When we pursue happiness, it eludes you. However, when you recognise that happiness is the natural state of the soul, all you need is to eliminate all that comes between your happiness and you.
Her Indian roots help Suma Varughese realize that the ultimate step towards
integration lies in Vedanta—the
philosophy that we are all part of the Divine, the Brahman, the Creator
Although a Christian, I
have always been baffled by my religion's central belief that Jesus Christ
died to redeem mankind of its sins. Besides much of Christianity that
challenged one's reason, I thought this too was part of its general mystification.
As a seeker, I was far too aware of the limitations created by conditioning
(sin in New
Age speak) and the hard work needed to eliminate them, to take seriously
the claim that anyone's death
would absolve me of the task. Each had to work at his own salvation. I
could see that the loving willingness with which Christ accepted his crucifixion
must have eliminated a tremendous amount of negativity from the earth,
for who could have remained unchanged by such greatness, courage and love?
But to imagine that his death gave every Christian thereafter free pardon
for all their acts, stretches the point too far, moving from the reasonable
to the theological phantasm.
Yet, every Christian has found this the most potent of tenets. Christ's
sacrifice has been the cause of millions of conversions and even transformations.
Alas, the vivifying power behind this concept escaped me. Of late, however,
I have been reading that classic, The Varieties of Religious Experiences
by William James. And I see the mystery anew. According to James, whose
book traces the spiritual experiences of a number of mystics and lovers
of God, the knowledge that Christ died for our sins frees the Christian
to surrender to him.
James points out that most of us are hindered from experiencing altered
states of consciousness.
The mind doesn't let go of the social construct, holding on to the consciousness
of being, resisting absolute union. As spiritual
masters have said, the seeking must stop at the penultimate stage
for liberation to unfold. The miracle happens only when we give up and
let go. James recounts the experiences of numerous seekers who drop the
whole enterprise to suddenly find themselves in the ecstasy of union.
The belief that you are already saved through Christ's sacrifice helps
in this surrender. This means there is really nothing for you to do! You
start from the premise of already assured salvation so that no matter
how severe your conditioning or how hard your journey, you never, in Christian
terminology, fear hell and damnation. Your destination has already been
reached.
All seekers
are acquainted with the uncertainty of the path we tread, and how hard
is the struggle to retain balance. Often, we fear remaining rooted to
the spot, a hideous amalgam of God and beast, man and mouse. The belief
that we are already what we are trying to be is a deeply consoling one,
for it gives us the confidence to keep going. This is why most seekers
only become committed when they have had a foretaste of a state of liberation.
Having once known such joy and ecstasy, they have concrete proof of
the existence and attainment of such states.
This concept
of being saved by Christ's death is akin to Vedanta's assurance that
we are and have always been part of the divine, and only ignorance veils
that knowledge. It also adds a vitalizing essence to the being, so that,
as the layers of our personality unfold, we are progressing towards
goodness, and not, as Freud thought, into the bubbling cauldron of the
dark unconscious. True, we must pass through that domain, for no crevice
of ourselves must remain unpurified, but the journey ends in untrammeled
goodness and not in destruction. What an almighty relief!
I now have
much more respect and clarity with the concept of being redeemed by Christ's
death. I can vibrate with its profundity. I still prefer the Vedantic
way, for it is universal. But why deny non-Christians the privilege of
being saved by Christ. Furthermore, no matter how comforting the thought
of being saved by someone's death may be, I would find it infinitely more
comforting to know that my liberation is assured by the very virtue of
being human. As a lover of freedom, this matters.
