ALL life lives and revolves around the greatest of ecstasy.
People often wonder what it is that motivates the essences of life itself, what inspires the movement and existence, the constant unfolding, changing and navigation through and through. If you think about it the entire compilation is remarkably forceful. It is a production that would be, in itself unbelievable, were it not for the fact that it does exist and goes on!
To sense what is there at the core of every living entity within the mainframe of this immensity, is to sense the blissfulness which is Life, the ecstasy and pure fun of Being.
Life itself would fail to get up each morning if this were not so. Within Humanity (at present) there exists a difficulty which the heavenly beings do not participate in. They can suffer grief and pains, which we will make mention of a little later. They know what it is to desire and be unfulfilled, disappointed and spent, helpless for a time etc., but even the disruptive individuals (and not-so individual, individuals) are energetic in their movements and feelings and do not suffer the inertia that is spiritually experienced living in the world today of the mundane.
You see, the reality of Life (as aforementioned) is anything but that. For in truth, it is unreal to be disassociated, uninvolved, apathetic and not sensitive to the lively joys that are very much a part of the exuberant orchestra of beingness.
A moment ago you asked yourself or me the question "where is this going?" and there was an element of doubt in that question that it was going anywhere at all. This is earthly thinking, because of course it is going somewhere! In spiritual terms one expects everything to be going somewhere, and usually our dialogue certainly does!
Furthermore, the point just having been made in itself got somewhere. [The Teacher is not cross, but humorous here.]
However, in relation to your question about The Passion of Christ [movie], there are a few ways to view the offspring from this artwork of course. In a considered view it is important to note first up, that we do suffer pain in many different ways. Our very detachment from the true ecstasy which is our common way of being is veiled, but the greatest pain of all to be experienced.
You must realize please, that having said this, this is a dangerous teaching to ponder too long or incorrectly, and we will now cover as to why this truth must be thought through ever so carefully if you will.
When Christ wished for us that we could know again our relationship with our Father, it was not for the sake of our Father, so much as it was and is for our sake.
Experiencing our Father is a good, great fantastic feeling. Once again, there have been earthly thoughts, which promote a drudgery, duty, unhappy propriety, sad and pitiful sobriety (as differing from a gay sobriety) - all in all a hangdog summoning, rather than an elevation of spirit and a comprehension of the Divine, which is uplifting and exalting.
On the other hand there are folk who by any means possible, will try to recapture the exaltation and exhilaration of life and of knowing Him, through means other than perceiving the truth straight out. Whilst it is understandable that this occurs, we know the effects of narcotic and luciferic experiences actually cause more problems in the long run.
So why are the gates locked to a common spiritual experience in Man? Why do folk experience a heavy dullness instead of the light and levity within and without?
The word 'humor', came from the context and meaning of 'fluidity'. This is interesting because in keeping with the concept that Life in its ordinary fashion is most joyous, we can ascertain that the fluidity of life as known to us, is experienced, when all and we are happy. When this is not experienced there are 'blockages' experienced, in our thinking, our being, our feeling, our perceiving, our knowing and our outpouring.
Humor itself has suffered negative meanings, indicating what it is at its worst representation. But what actually is it? What is causal to the 'flowing', this fluid nature; what is manifest within its own?
True humor is a soulic knowing; that knowing which connects beings in a living recognition that is happiness combined. The experience of humor is not frivolous in the negative context, but is frivolity at its best.
The word frivolous also grew horns not so long back - indicating something was quite misspent and useless. There has been less and less value given to humor by most races, and it is/has been dismissed as a sidetrack rather than a fast-track to anywhere. Frivolity (a cousin to Joviality) does indeed distract us out from the one direction the mind or intent has focused on, but does not have to detain us from the heart of the matter we are trying to deal with. This is speaking of the positive variety of course, whereby there is a great gift to us in the practice and understanding of the forces involved.
A negative frivolity, we all know from unproductive people who may use it as a means to disrupt another. But in our own life's defining we can enjoy its [frivolity] benefits completely. We have a certain right to disrupt our own patterns of thinking - particularly when they have begun to resonate so low there is no coming back from them!
One can only imagine the depressing dredge of thought that hovers every city, where men and women are insatiably grumbling or complaining or reiterating some past moment - not escaping their fixed position, not alleviating their situation, and not comprehending how this frivolity could instantly snap them into a differing direction. Yet it can, and with productive results.
It is more than just putting a smile on one's face. It is actually a huge and powerful truth. Usually this truth is dismissed because it appears dismissible. How can we be serious about the non-serious? But we can.
Seriousness needs credibility. It needs to be pertinent to the moment (only that moment) and it needs to have value. As men (women included of course) we are Christ-filled and Christ-given, we can be serious about something and direct our will in such a way that the very seriousness is felt from one planet to the next. Our effects that come from our being; our consciousness and our wills, rock the heavens with inordinate shaking.
Whilst this is forgiven by our neighboring fellows, it is careless and also has an unhealthy affectation upon us. The overly serious person will of course lack humor (true humor) and frivolity.
This is how it works afurther:
- Serious 'A' is when an individual takes his thinking or his action into a situation that requires intense willing - for further action or further working. It is usually something important (not frivolous in the overall scheme) - important as in something constructive.
- Some people (serious 'B') have a talent for making little things serious or overly important and exercise their will and this action too readily. But hand in hand with this seriousness there must be some measure of doing. If there is no doing, then heaven knows that we are not truly serious but rather just summoning these forces to enjoy the forces themselves. So with the man or woman who is difficultly serious, you find much talk or thunder, but no constructive action amounting from that individual.
The serious element requires follow-up. We cannot afford to be serious if we do not use the powers that are inpouring to us, that befit the work or thought ahead, and then do nothing with them. It then becomes a cosmic madness to receive and not use as is required.
Of course a seriousness that is not constructive often spends its forces through anger. However, anger itself just seems to enjoy more seriousness to fire its coals, and so it goes.
Seriousness is a great springboard into further thought, further action etc. Seriousness that is not utilized for this is detrimental.
Frivolity is a great springboard out from unproductive seriousness. Frivolity becomes unproductive therefore also, and difficult, when it interrupts a productive seriousness. This is what gives frivolity a bad name. However, with personal application it is a saving grace, particularly when the seriousness has outworn its usefulness and is causing more ill than good.
Pursuing ecstasy is dangerous because of one simple fundamental principle, and that is that life does not reward self-gratification. It does reward striving, self-work and self-discipline, self-kindness and care, but not gratification through just the unit of one.
The true spiritual ecstasy has its primary placement in the perception of the bliss of others, not in the experience of the bliss within oneself (which occurs naturally and secondarily to the bliss in others). (Also, contributing to the wellbeing and bliss of others of course.)
Self-seeking gratification by way of taking a pill or doing a spiritual exercise with the purpose to experiencing this bliss, is of course nonsense in the light of what has just been said. It goes further than the serious individual summoning the forces of action and then doing nothing. What it does is just experience the 'hall of mirrors' in the astral of past experience (personal or otherwise); and so it is life deceased and not life inspirited, being experienced through false and selfish means.
This life deceased has the poison of deathliness within its kernel. Most of all it brings with it a death to our perception, or a glimpsing of the true bliss and joy outside of the cemetery, and the individual forfeits their discretion and deciding.
Healthy individuals will love babies, babies are blissful (they experience it in everything everywhere naturally) and we can readily experience them experiencing this bliss and so forth. Then later on, when the egoic forces begin to descend, the child begins to mimic seriousness - 'monkey see, monkey do' - all the while feeling pretty jovial beneath it all. When an infant cries through hunger or discomfort (or later through a tantrum of sorts - a conflict of wills etc.) the individual does not actually experience upset as we would imagine. There may be an expression of upset, but the joviality is there, and the output of tears or yelling is not unhappiness, just signal.
Now this is not speaking of a pitiful circumstance of great pain (teething, illness or injury), but rather the crying from discomfort or difficulty. Often if pain or emotional pain is being experienced, the infant will have periods of undue quiet - much like an adult who locks down within themselves. However even this experience is nothing like that of the older child or adult, because the egoic consciousness simply is not there to interpret their own suffering.
Individuals have a mournful expression with grades of suffering, and like the baby we can have expressions of upset which are no more than loud signals of discomfort, whilst the very same expressions can denote the toughest of trials and of crisis. This makes it extremely difficult to be around and interpret. For the ordinary individual who is naturally empathetic it is persuasive and consuming of course.
Here we can begin to gauge the seriousness again with the adult's howling predicament, by asking privately to ourselves in the assessment what is being done here.
Have you ever seen a gravely ill person make jokes about themselves? This is not only to care for the person they are with, by trying to intimate that they are 'all right', but also it is a great example of using frivolity in a way that brings them out from a seriousness that is getting them nowhere. They have every reason to be serious, but recognize that they are at a point where it is unproductive, and so will use little jokes to cease the hardened thought, and in that there will be a healing, not a hardship. So it is not just pathetic to have an ill person or troubled person do this, it is actually very useful that they can. This is not to say that it is called for all of the time, and there may be other moments where the seriousness can be useful in their making decisions and so forth, but certainly cannot be sustained all of the time.
And so, with the complaining adult who howls like an infant, we can also check the breadth of gravity by quietly asking if they themselves are doing anything about the problem.
Often folk will have a way of throwing all blame outside of themselves. It not only self-justifies, it is the signature of an inactive person. The inactive person, who is not reviewing what they could or should be doing to help a situation, is a person who is not truly serious (at the heart of their expression of seriousness), with what it is they are complaining about.
If a person maintains their seriousness dramatically, violently trying to injure themselves or others, saying it is because the world is not a better place, or their marriage partner a disappointment or their own self has been used or abused, what is the sense of making oneself feel worse about it? Isn't it enough once over? Furthermore, is it relevant in the now? Thirdly and lastly, what are they doing to make the world a better place, to be a more loving and therefore needed partner, and to stop the abuse or abusing?
As simple as it sounds, it clearly is not understood, going by the amount of whining and complaining that is out there in day-to-day dialogue - misspent words and thoughts, that have no place in seriousness because they are not qualified in action or intention.
With the portrayal of Christ in the film of The Passion, there are gruesome outer events, which do not on the whole invoke the happy or the humorous. The creative artists behind this production have believed that it takes this level of persuading seriousness to reach the watching public, and that the subject, nor the Christ, could never be seriously enough presented, no matter what was shown by way of a movie.
The story of Christ has lent itself to so many forms of artistry - even depicting Him as a deer for example - and whatever the creation there has been in each and every one of them a hidden blessing.
So also in answer to the question, there is such a thing as 'too serious' - when it is not acted upon. Seriousness in itself is a means to a happy end, rather than an end within itself only.
Was it the whole story? Of course not. We cannot presume to know the colors and character of experience our beloved Christ knew; only to say that it must have been infinitely worse and infinitely greater than a morbid beating with whip and word.
Life itself is not serious - serious itself does not get close! It is so powerful and enduring, and it is only ourselves that falter with this knowing.
Faith at present, needs be tempered with both resolve and good humor, that somehow we can remind ourselves that holy purpose is generally happy purpose. We all have such great abilities, finding this mirth in places you would not have thought of looking for before; and remembering that the Red Sea was parted with a laugh and not a with a tempest!
