I Am That

"...One who is ascended has achieved [the] Christ's injunction to be in this world but not of it." --The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra


I am that,
You are That,
All this is That.

These seemingly simple statements, from the Upanishads of India are thousands of years old; together they express what Hinduism calls Moksha, or liberation. Some see Moksha as freedom in love, enlightenment or ascension. Moksha ends karmic bonds. It is a freedom to be empty, but emptiness is not nothingness.

Many persons commonly suppose "they are what they eat," and in a little way this is true but not literally. Because one likes ice cream, for example, or chocolate doesn't make one an ice cream or a chocolate; because cowboys ride horses that doesn't make them a horse either. Nor is one either male or female by the simple wearing of any particular article of clothing. The same is true with ones' profession; the job one performs on a regular basis does not define the soul or the body; so it does not create Moksha either.


So often we fall into these notions of defining ourselves in literal, unskillful ways. It's easy to do and for many the application of a label is comforting; it provides a box or a stage from which to operate our daily lives, but it is not Moksha which is without limits. Moksha initiates one into a new birth of wholeness, of fullness. It states quite profoundly I am That, you are That, all this is That. Mokesha draws one close to the Divine.

The seeking is done. You find God is within; love enfolds  into pure religious devotion. You are simply an observer, a witness or a seer to life's journeys. The moment you are able to look deep within and see that I am That, meaning you see your lightness along with your darkness, your virtues and your sins as one, equal-- everything that matters is now a part of Being itself.
In other words, I am Being, and not anything else. 'I am as I am; you may love me or hate me; I aspire to no other. I am only myself.'

You are That tells the seer that they too are part of the Creation, both sacred be-loved and the lover. Creation becomes personal.

All is That tells us that as part of Creation, co-creators, we are all intimately and divinely involved in infinite consciousness. The possible expands, and very much-- because you are so much more than what you eat.

The Faiths of Our Nation

"God Bless America" -- The Civil Religion in American by Robert Bellah

Civil religion in America, argues Robert Bellah in his book of the same title, Civil Religion in America, is the faith of the land, not Christianity as some will argue. The civil religion, he says exists both independently and along side the other religious organizations in America, such as temples, churches and mosques. Taking up this as his topic, Bellah says that while the founding fathers may have advocated for religion, they in their enlightened minds, argued for no religion in particular; up sprung what today we call, civil religion. Over time the amalgamated beliefs of many faith communities have coalesced into this one great mass that here in America, the religion of our intrinsically religious society is not any particular religion at all, but the civil religion that suits so many.

In defining civil religion, Bellah describes a situation that goes beyond folkways but does not extend itself to established or 'mainline' faith communities. Often leaders of civil religion inhabit political spheres and engage religion to advance message. And while some may want to diminish the sincerity or intensity of this American faith way, Bellah argues equally that it "deserves the same care and understanding as any other faith."  In his most recent work, The Robert Bellah Reader, He writes about religious faith communities and the ways in which they impart meaning not only to their immediate constituents, but to the civil, political process; the shaping of ethical and moral policies translate directly into the legislation of society.

The Reader is divided into four broad parts. Bellah seeks to examine the 'waves of modernity' as they are sometimes called when examining religious practice within society. These waves are often the ideas of antiquity, early modern, modern and post modern as they manifest within a given social order. He also charges the universities with a deficit, "testing the axiomatic modern assumption that rational cognition and moral evaluation, fact and value, are absolutely divided... arguing instead that they overlap and interact much more than conventional wisdom in the university today usually admits." To read Robert Bellah's words is to be deeply challenged and enlightened to the ways of modern America.