There’s an inner richness in each of us that waits to be uncovered. Sometimes spiritual desperation leads us inward, when we’re no longer satisfied with trying to cover over the pain, or in the midst of circumstances so extreme it seems like there’s no way out, or when shame and self-loathing give way to an urgent need to find out who we really are. Even for those in less extreme circumstances, we tend to live at the circumference, judging ourselves and others, overlooking the immensity and inner dignity found at our depths. And then, sooner or later, the search for something deeper begins. That inner richness is there for each of us to discover, and it’s not dependent on whether you’re rich or poor, how “productive” you are—as if men and women were merely machines—what you have or don’t have, what you think of yourself, what others think of you, or on the circumstances of your life.
“Anyone who tells you that you aren’t a holy being doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The emptier you get, the quieter you get, the more you taste what you really are, the more you become aware of that—regardless of what thoughts are there, regardless of what behaviors are there, regardless of what problems are there. It’s not that you become this holy being and problems disappear and you float off somewhere and you know yourself as sanctified—you came here sanctified. “Sanctified” means: have problems, have to pay the rent, get angry, screw up, have bad thoughts, have anxiety attacks, do bad things, go nuts. Do you think that makes you any less a sanctified holy being than existence made you? Than God made you? Let me leave you with that thought.”
– Bodhisattva Shree Swami Premodaya, Darshan, February 15, 2007, Los Angeles
“I give Miguel a ride home after work. I had long been curious about Miguel’s own certain resilience. When we arrive at his apartment, I say, “Can I ask you a question? How do you do it? I mean, given all that you’ve been through—all the pain and stuff you’ve suffered—how are you like the way you are?” I genuinely want to know and Miguel has his answer at the ready. “You know, I always suspected that there was something of goodness in me, but I just couldn’t find it. Until one day,”—he quiets a bit—“one day, I discovered it here, in my heart. I found it . . . goodness. And ever since that day, I have always known who I was.” He pauses, caught short by his own truth, (reteaching loveliness) and turns and looks at me. “And now, nothing can touch me.” -Gregory Boyle, from Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
“And his [the poet’s] responsibility, which is also his joy and his strength and his life, is to defeat all labels and complicate all battles by insisting on the human riddle, to bear witness, as long as breath is in him, to that mighty, unnamable, transfiguring force which lives in the soul of man, and to aspire to do his work so well that when the breath has left him, the people—all people!—who search in the rubble for a sign or a witness will be able to find him there.”
-James Baldwin, from The Cross of Redemption
Photo credit: NASA APOD Picture of the Day 01/25/2023 LDN 1622: The Boogeyman Nebula (excerpt) by Joshua Carter
