Your Soul Will Save You
Me doing my best Karate Kid impression at Clayton Beach. Photo by Kelly Sell
If you have been in my classes lately you have heard me refer to the course I am taking online with Neil Douglas-Klotz. I was first introduced to Klotz’s work in his pithy volume called Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus’s Words, which is an Aramaic rendering of the Lord’s Prayer with some commentary about the words and their sound-breath-vibrational implications. I dove deeper into his work with Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus: The Hidden Teaching on Life & Death which is a bit denser and expands many of his concepts into the Beatitudes, commonly quoted parables, and Biblical verses.
I enrolled in a course he is teaching online and found many valuable insights and considerations for further contemplation. Aramaic is the language Jesus spoke when he was teaching. Like Sanskrit, Aramaic is a vibrational language that is linked to the breath and much like yoga, the breath is featured prominently throughout the teachings. Also interesting is that in Aramaic, there is only one preposition, suggesting that the people of the time lived more on a continuum of understanding between inner/outer, above/below, past/present/future, you/me, heaven/earth than we do now in our highly individualistic culture and our divided, consonant-driven language and speech. For instance, in Aramaic, breath refers to your own breath, your soul, as well the great field of energy in which we live, breathe and have our being, whereas our modern definition is more along the lines of “the air that comes into and out of the lungs.”
Probably one of the most interesting takeaways from the first session was Klotz’s assertion that “You can’t save your soul. If you are lucky,” he suggested, “your soul will save you.” He went on to explain that the Aramaic word that was translated as salvation means “to enliven” or “to vivify” or “to bring to life and make larger.” (Yeah, I know… information a lot of us could have used many years ago when being threatened with an eternity of hell if we didn’t “get right with Jesus” and get saved. But I digress…)
Time and again, I was reminded of the many inspiring teachings of Sanskrit as well as the assumption that governs much of the non-dual tantric philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism as I understand it— We are already whole, complete, and perfect. (Oh, and while I am at it, perfect in Aramaic implies “all-encompassing” or “all-embracing” as opposed to “without flaw” or “with no mistakes.”) Practice then, is not the process of becoming better or more worthy, but is the process of dissolving the barriers and misconceptions that block one’s awareness of one’s already-present state of wholeness and the process of maturing enough that the all-embracing recognition of Reality As it Is resides inside a stable, reliable personality and consciousness.
In his lovely book, Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition, Christopher Wallis states, “The purpose of spiritual practice could not be to attain union with God, for you already are one with the divine reality, and it couldn’t be otherwise. Neither is its purpose to make you more beautiful or perfect, for nothing exists that is not God, so you cannot be more beautiful or perfect than you already are in this moment.” Of course, there is a lot more nuance to consider and the cloaking of this reality manifests as some pretty terrible circumstances in our personal, relational, and communal lives. So, well, there is also that.
For me, the value of returning to these fundamental assumptions lives in understanding the premises upon which the map of the road I am traveling was made. If I am traveling the road of practice, following a map that begins with “sinful, bad, wrong, and fundamentally flawed” and that promises to take me to “saved from a pit of hell for eternity,” my trip will be characterized by the assumed starting point and the promised destination. If my pathway is outlined for me based on a set of assumptions regarding my inherent wholeness, divinity, and basic goodness, my trip will be characterized by a mood of radical affirmation, whole-hearted engagement, and the promise that every circumstance holds within it the seeds of revelation. Much like Richard Rhor reminds us in his prophetic teaching, “How you travel is where you end up.”
And look, to be clear, I am not new. I know that many of the suggested do’s and don’ts of various pathways may be similar. In all my wanderings, I have yet to find any mystical path that suggests harming self and others is a viable route to the Supreme in the same way that I have not found any healthy food plan recommending a steady diet of Twinkies and Doritos, no matter how much I might hope for that. I know much of what I am writing about is easy to say and hard to embody. And yet, I am delighted, enlivened, and dare I say “saved” these days by the reminders of some of the fundamental tenets of practice and for the Grace that such viewpoints offer in times where the surface of life holds so much proof of the opposite.
A few years ago, I started having dreams about church, crosses, and going to Divinity School. In following the thread of those dreams, I began a return to the faith of my childhood and to environments where I could explore what I had left behind when I had stepped away from Christianity. I found my way to the Episcopal Church and to an amazing study course and community of people who embody every good thing Christianity offers. I made a promise to myself that I would participate in the group and not decide for them what they might be able to accept about me— I would come as my quirky, eclectic, ecumenical, sarcastic, curious, opinionated, loving, and critical self with as much vulnerability as I could muster. And wouldn’t you know it? I was received and welcomed with a kind of Grace I wish for every seeker in any tradition and for every student in any learning environment.
And weirdly, many of our discussions led me back to yoga philosophy, back to my life with my guru and his teachings, and back to my love of Eastern Philosophy. It’s kind of funny because if you know me, you know that in my classes and trainings, I harp on both/and, the need for embracing paradox, and for a life that gets bigger in Consciousness, not smaller. Looking back over the last few years, it seems clear to me that what felt like a crisis of faith and a possible rejection of my studies, became a radical expansion of my perspectives and a re-ordering of my own assumptions about what is possible for me. Both/and in action.
So, yeah, I am reading and studying and meditating and riding my bike and lifting weights and making shapes on my mat and spending time with friends and doing what I can to bolster my Dad’s spirits as he is declining incrementally in this phase of his incarnation. And the world is burning. And no one I know has it easy right now. To be clear, I do listen to the news when I am not contemplating the nature of the spiritual path or thinking of some new way to teach the same old triangle pose or trying to figure out what to make for dinner. And yet, the refuge of depths remains ever-present and I am grateful to have means by which to find solace in them through the teachings of so many wonderful wisdom traditions and through the good company of people like you who have stayed with me for the last 1300 words (and for many years on the path).
Thanks for reading.
Okay, more soon.
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