Considering all of Jesus’ provocations, this is surely his most provocative: “Let the dead bury the dead.” It was spoken to an outer-ring disciple asking for leave to organize his father’s funeral. Today, to me, these six words mean two things: (1) If you feel obligated to do something, don’t do it. Don’t betray yourself. (2) The past is past. Be here now.
When we are asked to introduce ourselves, we typically respond with a list of particulars–where we live, what we do, who we live with, that sort of thing. Depending on the patience of the person we’re talking to, this list can go all the way down to our shoe size. Asked once who we he was, Eckhart Tolle replied, “Nobody in particular.” He wasn’t denying that he’d sobbed as his mother’s body was lowered into the ground, just that he wasn’t attached to any of his experiences. To his particulars.
Okay, let’s have a look at this. We’ll start with that innocuous little adjective, my. Really? Is she mine? Does she belong to me? Do I own her? Is she chattel? Regarding that glum little commonplace, wife: Sure, if you want to put her in a tube so that she can be squeezed out like toothpaste as the occasion requires, call her wife. Wife is a role. An arrangement. Until, of course, it isn’t. Obviously, there is no possibility whatsoever of getting to anyone’s essence through this diminishment. When we particularize ourselves, we limit ourselves. Self-limitation is the source of our problems, our conflicts, and our suffering. All of it. My wife? I don’t think so.
The person is based on memory. The past is dust. I am not a person.
The small girl in the red rubber boots was staring intently at a rain puddle on the sidewalk. But from the expression on her enraptured face, it was clearly not a puddle. It was, rather, a revelation of infinite consciousness, an untrammelled vastness across which was revealed the origin and destiny of the cosmos, of all that ever was, is and shall be.
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