Spiritual Transformation

Our being is God’s being. It can be none other. There is none other. But we can only access and be conscious of this universal being or uncreated part of us through the individual soul. We, like God, are a trinity, a three in one, no part of which can be considered separately from the rest, and the Father is only known through the Son on the microcosmic level as on the macrocosmic one. So you cannot isolate one aspect of the trinity of your being and see it out of context with the rest. That is what Buddhism and advaita do. They take the spirit aspect, the uncreated part, and use it to deny or, if you don’t like that word, ignore the rest. But this is an error. We are a composite of being (spirit), soul (individuality) and body or appearance (akin to truth, goodness and beauty). The former is above sexual differentiation but the latter two are not and all are essential parts of the totality of what we are even if there is a hierarchical aspect to this as well in that we should view them from above downwards. But that does not mean that the ‘lower’ parts are unreal or unimportant or not a vital part of who and what we are.

One of the things that Christ did was demonstrate the perfection of the trinity of being. Before him the Buddha showed the way to the uncreated part of ourselves, the uncompounded absolute. But Christ reconciled being and becoming, bridging them in himself and perfecting the latter, and showed our true spiritual goal. More, he actually opened the door to its possibility, a door that until him had been shut. The spiritual end before the advent of Christ was not the same as after his appearance in this world.

In contradistinction to many Eastern religions and some Gnostic Western ones, I do not see the spiritual goal as rediscovering an already existing reality within ourselves. Rather, it is transformation into something new and not yet existent. The metaphor of a seed that grows is the one that best describes the unfoldment of the soul. This does not mean that spirit as such grows but soul grows into spirit and becomes ever more aware of its limitless possibilities.

I said that the advent of Christ changed the spiritual goal for humanity. Jesus was greater than any prophet or avatar because he was not just a projection of divine being manifesting on Earth but the Word Incarnate come to redeem the whole world.  After him the spiritual goal was not simply to free the spirit from entanglement in the body and matter, and the absorption of the individual by the universal as in Buddhism.  It was the marriage between earth and heaven with the former being saved and restored to truth rather than being dismissed as illusion or evil. The old saying that God became man so that man might become God means that man does not just realise he already is God, and only has to detach himself from the outer coverings that obscure this, but he can grow into a spiritual oneness with the Creator that preserves the integrity of his soul and has no end.

In this state there is a duality. It is not the absolute oneness of Eastern non-dualistic philosophies. But that very duality means that is capable of ever greater development. Complete oneness is a spiritual dead end. You have reached the final state of absolute being and that is all there is. But the Christian idea of union with God is a dynamic conception and means there is an eternal and ever deeper fusion of soul and spirit with the two playing off each other to drive spiritual unfoldment on into unimaginable glories. Creation is seen as fulfilling the purpose of God rather than being the pointless aberration it would be in a strict non-duality, as it is in Buddhism if we take that at its own estimation.

Real Christianity does not deny other religions but it shows itself to be bigger than they are.  It cannot be encompassed under the umbrella of a universal spirituality for it goes further than any other form of spirituality. With the advent of Christ, God has shown something utterly new and different.  But this does not negate the old spiritual ways which can be incorporated into this new reality. However they must be baptized and now seen in the light of Christ who illumines them with a deeper reality unsuspected before.