Exactly as it is, part III: An Organic Relationship to Life

In the regard of this practice, exactly as it is, we ought to begin to understand the world from Meister Eckhart’s perspective:

 Some people want to find God as He shines before them, or as He tastes to them. They find the light and the taste, but they do not find God. A scripture declares that God shines in the darkness, where we sometimes least recognize Him. Where God shines least for us is often where He shines the most. Therefore we should accept God equally in all ways and in all things.

— Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works, page 588

Exactly as it is requires us to put aside our assumptions and our confirmation bias, our self-fulfilling prophecies, and engage in a simple observation of the facts. The moment that there's an inflection, it's not our world we are participating in, it is God’s; and the difference can be known in the organic relationship to life.

The organic relationship to life is formed from an organic, that is, gravitational, relationship within each of the parts: thinking, sensation, and feeling. The relationship begins at a molecular level and consists of a vibration that centers being within a field of gravity. That field as an electromagnetic potential belonging to a different level than my psychology or my personality; and it attracts the impressions of life in a quite different way, because they are no longer in orbit around my inner planet, which is the location of my psychology and personality. They fall into the gravity field and enter the center of being, where they add to the mass of being. The confusion that the circulation causes is replaced by a stillness that receives.

This is the place where God lives; it is a place where the kingdom of heaven touches the inner life. On the human level, this place which has an organic connection is called the city of God; and, although it may sound peculiar to you, this location, which forms the center of our being, it is a secret chamber which is not allowed to be opened by ourselves. It forms our Being; but it emanates from God, and even though the impressions that we take in feed the building of that city and affect its  structure, the city does not belong to us. We can become a resident; but we are not and can never be the architect.

For as long as we conceive of ourselves as the architects of our being and the mayor of our city, we increase our arrogance. Even if we do so in a negative way by presuming humility by way of personality, intelligence, in psychology — adopting it as a superficial truth glued to everything we think we are — we are still attempting to create something, rather than inhabit what we are. If we carefully observe the questions we ask in our spiritual search and the way that we present them to one another, maybe we can see how insidious this tendency is. It permeates everything. The organic relationship to life takes a completely different position which is well worth considering from the actual experience, not from a theory about it. Yet the organic relationship to life, which is born from the inflow, the influence of God, must awaken from within on its own. We are not actually able to awaken it.

Hosanna.

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.