We all have to face a fundamental question with far-reaching implications: what is the nature of reality? Is “reality” merely a word we made up to help us deal with life’s randomness and chaos? Or in other words, is nothing ultimately real about life or us? Are we just passing shadows dancing across life’s stage? Or, is reality really real, substantial, enduring, purposeful, and at the center of everything and behind everything? How we answer these questions, consciously or unconsciously, will determine how we see and experience our lives.
From a religious or spiritual perspective, “God” is the word people use to talk about reality. Simply, God is reality, the really real. According to the world’s mystics, the DNA of reality is absolutely substantial, absolutely intelligent, and absolutely loving. In Hinduism, this same description of reality is captured in the concept of Sat-Chit-Ananda, and in Christianity this reality is expressed as trinity, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The point is this: when reality (God) becomes real for us, our lives are transformed forever. We no longer fear death, because we too are part and parcel of the enduring reality of the really real. We no longer ignorantly stumble through life, because our intelligence becomes a participation in the one real and absolute intelligence. And we no longer attempt to squeeze happiness from people and situations, because we are drawing life from the well of blissful love percolating within the heart and soul of all life.
To get a clear glimpse of what ultimate reality looks like, we only have to look at Jesus’ life. Interestingly, the great psychologist Carl Jung referred to Jesus as the “archetype of the human soul.” In today’s gospel from Mark 10:42-45 Jesus says, referring to himself, “The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve and to spend his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus was so grounded in absolute reality that he clung to nothing; he was liberated to joyously spend his life in the service of others. We see the very same manifestation in the life of Yogananda, who could have had a comfortable life in India as a guru figure but faced all manner of challenges so as to liberate those of us in the West. We all need to contemplate the following questions: what is our reality? What does our behavior say about the picture of reality that guides our day-to-day lives? Are we willing to live our lives as though reality is too good not to be true?
Divine Mother,
Beloved Gurus,
Your reality
Is too good
Not to be true.
