Imprimi Potest: R.P. Edward B. Arroyo, S.J.

Copyright: John Lawrence Hein, S.J.

February 20, 1996

New Orleans, Louisiana

All Rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or translated without the previous written permission of the author which will be freely given.

I THE ONE AND THE MANY DANCING THE COSMIC DANCE

A. The One 1

B. The Many 4

C. The Relationship Between the One and the Many 8

D. Images Formed by Perception of Cosmos 10

II ENTER ANGELS AND OTHER COSMIC ENERGIES

A. Meet Clarissa 15

B. Introducing Missy 18

C. Why Missy Is With Me 19

III MISSY SPEAKS ON RELIGION

A. The Purpose of Religion 25

B. Misunderstandings Can Cause Wars 27

C. Invitation to Changing Images 29

D. Why Such Resistance to Change 31

IV DEATH IS AN ILLUSION 39

V I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

A. Images of The Transcendent 42

B. Cosmic Irreversible Transitions - Passovers 46

C. Images Again 50

D. Sins 52

D. Salvation by Christ the Light of the World 58

VI THE EXERCISES FOR COMPASSIONATE

ENERGIES 63

A. Principle and Foundation 64

B. Sin/Darkness on Planet Earth 68

C. Sin/Darkness in My Persona 87

D. Annunciation and Incarnation Year Zero A.D. 101

E. Annunciation and Incarnation in the Year 199? 104

F. Reflections on the Kingdom of God 110

G. The Call to Compassionate Presence 115

Appendix 116

Recommended Reading 120

Note: All Biblical quotations are from the 1966 edition of the Jerusalem Bible, except where noted.

There is the saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Old fools don't rush in, they just keep stumbling along.

These musings rose out of a need to clarify for myself, and anyone with whom I may be journeying, the images and movements which have taken place within me and others in the past twenty-five years or more. I am speaking about the images of God, of Human, of the Cosmos, of Sin and Salvation. These are indeed rather large dimensions of the human experience. The only qualification I have for writing about them is that they have occupied a great deal of my energy, both for myself and for those who have invited me to accompany them on their spiritual journeys.

I have created exercises for compassionate energies, spirits, souls, cosmic consciousnesses, sparks of the divine - all participating in the evolutionary process of the Cosmos; more specifically, the evolutionary process of Planet Earth and even more specifically, the evolutionary process of the human species.

The exercises are part VI of these musings. You may wish to skip all of the musings and go directly to the exercises. If you do, however, you will miss a lot of playful dancing in the wisdom of the ages! ! ! !

As a Jesuit I have constantly had the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola as the touchstone or backdrop from which I am present to others. Therefore, the exercises I present follow the same schema. The changes are in the Images of God, Human, Sin, Salvation, which may be nothing more than changes in my perception of God, Human, Sin and Salvation.

My editor has asked me to make up a glossary of terms which I use. I have great compassion for her in her desire to save me and make some sense out of my babblings. I thank her and have compassion for her and for all who attempt to follow me in this inner and outer galactic journey-dance. Somehow, the terms change or simply do not allow themselves to be pinned down to precise definitions. Perhaps the more we dance in wonder and wander in the diaphanous mystery, the more we will be caught up in the continual birthing of galaxies of which we are whatever we are.

I acknowledge all of the angels who have busted their metaphorical butts taking care of me for the past 75 years. There are also the many embodied angels who have loved me, encouraged me, and enabled me in the Passover step of the Cosmic Dance. Fellow Jesuits have encouraged me by the uniqueness of who they are - especially Harry Martin,S. J. Particularly I am grateful to Don Martin, S. J. who helped me make the transition from a Tridentine/Vatican I mentality to the openness beyond Vatican II. Religious of the Cenacle have inspired me by their living in the mystery of God’s goodness and inviting others to do so. I am grateful also to Sr. Jane Pellowski, M.M.S., who introduced me to the art of dreamwork and to the works of Anthony deMello and to Thomas Merton’s writings on Zen and Taoism. Sally McPhillips introduced me to various authors such as Brian Swimme, Brian Weiss, and Deepak Chopra. Thanks Sally. I am grateful to Robert Baker, Ph.D., who introduced me to hypnosis. Thankful I am to those who introduced me to guided imagery. Thanks also to Stephanie Dodge and Patricia Ann Scott who introduced me to various massage therapies, acupressure and cellular energetics. To each and all I am very grateful for they have invited me into transition, the Passover step of the Cosmic Dance.

I am also grateful to Lake Pontchartrain, to the trees on the Cenacle grounds, to the rabbits, the squirrels, the nutria, to all the birds and especially little owl. They have all supported me in this movement.

However, this book would never have been without the presence of "Henry", my prostate cancer, inviting me to wonder and wander, and the help of "Harold" the computer loaned to me by Barbara Erichson who - along with Rosalie Ambler, though separately - very frequently and patiently listened to and challenged me in my musings, making it easier for me to process them. To them and to many others I am grateful for love, encouragement and compassionate presence. I am deeply indebted to Karen and Monroe Laborde for their questioning and suggestions.

Very special thanks to Karen Laborde for endless hours of editing and typing the manuscript. Needless to say it could only be done with much compassion and love.

The cover design is by Laverne Parfait. Thanks much for your enthusiastic play. At least this little book has great looks.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to Mindy Malik for her enthusiastic encouragement, love, and support in the publication of the manuscript. Mindy, I thank you.

Metairie Cenacle

July 31, 1996

Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola

INTRODUCTION

When I was ordained a priest in 1951 the theology of the time as I perceived it imaged God as the Creator, Ruler and Judge of the Cosmos. The Cosmos was viewed very anthropocentrically and God was viewed anthropomorphically.

Human was imaged as a creature composed of body and soul. The purpose of human was to know, love and serve God and thus to be happy with God forever in heaven.

These humans were basically to follow the Ten Commandments and the six precepts of the Roman Catholic Church. If they were to go against any of these in a serious way, with sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, they committed a mortal sin. Should they die without being sorry for this sin they would be condemned to everlasting hellfire.

Sin was imaged as a free act of will on the part of human by which human transgressed one of the laws of God or of the Church. Since all sin was supposedly an act against God, it terminated in God Who is infinite. Thus the sin became infinite, and human, being finite, could not make satisfaction to the infinite God. God's infinite and perfect justice demanded satisfaction.

God in his infinite love for man gave his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, both the original sin of Adam and Eve and any actual sins that we ourselves have committed. Thus was the infinite justice of God satisfied and we were redeemed. Since He was both God and man he could redeem us. He was the sacrificial victim on the cross on Calvary. This is called a propitiatory sacrifice.

This prevailing theology of the time is still part of our dogmatic tradition. For many it seems to be the center of our dogmatic tradition and the only acceptable teaching of the Church.

As for the Cosmos, intellectually we may have been up to the heliocentric image of the Cosmos, but in our religious thinking we were still back with the Sumero-Babylonian image of the flat earth, the heavens above, and the underworld beneath us, all of which was encircled by the ocean.

These are very succinct statements, possibly rather negative and harsh and over-simplified. However, I think they were the bottom line for most priests and the vast majority of the laity at the middle of this century.

In the first five parts of these musings I share with you the thinking and imaging to which I have come over the past thirty-three years. During this time there was the Second Vatican Council, which opened the windows and let in fresh air. Also during this time the focus of my ministry was giving retreats to groups and individuals following the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. I was also involved in Ecumenism, Marriage Encounter, the Charismatic Movement and so on.

This background invited me to look at what I perceived was the theology supporting the Spiritual Exercises - namely, the redemption of human by a propitiatory sacrifice, i.e., Jesus Christ is the victim on the cross, and the Father is the One propitiated. The focused imagery of the Exercises included the Kingdom of God with Christ the King to be generously followed by all loyal subjects. To do this we must always be aware of our inordinate attachments and free ourselves of them in order to follow the King. This oversimplified perception did not fit well, but it was mine.

Then one day I read one of Teilhard de Chardin's letters to his friend, Pierre LeRoy, in which he said that he found the Cosmology and hence the Christology of the Exercises childish, and that they should be offered with new imagery based on the understanding of Cosmogenesis. I do not flatter myself to think I have done what Chardin had in mind. Rather, I simply share the insights and the imagery that have come to me in dialogues with many friends, from readings, and from just plain walking with my girlfriend, Lake Pontchartrain.

From many sources - especially Chardin's letters, some of Joseph Campbell's more popular works on Mythology, and Brian Swimme's book on the Universe - I came to appreciate that we live in a Cosmos of swirling galaxies of which ours is but one and Planet Earth is a very small bit in the midst of billions. I also came to appreciate that religions on Planet Earth are rooted in the imagery of homo sapiens attempting to express their experience with the Ineffable Transcendent. Both individually and collectively we want to have some metaphorical structure and medium in which and through which to relate to the same Ineffable Transcendent.

I came to see that the structures of Religion - definitive Creed, Code and Cult - were very necessary to most individuals. The structures within which they grew up and within which they learned and practiced were real supports throughout their lives, particularly in times of crisis. If the structures were questioned, their security was threatened and they could become very angry.

Over the years I became aware that for many individuals religion, instead of being the support system it was meant to be, had become a burden. Religion, the definitive Creed, Code and Cult, becomes a burden when individuals allow themselves to be determined by this support system rather than being supported by it on their spiritual/faith journey. Then religion becomes a bondage rather than a help.

All humans on the planet are invited to be on this spiritual/faith journey. Their religions, the support system for individuals and for the collectivity, may differ but ultimately the movement - the spiritual journey toward the Transcendent within - is the same for all.

THE ONE - The Source from which the many are.

THE MANY - the ten thousand things of which the human species is one.

Playfully and daringly, and with all due respect to the many scholars in all the disciplines of sacred theology and spirituality, I celebrate a Cosmic image of Sin, Salvation, the Lordship of Jesus the Light of the world - a superb Cosmic Dancer. I also celebrate the Prodigality of a passionately loving Mother/Father/Evolver God who invites each of us to participate in the creatively ongoing process of Cosmogenesis by simply being the wonder that each of us is. I call this the Cosmic Dance of the One and the many; the Transcendent and the many of which each of us is one.

What is this Transcendent Mystery?

The Chinese call it the Tao. I am told that frequently when the Prologue of St. John's gospel is translated into Chinese the symbol for the Word is the Tao. It is the Way or the Source from which all comes. The Tao te Ching very definitely says that if the Tao is expressed or named, then what is expressed or named is not the eternal Tao. The unnamed is the source of heaven and earth. When we remain in the state of no desires we may experience the Mystery. When we are desiring we experience the manifestations. Both desiring and not-desiring are values in the human condition. It is well that neither supersede the other. Then we may experience the Transcendent Mystery.¹

The Mystery is that which cannot be imagined, conceptualized or worded. It is the nothingness and the no-nothingness which permeates every atom of the Cosmos and is the Source of all that is. Physicists who study quantum physics speak in this manner when they say it is just as much a mystery to them as it is to us to whom they may try to talk about it. They speak about protons jumping in and out of existence in atoms, and they acknowledge that they do not have the slightest clue as to how or why this happens.

Where is the Transcendent Mystery, the Tao, the One dancing the many? Everywhere and nowhere for it is neither temporal nor spatial. For centuries the ancients of China, India, and the West have talked about the nothingness from which all is.

Scientists such as Brian Swimme, PhD., a mathematecal cosmologist speak of the quantum, the ultimate particle that boils into existence from nothingness and goes back into nothingess. The nothingness or no-nothingness is the source of our being.²

There is a wonderful story in the Chadogya Upanishad c 900 BC, India. The father, Aruna, tells his son, Svetaketu, to bring him a fig and to divide it. He divides the fig and then the seeds in the fig. When he finds nothing Aruna tells him that the finest essence which he does not see is the source of the fig tree, the source of the world, and that is what Svetaketu is. ³

We are reminded of what St. Paul says to the Greeks, "In God we live and move and have our being. We are all children of the one God" (Acts 17:28). St. Paul simply puts this tremendous mystery in anthropomorphic terms.

The Many

Who or what, then, are the many?

In his introduction to the Bhagavad Gita Aldous Huxley writes, "At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines:

First: the phenomenal world of matterand of individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even gods - is the manifestation of the Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be nonexistent.

Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference, they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.

Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.

Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify with his eternal Self and so come to a unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."⁴

The many include all that are not the One or the Divine Ground or the Transcendent. Yet the many are in the One and the One is in the many. I can play only with one small species of the many - homo sapiens - on Planet Earth.

John 17:21

The physical of human is this temporary phenomenon which we call the "body" animated by spirit, soul, the spark of the Divine. It is something that is very much in flux and although it seems to be a separate entity, is very much a part of the movement of the Cosmos. "We are like the stars...thermodynamic systems...vortices in turbulent nature," writes Fr. David S. Toolan S.J., in his article "Nature is a Heraclitean Fire" (whose title he borrowed from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem, "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection"). In an introduction to Fr. Toolan's article, Fr. John Padberg S.J., notes that "The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is supposed to have called the soul ‘a spark of the substance of the stars.’" In this way of thinking and imagining, human is simply a dimension of this Heraclitean Fire, a dimension of the One.

Wondering about the Universe emerging from the "Big Bang," Fr. Toolan writes:

"What to make of this? The point, as Hawking phrases it, is that ‘the odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are religious implications.’ From this angle, it begins to look as if human beings, for all their distinctiveness, are modes of being of the universe. As Thomas Berry has it, a human is ‘that being in whom the universe comes to itself in a special mode of conscious reflection.’ What are you looking into when you gaze into the face of another human being? There is every indication that you are seeing a hologram, a fragment that embodies and personifies the whole cosmos - and into whose hands at least this planet has cast its fate.

And what are we humans, the observers, in this perspective? We come at the end of the cosmic meal, at the end of an enormously complex chain of conversions of noisy energy radiating to us in torrents and stretching back to the formation of galaxies out of the energy released by the Big Bang. Quite literally, we are the fallout of the stars, for without star factories converting helium out of hydrogen, there would be no oxygen,  carbon, or iron; and without them there would be no amino acids or proteins for life; and without the radiation spilled over by the initial hydrogen-helium conversion, billions of stars would go dark. There would be no Sun, no day to nourish life.

Like the stars, we too are dynamic energy systems, internally constituted by our relationships. We are open thermodynamic systems moving upstream and drifting toward death; and thus, like the Sun and the Moon, we are disturbances in the field, vortices in turbulent nature. Like them we are constantly recycled, dissolving and reappearing. We grow our entire physical body as we do hair and nails. The tissue of our stomach renews itself weekly, the skin is shed monthly, and the liver regenerated every six weeks. Every moment a portion of the body's 10²⁸ atoms is returning to the world outside, and ninety-eight percent of them are replaced annually.

Each time we breathe, we take in a quadrillion atoms breathed by the rest of humanity within the last two weeks and more than a million atoms breathed personally by each person on Earth. So much for the strictly bounded, separate individual."⁵

 

The physical body and the phenomenal ego are very much in flux. They make up the temporal persona that relates to the Transcendent. This temporal persona is the collection of all of those qualities of the individual by reason of its gender, race, nationality, religion, both inherited and programmed into the individual by family, school, religion, society, etc. This may be called the temporal image/phenomenal ego and is constantly changing as the individual establishes his/her place in society; and then further changes as the individual seeks her/his true self. These are the limitations the eternal spirit takes on upon entering the human experience.

There is THE ONE, the Mystery or Transcendence, the Source of all creation, yet totally immanent in the MANY of all of creation.

The relationship experienced by the many with the One is shaped and expressed within the images which derive from the perceived view of the Cosmos. The images are also formed by the social and political institutions of the many. These images may be very primitive or very sophisticated; they are nonetheless the groundwork or foundations for religions and cultures.

We call these images gods or even God and tend to forget the Mystery of which these images are no more than an attempt to say something of our experience with the Transcendent. We then tend to worship the images.

One day snake slithered inquiringly from its cave to find out from other creatures what was their image of God. The first creature is fox.

Snake: Fox, good day to you.

Fox: Good day to you also, Snake.

Snake: Fox, do you believe in God?

Fox: Why, of course.

Snake: What does God look like?

Fox: God is a great silver Fox, very cunning in her caring for the universe.

Snake: Thank you very much.

Fox: You are most welcome. Have a good day.

Snake continued on his journey and came to a great oak tree.

Snake: Good morning, O Majestic Oak tree.

Oak Tree: Good morning to you, snake.

Snake: Oak tree, do you believe in God?

Oak Tree: Why, of course.

Snake: What does God look like?

Oak Tree: God is a Great Beautiful Majestic Oak tree who gives shelter on its branches to the birds of the air and restful shade to all creatures who come to her.

Snake: Thank you very much.

Oak Tree: You are most welcome. Have a good day.

With Oak tree’s permission Snake slithered up to one of its highest branches where it met owl.

Snake: Good morning, Owl.

Owl: Hoo-- Hoo-- Good morning to you, Snake.

Snake: Do you believe in God?

Owl: Why, of course.

Snake: What does God look like?

Owl: God is a great white Owl, who sits in silent wisdom to be shared with whomever will sit in silence with her.

Snake: Thank you very much.

Owl: You are most welcome.

Snake slithered towards its cave. Snake met human.

Snake: Good morning, Human.

Human: Good morning, Snake.

Snake: Do you believe in God?

Human: Of course.

Snake: What does God look like?

Human: Since we humans are made in the image and likeness of God, God must have an intellect and will, and be all knowing and all powerful, controlling the Universe.

Snake: Thank you very much.

Human: You are most welcome.

Snake slithered back to its cave, called a meeting of all the other snakes and said, "The world is in great danger. No one knows that God is a Great Golden Snake. We must go out and convert all to the truth."

Human's perception of the Cosmos forms the basis for some of the images. For example Campbell notes the changes in our perception of the Universe which has evolved from the Sumero-Babylonian idea of a flat earth with a bowl on top, surrounded by water to the currently held belief that humanity is a recently evolved species on one of the smaller planets in one of the millions of galaxies.⁶

The traditional Judaeo-Christian image of the Cosmos and, therefore, of God was - and for many is still - precisely that of the Sumero-Babylonian image with a God outside of creation seated on a throne, determining all that is happening. Yet only in October of 1992 did a Vatican commission finally acknowledge that Galileo - who taught in the early 1600s and was imprisoned by church authorities for his ‘radical’ views - was not in error when he agreed with Copernicus (who died in 1543) that the Earth is not the center of the Universe.

Let’s look at an image of God that would fit into what Campbell calls our present image of the Cosmos. Through the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry and others, we are invited to an image of God as the Energy that draws all through evolution to the fullness of Cosmogenesis. This fits Campbell’s image of exploding galaxies.

In reading Chardin's letters, our vision of the Cosmos, of The Christ and of the ultimate Reality-Mystery which we call God is expanded. Therefore, our vision of the Spiritual Life is invited to expand beyond a rather narrow Judaeo-Christian vision to one that can simply be called Cosmic.

Thomas Merton in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita invites us into another image of Cosmogenesis: that of the Cosmic Dance. He speaks of one’s life being experienced as that of a beast of burden when one lives out of a separateness from the whole - the Cosmos - the Dancer. He writes of the Supreme Player being manifest in the play of the million-formed inexhaustible richness of beings and events. This is the cosmic dance. Just possibly the key to the meaning of life lies in an awareness of the cosmic dance. Then when we move in time with the Dancer, our life attains its true dimensions.⁷

This inner cosmic dynamism originates in the two-fold nature of human, in human’s purpose in the evolutionary process of Planet Earth and of the Cosmos. It becomes very dynamic in the relationships of the phenomenal egos of each human, in the relationships of the humans to every other species on Planet Earth and in the Cosmos, and finally in the relationship of the many to the One. What a Cosmic Dance!

What is human and what is human's purpose? Earlier I quoted from Aldous Huxley's introduction to the Bhagavad Gita:

Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.⁸

Most humans tend to identify with the phenomenal ego. All their energy is focused on developing and preserving that dimension of themselves. It is called survival. Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life. (John 12:25). Only through crises are humans invited to become deeply aware of the eternal Self which is the inner human, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. Huxley indicates that this is the purpose of human’s life:

Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify with his eternal Self and so come to a unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground.⁹

Therein is human's part in the Cosmic Dance: the invitation to become aware of the Eternal Spirit/the One of which human's eternal Self is a spark. Becoming aware of this intuitively through many different passions, deaths, resurrections and ascensions, human is invited to become conscious of and to exult in the Cosmic Dance.

I do not understand what I am writing, but I do know that it is true.

Jesus is a Supreme Cosmic Dancer. He proclaims us to be one in the Father as He is in the Father and the Father in Him. He models for us what it means to be in this One. He invites us to join in this oneness. The oneness is there. We simply need become aware of what is and learn the major step of the Cosmic Dance - the Passover - which I will later describe.

the light of life. John 8:12

Moving from the darkness which is within us to the light which is within us is a dimension of the Passover step of the Cosmic Dance. Moving from the darkness of temporal culture to the Eternal Light is another dimension of the Passover step of the Cosmic Dance. The invitation to the Cosmic Dance is both internal and external. Unless it takes place internally there is no real integration of the Dance and we keep stumbling all over ourselves and one another.