46 - The Human Drama and the Cosmic Celebration

When the mind idles ponderously, reflection upon the meaningfulness of life, the human drama comes into relief with all its emotional charge and paradox. The being of the Planet Earth as it proliferates and mutates evidences the incredible achievement of humans in the wonder of works of art, the skill of inventors, and social organization. We see everywhere the human emotional drama of joy, triumph, defeat, the thrills and pangs of love, fulfillment, resentment, the miracle of birth, the terror of death, friendship, aversion, loyalty, treason, the jubilations of acts of worship, the agony of those forlorn in the battle of life, the desperate struggle for self-esteem, the venture to unlock the unknown, the heroism of some, the depravation of others, cruelty, sadism, violence, vulgarity, self denigration, self-defeatism. How powerful are the forces at play, how sublime, how violent, how paradoxical! What is the meaning of it all? To what extent is it programmed? Could there be randomness? Could it all run off the handle in a disaster?

As one begins to unmask the mind games and debunk the ego trips, all the ephemeral illusions we have built into precarious constructs evaporate in the clear light of bliss. It is the moment of moments: the breakthrough of awakening.

"Every atom, every being awaits its moment of awakening" says Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan. Doubtless, some languorous disenchantment subsists wistfully for the lost innocence like the after-glow of a raging fire as the shimmer of dawn enfolds the landscape in its clarity. But how much more fulfilling is that clarity!

It becomes clear that all those people in the human drama whom we admire or resent or try to emulate or criticize are expressions of the yet unmanifested expressions of idiosyncrasies in ourselves that we assess favorably or unfavorably. Idiosyncrasies which may have been repressed because we have condemned them, or have tried and possibly failed to unfold them. We are both the actor and the enacted in the human drama. We are potentially the hero and the coward, the magnanimous and the mean ones, the uncouth and the subtle, the jubilant and the melancholic, the agitated and the peaceful, the arrogant and the shy, the truthful and the divisive, the ingenue and the manipulative, the inventive and the conditioned, the witty and the boring ones. We are both enchanted and alarmed at what we unwittingly recognize of ourselves as a reflection in the 'other'.

Relentlessly the drama forges ahead. As confusion dwindles in the clarity of awareness, one's participation becomes more purpose oriented, better motivated, designed by the maturity thus gained. What is being enacted in the human drama? What are the issues? What are the dimensions involved? What are the springheads spurring people to act as they do? What are the issues they or we fail to see whose relevance would unmask the hoax in which we are entrapped? We need to recognize in our minds' levels of thinking or realizing all the dimensions of the human drama.

If we presume our brain cells know precious little about our thought, are we to be surprised at the extent of our ignorance of our spiritual dimensions? Could we be oblivious of our invisible partners in our human drama? Yet do we not espy the features of the angel filtered through those of a child or hear echoes of 'other' worlds in inspired music? Moreover, what superhuman impulse could drive a person to brave death exacerbated by torture for the sake of a cause he/she believes in?

What do our brain cells know of our thinking, though they participate in that thinking? What do our minds know of the thinking of the universe? If indeed our minds grasp something of the thinking of the universe, it is because they are isomorphic and coextensive with it in the holistic mode. This holds true for the cosmic dimension of our minds, and by analogy, as far as the transcendental dimension is concerned, we need to recognize in our minds' levels of thinking, realizing, and even emoting a hierarchically ordered infinite regress that must hold true for the mind of the universe. "You arc to Him, as the corporeal body is to you, and He is to you as the spirit that governs your body" says Ibn 'Arabi.

What do we know of the many splendored transpersonal dimensions of our being, of our participation in the sphere of metaphor, of our body of pure splendor, or the spheres of the beings of pure splendor? There is a great difference between listening to a piece of music and entering into the mind of the composer as he/she composed it, or watching a flower as opposed to grasping the way the cosmic celebration is contriving to express its splendor in the form and color and perfume of a flower, or judging the personality of a person and grasping the splendor, the marvel that is striving to come through together with the person's resistance in accepting the glory of their divine inheritance.

It becomes clear that if we were to include all the dimensions of the human drama, that is give heed to the role of the cosmic celebration plotting and crowning the human drama, we would make a quantum leap in our understanding. This is where meditation avers itself to be the key to getting in touch with one's subtle counterparts and the corresponding celestial spheres. Albeit we must bear in mind that the divine motivation is both mitigated and enhanced by our very free will. Because, for the software of the universe to mutate, it needs to fluctuate from a point Or stable equilibrium (Prigogine) - variations on a theme! Both randomness and motivation vie in this evolutionary change, and this is precisely what we see in the human drama: randomness where there has been a loss of the sense of one's cosmic dimensions, and on the other hand stifling conformism where one is not aware of one's personal incentive.  Watch the drama in this light.

You will earmark people stepping out on a limb and fashioning the treasures that give us a sense of release from the narrowness of the flattened out human framework within which we tend to assess the bounty of the universe. The ballerina surreptitiously perhaps filters through in her movements something of the emotion and thinking of the choreography of the stars or the atoms inherent in her genes. Who knows what monumental glory the choreography of the stars filters through of what we call the divine harmony - pure splendor beyond any mode of expression whatsoever, and yet whose material expression must inevitably limit it while manifesting it? The playwright highlights typical human features at grips with the human drama, sometimes so unaccountable as to be ascribed to a blind destiny. But the contemplative is trying to grasp the divine archetypes that get distorted as human idiosyncrasies.

And as the mind ponders upon meaningfulness, are any clues to be traced of the cryptic devolution of a fulfillment gained by the universe as a whole in the human drama where transcendent values are actuated in the melting pot of human strivings, jubilations and ordeals? Can a cosmic celebration really be sensed filtering through the human drama? It is when humans try to find a means of expression of their inveterate need for glorification that divine features inborn in our humanness begin to emerge.  Admittedly our fumblings with religion aver themselves most inadequately and ofttimes have given vent to undesirable emotions: sanctimoniousness, self-righteousness, intolerance, sadism, persecution, hatred, violence, or simply superstition, conformism, conventionalism, fundamentalism, and institutional ism and the complacency of the flock mentality. 

As the mind ponders upon meaningfulness, it cannot suffice itself with dissecting the past. It projects ahead. A breath of fresh air sparkles the spirit with hope, as one brainstorms and pioneers for a liberated spirituality at the scale of our time.  In this light, one detects in the inane imbroglio of the human drama a promising ingredient: the catalyst. Enzymes are an example of this on a bodily level. It is not good enough to go out on a limb and act creatively overcoming the inertia of all existential things, the conformism that sets into life situations. It is more creative to trigger off creativity in others.

This is the age of collective action with each being triggering off the potentialities of every other being, reciprocally quantifying each other in a bold bid to build a beautiful world of beautiful people.  This I see as the next step in the Sufi Order, rather than telling people what to do.
