When I was a kid, my parents had an expression, the "life of the party," which referred to certain people who were "musts" if one were to have a memorable fun event. These people usually drank too much without getting obnoxious, played piano, told jokes, and otherwise entertained and smoothed the social situation so that others could loosen up and have a good time, too.
In professional situations there are those "must" people as well - they are focused, get discussions going, excite new ideas and generally fill the room with positive energy.
So it should come as no surprise that there are spiritual "musts" as well, people who bring the sense of another, greater world into one's midst and make the whole pilgrimage of life seem worthwhile. But in the spiritual realm, many say that something else is going on; many say,for instance, that those few avatars of tremendous spiritual depths not only transmit a holy presence to others, but actually keep the world functioning, even existing, in a very literal sense.
The first time I had read of this was in the Theosophy magazine, where Madame Blavatsky was quoted as saying just this about a group of avatars that had contacted her from their seclusion in the distant Himalaya Mountains. She claimed her contact was psychic, which one would expect, and enigmatically postal as well.
It all seems so unreal as to be laughable, but many others have said the same thing of the spiritually connected - that they alone keep the world in existence. In the latest book considered in this blog, Merton himself said the same thing: that there were perhaps two perfected souls alive at any one time in the world, and it was they who allowed the continuation of our world.
How this is so has never been adequately explained to me. Merton makes the Christian argument - that it is the healing power of the Mystical Christ that unites the alienated masses with the power and purpose of God. In this, we can begin to see a bit of the logic, for if each moment of existence is an act of God, then there must be some conduit between creator and creation that is pure and open to reception.
Still, I for one am dissatisfied with this explanation. Why must God need this conduit? And aren't we all connected anyway, even if our small "selves" don't realize it? And what about the rest of creation, the more reactive or inactive members of being?
Perhaps we must find the explanation in the concept of "will." If we, as I wrote yesterday, have willed our separate conscious from creation, perhaps we could will ourselves into oblivion, as this separate will only believes that it is the creator. Could we "will" a bicycle into being without recognizing the act of the bicycle maker? Could we deny outright the existence of the bicycle maker and so sit around wishing, wishing for a wish that would never come?
So, I think, the idea of the "Mystical Christ" (or avatar) becomes clearer. It (he or she) is not only the conduit to creator, but the energy source that keeps us from sinking entirely into our self-made little human world. In one sense, the affect might be very practical and understandable, for this connection, working through the imaginary world of humans, gives us a glimpse of hope in a meaning far greater than our existential pattern of "life, work and death;" it keeps us in touch with a greater meaning that just might keep us from destroying ourselves on an individual or planetary level. On a more removed spiritual level, this slim connection might keep our collective dream from sinking of its own detached and shallow weight into the nothingness that it almost is, just as waking life and consciousness is needed for the production of dreams in sleep.
Those few avatars, or that one Mystical Christ, then, might literally be the "life of the party," the spirit that keeps the whole shebang from slipping into such a morass that everybody just goes home. They might be our collective connection to the real body, that which sustains this partial reality, this dream of God's dream. We might, as the wise men have often said, actually be of one body, and this or these spiritual masters might be all that keep us alive, connecting us to the living breath of creation - often called the "living waters" - just as our bodies keep us alive so that we can have phantom bodies in dreams.
I would never have guessed at this or imagined it by myself, but so I have read again and again from heads much wiser than my own. And so, even in our clumsy attempts to get at real Truth, maybe there is a bit of the saving touch, for these attempts, too, must aid in some way the ones who singlehandedly keep the party going. Even the life of the party needs someone to appreciate the energy and sing along. FK
In professional situations there are those "must" people as well - they are focused, get discussions going, excite new ideas and generally fill the room with positive energy.
So it should come as no surprise that there are spiritual "musts" as well, people who bring the sense of another, greater world into one's midst and make the whole pilgrimage of life seem worthwhile. But in the spiritual realm, many say that something else is going on; many say,for instance, that those few avatars of tremendous spiritual depths not only transmit a holy presence to others, but actually keep the world functioning, even existing, in a very literal sense.
The first time I had read of this was in the Theosophy magazine, where Madame Blavatsky was quoted as saying just this about a group of avatars that had contacted her from their seclusion in the distant Himalaya Mountains. She claimed her contact was psychic, which one would expect, and enigmatically postal as well.
It all seems so unreal as to be laughable, but many others have said the same thing of the spiritually connected - that they alone keep the world in existence. In the latest book considered in this blog, Merton himself said the same thing: that there were perhaps two perfected souls alive at any one time in the world, and it was they who allowed the continuation of our world.
How this is so has never been adequately explained to me. Merton makes the Christian argument - that it is the healing power of the Mystical Christ that unites the alienated masses with the power and purpose of God. In this, we can begin to see a bit of the logic, for if each moment of existence is an act of God, then there must be some conduit between creator and creation that is pure and open to reception.
Still, I for one am dissatisfied with this explanation. Why must God need this conduit? And aren't we all connected anyway, even if our small "selves" don't realize it? And what about the rest of creation, the more reactive or inactive members of being?
Perhaps we must find the explanation in the concept of "will." If we, as I wrote yesterday, have willed our separate conscious from creation, perhaps we could will ourselves into oblivion, as this separate will only believes that it is the creator. Could we "will" a bicycle into being without recognizing the act of the bicycle maker? Could we deny outright the existence of the bicycle maker and so sit around wishing, wishing for a wish that would never come?
So, I think, the idea of the "Mystical Christ" (or avatar) becomes clearer. It (he or she) is not only the conduit to creator, but the energy source that keeps us from sinking entirely into our self-made little human world. In one sense, the affect might be very practical and understandable, for this connection, working through the imaginary world of humans, gives us a glimpse of hope in a meaning far greater than our existential pattern of "life, work and death;" it keeps us in touch with a greater meaning that just might keep us from destroying ourselves on an individual or planetary level. On a more removed spiritual level, this slim connection might keep our collective dream from sinking of its own detached and shallow weight into the nothingness that it almost is, just as waking life and consciousness is needed for the production of dreams in sleep.
Those few avatars, or that one Mystical Christ, then, might literally be the "life of the party," the spirit that keeps the whole shebang from slipping into such a morass that everybody just goes home. They might be our collective connection to the real body, that which sustains this partial reality, this dream of God's dream. We might, as the wise men have often said, actually be of one body, and this or these spiritual masters might be all that keep us alive, connecting us to the living breath of creation - often called the "living waters" - just as our bodies keep us alive so that we can have phantom bodies in dreams.
I would never have guessed at this or imagined it by myself, but so I have read again and again from heads much wiser than my own. And so, even in our clumsy attempts to get at real Truth, maybe there is a bit of the saving touch, for these attempts, too, must aid in some way the ones who singlehandedly keep the party going. Even the life of the party needs someone to appreciate the energy and sing along. FK
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