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Underpinnings
Delivered by
Bruce Arnold, November 20, 2005
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
I have a set of working theses which guide my expression in spiritual
matters, developed over a lifetime of study and practice. Most everything
I do refers to these theses in one way or another. They are not better
than anyone else's. They are just what I go by.
In brief, they are:
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Most
people start with cherished ideas, and find facts to support them,
while ignoring information which would not. This leads directly to
error and illusion in most cases. If we start with facts and build
ideas on them -- the basis of the scientific method -- then illusion
and error are less likely, and the process is self-correcting, as new
information -- new experience -- is received. This is as true in the
area of spirituality as it is in the hard sciences.
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Spirituality,
at bottom, is not a matter of belief or faith, but of experience. The
great spiritual teachers and leaders have all had life-changing
experiences, upon which their teachings were based.
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While
there are major differences between the ways in which these teachings
play out (unlike the rather superficial idea that there is no
essential difference between religions), the central experience upon
which they are based is remarkably similar, across time, across
geography, and across culture.
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That
central experience is one of transcendence of all concepts, all
attributes, all distinctions. It might be called an experience of
Unity, of Emptiness, or of Grace, but it is the same experience. Dr.
Richard M. Bucke did a superb job of collating and comparing these
experiences in his ground-breaking book "Cosmic
Consciousness." Because this experience transcends concepts, it
is impossible to describe it directly. Of course, this is true of any
experience. Try to tell someone what a peach tastes like. You are
reduced to poetry; it is like this, or similar to that. You try to
find words which somehow evoke the experience, even if they cannot
describe it. This is true of transcendence as well. No wonder the
different mystics and prophets put it in such different words.
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That
experience is the natural birthright of everyone who has ever lived.
It is not reserved only for saints, avatars, great yogis, desert
mystics, and the like.
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As
it is our natural birthright, it is also our natural state. It is what
we most truly are, when all error, all distortion, all delusion, all
busy-ness is removed. It does not require any specific set of ideas or
practices or customs.
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Experiencing
that state, therefore, is not something to be acquired, but rather a
process of eliminating all that stands between it and our present
state of awareness. And all that stands between us is error,
distortion, delusion, and busy-ness. They need only be let go, and
that natural state emerges in all its luminosity.
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Letting
go of error, distortion, delusion and busy-ness is easier said than
done. It is also more easily done than is commonly believed.
Those are my basic principles, in regards to to the core of spirituality.
Not exactly Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the
Wittenburg cathedral, but there they are.
There are other things that are important to me, and which will come up,
but by and large, everything revolves around these. So my goal in talking
about polarity, for instance, is not to define what is or is not an
opposite. It is to evoke that experience which is beyond all those sets of
opposites, by getting people to look at them from a different angle than
they are used to.
Enough such angles, enough such peeks, folks can find themselves slipping
into that transcendent frame of mind that was enjoyed by Buddha and Jesus
and all those people. This is what mainly motivates me, to kind of midwife
that experience for people. If you look back over the talks I've given so
far, you will see these footprints all over them, more lightly in some
places, more obviously in others.
(Discussion)
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