exupery.
Life is interaction; we are intermeshed with each other. If we
think of "that person" as "other" in what Martin Buber called the
"I-it relationship", we become judgmental. We are lacking in love.
So this is where spirituality comes in.

But now comes the test. That man with sunken cheeks right in front
of me has so obviously been beaten by life, so disappointed, so
forlorn, so bereft of hope. How can all my preaching about
glorification have even the slightest meaning for him? When fate
has proven to be so unfair, how can one enjoin upon its victim to
believe in God?

In my seminars and retreats, I show how, by transcending the
personal vantage point, one realizes that there is splendor behind
"all this", but how can one not be locked into the personal
perspective when fighting a losing battle for survival? What would
be the use of presenting him this sublime teaching? Even if I had
the opportunity of talking to him, it would fall upon his psyche
like water on a duck's back. It took a leap into the sublime to
overcome the floundering of my soul as I gaped upon the abyss in
his soul. I smiled upon him. He couldn't believe anybody could
smile upon him He did not have the strength to smile back. But
after a double-take, I could see that something stirred in the
unsounded depths of his being. Here it was easy to love; facing
suffering, it is easy to love. This was his only cure, love, not
glorification. The emotion of the heart rather than the emotion of
the soul. But I could only have found that love by getting in
touch with the emotion of my soul.

But what about that thug (please excuse the obviously judgmental
term) slouching down the Champs Elysees, yelling swear words,
molesting the girls, throwing his beer can on the pavement and
snatching the purse of a fashionable old lady right in front of my
eyes in broad daylight, at the dismay of sheer incredulity of the
passers by, then taking flight? Love comes less easily here; in
fact, is it at all realistic?

It would be a platitude to say that it is just because he has so
alienated himself from the sacredness of the very act of life that
this could ever occur. This is where only our sense of paradox, as
Pir-o-Murshid mentions, helps us face this aberration. "All faces
are My Face", says God, according to the Qur'an. Could the Face of
God have become spoliated? Fruit putrefies; the seed remains
unscathed. Yes, all is God, providing we grasp that behind the
immanent God, who, according to Meister Eckhart. "becomes and
unbecomes", we grasp the transcendent dimension of God in His/Her
perfection. Perfection, all inclusive, must include freedom, with
the consequence that things can get out of hand.

Do we recognize ourselves in that thug? The propensities are
inherent. Do we not nurture resentment? This is what has brought
him to this point. He may well have been humiliated and abused as
a child and disenchanted by the hypocrisy of the very people who
profess spirituality. In this case, a smile would not help. What
help does spirituality have to offer here? One would have to start
from scratch; it would involve a whole educative process. It means
overcoming heavily set in sardonic disenchantment, indelible
resentment and bitter irony. The people in Plato's cave with their
backs to the light could not understand what people meant when
they said the grass was green and the sky blue, nor do fish know
the sea they are floating in. Some might ascribe the condition to
a lack of spirituality from the start. I would say, perhaps the
lacuna is in the way spirituality is ordinarily meted out to the
young, totally out of phase with the thinking of our time.

The young are living in a tougher world than ever before,
suspended upon an atmosphere of hopelessness which all the
permissiveness in the world cannot allay. Youths need to have
something to look forward to: out-run their father's records,
unmask their blunders, free-wheel creatively, build a brave new
world. Take this away and young persons become disgruntled,
apathetic, sardonic, sometimes violent or degenerate.
Spirituality. that totally incommensurate dimension that crowns
our human values and spins one's mind and emotions beyond their
middle range, has inspired civilizations to produce great
cultures. It still remains the live force spurring us to outreach
ourselves, but spirituality needs to be updated. Space age
spirituality, further dimensions of reality, that is the pointer.

This realization came across overwhelmingly when a nun was passing
by. Here at least, I had expected that spiritual dimension missing
in the thug (in my estimation). But I missed the joy, the
radiance, the sparkle of St. Theresa of Lisieux or the compassion
of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. I sensed humility misconstrued into
self-denigration, reinforced by a guilt complex. I sensed a cult
of suffering bordering upon masochism. I do not wish to generalize
but Christ could not have wished for this. I see him earnest
because conscious of the suffering of the world but full of joy.
"Be ye of good cheer", he says to the forlorn poor in spirit.

Updated spirituality, is that to be found in the new age flower
people? Here was a typical hippie conforming to non-conformism.
shipwrecked in the unleashed ocean of his psyche and taking it to
be spirituality is it spirituality to so damage the delicately
programmed brain we are invested with?

There was the colorful ramble of the good, steady mainstream
loners. And now, standing out in the crowd, a one with sunlight in
the eyes, nobility in the gait, strength blended with gentleness
in the demeanor, restraint and wisdom in the voice. Our glances
crossed, just as my glance did when I passed that Rishi at an
earlier Kumbh Mela or communed with that dervish at Shams Tabriz's
tomb. But here, no robes, no role playing, no pretense at
spirituality. Just a mutual attunement, unspoken mutual
realization, and mutual recognition. Such is spirituality in real
life. 

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