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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

To Stand Defenseless in the Sunny Air

What Would It Be Like to Meet Our True Selves?

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"There is a pain - so utter"

Complex creatures are we; the only mammal that represses information - and ourselves - and, thereby, creates a subconscious.

Emily Dickinson, in a short paragraph, explains it to us:

There is a pain — so utter —
It swallows Being up —
Then covers the Abyss with Trance —
So Memory can step
Around — across — upon it —
As one within a Swoon —
Goes steady — where an open eye —
Would drop Him — Bone by Bone.

The "pain" ... "swallows Being up." Our true selves - repressed - as we "cover the Abyss with Trance." Fears, but especially the fear of death, distort reality; most of all, the reality of what we are. 

So frightened of annihilation are we, that, even one "open eye" of clear thought might "drop" us, "bone by bone."

"Make inward bedlam and will not come out"

Marcia Lee Anderson, too:

We multiply diseases for delight,
Invent a horrid want, a shameful doubt,
Luxuriate in license, feed on night,
Make inward bedlam - and will not come out.
Why should we? Stripped of subtle complications,
Who could regard the sun except with fear?
This is our shelter against contemplation,
Our only refuge from the plain and clear.
Who would crawl out from under the obscure
To stand defenseless in the sunny air?
No terror of obliquity so sure
As the most shining terror of despair
To know how simple is our deepest need,
How sharp, and how impossible to feed.

How profound. "Make inward bedlam, and will not come out"! It is our "refuge from the plain and clear."

The "plain and clear" is the frightening fact that we are mortal and will die, as any worm or dog. In view of this, who would dare "to stand defenseless" in the open "sunny air" of life with eyes wide open? Who will be courageous, who will end this process of "feeding on night," of "inventing horrid wants"? Who will be willing to "crawl out from under the obscure" - the self-imposed blindness of the Small Ego - and cast aside the psychological defense-mechanisms seeking for a "substitute self" against our dreaded mortality, that vulnerable "spoiled self"?

to stand defenseless in the sunny air

Who among us is able to do this? - seemingly, such a small, inconsequential action - to stand naked, defenseless, in the open sunny air of life's requirement! To stand before the Universe, without repressing, to stand unguardedly, to stand as one is.

And what are we? Those suffering under the "terror of obliquity," the "terror of despair," believe themselves to be utterly mortal, with no recourse. But they have not yet acknowledged "our deepest need," which is to perceive the inner riches.

What would it be like to live totally free of repression?

I daresay that few have considered this question. How could they? Most are so petrified of death, of an angry God, of harsh judgment, that, for them, to stand unguardedly, to make oneself vulnerable, in the open sunny air becomes an absurdity.

But, what would it be like? I don't know. But sometimes I catch the smallest glimpse. And even that sends me reeling.

I believe, I sense - as confirmed by mystics and spiritual teachers - that what we were given at creation is so immense, so awesomely rich, in terms of potentiality, that eternity will not be long enough to discover all that we are meant to become.

A glimpse, a mere glimpse - of this inner-cosmos of capacity and latent ability, this vast uncharted field of divine-soul evolvement - is not much; but, even that much, is enough to render obsolete, and to neutralize, any desire or perceived need of any external savior in any form.

This, I believe, constitutes much of the world's problem: it hasn't yet prepared itself for that glimpse of the future, that glimpse of the True Self, what we really are.

Until then, we remain mired with "inward bedlam, and will not come out," petrified by "a pain so utter."

We do not need any Nicean-Council politically-crafted savior-doctrine to rescue us; we need to come to understand what "made in the image" means; we need to discover what God has already given to us.