The Reluctant Messiah

‘Christ on the Mount of Olives’ – Paul Gauguin, 1889 – Wikimedia

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“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me:
nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
~ Luke, 22:42

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Maybe it is more serious than you think. Maybe the line has been crossed without your noticing. Maybe there is no return to being what you imagined to be: A self, a person, self-contained in a body, armed with all the thoughts needed to represent you. Maybe there is no memory left of this old belief, and that you have to let it all go, all the kaleidoscope of separation, all the daunting suffering, all the interplay and thrill contained in being just one piece in the puzzle of life. Now all pieces have been joined to fade into one single presence with no pieces in it, a presence that you have espoused, that you have recognised to be your home — inherited and inhabited since before the dawn of time. Now you may have to move in with fear and reverence, for living in that new identity has consequences. It might transform you beyond your recognising, and in more drastic ways than you had expected.

It might shatter your dearest hopes and expectations, that were here in your heart, entertained to the point of cultivation. It might give you what you have sought all along, and stop dead every single desire for an ‘other’ to satisfy and fulfil you. It might demolish a dream, and disintegrate the map of yourself, that described who you were in such lively, never-ending details. It might silence you, when you so much enjoyed the delightful babbling of your anxious mind. And I won’t mention all your intimately held treasures of belief, all your ideas and opinions, that have put together that carefully built image of yourself: how they might be dampened, damaged, discarded for being found redundant. And think about your suffering, which you have got so used to, and is now a part of yourself which represents you and gives rise to some of your most cherished identities. Don’t think that it is easy to give up a pain to which you have attached meaning and purpose. But that too will eventually have to be discarded.

Maybe Jesus was right after all, who said that he didn’t come here to bring peace, but a sword to sever all things. Consider what it would take to live in unknowing, when you have been drawing your singularity in knowing so much about everything. What it could cost to finally be realised as nothing, after having invested so much in being so many things. To be fulfilled and peaceful in every situation would look like a dread or a bore, when you are used to draw substance and cheerfulness from so many circumstances, indulgences, pleasures, and refuges. Even happiness can be a dare, when you have invested so much pride and identity in seeking it. So let us not be deluded by the expected wonder of living as our true nature, for we are more often inclined to resist or fight against it than to succumb to its suggestions. That’s why it takes such patient and persuasive talent for truth to draw us into itself. Unless the blow is quick and therefore painless, it takes otherwise every bit of our understanding and devotion to accept to pay the price.

What irony this is, to have to work for being what we already are. Truth is only acceptable from the position of completeness. Every other separate points of view, every mind or ego occupied in being and defending itself, will push away and debunk every truth presented to itself. And there is no joy in marrying a reluctant partner, or one that we cannot love and surrender to. So truth will always ever come to you when you are off guard. We are all reluctant messiahs. But our resistance is just an idea or belief that doesn’t want to die. It is our clumsy desire for truth veiling the truth of our already accomplished identity as being. In fact just a misunderstanding. In reality, we only ever desire to love and marry the truth of our being.

So there comes a day when the devotion we feel for the many coveted objets of experience is being translated into a devotion to the impersonal presence that gives them substance and reality. The agony contained in resistance is made enthusiast or zealous surrendering to the truth of our being. There can be no opposing the pull of god, and we find ourself bound to its loving will. We are made a devotee of the gorgeous attractiveness contained in simply being. So we surrender; and surrender. We give in to that sacred alchemy. And we further realise that our merging with reality is in secret a ‘fait accompli’, that we are it already, and that the object of all our seeking is contained in being what we already are — in being only being. And believe me, there is no objection to that. So be it — ‘Not my will, but thine’. 

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

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Website:
– Paul Gauguin (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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