Being the Light with Tolle

 It’s been a busy month.  Deadlines for music productions and video productions for online church.

I’ve been enjoying creating new music, such as it is.  I’m still learning how to play the piano... well, more like improvise.  I just find joy in finding new sounds and exploring with music.  

I’ve just started the new Tolle webinar, Being the Light.   

Go to EckhartTolle.com for more info.  This 8 week series is lovely and filled with gracious compassion. 

It’s a sweet, lovely meditation each week.  It’s more like a gentle conversation which makes me want to wake up! To be able to face external circumstances from a deeper place of being.  

So many thoughts to record... and yet, they are just thoughts.... forms, temporary... Like Tolle, I’ve been contemplating “being light”.  I finally get what Jesus was saying about us being salt and light. 

I’ll share more on these ideas in future blogs.  But I’ve been meditating on what Tolle mentioned last week.  3 things.  Jesus said, 1.  He is the light of the world. 2 WE are the light of the world.  In fact, he pointed out that our essential nature IS LIGHT.  “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden”.  This isn’t just about doing, but about being. 3.  The first thing God spoke into existence was light.    We come from light (Formlessness) and we return to light.  

But even as we embrace new ideas, we recognize that thoughts and ideas might point us toward truth, but are not ultimate truth.  Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.  What truth?  Adopting another ideology? Adopting a set of beliefs?  No!  Jesus did not come to start a new religion or belief system.  He came to point out that we are one with God.  We always have been, but our egoic minds create a sense of separation from God, from others.  

Like all true spiritual teachers, Jesus simply helped people recognize something inside themselves which they always knew but were temporarily blinded to.  You are the light of the world! God is the great I am that I am.  He is the Tao (the truth or God) which cannot be described or limited by words or labels.  The first precept of the Tao Te Ching is that the Tao which can be described or understood is not the eternal Tao. God is beyond our puny ideologies and beliefs.  

Our sense of being-ness comes from the eternal formlessness.  This is a call to deeper being.  Many wonderful Christians will try to convince us and everyone they meet that we are all going to hell if we don’t put God in their box of beliefs.  They think God is like them.  

If we agree with them, then suddenly we are worthwhile to them.  As long as we agree with their limited, egoic worldview.  As long as we identify with their sets of beliefs, then they deem us worthy of going to heaven.  But they missed the point of everything Jesus said and taught!  Everything for them (and at times for me if I am still operating from my ego self) is about doing, earning God’s love, and nothing to do with being.  

I recently had an opportunity to help lead worship with a small group of folks in an open-air setting.  It was supposed to be socially-distanced, with masks.  I was the only person to wear a mask.  They tried to convince me to join them, but I tried to explain that I wear a mask out of love for others.  It’s not about fear for my safety.  It’s about protecting others from me, as I might potentially be an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19.    

I tried to keep an open heart and spirit as the night went on and people shared their hearts.  I wanted to be fully present.  But as the night went on, I was saddened to see how much of the talk centered around trying to get everyone to see the world their way.  About trying to convince everyone else that they are going to hell... there was very little love, except for people whom they consider to be in their clique. 

I kept thinking of Saint Augustine’s words...Preach the gospel by all means, and use words if absolutely necessary.  These people were operating from the opposite worldview.  Heaven is not here and now or near as Jesus said.  Heaven is in a distant future.  And by all means talk people to death with your “good news” to convince them that you are “right”, and by default, they are bad or wrong.... and occasionally love people, but only if you think they measure up to your spiritual yardstick. 

And I also realize how judgmental this is on my part... and there is the paradox.  As soon as I judge others, then I am no longer salt or light.  The very thing I “accuse” these others of, losing their saltiness by depending on works, rather than  “being light”, is the very thing I am guilty of.... right?