Philos

 

"I have called you servants... but now I call you friends." ~ Jesus

Christianity begins and ends with a great simplicity: personal friendship with the Beloved. Like other religions, Christianity has been culturally appropriated by new age metaphysics, "ascended masters" of cosmic Christ-consciousness, a Westernized form of Advaita, and a secular program for social justice. These are all valid works, but they aren't distinctly Christian.

The nectar of divine love flows into this twig from the vine of Christ. It is a direct transmission of life-energy: through Presence, not belief; through Being, not doing. No need for any doctrine, nor any concept of service. Moment by moment, the lover dynamically responds to the intimacy of the Beloved, encountering the face of a flower, a stranger, a homeless addict, a newborn child, without any agenda but to fall deeper in love.

Service happens. Justice happens. Not through universal Buddhic compassion, but through an intimate ever-unfolding relationship with the Beloved, whose tincture permeates the cosmos.

This is the relationship between an ocean and a drop. When it becomes a drop, the whole ocean says, "I Am!" Then the drop falls back into the sea. Does the drop become the ocean, or does the ocean become the drop?

This friendship is a catastrophe for the ego. Why? Because there is no Way. Nothing the mind can seek, or believe, or practice. The heart simply longs to surrender. Yet even before surrender happens, the Friend is nearer than this breath.

Though the historical Jesus was a consummate model, the Beloved does not need to take the form of Jesus. Even St. Paul writes, "If we have known Christ in the flesh, yet that is not how we know him now (2 Cor. 5:16)." The Beloved may take any form to reveal the face of divine love, even the form most troubling and unfamiliar to the lover. This is how love expands.

Does this mean divine love is impersonal? Certainly not. Let us not make the mistake of confusing the formless with the impersonal. When a lover and beloved kiss, their lips touch, their eyes close, they melt into a sea of tenderness. Yet in that kiss, is there any form? If you could stop time in the instant of a kiss, you would see that form dissolves. The lovers do not see each other’s faces. Yet this formless communion is intensely personal. In the Song of Songs, the bride cries, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!" This was the Christian mystics' favorite book of the Bible, which they read as a dialogue between the soul and Christ. Just so sings Rumi, "There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of Spirit on the body."

Where then shall you find this communion of two in one, and one in two? All around you and within you, the Beloved. Pervading a pear blossom, a trembling cocoon, a swirling galaxy, the Beloved. Nearer than space, more present than time, the Beloved. Take one step toward the Beloved, and already the Beloved has taken a hundred steps toward you. Fall and you are held.