ALREADY IN THE TEMPLE

From my perspective and experience, the typical Christian methodology for "drawing closer to God," and diminishing the ego is poorly developed. There is hardly anyone operating in the usual Christian circles, as far as I have observed, who knows anything about it. Most preachers have no clue; their clerical duties and seminary training do not provide them with much, or any, background. Marriage counseling, yes; how to actualize merging with God, little. Intense prayer is about all that is proffered as method. It is an essentially ego-based methodology (even "prayer" which still largely props up the ego) that can go only so far in the usual "Christian walk." 

Much of it is pretense, or complacency, in my estimation, fueled by a Medieval dualistic psychology and theology that sees God as residing in some mysterious Elsewhere in the Heavenly Empyrean beyond the celestial spheres, in the sense of God as a separate, thus removed, Being. 

Seems to me, the typical Christian is searching for a method to do what she says she wants to do spiritually but with no knowledge provided to her about how to do it. In any case, there is truly no true "searching," as if there is a "something" to be "found": God IS already, always Here. There is nowhere else to search. 

So, do not confuse or jump to any invalid conclusion about my supposed "searching" as if Truth has not been found, and I am "lost." The Path (not a "search") is the realization of oneself as a "conscious co-worker of the Divine Plan." Realize, actualize, this, and then one already, always lives in the Temple.

STEPPING STONES IN THE LAKE OF DESPONDENCY

In the beginning there was a single stone surrounded by the swirling Waters of Torment; but also always there was an unseen Path of Hope. With the first step, the embodied spirit begins its tentative journey, barely seeing another stone ahead in the murky darkness, which can be reached with a carefully placed step. After several unsure steps, somewhere in the midst of the Lake of Despondency, it becomes all too easy to lose one's way, and even cease attempting to partake of the journey. One could remain on that one stone or another and forever blame and stagnate, looking around with no assurance as to where to step next. Yet, there is always another stone just ahead, which gives one a sure purchase for the next step in the journey (although some of the stones are slippery with guilt and remorse). 


After many steps, one can look back and--even if one has fallen off a stone or two, or many, into the Lake of Despondency--those steps have eventually led to the more confidant present. Ultimately they lead to the Shore of Tranquility. There, one may look back, pick up a stone or two, and skip them across the surface of the former Waters of Torment, and laugh at the whole spectacle. It was a small, shallow pond after all. The stones were always there as aids for the journey.

EINSTEIN AND THE ENDS OF REALITY

In interest of full discussion of Albert Einstein, the complex person and his beliefs concerning religion, one must consider the famous letter, written by hand in 1954 a year before he died, and auctioned last May 2008, in which he said some things that might surprise those religionists who quote other statements he made at other times.

Einstein was quite clear in some of his comments about his not believing in a personal god and in his general condemnation of religion, although, paradoxically (it would seem) he thought that religion could enrich life.

Einstein admired Baruch Spinoza and his pantheism--that God and Nature were more or less synonymous. In a telegram to a rabbi he stated, "I believe in Spinoza'a God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God Who concerns himself with the fate and doings of mankind."

In the 1954 letter, Einstein, writing to a philosopher friend who had written a book about Judaism, said that, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." He goes on to say that, "the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition."

Was Einstein "spiritual?" Yes, I believe he clearly was. But not in the way that some would want. Anyone who examines the edge of reality, as did Einstein, must think about "spiritual" reality, or about what is (concrete) reality. He was lifting the veil of the physical universe and appearing underneath--or perhaps beyond the edge, although he does not seem to have made any statements about anything beyond the physical universe.

Yes, Einstein stated in his speech "On Science & Religion," that "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Yet, I'm not sure he had any more insights than that; at least as for as I know he never said much more. Still, even though it is clear that he found the practice of religion distasteful, he never condemned belief itself.

All this makes me admire Einstein, in his mostly nondogmatic views. He clearly was neither an atheist nor a theist nor a religionist--in their usual meanings. So, what was he? I do not think he exactly developed a complete spiritual view of reality. Perhaps the key to this is that his last 25 years were spent in fruitless search for a unified field theory based on a fundamental misunderstanding of modern physics.

Was he chasing a "unified field theory of physico-spiritual reality?" I'm sure he would have loved to have found it in a neat mathematical formula.

What I learn from Einstein's life and his life search is that I can marvel and wonder at the reality of the Universe, as he must have done, and even use religion and spiritual views in the process of marvel and wonder--but science does not reveal these ultimate realities. That seems to have been the position of Einstein. For me, that's my view also. Today and in the end, that's also pretty much all I can do.

EMBEDDED IN THE GREAT GESTALT

Spirituality is the process of learning who we are, even when we never reach, at least in this lifetime, total direct conscious contact with the Design Integrity Gestalt of the Ground of Ultimate Being (otherwise titled "God"). My conceptual label blends R. Buckminster Fuller's "design integrity of the Universe," and Paul Tillich's "Ground of Being," with "gestalt" to indicate the functional whole without properties derivable by summation of its parts.

That's alright; we are all embraced by that Mysterious Boundless Being--as it is also embodied within us--whether we realize it or not. At some point, though, it should be obvious that words do not get us there; there must be some direct experience (although each quotidian moment already IS direct experience). All religions, and even, I would say, some nonreligious systems of thought, attempt to engender some of that direct experience of the Ultimate Reality.

The spiritual principle, then, is to comprehend that we are centered (there is no other place) in that Transcendent Luminosity and simply live (even unconsciously) as embedded, nonseparated energies in the Design Integrity Gestalt of the Ground of Ultimate Being. The key is the comprehension, the realization, that we are always embraced by and embedded in the Great Gestalt.

The classical crossover piano music and the rain pattering my window and the clunking bamboo chimes are more than nice on this luminous day.