Don't you wonder sometimes where  spirit has hidden itself in our confused and maddened world? I do. It’s hard to accept the harsh reality  that it is in us, and that if we don’t change, nothing outside us will change.

Myriad teachings describe a process of transformation, of incarnation in this earthly body of another level of life. “Remember who you are,” commands Gurdjieff. “Keep your thought on your energy in movement,” orders the T’ai Chi Master. “When you sit, sit; when you cook, cook,” says the Zen roshi. “Take no thought of tomorrow,” says the Christ. In the Hindu tradition, Karma Yoga calls on those who lead a busy life to dedicate each act to Krishna. Some, like the Gnostics, the Quakers and Hasidic Jews, see our task as orienting daily life toward the essentials and toward God.

There’s a spark of the divine in everything living. We aren’t on earth to fit into a mold or to repeat what someone else has accomplished but to find our own unique way, to bring to fruition our own potential, to practice our own presence. In fact, as the Lord Krishna told the warrior Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, it would be a grievous error to try to accomplish someone else’s dharma (duty). One must find one’s own. And as Thomas Merton affirmed, “Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is rooted in life.”

The Jewish view differs from the Christian paradigm of sin and redemption with which I was brought up, although it also sees the world as a battleground. One of God’s names is Shekhinah, defined in the Encyclopedia Judaica as “the Divine Presence…the numinous immanence of God in the world.” Rooted in the Hebrew word for dwelling, resting, it also means “the battleground between the divine powers of good and evil, the first and the main target of Satan.”

If there’s a perpetual battle between the presence of God in the world and Satan, perhaps it’s up to us to choose consciously under which banner we wish to enlist. The decision isn’t a once-and-for-all mental act. That would be easy. It’s a daily commitment to living within the tension of that choice. Does it lie between sin and virtue as in the Christian paradigm? I prefer the Greek translation of sin--missing the mark--because it offers an active reorientation to try again. Jewish theologian Adin Steinsaltz said the essential punishment for sin or violence is alienation from one’s own true Self. Martin Buber invited us to what he called “the way of reversal.” Repentance is “an incentive to…active reversal,” he said. But it’s the “turning” away from sin, not the attack on oneself, that’s important.

Buber’s “way of reversal” calls on us to discover the particular task in life we were born for. “It is the things that happen to me day after day, the things that claim me day after day – these contain my essential task,” he affirmed. “...The soil we till, the materials we shape, the tools we use…all contain a mysterious spiritual substance which depends on us for helping it towards its pure form…Man was created for the purpose of unifying the two worlds…God’s grace consists precisely in this, that he wants to let himself be won by man, that he places himself…into man’s hands.”

When we characterize the body as “mere flesh and blood,” we forget that it’s a vessel containing all that is precious in us. In Buber’s view: “The soul is not really united, unless all bodily energies, all the limbs of the body, are united.”  Steinsaltz agrees. He deplores the separation of body and soul so prevalent in Western thought: "The principal action of the soul ...lies not in its…remoteness from the physical world, but precisely in the world of living creatures,” he explains. “In its contact with matter...especially relations with its own body—the soul is able to reach far higher levels than it can in its abstract state of separate essence.” In other words, whether we follow the way of the East Indian meditating for three days under a banyan tree or the American Indian gesturing at dawn to make the sun rise, all of our parts must come to the altar if we wish to bathe in the light of our own presence, and in so doing, to bring Spirit into the World.

The new issue of Parabola on Science and Spirit brings us information about both of these seemingly conflicting worlds. But they aren't necessarily conflicting any more! You no longer have to choose one place to stand on, but can take the best of both worlds to enhance your life. To know more, I hope some of you will read my article on Energy Therapy (see www.parabola.org). But I write this not to promote my article, but to offer a new point of view.

Many scientists, except for the really great ones, pull back from taking any experimental results seriously which you cannot see or touch. But dare I take the leap to classify such people as touchy—feely? After all, they only believe what they can touch and feel! Unfortunately, though, there’s still a genus of experts who are half mired in past points of view. They haven’t yet understood that MRIs and other data gathering tools for the human body/mind have changed the playing field. They need to catch up.

Here’s an example I point out in my article. Scientist James Oschman recently wrote in his book, Energy Medicine, “In a few decades scientists have gone from a conviction that there is no such thing as an energy field around the human body to an absolute certainty that it exists.”

That’s big news most of us haven’t heard! But my aim isn't to criticize the laggers, but rather to propose another class of science for the 21^st century: the Science of Being. Real science is about probing the unknown, right? And what is more unknown than who we are and why we are here on earth?

On a less personal scale, we have no idea what humankind's tendency to pollute air, earth and water is doing to our favorite planet, whether global warming will destroy us, where the next Frankenstorm will hit hardest, or when and where another great earthquake or tsunami will strike, decimating the population and changing the course of history.

But coming back to the personal, if we take an honest look we have to admit that every day and every minute we face unknowns. We aren’t in control and we don’t really know what’s going to happen next. This creates an underground fear of the unknown that ends by limiting our personhood. Like the turtle we retract our head and limbs in front of not knowing.We contract rather than open ourselves to life.

That’s why I want to propose a new branch of science, using the term I first heard from Jeanne de Salzmann, a major teacher of the work of G. I. Gurdjieff. As Peter Brook described her, she spent her life “devoted to the service of that unknown source of finer energy that can only become manifest when the human organism is completely open—open in body, feeling, and thought. When this condition is reached, the individuality does not vanish; it is illuminated in every aspect and can play its true role, which is to bend and adapt to every changing need.”

What we need to develop, to save the world we seem bent upon
destroying, is “a Science of Being.”

All this week a line from Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem has been a—singing inside me: “There will be a new Heaven and a New Earth...”

I joined with 150 students from the Hunter College Choir to present it last spring, and suddenly the music reappeared, haunting me.

What could that mean, I asked myself, and why does it pursue me? Obviously the planet could use a friendlier attitude from us humans who live on it, but I doubt that the sun and stars need our help in order to shine down from heaven!

Yet there it is, the line from Revelations 21, and it won’t let go of me. So I sat down this morning to take a deeper look at what I’ve been invited to digest (with Google’s help, of course).

Turns out there’s a similar quote from Isaiah 65:17-19:

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for behold, I create a Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

I also learned from www.enduringword,com that the ancient Greek word for new was kaine, which means “new in character or fresh rather than recent or new in time.” So what does this ancient message convey? When I recalled by association Jesus’ comment, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” I found myself on more fruitful ground.

Here’s a simple fact: If I can manage to lodge myself in the present moment—no easy task, as we all know—everything changes. That is surely new as in fresh! If I can summon my body’s liveliness, center my thoughts on this moment in time, and open my heart, all my parts unite together in a simultaneous prayer for Being.

At that point, everything changes. My troubled heart comes to rest. The song hasn’t stopped singing itself, but now I try as best I can to respond each time to its invitation.

_{“Give me a place to stand on," said the Greek mathematician Archimedes, “and I can move the world.” He was talking about using pulleys and levers, which he had recently invented, to raise very heavy objects.}

_{But it’s also true in the simplest sense about us human beings and our moods. When I feel anger, depression or any violent reaction coming on, it’s possible to look for a place in myself free of such negative vibes. If I can find it, what a relief! My inner world can be leveraged out of its negative hell and into a place of ease and contentment.}

_{The problem is, of course, how? Once a mood has reached full flow it’s almost impossible to change. It just has to play itself out, leaving me aching, exhausted and, perhaps, apologetic. But if I can sense the negative reaction coming on, if I can leverage before that small complaining stream becomes a raging river, there’s a good chance I can escape the worst of it.}

_{Not that it’s easy. For one thing, I have to sacrifice the positive enjoyment of being angry. Oh, yes! People love to be angry. It gives one a sense of really being there, a kind of negative “I am.” It feels good in a perverse way: “Look at me now! This is me and I’m in a rage!” One forgets to take into account the price of the enormous energy that’s wasted.}

_{There’s jet fuel in us, as well as the ordinary gasoline that keeps our inner vehicle going. But violence of any kind wastes it, which would be better spent in the name of joy or compassion. Gurdjieff said that with a really big burst of negativity you can wipe out a whole day’s energy, or that of a week, a year or even the rest of your life. Ominous thought!}

_{So how to do it? I bring my attention away from rising anger at the nasty remark someone made, or at a depressed feeling when I failed to do what I wanted. Instead, I concentrate on my weight. Me, on the ground. Me, standing on this earth. I think of sending roots down into the earth below me and perhaps shift my weight from one foot to the other, weighing myself in my mind.}

_{Then I allow my imagination to enlarge the picture: I, standing here in the room; in my house (or wherever I am); in this city of nine million human beings; in a world of more than two billion beings; in a solar system of unimaginable proportions; in a universe whose size could blow a small, personal reaction out of anyone’s mind!}

Wait Like a Hunter

What can I do, face to face with the Unknown? It may take the shape of illness or loss or the Next Big Step in my life. And, yes, these challenges give me a lot to think about, but if I’m lost in the thinking I may miss the opportunity to connect with a new thread in the fabric of my life. Perhaps it’s better just to wait for a bit.

We do a lot of waiting. Life’s like that. I wait for the bus or train, for the boss to give me a raise, for my own true love to find me, for the end of something that may actually be a new beginning. Which job should I take, which road should I travel to get where I think I want to go? Where do I really want to go?

And we often wait in the darkness. For help. For light. There’s a deep need to understand what’s going on in the world and in myself. Why are things the way they are? Why do terrible things happen to those I love? Why do good people do bad things? What should I do next?

Waiting can be boring or fraught with possibilities, but it’s worth trying. It might lead us to find a new approach to an old task, a new response to replace a habitual, mechanical reaction, or a tentative new openness to whatever comes. So perhaps the question is: How to wait in front of the Unknown?

Many years ago, I heard a distinguished Frenchman, Henri Tracol, speak to that question. Perhaps the man who asked it was depressed. Perhaps he simply longed to understand why, although he’d spent many years trying to change the things in himself he didn’t like, to make a new beginning, the change he longed for just didn’t come about. M. Tracol’s answer has stayed alive in me all these years. He sat looking at him thoughtfully for a few minutes, then said. “Wait like a hunter. A hunter will stand behind a tree or sit behind a rock for many hours, as still as the landscape, waiting for his prey to appear.”

Not so easy! To wait like a hunter calls for serious preparation. First I must learn to sit still, to take control of my squirming or lax body so it is trained both to be still and yet very alive, ready to act instantly when necessary. Knowing myself as I do, it sounds like that could take a long time! But the time won’t be wasted if it’s in the name of my deepest wish: The wish to know myself and to grow into the person I was born to be.