Gaza, War, & the Mercy of Christ

Feeling into parental grief reveals deeper layers of our karmic task...

Note: I wrote most of this essay a couple ~months ago. It was an intense process.

Universal Love feels relatively easy when your family and friends are safe and prosperous. 

But the true test of Love comes when that is not the case. 

Recently, I’ve been contemplating the atrocities in Gaza. 

This post isn’t really about the nuances¹ of the conflict. Yet I can state clearly that I am heartbroken by the war, the murders of so many children, and I support an immediate ceasefire. I am not ‘pro-’ or ‘anti-’ either side; the rhetoric which asserts such dualistic frames keeps us locked in an ‘us VS them’ war consciousness. I hold unconditional love for everyone involved and my heart simply prays for an immediate ceasefire.

“The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease.”

— Seng T’sang

My perspective on war is idealistic: I wish in my heart for mankind to transcend all war. I pray for us to stop killing each other. I pray for all beings to suddenly receive by Grace the revelation that we are all literally One Body, and to understand that in murdering each other, we are murdering ourselves in another disguise. 

Many people might see my perspective as absurdly naive, simplistic, or rooted in pure fantasy—yet personally I prefer to hold radical hope in my heart, rather than make concessions to the ‘logic of violence.’ Only by believing in the transcendent possibility of ending war on Earth—and by doing the sincere inner work to end war within oneself—will we be able to open our hearts to the Grace through which all things are possible.

Regarding Gaza: What I find most painful to consider are the many parents on both sides of the war who have lost their children. 

As a father, when I feel into this, my heart shatters. I cannot fathom the rage, grief, sorrow, and despair that I would feel in this situation. 

I cannot fathom how I would ever be able to forgive the ‘other side’ for taking the life of my child. I could legitimately see myself becoming radicalized in such a situation—and rage-fully seeking violent vengeance for the rest of my days. 

[There is a wrathful and protective ‘papa bear’ energy that comes online when you become a father; you cannot really understand it until you feel it coursing through your veins; it is a knowing that you would do *anything* to protect your child, even if that means tearing another man limb from limb.]

This, of course, is what happens to so many people in war-torn countries—especially (young) men. They experience the unspeakable grief of watching their own children, parents, family, and friends die violent deaths at the hands of the ‘enemy.’ And naturally, many of them become radicalized. They form or join ‘terrorist’ groups and swear to spend the rest of their lives seeking to slaughter the ‘enemy.’ 

Can we blame these men? Can we honestly say that if we were in ‘their shoes,’ living as them, living through the exact karmic circumstances they’ve lived through, that we would act differently? 

I don’t think so. 

“There but for the Grace of God, go I.” 

And yet…

And yet…

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” as Gandhi said. 

I know in my heart that seeking violent retribution only perpetuates the never-ending cycles of violence on this planet. In seeking ‘revenge’ for the deaths of loved ones, one simply perpetuates the very conditions of violence that destroyed one’s loved ones in the first place. By continuing the cycle, one ironically endangers one’s remaining loved ones and future generations of one’s family. By continuing the cycle of violence, the karmic curse of war simply gets passed further down the ancestral line. 

A Haunting Thought Experiment

[Note: I don’t claim to know for sure how Christ would act in the following scenario.]

The only way to break the cycle is through a Christ-like degree of Love and Mercy. In the final moments of his life, as he was being tortured to death in an unthinkably brutal fashion, Christ said: 

“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” 

God forbid, I shudder to imagine if it were my daughter saying these words.

What if I knew that she said these words at the end of her life, as she was being tortured and killed by ‘terrorists’? 

Could I somehow find it in my heart to forgive? 

Could I somehow manage to view the terrorists as if they themselves were my own lost children—twisted, battered, and heinously blighted by deep wounds, resulting in a wretched loveless condition that would cause them to commit unspeakable atrocities? 

Could I offer them Christ-like Mercy, instead of vowing to destroy them? 

And if I somehow found it in my Heart to heed my daughter’s final words—and to forgive—would the world be better off? 

I believe it would be.

It feels painful to admit this. There is something so deep in me that screams, “No! Justice must be served! Such vermin must be ruthlessly annihilated!”

But what if…

What if instead of charging across the proverbial battlefield with guns blazing, seeking retribution at all costs…

What if I were to walk out onto the battlefield with arms wide open…

With a white flag of Peace…

What if by God’s Grace my Heart were somehow transfigured into the Heart of Christ…

What if I were able to open my arms and hug the men who had taken the life of my daughter…

What if I were able to hold them and weep with them and call them my sons and…

Forgive them.

What if I were able to truly hold them in Love, welcome them Home, treat them as the Prodigal Sons who had once been lost, and tell them, “It is okay, my sons. I forgive you. You can never wander so far astray that you cannot come back Home. You can always come back Home. God Loves you. I love you.”

What if?

Would my daughter have then died in vain? 

Or is the reverse true: Would her death have been in vain if it only led to more killing? 

Could it be that the way to truly honor her life and death would be to allow the Heart to crack open to previously unimaginable levels, allowing more of Christ’s Love to flow into this world, helping to end the violence here once and for all?

I can scarcely fathom the influx of Divine Loving Energy that would accompany such an act of Mercy. I envision a great pulse of omni-directional Light sweeping across this world, touching and opening every Heart. 

The Presence of Divine Christ-Love and Christ-Mercy cannot be underestimated. As David Hawkins elucidated in his books, the Presence of such Love emits an energy field that can quite literally absolve or counterbalance aeons of accumulated negative karma within the collective. 

This is why I believe spiritual work is by far the most powerful thing any of us can do to create a more beautiful world: The effects are non-linear. The gradual opening of the Heart—allowing it to hold and radiate more and more Divine Love—sends ripples through the collective energy-field, affecting far more than we commonly realize. Mankind tends to think in terms of linear steps and solutions, yet these linear solutions—when they do eventually work—are only effective due to the non-linear inner work of Collective Heart-Opening that preceded them. 

All doing is downstream of being. Our world is a direct reflection of what we are being. So to engage in sincere self-work at the level of our being-ness—gradually opening our embodied being-ness in its capacity to hold and channel more and more Loving Heavenly Light—is to go to the very root from which our world is created, and to open up new doorways and possibilities. This is the most consequential work any of us can do on this planet. 

“Your own self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.”

— Ramana Maharshi

[Naturally it is easy to use this line of thinking as a justification for only ever doing ‘inner work’ while ignoring the vocational service, action, and ‘outer work’ that one is also called to do. Though doing-ness may be downstream of being-ness, service-based doing-ness is still one of the most powerful spiritual practices for refining and polishing the jewel of one’s being-ness. Let us not ignore or bypass the sacred doing-ness.]

Yet again, it is laughably easy to give lip service to this depth of work as I sit here typing on my Macbook in a cozy German cafe, knowing that my family and close friends are ~all relatively safe and prosperous. 

Where the Rubber Meets the Road…

Where the ‘rubber meets the road’ is in the darkness of war or violence. Are we able to ‘love our enemies’ when they have committed acts of merciless violence, taking the lives of our loved ones? 

Admittedly it seems like a near-impossible task. 

I’m reminded of a bone-chilling short story by David Foster Wallace. In the story, a spiritual woman is attacked and raped by a broken man. While she is being raped, the woman concentrates, focuses her energy, and does everything in her power to unconditionally love the man who is raping her. She manages to love him, and as she does this, the man feels it. He is affected by it. He had planned to kill her, but he starts to have second thoughts. He begins to feel a level of inner torment. If I recall correctly, he begins to cry. He ceases to rape her and rapidly departs. Perhaps he then ends up killing himself. I can’t quite remember. 

This is another potent allegory for our deepest karmic task on this planet. 

To love those who would rape and murder us—who would rape and murder our children. 

Not merely to idealistically speak about loving such people in that way—but to *actually* open our Hearts to that level of Love. To truly Love and Forgive the ‘least among us,’ the most hideous ‘monsters’ among us and within us, as if they were Christ himself or our own beloved children—for, in a profound sense, they are. 

Again, this seems like a near-impossible task. 

I mean, I look at myself, and I notice that at 33 years old, I am unable/unwilling to stop eating meat, even though I probably don’t need it to survive. By eating meat—especially when I eat factory-farmed meat—I am basically complicit in the unnecessary and cruel mass murder of animals—animals who I profess to love dearly. I sometimes take steps to eat less meat, and perhaps someday I will stop entirely, but likely I could be doing more to accelerate this process.

[For an alternate perspective on the karmic okay-ness of some forms of meat-eating that does resonate on many levels for me, listen to Bashar speak about veganism. And for a thorough report on the case against meat-eating, read Tim Conway’s compassionate report.]

If I’ve been engaged in sincere self-work with increasing earnestness for ~14 years, and I’m not even able to find enough Mercy in my Heart to prioritize innocent animals’ lives over my own gastronomic pleasure (and the greater sense of health I admittedly seem to feel as a result), what hope do I have of ever opening my Heart to the degree I’m speaking about here? 

I don’t know. It is humbling and sobering to consider this. 

Sanctification VS ‘Fast Food McLightenment’

This sort of contemplation deepens my appreciation for Christianity’s insistence that sanctification—the process by which we are purified and allowed to partake, little by little, in the Holiness of God—is a long and arduous process. 

Some Neo-Advaita schools of ‘radical nonduality’ can seem to tarnish the sanctity of the word ‘enlightenment’ by insisting that we simply need to notice that consciousness is “already enlightened.” This is resulting in vast numbers of seekers believing they are ‘awakened’ or ‘enlightened’ just because they’ve had a few mystical glimpses of oneness or emptiness.

That being said, I’ve received a great deal from some teachers of ‘radical nonduality,’ and I still find myself recommending many of their books and writings. There *is* something profoundly liberating about simply learning to rest as the naked freshness of present-experiencing, noticing the miracle of being and allowing everything to be exactly as it is. I’ve actually been practicing this a lot in recent days, and it is providing welcome relief and revivification. 

Yet in recent years I have come to believe that ‘radical nonduality’ is far from the full story. As a man who was once deeply immersed in ‘nonduality’ teachings and believed he was ‘awakened’ or perhaps even ‘enlightened,’ I learned the ‘hard way’ that there is indeed eye-widening wisdom in the foreboding Biblical statement that, “pride cometh before a fall.” 

“Be not wise in your own eyes.”

— Proverbs 3:7

If I am ‘awakened’ in some sense, then that simply means that ‘awakening’ is merely the *very beginning* of the long path of sanctification. Perhaps true ‘enlightenment’—if the word be worth its exalted status—ought to refer to the fruit of sanctification: A (far-future) point at which one has actually fully become like Christ; become a pure expression of the Holy Fire of God; become what one truly is; become one who is able to truly ‘love her enemies,’ even in the midst of a war that is claiming the lives of her own children. (Note that this would look different for every being.)

This is a tall order. I do personally intuit that the journey of sanctification is a many-lifetime journey for ~all our souls. 

Even as I say that, let me also paradoxically say this:

In one sense, all is indeed already God and already enlightened, and we can entirely trust the path and evolutionary process of life as it unfurls with perfect Divine pacing.

In another sense, Creation does not presently reflect the innermost Loving Essence of God, and our souls seem to be experiencing a many-lifetime education, sanctification, and enlightenment process that is gradually allowing us to transfigure Creation into a Pure Emanation of the Creator’s Heart. 

Both of these can be true at once. And simultaneously neither is true, as the Full Truth is always Far Beyond. 

Zen groks this paradox:

“Sudden awakening, gradual cultivation.” — Zen saying

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“Each of you is perfect the way you are and you can use a little improvement.”

— Shunryū Suzuki, Zen master

Christ Preaching in Hell

As I have written elsewhere, Earth is not one of the ‘easier levels’ of Divine Creation. Perhaps it is one of the most excruciating. I would go as far as to say that there are literal hells on this planet—hells which are being experienced by many beings at any given time. 

The Biblical image of Christ preaching in hell comes to mind. 

As humans we tend to believe that we need to take justice into our own hands. We believe that when someone commits an atrocity, we need to ‘put them in hell’ by torturing, cruelly imprisoning, and/or killing them. But…

What if that is not for us to decide?

What if the fact that they committed such an atrocity implies that they are already in hell—that their soul is in a condition of great torment?

By punishing the most tortured souls and ‘putting them in hell,’ don’t we only increase the amount of hellishness on Earth? 

Many forms of Heaven are also available here on Earth. We bring more of Heaven to Earth when we forgive the unforgivable, thereby embodying the Divine Mercy of God. 

As a father, contemplating Gaza puts me in deeper contact with what it would really mean to be Christ-like and to ‘forgive the unforgivable.’ It humbles me by showing me how far I have to go. 

It’s easy to make art and blog posts declaring that, “Love is the answer.” 

It’s unthinkably difficult to *actually* love those who wish to destroy my family—to love them as if they were my own children; to be willing to sacrifice my life for them at a moment’s notice. 

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Taking these words of Christ to their logical conclusion, the implication is that our ultimate task is to love even satan and the ugliest demons as if they were Christ—for these are truly the ‘least among us.’ 

Again I’m prompted to reflect on my own shortcomings: I sometimes struggle to be kind, patient, and compassionate toward my own wife, my daughter, my family, my friends. 

I struggle to forgive my wife’s father—a man who has not been part of our life for a while after he ‘boycotted’ our wedding on the basis of viewing me as a poor husband-candidate who he believes is leading his daughter into ‘the abyss.’ 

I struggle in many ways and regularly fall short of the unconditional, universal Love that I aspire to embody and share with this world. 

In acknowledging that I struggle in these ways, it indeed seems hard to imagine how I could ever reach the level of Christ-like Love and Mercy I have explored in this essay. 

But…

By God’s Grace all things are possible. 

I want to help make Earth a more beautiful place.

I want to help break the ancient karmic curses that keep us trapped in cycles of violence.

“Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”

A long road of sanctification lies ahead…

I pray for God to continue to clean and open my Heart. 

Love,
J

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Footnote:

[1] My general human view on Israel-Palestine is that both sides have committed grave acts. And I believe that Israel—though understandably devastated by the horrible October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks, which cannot be disentangled from the ~70-year history of war and displacement (primarily of Palestinians) in the region since Israel’s initial (re-)formation, as well as the prior thousands of years of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim (war & displacement) history in the region—has now committed terrible acts that border on ~genocide, murdering ~13,000 Palestinian children and teenagers (many of whom are shot directly in the head by snipers or other gunmen), bombing hospitals, cutting off crucial humanitarian aid, fomenting mass starvation, and damaging or destroying 50+% of buildings in Gaza. Israel has done all this from a position of vastly greater military strength than Palestine—a ‘Goliath’ further crushing an ever-shrinking ‘David.’ Pray for peace. I do not recommend ‘taking sides.’ “The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease,” as Seng-Ts’an noted. Observe what is happening, let it touch the heart, pray for peace for all, see no enemies, and let the heart guide your response.

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Epilogue: Balancing the Scales

[this was also written a couple months ago]

I understand that this essay may feel pretty ‘heavy.’

Maybe some of you feel like I’m being too hard on myself, or over-fixating on ominous situations happening a thousand miles away, or making the spiritual journey sound like an arduous ~never-ending marathon.

I can say that it felt important for me to write this. It felt sobering, humbling, heart-opening, grounding, and real.

At the same time, I do also want to ‘balance the scales’ a bit by sharing that I have experienced a lot of joy and lightness lately. I am in a good place overall. As mentioned, I’ve been enjoying some nondual authors such as John Astin and Peter Brown. I’ve been spending a lot of time immersed in the immediacy of present-experiencing, being with the pure mystery of now in an intimate way. I’ve also been spending a lot of quality time with family.

Perhaps it is because I am in a fairly spacious place overall that I was able to dig deep, write this essay, and reckon with some difficult notions.

Paradoxically, as much as I do think sanctification is an ~endless and (at times) arduous process, I also firmly believe that life is meant to be enjoyed.

It’s not likely to help anybody if you spend all your time focusing on the harshest and most hellish conditions that exist on Earth, thereby dragging yourself down into a miserable state. In a way, to do so is kind of insulting to those actually living in hellish conditions—because it’s a bit like you’re turning your potential happiness into hell on their behalf, rather than appreciating the gifts of your life.

At the same time, I feel like writing a piece like this is important for me, as it grounds me on Earth and shows me where my work lies. Otherwise—and especially when I’m immersing in nondual contemplation—it’s pretty easy for me to ‘float away’ and become kinda solipsistic and feel like the hellish conditions others face on Earth are just not-immediately-present ‘hearsay’ and a distraction from the miraculousness of momentary experience.

Perhaps this is why I’ve recently found myself reading more about (American) politics and global affairs: It helps me stay connected to what others’ lives are like on Earth, anchoring my heart more fully in our collective reality. I do need to be somewhat cautious about this, as I’ve previously experienced over-spelunking various dark rabbit holes and self-hypnotizing into quite an ominous reality-tunnel.

There’s a balance to be struck. Generally it seems good to digest enough info about our global situation so as to be grounded and compassionately connected to humanity. Most people in 2024 are probably imbalanced toward taking in too much ‘bad news’ about Earth, which drags them into a place of despair, anxiety, or overwhelm.

So, anywho, all this is to say that life on Earth in most places is still pretty darn good, and we have loads to be grateful for. We are always free to practice naked intimacy with the raw mystery of present-experiencing, which turns out to be quite a rich, juicy, and delicious mode of relating to life.

May we enjoy our lives here and bring Heaven to Earth in countless small ways every day. May we also open our Hearts to the hells that exist here and ongoingly invite the Light of God to sanctify us and to transfigure these hells toward the Highest Heaven Which Has No Opposite.

Amen.

Love,
J

“Heaven is a place we make
By forgiving mistakes we make”

— Offsite

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Epilogue II: No-Self, Revelation, & Sanctification

In the months since writing this ‘I’ have gone through some deep shifts, including new ‘levels’ of ‘no-self insight’ that revealed a lot to me about the nature of experience.

It’s now more clear to me than ever that all words are completely inaccurate. So it now seems kinda silly to talk about the meaning of a word like ‘enlightenment’ as if it ‘should’ refer to something ‘solid.’ However I feel compelled to say that I’m now modeling ‘revelation’ and ‘sanctification’ as two symbiotic non-separate aspects of the apparently unending unfoldment of enlightenment—similar to Peter Brown’s notion of ‘revelation’ and ‘integration.’

Revelation reveals what is. And sanctification occurs as we ‘bake’ in the ‘fires’ of what is, thereby integrating and ‘embodying’ what is, so as to ongoingly flower as new echelons of what we are. We always already are the full infinity of what we are, yet paradoxically we also experience an apparent blossoming of the numberless subtle dimensions of this infinity into apparent form on the human and soul levels. Sanctification can look like literally anything. It does not have to look like ‘Christ’ or ‘Mother Theresa.’ It could look like crazy wisdom or wild trickster-ness or devotional heart-opening. We tend to have very limited ideas of ‘love’ and ‘holiness,’ when in actuality holy love can look like anything. In an ultimate sense, as far as I see, holy empty love is all there is.

All that can really be said about sanctification is that it will look and feel like you. Revelation and sanctification are not necessarily linear; both can come and go; the pendulum of being can oscillate between them; they can occur simultaneously. Watch this video if you’d like to feel into the recent wave of no-self revelation I am experiencing:

Warm Love,
J