The Island By Hiran Perera
Christians for many centuries have sanctified this season which culminates in the Easter celebration. Some believe that self-sacrifice and self-flagellation are necessary in God’s plan for salvation. But fasting and prayer should be undertaken during this time of the year.
Life here on earth is symbolized by a perpetual struggle — conflict, opposing wills, scarcity, loss, separation and death. They epitomize the crucifixion at all levels.
The little triumphs enjoyed in this life are a slight of hand; they sometimes hold the mind in bondage and slavery to this mortal life. Wealth, power and fame are all worldly rewards but they are all equally transitory and ephemeral. Yet, at the heart of this struggle is the inexorable power of death over life.
For Christians Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. During his brief life on earth, Jesus did not desire anything from this ephemeral and hence illusory world; yet he had everything, which was demonstrated through the resurrection.
moreFor many Christians, at best, the hope of the resurrection is somewhere in the distant future and that is also very uncertain. In this sense, the Last Judgement is a terrifying concept — the choice is one between heaven and hell. In our quest for happiness, we search but never find because we may looking in the wrong place. The Bible urges that we should lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal (Matt 6.20).
There are many paths to salvation prescribed by various religious disciplines but there is only one belief we actually need to be saved from — ourselves, our egos and our thoughts. Each and everyday, we make choices that either entrenches us in the ego or redeems us from its clutches. It is the saving of the "Self" from the "self" that is salvation. The conflict then is between what we believe we are — the ego — versus what we are — Spirit.
As stated before, the crucifixion of Jesus is the epitome of this conflict; whereas, the resurrection is the final restoration in which the mind accepts the reality of what we really are — Spirit, which is Man’s true inheritance.
The body is irrelevant. But since the mind appears in this form, it is in this form alone that the undoing progress can be undertaken in our quest for enlightenment. It is also the symbol Jesus chose to resurrect in, but the resurrection is chiefly attained through the mind.
The body is so central to our thinking that an entire theology was pieced together to justify it and then give it the power to resurrect — even if that meant we had to wait until the Last Day of Judgement!
God is Spirit and the world — space and time — and the body stands "outside" this notion of Spirit and eternity. Therefore, the body does not exist since it is outside God. Actually, the body is a denial of God. The Essences, a strict esoteric order during Jesus’ time, held the view that the body is representation of the distorted mind. According to A Course in Miracles the world and the body are illusions.
In the Dhammapada, mind is the forerunner of all things. The body represents either sickness or health. The body has no power of its own accord and is governed by the dictates of the mind. Anger and holding onto grievances usually makes the body sick — it is a proven medical fact. Happy and peaceful thoughts make the body healthy. Health is inner peace therefore. Healing thoughts are those thoughts which are, so to speak, — the forgiving ones. In this realm, the body becomes a neutral instrument.
To reach enlightenment, we are relying on human thought but this thought is grounded in the reality of the body. The path therefore becomes oblique and opaque while the mind generates thoughts in a discursive pattern of interruptions. The Bible urges; "Be still, and know that I am God." This is akin to meditation.
The path to the resurrection is one in which we must systematically undo our belief in the reality of the body and the world. It is the relinquishment of the ego – or the self, that matters now. We must engage in all worldly activities with a difference. We must step back and suspend judgement allowing for truth to enter our minds. In the Toa of Physics, Capra, suggests that there is a seamless web of interconnectedness that runs throughout the Universe. What we think therefore must affect not only ourselves but also everyone and everything. One man’s enlightenment is everyman’s claim. Here, we must join with the Lord who is the symbol of the resurrection. What we once saw as separate and conflicted we now see as one and whole.
Reaching the Omega point according French, Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is as certain as love. In that realm we are wakened to God.
