I am a Nothing. I am not a Christian. I am not a non-Christian. I am not a Buddhist or a non-Buddhist. Yet I am all of them. But even “Nothing” is a label, so I’m not even that! People want me to join their churches. People want me to join this or that, believe this or that. Over the years, some folks have even told me to start an organization or even a new church! Get me pegged down, labeled! “Join,” the World keeps saying.
Only ego can say, “I am Orthodox” or “I am Catholic”, or “I am Christian”. Truth cannot utter these phrases. Anybody who is truly Orthodox or Catholic, truly Christian, would not have to say it. They could not say it! It would be self-evident.
If I am Nothing, then I am Everything. The only way anybody could say "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" is if they were Everybody, Everything, All of Us, "All, and in All." [Colossians 3:11] Otherwise, they could not be anything but egotistical lie. You know this. Yes, you.
You don't have to be around 2000 years ago. All proof is Right Here. You know because the True Scriptures are written in your heart. They require no historical proof, no textual evaluations, no debate, no literacy, no IQ! They are the Living Word come in the flesh, called Present Experience. They are the inspritation of the written scriptures (which are decaying and passing away with all heaven and earth).
I like to attend Quaker meetings, because Quakers make the Holy Spirit within the Final Authority, not any written creed or scripture, not anything corruptible. I like how Quakers wait, and watch. And, paradoxically, in so doing I see that they confirm your written creeds & scriptures!
Yet, I am not a Quaker, and I refuse to become a Quaker “member”. Yes, Quakerism is still an “ism”. The only thing that rubs me wrong about Quaker meetings is the talk about “We Quakers” or “ We Friends”. Labels are ego, and we love to roll labels around on our tongues for their addictive high. We love to distinguish ourselves above other humans. Pride is Label is Ego. “I am this”, “I am that”, we say until we bow to the dust at our death and discover we are really nothing. We bow at our death, as every creature must bow, to the Name un-nameable.
“…there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, "I am of Paul," or "I am of Apollos," or "I am of Cephas," or "I am of Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:12-13)
When we tack labels on ourselves, we do not know “the Name above every name” that the Bible refers to, and we do not know “The Name which cannot be spoken” which both the Tao Te Ching and the Guru Granth Sahib speak of.
So wouldn’t our church institutions, as we know them, collapse if we dropped all labels, all creeds, all possessions? Yes! Hallelujah!
They would surely dissolve if we practiced Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is why no church organization dares pracice it! Who would not lose everything if they “give to everyone who asks.” Then our blindness ends and we see the Real Church of No Spoken Name that has Always Existed.
Yes, what would happen if humans just congregated automatically, in instinctual communion, as Buffalo and Geese and Mayflies and Ants do, “with no overseer or ruler” [Proverbs 6:11], without possession of creeds or labels, symbols, and of course no money incentive? What if every bite we ate and every drink we drank were Holy Communion, literally the Divine Body, freely given and freely received, as was always intended?
Erase all possession and money, all label-attachment, and watch it happen. You can see vestiges of this miracle at random gatherings – like in the streets, in neighborhoods, in the country. I see it a lot at Rainbow Gatherings. It’s called pure Love. Love is motivated by nothing but Itself, in the Present Moment. It’s about being Open to All.
