Why are you unhappy?

Why are you unhappy?

Because 99.9% of everything you think,

And everything you do,

Is for your self,

And there isn't one.


~~Wei Wu Wei

(I found this in Grace and Grit:Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber on page 243. Now I want to learn more about Wei Wu Wei, who was born in Ireland in 1895!)

Hell

I believe that we make our own Heaven or Hell for ourselves here on earth. To have faith long ago, I had to give up the idea of the reward of Heaven or punishment of Hell, because I kept second-guessing myself, asking: "Do I believe only for the promised end?"

I was helped greatly by Father Kelly Nemeck, founder of Lebh Shomea, House of Prayer, retreat center in Sarita, TX, who spoke once about Hell in 2000. He said he did not believe in Hell, but even if it does exist in physical space, it is empty! Father Kelly is a contemplative, a spiritual director, an author of many books, and someone I admire greatly.

In classes at Oblate School of Theology, I learned that some scholars believe that Jesus referred to Gehenna for the place we interpret as "Hell." Gehenna was the garbage dump for ancient Jerusalem; the refuse was constantly burning. Poor people lived around the areas, trying to find means to live.

I have friends who fear the prospect of Hell. And so I was struck by Ken Wilber's words in his book about his wife's cancer and eventual death, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber:

(this is a conversation between Treya and Ken)

Treya: "And you're saying that not just the eastern mystics but also the Western mystics actually define sin and Hell as being due to the separate self?"

Ken: "The separate self and its loveless grasping, desiring, avoiding--yes, definitely. It's true that the equation of Hell or samsara with the separate self is strongly emphasized in the East, particularly in Hinduism and Buddhism. But you find an essentially similar theme in the writings of the Catholic, Gnostic, Quaker, Kabbalistic, and Islamic mystics. My favorite is from the remarkable William Law, an 18th-century Christian mystic from England; I'll read it to you:

'See here the whole truth in short. All sin, death, damnation, and hell is nothing else but this kingdom of self, or the various operations of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking which separate the soul from God and end in eternal death and hell.'
~~William Law

"Or remember the great Islamic mystic Jalaluddin Rumi's famous saying:

'If you have not seen the devil, look at your own self.'
~~Rumi

"Or the Sufi Abi 'l-Khayr:

'There is no Hell but selfhood, no Paradise but selflessness.'
~~Abi 'l-Khayr

"This is also behind the Christians mystics' assertion that, as the Theologia Germanica put it, nothing burns in Hell but self-will." (85-86)

Eternal Spirit

Ken Wilber writes:

"And who knows, we might, you and I just might, in the upper reaches of the spectrum of consciousness itself, directly intuit the mind of some eternal Spirit--a Spirit that shines forth in every I and every we and every it, a Spirit that sings as the rain and dances as the wind, a Spirit of which every conversation is the sincerest worship, a Spirit that speaks with your tongue and looks out from your eyes, that touches with these hands and cries out with this voice--and a Spirit that has always whispered lovingly in our ears: Never forget the Good, and never forget the True, and never forget the Beautiful."

Wilber, Ken. The Eye of Spirit. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. 32.