Ancients Speak

Its been said before
over and over
in and out of dogma
entrained within it
not because of it
perhaps only because that was all there was
so fitting it to their purpose they wrote
wearing the lenses
that they surely had to wear absent any others
to view this mystery through....

Symeon the New Theologian (900 A.D.) said it well:

We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? — Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’s body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

St Theresa of Avilla wrote in a similar way,

another who was similarly awakened to divine union
(this piece is attributed to her however we do not know
absolutely that it is from her) however when we think of the second coming
the second coming is awakening to this spark that is within every human being
regardless of race, religion or creed:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
     no hands but yours,
     no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
     Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
     doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

Symeon ran into a little trouble when he began to suggest that ANYONE could experience the divine on their own rights, that farmers, business owners, married people...anyone from any walk of life could likewise experience this direct union with the divine.  Not having read too deeply into this, seems some in the church didn't like this.  This same form of desire for control and for setting ones self up as some irrefutable authority must be considered and looked out for.  Ego taints so much, sadly.  It will grab something that run with it (I know of which I speak).  Being willing to be humble and led by this and by no other authority I think is what works best for me.  I may not know, but if I ask, it is generally known as we come to this was eyes opened, we can peer into the very essence of life....this divine experience which enlivens all things...

Having gone through this experience it is sometimes interesting to see how others have described it....less for helping one to understand it as simply another voice in the chorus. By keeping away from trying to dress this in more than it needs to be, but to simply let it move through us, we learn the posture most needed, which is like a lover who fills us and suggests by his or her movement, how we should move, or be or feel.  Most often, its simply surrender....letting go....and then this experience floods into us in what can only be described as nothing short of orgasmic, divine, blissful, not knowing anything that has to do with shame or guilt....and we are loosened of our own inner issues as we are slowly and gently massaged into that new shape we were meant to be, to accommodate this lover within us...

This is not a thought, but an actual experience in your body

and all of your insides...a direct experience of the divine.
Some might call it Christ, or God, or Atman, Brahma, Mother/Father God.
Whatever the name, the experience is the same.  This goes beyond labels,
beyond gurus.
Gurus merely point to it....but ultimately its yours to know
when it finds you.

How will you find this?  How will it find you?  How will it awaken, again, alive as if for the first time in you?