We read in Mark that "blessed are the poor of spirit," and I am again reminded of a remark I read on the bathroom wall while at the U of Michigan. It was a comment made underneath another etched scrawl reciting a Simon and Garfunkel tune, I forget which, about being lonely and helpless. The comment under it went something like this: "to hell with your meek surrender! That is only giving way to the decadent embrace of weakness brought on by the Jewish explanation for their defeat. It is an excuse of the losers!" I do not exaggerate its tone and have, if anything, dumbed down the logic. It was obviously made by a student taken in by a philosophy course that highlighted Fredrick Nietzsche, whose appeal to the superman was made all too famous by Hitler. I have talked about this side of Nietzsche with many people, and just as many people have a different interpretation of his ideas, of what they mean in the greater picture. However, there is no doubt that he saw the Jewish religion and its offshoot, Christianity, as religions of slaves, meant to enslave, above all, the will; that is, meant to keep us from striving for our utmost, struggling bravely against the forces of man and nature that may come against us.
For those living in the European subculture that is America, this is a tough one. Regardless of the anti-Christian and anti-religious movement of the intellectuals and their followers, even these - especially those in the PC movement - embrace the main message of the poor of spirit: that is, that the weak are superior to the strong, are in fact victims of the strong and thus should be given every advantage. And yet we have the counter-movement of striving for excellence, of getting ahead, of being the top dog, and we all embrace that as well. This is one of the cultural rifts in our country that creates movement and possible decline, rifts that all civilizations have although they might be different in specifics (another topic for another time).
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The trouble is, this interpretation of Mark's words is missing an essential element. According to Father Thomas Keating in his book, "Reflections on the Unknowable," what is meant by this is that we must lay down all our barriers - essentially our false egoic self - to will God's will. The poor of spirit are those who have done this. They are not victims at all; in fact, what they have done is the hardest thing anyone can do, and requires an iron will. They are not weak, although they may have come to this position from weakness. Yet, they also may have come to this position from great power, just as the prince Siddhartha did after he saw the emptiness of his own cloistered life, and so set out to resolve the problem of suffering to become the Buddha. I cannot recall if Nietzsche got into this, but if we take his "superman" as it commonly is understood, we see that great power and wealth do not create lasting happiness - but neither do imposed poverty of goods and material power. Rather, it is the giving up of the ego-directed self that gives lasting happiness, in being One with "the way" of God, or Tao.
We do not want to be poor of spirit. We want things to go our way, and are hurt when some things inevitably go astray. For Keating, not only is this a potentially good thing, but can also be so even if one actually gives up on God, or on hope, from such frustration. As puzzling as this might seem, Kathleen Singh in her book on dying says that hope is one of the last things we must give up to have a good death. We must give in to the notion that nothing can be done, that death will come, that we are powerless; we must give up our bargaining and pleas to God before this Ground of Being may enter us. This is "poverty of spirit."
It is a fearful prospect, but one that WILL come to us all. It requires absolute courage from us, and we all get it because we have no choice. It is one of those twists in reality that is not evident in our normal world, but is the stuff of which the greater world - the world that we sometimes refer to as the spiritual world - runs on. This poverty of spirit comes not from weakness, but from courage. Seeing oneself as a victim of others brings no relief, and no political movement can make our weakness right - these are limited thoughts gained from the spiritual plain and applied incorrectly to the material plane. Spirit does not run that way; all our clever logic simply does not work, nor do our supplications to the human power structure.
We might just as well call the "poor of spirit" the true supermen, for they have indeed inherited the kingdom and left behind fear. Fear is the emotion of the weak, and the more power one has in this world, the more one fears the loss of it. Those who have surrendered the all of themselves are beyond fear - the truly courageous, the true victors. FK
For those living in the European subculture that is America, this is a tough one. Regardless of the anti-Christian and anti-religious movement of the intellectuals and their followers, even these - especially those in the PC movement - embrace the main message of the poor of spirit: that is, that the weak are superior to the strong, are in fact victims of the strong and thus should be given every advantage. And yet we have the counter-movement of striving for excellence, of getting ahead, of being the top dog, and we all embrace that as well. This is one of the cultural rifts in our country that creates movement and possible decline, rifts that all civilizations have although they might be different in specifics (another topic for another time).
.
The trouble is, this interpretation of Mark's words is missing an essential element. According to Father Thomas Keating in his book, "Reflections on the Unknowable," what is meant by this is that we must lay down all our barriers - essentially our false egoic self - to will God's will. The poor of spirit are those who have done this. They are not victims at all; in fact, what they have done is the hardest thing anyone can do, and requires an iron will. They are not weak, although they may have come to this position from weakness. Yet, they also may have come to this position from great power, just as the prince Siddhartha did after he saw the emptiness of his own cloistered life, and so set out to resolve the problem of suffering to become the Buddha. I cannot recall if Nietzsche got into this, but if we take his "superman" as it commonly is understood, we see that great power and wealth do not create lasting happiness - but neither do imposed poverty of goods and material power. Rather, it is the giving up of the ego-directed self that gives lasting happiness, in being One with "the way" of God, or Tao.
We do not want to be poor of spirit. We want things to go our way, and are hurt when some things inevitably go astray. For Keating, not only is this a potentially good thing, but can also be so even if one actually gives up on God, or on hope, from such frustration. As puzzling as this might seem, Kathleen Singh in her book on dying says that hope is one of the last things we must give up to have a good death. We must give in to the notion that nothing can be done, that death will come, that we are powerless; we must give up our bargaining and pleas to God before this Ground of Being may enter us. This is "poverty of spirit."
It is a fearful prospect, but one that WILL come to us all. It requires absolute courage from us, and we all get it because we have no choice. It is one of those twists in reality that is not evident in our normal world, but is the stuff of which the greater world - the world that we sometimes refer to as the spiritual world - runs on. This poverty of spirit comes not from weakness, but from courage. Seeing oneself as a victim of others brings no relief, and no political movement can make our weakness right - these are limited thoughts gained from the spiritual plain and applied incorrectly to the material plane. Spirit does not run that way; all our clever logic simply does not work, nor do our supplications to the human power structure.
We might just as well call the "poor of spirit" the true supermen, for they have indeed inherited the kingdom and left behind fear. Fear is the emotion of the weak, and the more power one has in this world, the more one fears the loss of it. Those who have surrendered the all of themselves are beyond fear - the truly courageous, the true victors. FK
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