The Call of Abundance

The Call of Abundance

The Storyteller continues:

To return to our story of the First Light, Breath and Dark…

After this, everything proceeded as if by reflection. Once you could feel one difference--Dark versus Light-you could feel others. So division happened, like morning and evening, point and counter-point, theme and variation, melody and harmony, color and contrasting color. All of these balancing processes would broadcast the message of Oneness and Manyness, Known and Unknown, Love Given, Love Received into the fabric of Reality.

All sorts of experiments happened. You can imagine the many worlds, the strange creatures and pre-creatures in different realms, some of which you can still see or feel today if you're in the right frame of mind. Some experiments seemed promising, some not. In our vicinity, we know about some of these experiments, but we don't know exactly what happened when what we call "life" on earth burst onto the scene. No one can seem to explain this without some sort of outside force.

The story we're mainly following here says that the Holy One "called" it all into existence, so we presume that sound and vibration had something to do with it. I suppose this isn't too far-fetched, considering the way some very smart people today talk about gravity waves, electromagnetism and such,at the beginning of the cosmos.

As you may have heard, some stories say that all potential qualities of the One Being-like compassion, mercy, openness, closedness-were waiting in the unseen, longing for someone to receive their gifts. When creation came along, these qualities radiated like television waves into the hearts of the beings who became their homes. Humans were intended to receive all the channels, however…. But I'm getting ahead of myself again….

Anyway, the One called and they all came, like Holy Wisdom calling everyone to her table: sky, earth, planets, stars, even time itself-which, in case I need to remind you, we see as a pulsation, not a line. Our caravan of creation, which includes time, pulses ahead, only pausing momentarily and then moving again, like our own heartbeat. Movement and rest. That's why our heart beats especially hard when we feel our life's purpose getting closer. Oh yes… and plants, birds, fish, animals, big things like whales and other things we no longer see here.

We mustn't forget that the Great Dark, the unconscious world, was also dividing itself. So everything wasn't all happening on the outside. Maybe this is how we get what scientists now call dark matter. When the Dark divides we also get all sorts of unconsciousness, some kinds very extreme. Maybe you know some people who act unconsciously. So unconscious tendencies and, some of us would say, unconscious beings were also multiplying.

What does this mean? Well, let me give you an example. If you look lovingly at a beautiful flower, you can see the One in it. In fact, if you look lovingly at anything, not allowing your attention to waver, the same things happens. But when your gaze starts shifting all over the place, distracted in the same moment by all the abundant diversity of the One, something strange happens. You start only to see diversity, not the One. You forget that it's all part of something bigger. That's unconsciousness. Shifty eyes.

I mentioned that some storytellers are born pessimists. So some stories say that all this unconsciousness happened big time at the very beginning of the story. There was a war between consciousness and unconsciousness, light and dark, and that war continues today. Or in another version, the forms prepared to receive the light and reflect it broke, like pots that weren't strong enough. Or that in order for there to be any pots, the Holy One had to withdraw him/herself, like Holy Wisdom turning her back on her guests, so they wouldn't feel embarrassed to take seconds. In these versions of our story, it then becomes our job to find whatever light is left in the broken piece of the pot we are and return it to the One. All the rest is evil, that is, it distracts us from our return to the One.

These are all wonderful stories, and perhaps all have a piece of the truth in them (or perhaps, a "broken piece"!). But I say that some of this is a matter of whether you've having a good day or not. On a good day, I feel that everything is blessed, and it is my job here to find and enlarge the blessing, the spark of light within me. On a bad day, I feel that everything is cursed, and, well, it's still my job to find and enlarge the same spark. Take your pick, or mix and match!


Divine Diversity
Certainly we would never want to do without the abundance of nature that we see around us. It is difficult even to contemplate a universe of sameness, where nothing distinguishes itself from anything else. Perhaps the creation of abundance is at the root of our urge for novelty and new experiences in life. At the same time, we find there is a difference between creating the novelty in life through artificial means and valuing the diversity that has, and is being created through nature, including human nature. The pull one way or the other has been strong in modern culture. The diversity of nature brings with it uncertainty and the desire to control it in order to preserve human life and make it better. But this control brings problems with itself. When we look around us and everything constructed looks the same, it's like someone is paving over a portion of our souls.

In our own being, the ability to distinguish and indentify differences within-- sensations, thoughts, emotions-- is part of the creative part of being human. One of the old creation stories tells us that Adam named every creature, which was part of bringing its essence into conscious form. As we consider some of these old stories, this would be a good time to look again at our own inner ecosystem, to call to the abundance within, to name names, and yet to still keep hold of the slender thread that connects us with Sacred Unity, so that we don't get lost in the maze of diversity.


Fruit Before Tree
(Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, 13th century Anatolia)

Some say human beings are little universes.
I say you are really the big universe!
Seen from the outside, the branch creates the fruit.
But from the inside, the branch exists because of the fruit.
Without the hope and desire for fruit,
why would the gardener have
planted the tree in the first place?
So really tree is born of fruit, not fruit of tree.
That's why Muhammad said,
"Adam and the prophets follow my banner."
That is, "If outwardly I am Adam's son,
in reality, I am everyone's father."
Adam was born from me, not me from him."
First you have an idea, later something happens.
Wouldn't God work the same way-but more so?
In this moment, and every moment,
life's caravan travels to heaven and back.
Every moment, the heart travels
back and forth to the original Ka'ba.
Only by the power of divine blessing
does the body also return,
recreated by the essence of the heart.


Opening and Closing Gen. 1:5: wayyiqra' 'elohim la'or yom welachoshekh qara' layela wayehi-'erev wayehi-voqer yom 'echad "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

wayyiqra' 'elohim		Calling, crying out every moment, the One-and-Many carves a peculiarity and uniqueness
la'or		into and out of the primordial light, naming a part of it with its own individual quality, which, in seed form, was already there.
yom		Each now exists as a little bundle of luminous consciousness, each radiates from a center outwards towards a purpose. Like us, it flashes into and out of existence. This is always going on. We see the sign of it in the temporary gathering of light we call the day.
welachoshekh qara'		Likewise, calling, crying, naming, carving into the darkness-- the unknown and unknowing-- the Holy One creates
layela		a container that envelops and binds light's outward flash, that keeps it going in a closed circle to consolidate its own growth. We see the sign of this in the temporary gathering of darkness we call the night.
wayehi-'erev		And so exists gathering, past, present and future,
wayehi-voqer		And so exists seeking, past, present and future.
yom 'echad		This is the first unity carved by the sharp knife of the Holy One into formed existence. Evening and Morning. One day.

If They Ask You
(Gospel of Thomas, Logia 50-51)

Jesus said to his disciples:
If they ask you,
"Where have you been?" or
"Where have you come from?"
Tell them:
"We are coming out of the light,
where the light is always existing,
where by its own hand
the light comes to its feet
and appears as the images
and forms we see around us."
If they should further ask,
"Are you this light?"
Tell them:
"We are the radiations of it,
the children of light,
those named and chosen
by the only father really living."
If they should ask you,
"Where's the evidence
of this father in you?"
Tell them:

"It is movement and repose."

His disciples asked him,
"When is this day of repose coming?
When the dead will be raised and
we see a new world?"
Jesus said to them:
"What you look for outwardly
is already happening, but
you don't recognize it.
The new world you look for
is here right now."