76 - Inner Experience of the Mass

I. KYRIE

Confronting Guilt.

(i) As we exhale, we apply the alchemical process - separating, earmarking the idiosyncrasies in us which we dislike and those we gladly own, and drain the former (filtering in Alchemy).

(ii) Suspending breath in Kasab, we grasp the instant of time, where the process of becoming is intersected by the transcendental dimension of time. Here is an opportunity for a fresh beginning. This is triggered off by making a pledge.

II. CHRISTE

Only then can we deal with resentment. Think of Christ forgiving the Roman soldiers who were torturing him. A clue is found in applying the alchemical process of distilling. After draining off the scories, one cleaves to the essence of one's being, fostering an attunement where one is more ready to forgive.

III. CREDO

See yourself as a wave in the sea, the whole sea emerges as each wave, your body as being made of the fabric of the galaxies that spewed forth at the Big Bang, or your personality as being the outgrowth of a seed - a code - but you can actuate much more in your personality than what has come through so far.

Now see that it is all one being and it is only your own notion of yourself that makes you think that you are an individuality.

Now see that the Totality converged as your transforms itself through focusing its will as your will.

Can you stretch your mind to reconcile the irreconcilable: to accept that you are like the apex of the totality and yet an individuality?

IV. INCARNATUS

de spiritu sancto ex Maria.

Participate consciously and volitionally in your rebirth, resulting from an excellent integration of on one hand the fabric of the galaxies molded through eons of time into your body and in our personalities through the cultures of Planet Earth woven into our ancestral legacy: and on the other our unique representation of our inheritance of the divine archetypal nature manifesting as the many-splendored universe and in us as it diversified in the descent through the spheres.

V. CRUCIFIXUS

Accept your suffering as your share in the global burden of suffering of people and animals in the world today and ever in the past. See what it does to you. Does it make you bitter or more sensitive to the tribulations of others? Note that it makes you more thoughtful, cautious. In fact it is a catalyst of growth to make you mature and a bountiful personality.

It will occur to you that suffering is the signal accompanying the process of disintegration that is the necessary precursor of a new integration: rebirthing.

But this realization may be carried deeper: Once you have accepted your own annihilation and reinstatement, you will notice that

(i) your representation of the physical world falters, giving way to an overall grasp of matter that tallies with that described by physicists;

(ii) Your simplistic self-image will evaporate, giving way to the paradoxical wholistic self-representation of your psyche which we have already encountered.

Such is the discovery followed by a transformation sparked by the enhancing of the centrifugal, centripetal, ascending and descending forces in the practice of the dhikr.

Hence Crucifixus and Resurrexit are inextricably linked in their complementarity.

VI. RESURREXIT

However a remarkable feature stands out in Resurrexit: that by accepting dissolution, one becomes vulnerable, hence malleable which is a condition that is favorable to undergoing a process of molding. It is a matter of jolting oneself in a position of precarious equilibrium (Kemal in Sufic terms), which optimizes the effectiveness of the slightest catalyzing force. (Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures).

If we carry this further, we will realize that to resurrect, one needs to extract the quintessence of one's know-how and personal characteristics from its contingent underpinning, thus becoming very ethereal and consequently vulnerable. In fact one feels like pure spirit: strong in a strident way yet imponderable.

VII. SANCTUS

Call me!

We have now reached the stage where it is incumbent upon us to make a pledge. This is a different pledge than the one we made when recollecting our guilt, but a pledge of fealty, of service, like a knight, to the 'powers that be', that is the Spiritual Hierarchy of the Government of the World.

This is the moment to confront ourselves, make an introspective inquiry into what our real motivations are in life (called Mohasibi by the Sufis) and take clear decisions as to our future course.

VIII. HOSANNA

He comes in the name of the Lord.

The consequence is that we now have found our real being. Now only are we empowered to recognize and honor the holy status of our real being which was covered before under a masquerade of albeit well-intentioned pretense.

Furthermore this is the attunement which will enable us to establish a thought-bridge with the masters, saints and prophets who form the hierarchies of the Spiritual Government of the world.

IX. DONA NOBIS PACEM

Heretofore we had been pulled in two seemingly mutually exclusive directions on the horns of a dilemma by on one hand seeking to achieve sometimes simply indulging in covetousness, involve ourselves with people, sometimes on a power trip and one the other hand our quest for freedom and peace. Our power to attain our objectives was eroded by our incurring the spill-over of the agitation of the world: reacting rather than acting. Now we discover the sovereignty that arises out of the ultimate freedom: freedom from conditioning. Delegating the divine sovereignty confers upon us an ascendency with enables us to fulfill the purpose of our lives.
