Mark 13:24-37
Jesus said, “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
Have you ever driven a car, arrived that the destination and had no idea how you got there or what you drove past? Have you ever been asked how your day was or what you did and not been able to answer? Have you ever had a visceral feeling of Deja Vu? This is the common occurrence of self-forgetting or falling into a wakeful sleep, consciously unconscious. Jesus, in asking sleepers to remain awake, is asking for the opposite of this self-forgetting, or self-remembering, or Maya. Maya is explained by Osho in this passage:
“Now you will be able to understand what is my attitude towards this question: “In which way can the practice of self-remembering transform the human mind?”
It will re-ground you; it will give you again roots into your own center. By self-remembering, you are forgetting everything other than yourself: the society, the mad world around you, the family, the relationships, everything, you are forgetting. You are simply remembering that you are.
This remembrance is not given by the society to you. This self-remembrance will detach you from all that is peripheral. And if you can remember, you will fall back to your own being, to your own center. The ego will be there just on the periphery, but you will be able to see it now. Like any other object, you will be able to observe it. And once you become capable of observing your ego, your false center, you will never be false again.
You may need your false center because you have to live in a society which is false. You will be able to use it now, but you will never be identified with it. It will be instrumental now. You will live on your center, in your center. You will be able to use the false as a social convenience, a convention, but you will not be identified with it. Now you know you can be spontaneous, free. Self-remembering transforms you because it gives you the opportunity to be yourself again – and to be oneself is the ultimate and to be oneself is the absolute.
The peak of all the possibilities, of all the potentialities, is the divine – or whatsoever you want to call it. God is not somewhere in the past; he is your future. You have heard it said again and again that God is the father. More significantly, he is going to be your son, not the father, because he is going to evolve out of you. So I say, “God the son,” because the father is in the past and the son is in the future.”*
This "being oneself" that Osho speaks of is often called mindfulness today. Jon Kabat-Zinn has defined mindfulness meditation as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” His form of meditation Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR, is the most widely researched form of meditation today.
When I was in graduate school, I was introduced to MBSR and it’s cousin Integrative Restoration, iRest. Both forms of meditation are useful, but I find in my private practice that clients resonate more with iRest. I often find that being mindful is great, but once one is there in mindfulness what does one do with the information received? It is up to the individual, there is no instruction in MBSR. Whereas, in iRest, although decisions are still the clients, deeper exploration tools are used, thus providing the client with more information to work with. Put differently, once we are awake to our issues via mindfulness, what comes next? iRest provides more guidance.
This is not easy work, staying awake. We all fall asleep from time to time, we forget, we get jolted back to reality, and we try to move on doing the best we can. I can only hope that I am in a state of wakefulness, mindfulness, when the son comes. As we begin the season of Advent, in preparation for the coming of Jesus, let’s keep awake mindfully.
*Osho. The Book of Secrets : 112 Meditations to Discover the
Mystery Within, edited by International Foundation Osho, Osho International,
2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/berry/detail.action?docID=918985.
Created from berry on 2020-11-28 13:46:17.
Picture from https://www.franciscanfriars.ca/contemplation-en/advent-1-keep-awake/
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