ORIGINAL SIN: The Noise of Divine Nothingness.

This blog continues my previous comments on original sin (The Genesis Principle), which are my ideas about noise in the physical and mental universes and my continuation of an exploration of the noise of the spiritual universe.

Rereading the previous blog on “Original Sin: The Background Noise of Existing as a Human” might be beneficial. My premise is that if there is noise in the physical universe. We can hear that, and then there is noise in my other two universes that make up one reality, the mental universe, which leads to the spiritual universe. Still, the spiritual universe is also a more profound realm of being human. This elusive spiritual universe is almost entirely invisible to the eye, but my destiny as I move forward in consciousness and complexity during what time I have as a sentient being.

THE GRAND OVERVIEW

If the background noise of the physical universe is an undistinguishable swoosh of creation, and the noise of the mental universe is the dissonance of how humans fumble over what is good for them or what leads them down paths of love and the inability to identify the truths that are not helpful for our being human. In that case, the spiritual universe is the resonance to that dissonance of being human, the deepest level of our humanity. “Every day brings something new.”. The noise of the spiritual universe is silence. The problem is, “How do I access something which, to all things I have learned about what it means to be human, makes no sense, and receive messages in my mind and heart that I can’t hear with my ears or see with my eyes?” What is the language of silence? I must learn the language of God, but how and from whom?

To gain access to a nature that is beyond my own. I don’t have the energy to move from humanity to divinity using just my human nature alone. What I do have, through my unique reasoning and choices I make, is the capacity and the capability to move to become the highest form of what my human species allows through complexity and consciousness (See Teilhard Map {unattributed}). I want this map to be one of my conceptual ways to assess reality. If I only live in two universes (physical. In that case,l and mental), this map does not explain what I consider to be the three problems automatically facing each human, whether they know it or not, and whether they can solve it. This map is my river of life, showing not only a systems approach to my purpose in life but also the stages of our collective intelligent progression (evolution) from atom to Adam, from primates to adopted sons and daughters of the Father, from being merely human (which is good) to fulfilling the purpose for which this flow of life intends, to “,,, know, love and serve God in this world and be happy with God in the next.” (Baltimore Catechism, Question 6).

I conjecture that there are three core existential “problems” to be solved that are automatically embedded in my humanity, seeking resolution in my individual lifetime by using my reasoning and ability to choose what is authentic or irrelevant to my purpose. Butterflies don’t have to answer these problems because they are not aware that they are aware of them. The three innate prompts or unresolved longings in all humans are:

!. What does it mean to grow to that most profound level of humanity and fulfill the natural intellectual progression towards what my nature intends for our species?

II. What does it mean to love fiercely?

III. Once I am on the pathway to even knowing the meaning of my humanity at the deepest level and accessing it through love, then, “What are those absolute truths beyond human corruption and original sin that allow me to unlock the six combination locks that have led me to place the one key into the correct position to open the purpose of my life?”

UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF MY HUMANITY

My premise is that there is a deeper level of my humanity, but one which is not subject to the automatic movement of animal or human nature. Instead, each person gains entrance to this template of truth by unlocking six combination locks to discover the one key or template that is absolute truth, beyond human capability or capacity to reason.

To gain entrance, I must be a sinner, which all of us are, except Jesus and Mary, and say, “Let it be done unto me, according to your word.” As a Lay Cistercian, I try to delve deeper into my humanity daily using the energy of the Holy Spirit while I sit next to Jesus in the upper room of my inner self. I am a work in progress. I bring this up because it is my Lectio Divina encounters with the Sacred that the problems each human faces, plus how I can begin to unravel The Divine Equation, is shared with me, as my capacitas dei (consciousness) and conversio morae (complexity) allow me to assimilate. In my dying to self, the cross is my key that unlocks what life is all about for me. It is not dollar signs, nor the number of cars I own, or even if I am famous and recognized by others for whatever I do, but simply how much I can love others (even those who hate me or whom I dislike) AS CHRIST LOVED ME, that is at my core. (Philippians 2:5-12)

It makes no sense that silence is the noise of the spiritual universe and can open up my humanity to a level of evolution that nature intended it to have from the beginning.

WHAT IS THE NOISE OF DIVINE NOTHINGNESS?

Do you think that this is jibberish? It is without the application of my assumptions. If you want to hear jibberish, go back to my previous blog and listen to the background noise of creation. My contention (I would not even say a hypothesis) is that the noise of the spiritual universe is silence. I assume that what cannot be heard with the physical ear is real.

1. The spiritual universe coexists and interacts with the physical universe of matter and the mental universe of humanity. These three realms of reality exist simultaneously and have different functions that enhance their purpose. These three universes exist together as one as they collectively move along the river of life, each gaining in complexity and consciousness as they approach Omega.

2. Examining my personal intervention in this river of life, I exist with the physical universe as a base (along with all other living things), but with a difference. I can reason and say YES or NO to the trends of my nature and God. My physical and mental universes allow me to approach the next level of my evolution (intelligent progression), the spiritual universe, where I must use my reason to choose a deeper level of my humanity, which is the opposite of what my humanity says is accurate. In my experience, most humans cannot make this leap of the mind. It is also called dying to my false self so that I emerge on the other side with an enhanced awareness of my humanity and the energy to move towards that Omega point. This silence of the mind is peculiar to humans. Ants don’t have this capability, even if they surpass humans in how they organize their existence. This is the realm of interior silence, which is peculiar to each human. It is the place no one wants to look, not because they are incapable, but more often because they just don’t think anything is worth exploring. The pathway to my inner self is well-worn and worn down by my relentless treks to where I just sit and wait for pure energy to envelop me as I can receive it (capacitas dei). Once I have been named and accepted as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, I begin packing for my journey to the kingdom of heaven in heaven. Heaven, both on earth and in heaven, is God’s playground, and if I intended to play in this playground, I must pack those things that God has told me are useful while on earth so that I might enjoy with others after I die. The notion of service to others, rather than self, is fundamental. That takes lots of work because the allure of the world wants me to pack those things and pleasures that make me happy on earth, but they are like cotton candy (tastes good but has no nutritional value). My challenge is knowing what God wants when I have never seen God, the Father, or Christ, and especially the illusive Holy Spirit. Christ told his disciples, “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe.”

To make the trek to that upper room, I must abandon everything that makes sense to forge ahead and accept what Christ tells me is the way, what is accurate, and what is the life that will lead me now, after I die, to my destiny as a human being. I use the assistance of Lay Cistercian spirituality, with its emphasis on denying self to rise to a new level of thinking (capacitas dei) and the Cistercian practices and charisms that keep me focused on Christ alone, instead on my meandering thoughts that are all about me. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven, ” is my mantra daily or more frequently. It is a habit you don’t think about each day but one that, if you don’t do it, something seems out of kilter.

Characteristics of the noise of silence

• Profound silence is not the opposite of noise but rather the presence of the unseen energy of the Sacred.
• The spiritual universe has silence as its language of communication, not human speech.
• I must use God’s language, not my own, to communicate with God.
• The silence of God is alive because it is the background noise of pure energy.
• I can’t hear this background noise with my physical hearing, but I can learn to listen to the whispers of God in my heart when I voluntarily place my heart next to Christ and just wait.
• Silence is that blanket of the energy of the Holy Spirit that surrounds me when I choose to place myself in the presence of Christ and say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner. May it be done unto me according to your word.”
• Silence is that little old lady sitting in the back of the Church, named Mrs. Murphy by the late Aidan Kavanaugh, O.S.B., my Sacramental Theology professor, back in 1963, who is content just to sit in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and be present to the ontic possibility of the manifestibility of the Sacred.
• It is not my silence that I seek. I Hope to dwell in the presence of the nothingness (NO-THING-NESS) of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as an adopted son of the Father and with Hope in the future, in the Kingdom of Heaven in Heaven later on.
• I must choose to leave my standard paradigm of living in the physical and mental universes to experience the silence that is the ultimate resolution to my humanity’s dysfunction. Thus, I can peek into the next level of my evolution as a human, the purpose for which my nature intended in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.
• The noise of the Big Bang is picked up by scientists and sounds like gibberish, but it is not. The noise of the mental universe is the dissonance caused by the conflict between being human and an adopted son or daughter of the Father. That is original sin (sin meaning something is not aligned correctly according to what our human nature SHOULD be. I can see the dissonance of human behavior in what people choose as their center and how it leads to the devolution of the human process forward using complexity and consciousness rather than what nature intended.
• Silence is the sign of contradiction to the Tower of Babel used by humans who believe that human nature alone can lead to the fulfillment of what it means to be human, or what it means to love fiercely, and finally, what is truth absolutely without the corruption of original sin.
• Rather than leave us orphans, Christ, our Re-Creator, becomes human to tell us face-to-face and to show us by the power of the Resurrection how each person can fulfill their humanity by dying to that old self and vesting ourselves in the robes of an adopted son or daughter of the Father.
• Heaven begins with Baptism and is a lifetime of gathering those treasures you will take with you to Heaven after you die. Remember, only the rich get to heaven, but it is God’s treasures that count, and they must contain NOTHING of matter or sinfulness.

HOW I USE THE LANGUAGE OF SILENCE TO HEAR THE WHISPERS OF GOD.

Evolution (physical and mental) has prepared me to solve The Divine Equation, a series of six questions or keys that I discerned over my 83+ years of wobbling down the rocky path of existence. I use The Divine Equation not as a way to know who God is as God but to begin to approach the mystery of my own humanity, using my life experiences and intelligent progressions. I use the whispers from God to both ask the questions that are most authentic to why I am here and to seek answers to these six questions. They are:

1. What is the purpose of life?
2. What is the purpose of my life within that purpose?
3. What does reality look like?
4. How does it all fit together?
5. How can I love fiercely?
6. I know I am going to die; now what?

I am attracted to the contemplative approach to spirituality because of its emphasis on interior conversion and growth (complexity and consciousness). Like the airline stewardess who explains the oxygen system in case of emergency, you must put your oxygen masks on first before you help others. Lay Cistercian’s spirituality, as I understand it, is self-centered but with a twist. I must convert myself first, moving from my false self to my true self. That true self is manifested by my going to the upper room of my inner self and wanting to sit on the couch and listen to the heartbeat of Christ in silence. I wait for what comes rather than pushing my agenda. Silence is the language of God, and I must know how to close down my own noise of the universe and the radical sounds of dissonance formed by the wake of my movement through the river of humanity and all its pitfalls. It is a strict, disciplined life if formed properly. To ensure that, I am a part of a gathering called Lay Cistercians that have been adopted by the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), where I must meet monthly to keep myself balanced and rooted in Christ Jesus, lest in preaching to others, I, myself, maybe a hostage to my own myopic view of life. http://www.trappist.net

As I sit in silent wonder, reflecting on both the questions and the answers to The Divine Equation, I am struck that there is a very faint whisper in that profound silence that can compel me to channel my thoughts in ways not in keeping with my free will but using someone else’s will. The wind blows in the silence of God, and I use Lay Cistercian (based on Cistercian and Benedictine) practices to stop and listen with the ear of the heart. In my Lectio Divina meditations, when I am still enough, silent enough, and focused enough on The Christ Principle, I feel that wind in my depths and barely make out a calling in the silence and solitude in that most precious place. At first, I thought of silence as external, meaning the absence of noise, which it is. On learning to use my powers of focus to grow deeper (vertically), I gradually learned that INTERIOR silence is the goal of my Lectio Divina. In this arena of the upper room of my inner self, I am not in control but a learner, a disciple, sitting at the feet of the Master, waiting to listen to the language of God, silence, and what it means. This energy is beyond me as a human but well within my grasp as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

As a son (daughter) of my Father, I find it takes work to do this each time. There is no automatic way to love God without putting God there first, where there is no Love.

The noise of the spiritual universe is the silence of God, both while I am still alive and gathering up with it means to answer the three questions of life (see above) using The Divine Equation, and also later on in Heaven where all will speak silence and share out consciousness and complexity with others…forever.

My secret and Christ’s secret to listening to the whispers of God is no secret at all. It is still enough in my mind and heart to go apart and rest for a while, just waiting in that upper room of my inner self for my humanity to calm down so I can receive what God wants of me. I wait for the noise of silence to encompass me and whisper how I can be more human in my approach to life by doing what God intends me to be by my nature.

In my own Lay Cistercian Way, I plunge forward with complexity and consciousness of God’s presence in me during Cistercian practices and their resultant charisms (humility, obedience, hospitality, simplicity, etc…) that help me focus on the presence of Christ at this moment in time.

In this next blog, I will capture what I do regarding practices and a situational schedule for this old, broken-down Lay Cistercian. I am not you; you are not me; God is not us; and we, most certainly, are not God.

In the coming blogs of this series, I will share with you ten techniques I use to still my rambunctious humanity enough to hear the whispers of Jesus.

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