Empty
25 Mar 2011 2 Comments
in God, Lent, Rumi, Spiritual Growth Tags: God, Lent, Oneness
“When you are with everyone but me,
you’re with no one.
When you are with no one but me,
you’re with everyone.
Instead of being so bound up with everyone,
be everyone.
When ou become the many, you’re nothing.
Empty. [Rumi]
This is the journey’s goal. This melding into the Oneness, this unspeakable knowing, the no-words-for joining, blending and simply being.
Have you ever been at a party or in another similar large group and felt unbearably lonely? Then the first sentence of Rumi’s poem resonates doesn’t it? Have you ever wished for a partner, only to find one and still at times feel alone? Then Rumi’s poem strikes deep into your heart.
The second line we take on faith, but not mere hope. We have the testimony of Jesus and myriads of mystics to assure us that it is true. Have you ever stood atop a hill and surveying the expanse of land and sky, and felt your heart about to burst with the glory of it all? Then this second sentence resonates, doesn’t it? Have you ever sat in church and suddenly lost all sense of everything, so captivated have you become with the Cross, and an intense presence of Christ? Then Rumi’s poem strikes deep into your heart.
The third line, we all relate to don’t we? We bind ourselves to the drama of our relationships, be they romantic, business, friendships, or otherwise. We engage in all the feelings that people create in our psyche. We feel anger, hatred, fear, envy, arrogance, smallness, and a hundred variations.
Yet we can feel compassion, sympathy, empathy, love, pity, tenderness.
Does a spouse or friend have the capacity to take you from your peace? Then the binding line resonates, doesn’t it? Does film of others digging through rubble of an earthquake, searching for a loved one, bring you to tears? Then the being line, resonates with you, doesn’t it? And Rumi’s poem strikes deep into your heart.
When we submerge into the Allness, we lose ourselves. We are empty. We are what Jesus asked of us. “Whoever would save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will find it.”
Giving ourselves totally into all that God is, leaves us empty of ourselves, yet paradoxically, filled with God.
Can there be a better place to be?
Drink deep of the emptiness and be filled.
Amen.
