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| TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT IS BEING COMPASSION |
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| (BODHISUNYA) |
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WHAT IS REAL? What is ultimately real? Philosophers and religious thinkers throughout history have sought the answer to this fundamental question. Many solutions have been proposed based on our powers of reason and experience. Efforts at making sense of our experience of reality has led to the establishment of the religions and sciences, each based on a series of assumptions regarding our capacity to adequately grasp and thus truly understand the nature of existence.
Science assumes that human reason and our finite sense-abilities are adequate to seize upon the essence of the Real, while religions seek to base their dogmas upon faithful acceptance of revealed truth from beyond the limits of our experiential understanding. The question arises: is there an alternative between these two major avenues of faith as assumption?
Since we as sentient finite beings are part of the matrix of reality, it would seem that the path that leads to unraveling the mystery of the essence of the Real must lie deep inside us. And, furthermore, that the answers concerning the true meaning of what we are and what actualizes and fulfills our essence as finite beings must be discovered there as well. The old adage "Know thyself!" is indeed the key.
If we have the courage of heart to stay the course and honestly make such an internal voyage of discovery, we will find that our human reason, logic and senses are but limited though necessary tools on this journey into the abyss of the ultimately real and that we must begin to pay heed to a most ancient and holy inner voice, at the very core of our being, crying out for universal healing and wholeness.
We will discover that the key to understanding ultimate reality is buried at the heart of each of us. If we are willing to awaken to the Real, to gain eyes to truly see and ears to truly listen, we shall become bathed in the light of true understanding, we shall become enlightened and therefore whole (holy).
THE VOICE OF CHRIST: Within Christianity, Jesus is proclaimed in the Bible as divine revelation incarnate, True God and the True Way of Life (1 John 5). Moreover, what is revealed is the true nature of Divinity, and therefore Life, as Love (1John 4). Whoever abides in love, abides in God and God abides in that person.
Our faith in Divine Love as ultimate reality and ultimate power is based on the Earth-historical event of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Here, Love overcomes all evil, including death, and proves to be the divine power of life itself. However, such a faith can only become justified for us if the power of that same event is experienced in our lives. In order for faith to be other than an empty hope, the miraculous resurrecting, healing and transfiguring power of Divine Love must become our personal experience.
This ongoing correlation between historical affirmation and experiential confirmation is absolutely necessary on the journey to Truth. What is confirmed is the wholess that is gracefully realized in us as we continue to release ourselves to the Spirit of Divine Love. In this unity of the Spirit of Christ, we discover that we are constituent parts of the universal body of existence whose fundamental, fulfilling essence is Compassion.
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THE VOICE OF BUDDHA: In Buddhism too, there must be realized a necessary correlation in one's personal experience of nirvana, releasement (moksa) from ignorance (avidya), selfish desire (trsna) and their attendant suffering (dukkha) as proclaimed by the enlightened masters and attested to in the sacred texts.What becomes clear in this process is the power of compassion (karuna) to bring us to a liberating awareness that ultimate reality is a oneness that we share with all things in an absolutely interdependent manner. Through our becoming compassion, we are released into the healing actualization of ourselves as integral parts of one another working for the greater good of the whole. Neither self nor other is ultimately real, only the infinite emptiness of the abyss that is compassion (sunya-tattva-karuna).
 TRUTH AND THE REAL: The truth concerning what is ultimately real can only be realized through the temporal process of thorough self-discovery that unlocks for us the very presence of eternity within. What is revealed and experientially confirmed within our inward being is that Compassion is everthing divine and life-giving, that Compassion is the very essence, the essential power of Ultimate Reality.
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