mentality becomes increasingly evident, the more the inflated ego in its pretense of respectability concerns itself with external appearances. Jesus once got into an argument with the Pharisees and scribes, and attacked their hypocritical pretense of respectability with the sharpest words:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity (Matthew 23: 27-28).
The use of such strong words unmasks the pretense of respectability—of the Pharisees and scribes of today and of all times to come-as sanctimonious hypocrisy. Jesus may have been many things, but one thing he wasn't was—respectable. He represented what he would always represent and what Bernanos called "the great fear of right-thinking people." He was great fear and trouble to those who declared at the time, "He must be gone, away with him," and continue to do so today in that they have disfigured and denigrated his teaching to the point that as an alienating, moralizing theology it is unrecognizable.
Jesus never lived up to the ideal of pseudo-religious clean living. This is evident by what we read in Matthew (11:19):
The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners."
The idea of clean living is always paired with a puritanical conscience and spiritual narrowness, and readily appears cloaked as religious earnestness. Just the same, "you will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). Where there is no joy, there can be no truth! Great joy has been proclaimed to us, so why we should be down in the dumps? At the beginning of the Gospel it says, "I bring you great joy," and at the end, "They returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (Luke 2:10, 24:52). The Christian church needs to rediscover this great joy, the same great joy that was felt by the disciples when they witnessed the resurrection of the Savior.
But considering that hardened rationalists as well as narrow-minded traditionalists are reluctant to let themselves be roused out of the comfort of their pseudo-religiosity, we will probably have to wait some time for great joy in the church. There is no room for joyful proclamations in a place where people speak only of transgressions and cling to religious dogmas and formulas. "Free yourselves of everything!" Zen tells us, and Jesus says, "The truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The Tibetan lama Buton wrote in the 14th century:
Cheerfulness of the soul is a means of realizing truth, for in order to come to this realization, the soul, which was restless and confused, must become pure and cheerful.23
In Jesus's words, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God " (Matthew 5:8).
To be pure in heart, we must first empty ourselves inside, and thus free ourselves of all clinging and identification caused by ego-delusion. When we are empty inside, we are in keeping with what Jesus expressed in the oft misunderstood first beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). When we empty ourselves of all that God is not, we will be filled with the superabundance of the Godhead. We will have the fullness of life: "And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 13:52). That is why Paul says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is joy" (Galatians 5:22).
Without the message of joy, the Christian religion is incomprehensible and uncompelling. And "good news" that is not joyfully delivered is suspect in every way and contradicts itself. The early church was only successful in the world because it was a messenger of joy; this changed as the joy was lost and the church ceased to be a witness of joy. In sharp contrast to a joyless and sorrowful Christian mentality are, paradoxically, the encouraging words of Jesus himself (John 14:1, 15:11):
Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
THE WORLD AS OUR REFLECTION
Whoever reads the Gospel with the eye of the heart will recognize that Jesus was anything but a wishy-washy, sanctimonious holy man.
Jesus is Christos, meaning he who is filled with the divine spirit. The divine spirit is the fullness of life and the joy that, through Jesus, is reflected as the hope for salvation in people with whom he comes in contact. They are finally able to breathe freely. Oppression falls away from them and joy shines forth.
Such an effect is explicable only in that Jesus not only spoke of joy, but radiated joy himself. The joy he radiated uplifted people in an atmosphere of trust and enthusiasm for God.
This enthusiasm is able to draw us out of our petty fears and worries about everyday matters and the futility of human life. We hear the words of Jesus:
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you drink; nor about you body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his span of life?
But first seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble [Matthew 6:25-34].
Worrying is a disease of fallen people who out of a lack of trust in God attempt to construct their own destiny. They look to the future full of fear and look to the past wistfully or with feelings of guilt. The human heart is troubled and spiritual awareness is scattered; thus individuals lose their ability to perceive the presence of divine being that is always there. Since they no longer hear the harmonious sound of the music of life, they are solely aware of "disharmony" in the world. Just like a mirror that reflects only the face that peers into it, the world we perceive reflects only our own state of mind.
An old Tibetan parable illustrates this well. A dog once got lost in a cave with many passages. He suddenly found himself in a big hall, surrounded by a thousand mirrors. He saw nothing but dogs wherever he looked. Frightened and distrustful, he bristled and backed away; since the dogs in the thousand mirrors did the same, he began to growl, snarl, and bare his teeth ferociously. Growing terrified at the huge number of ferocious dogs he saw all around him, he fell into a state of utter confusion. He angrily began to run in circles, which, of course, the dogs in the mirrors did as well. This caused him to run faster and faster until all at once he fell down dead. The only question remaining here is: What would have happened had the poor dog just once wagged his tail?
An Indian proverb says, "The smile that you send out will return to you." We must begin with ourselves, if we want to live to see a joyful and peaceful world; this is spiritual law. We cannot change the picture of the world. The world is only a reflection of our self, and there is little sense in finding fault with a reflection.
People who walk around as victims of anxiety, fearful and tense, need not wonder when their negative attitude, which is seen by others as dismissive, is reflected in their environment. This anxious mentality sets up all sorts of barriers and inhibitions between people, making it impossible for them to recognize the sameness of their original nature. It is fear that keeps someone from being filled with love and sympathy for others, all because the small, limited "I" is afraid of opening itself up to the boundless expanse of the one mind. This fear is the cause of distrust, jealousy, and envy; it turns the "I" into a fortress, opposing all that surrounds it.
TURNING TO THE DIVINE
