That Thou Art
10/26/2008
Today was the 13th Annual Endowed Scholarship Brunch. It's the occasion where we bring together donors who help provide scholarships to our students, along with students who receive them. I usually give a little talk and this time, in lieu of the usual speech thanking donors for their generosity, I went in a somewhat different direction. So it goes and here it went:
Around 600 BCE in India, the Chhandogya Upanishad relates a discussion between a grandfather and his grandson. The grandfather states:
As bees, my dear, make honey by collecting the juices of trees located at different places and reduce them to one form, "And as these juices have no discrimination so as to be able to say: 'I am the juice of this tree,' or 'I am the juice of that tree'–even so, indeed, my dear, all these creatures, though they reach Pure Being, do not know that they have reached Pure Being.
These rivers, my dear, flow–the eastern toward the east and the western toward the west. They arise from the sea and flow into the sea. Just as these rivers, while they are in the sea, do not know: 'I am this river' or 'I am that river,' "Even so, my dear, all these creatures, even though they have come from Pure Being, do not know that they have come from Pure Being. Whatever these creatures are, here in this world–a tiger, a lion, a wolf a boar, a worm, a fly, a gnat, or a mosquito, that they become again.
Now, that which is the subtle essence–in it all that exists has its self. That is the True. That is the Self. That thou art.
600 years later Jesus teaches in John's gospel (John 15):
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
This is the scholarship brunch, arranged ostensibly to thank our generous donors, and it is that and we are grateful. But these passages suggest a broader vision and a deeper reality. Rather than perpetuate the separateness of the I/you, subject/object discrimination, even in an ethical move wherein the I/subject decides to donate some of her wealth to the you/object, we need to go beyond that ethical move into an ontological realization, a realization about the very fabric of our being here together, a realization that we are always-already one ocean, one essence, one living vine, one body of Christ. These passages hope to awaken us from our ignorance; steeped as it is in the inevitably narcissistic delusion of a separate, independent, fully autonomous self in which deigning to care about "the other," and to demonstrate that caring–or not–is merely a matter of personal preference. Again: These passages hope to awaken us from our narcissistic delusion of a separate, independent, fully autonomous self. Or tribe. Or red state or blue state.
ML King wrote:
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.
Not merely a personal moral choice but an ontological structure of reality. And so if the giver can never be what she ought to be until she gives, until that mutuality and connectedness is affirmed as natural and in tune with life as it really is, then we should be thanking each other today. Christ's words again:
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
But without them the vine does not grow and realize the fullness of its destiny. And so it goes both ways, always. And so we should be thanking our students today. They provide an occasion for the possibility of the giver realizing her own true self. They are and will be the branches and the new fruit demonstrating that, thank God, this vine lives!
I love this hymn by Marty Haugen, a contemporary composer of liturgical music:
We are many parts. we are all one body, and the gifts we have we are given to share. May the Spirit of love make us one indeed; one, the love that we share, one, our hope in despair, one, the cross that we bear.
And as the Upanishads evoke: "That is the True. That is the Self. That thou art."
Today was the 13th Annual Endowed Scholarship Brunch. It's the occasion where we bring together donors who help provide scholarships to our students, along with students who receive them. I usually give a little talk and this time, in lieu of the usual speech thanking donors for their generosity, I went in a somewhat different direction. So it goes and here it went:
Around 600 BCE in India, the Chhandogya Upanishad relates a discussion between a grandfather and his grandson. The grandfather states:
As bees, my dear, make honey by collecting the juices of trees located at different places and reduce them to one form, "And as these juices have no discrimination so as to be able to say: 'I am the juice of this tree,' or 'I am the juice of that tree'–even so, indeed, my dear, all these creatures, though they reach Pure Being, do not know that they have reached Pure Being.
These rivers, my dear, flow–the eastern toward the east and the western toward the west. They arise from the sea and flow into the sea. Just as these rivers, while they are in the sea, do not know: 'I am this river' or 'I am that river,' "Even so, my dear, all these creatures, even though they have come from Pure Being, do not know that they have come from Pure Being. Whatever these creatures are, here in this world–a tiger, a lion, a wolf a boar, a worm, a fly, a gnat, or a mosquito, that they become again.
Now, that which is the subtle essence–in it all that exists has its self. That is the True. That is the Self. That thou art.
600 years later Jesus teaches in John's gospel (John 15):
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
This is the scholarship brunch, arranged ostensibly to thank our generous donors, and it is that and we are grateful. But these passages suggest a broader vision and a deeper reality. Rather than perpetuate the separateness of the I/you, subject/object discrimination, even in an ethical move wherein the I/subject decides to donate some of her wealth to the you/object, we need to go beyond that ethical move into an ontological realization, a realization about the very fabric of our being here together, a realization that we are always-already one ocean, one essence, one living vine, one body of Christ. These passages hope to awaken us from our ignorance; steeped as it is in the inevitably narcissistic delusion of a separate, independent, fully autonomous self in which deigning to care about "the other," and to demonstrate that caring–or not–is merely a matter of personal preference. Again: These passages hope to awaken us from our narcissistic delusion of a separate, independent, fully autonomous self. Or tribe. Or red state or blue state.
ML King wrote:
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.
Not merely a personal moral choice but an ontological structure of reality. And so if the giver can never be what she ought to be until she gives, until that mutuality and connectedness is affirmed as natural and in tune with life as it really is, then we should be thanking each other today. Christ's words again:
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
But without them the vine does not grow and realize the fullness of its destiny. And so it goes both ways, always. And so we should be thanking our students today. They provide an occasion for the possibility of the giver realizing her own true self. They are and will be the branches and the new fruit demonstrating that, thank God, this vine lives!
I love this hymn by Marty Haugen, a contemporary composer of liturgical music:
We are many parts. we are all one body, and the gifts we have we are given to share. May the Spirit of love make us one indeed; one, the love that we share, one, our hope in despair, one, the cross that we bear.
And as the Upanishads evoke: "That is the True. That is the Self. That thou art."
