Part 4. Lightness of Being

The following is a fourth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

Lightness of Being

In my evolution as a person, I had to grapple with the illusion that not only is God in existence but I am not God. For purposes of this essay, I define God as the "Ultimate Responsible Party not in Existence." Shortly, I come now to the proposition that I am not God. I did not start with the high morality that I am the ultimate responsible person in existence but I had to work through the posture that I was if I was to make a difference (my youthful self-importance). I know the dissonance in this perception is deafening to hear but so it was I suffered grandiosity of the highest order. The other tact would be to blow off any responsibility at all, but such was not my conditioning as a child.

While we are called to be heroic, we have to live life as it unfolds. The youth who takes on the task of changing the world for the better and acts heroically in the pursuit is quickly hobbled by the sheer weight of taking responsibility for the result. The result may not by heroic effort even be obtainable in his lifetime.

In taking small steps and half-measures he must be satisfied with little progress towards the goal. He or she is sure to be humbled by his own shortcomings if not by the limitations of time and mortality. A mental breakdown can be precipitated by the awareness of the impossibility of the undertaking.

The only way out is to surrender and confess dependence on something or someone outside of oneself. This is not to be confused with the abdication inherent in insanity. It is definitely about a pattern of conduct in which the human being by honesty confesses he can not ultimately be responsible for the result because the result is not obtainable by his efforts alone. In deed, he sooner or later concludes that he is not alone in questing after the seemingly unobtainable goal of altering the course of human conduct.

The release that shortly thereafter transpires is what I call the lightness of being. He or she experiences release from responsibility for the result. He concludes he or she must trust that the result though not procurable by his or her own conduct is yet obtainable by someone or something outside of himself or herself. Notice he is not absolving himself of the responsibility of taking steps towards the goal.

Who is then responsible if not I. This can not be about holding others to account because that is to play the blame game and ultimately I have to accept that others are in the same boat that I occupy. So I conclude that by definition the truly responsible does not include my human peers, but it does include the truly responsible party, God. However, before getting ahead of myself here, follow the path with me.

The person who in his humanity and humor accepts that she or he is not God, not ultimately responsible, having experienced the lightness of being, released from ultimate responsibility, trusting in "something" outside and greater than himself or herself is on the pathway of one who has begun to experience relationship with God.

Not sure how, but this context in human experience gives rise to trust that the goal is obtainable by one not ourselves. Trust that what is about to happen and what is even unavoidably about to happen (given our human experience and insight) is in the hands of "another" not ourselves has been required of us in our moment of extremity.

The term "oversoul" is perhaps useful here as a precursor to the use of the word God. This is comparable to the mountaineer who knows he will not make the summit of the mountain but trusts that someday given the spirit is willing someone will make the conquest. We all live in the "oversoul" that procures the result we desire. This is very much like Martin Luther King (MLK) and Barack Obama, dreamer and dream come true. A person should not be judged by the color of his skin but the content of his character.

The tremor in MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is that realization that he might not personally live to see the day, but another would. In accepting his human condition, he was not yielding one inch of the ground that would have to be covered to achieve human equality, he just trusted that others would cover that ground in his stead. I for one am convinced that MLK experienced true lightness of being.

RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.