Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Unchanging Spirit and the Wisdom of Insecurity

Yesterday, I questioned the power, nature, and even existence of Spirit. In his thought for today, Easwaran writes that we all hunger to connect with the unchanging and divinely perfect spirit of “infinite wisdom, infinite joy, infinite love” that comprises the core and essential nature of our being. But, as I have written before, if our essence is this Spirit, why don’t all of us know it and show it, and why do even the most enlightened people on the planet not seem infinitely wise, joyful, and loving?

Some sages have said that the greatest obstacle to enlightenment and happiness is our clinging to the notion that there is a perfect, unchanging realm within or without that we must find, unite with, or otherwise accord with or obey. Alan Watts wrote a wonderful book entitled The Wisdom of Insecurity in which he argued that enlightenment comes from realizing in the deepest possible way and completely accepting and relaxing to the fact that the unified Reality with which we’re inseparably linked is ever-changing. In other words, there’s no solid foundation to rest on, no unchanging Spirit to cling to, and only when we realize this in the “marrow of our bones” will we be enlightened.

Yet, I have this crazy notion that both Easwaran and Watts are correct and that my task is to understand how.

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