In recording these episodes I try to communicate Unitive Awareness. It is not easy. Not only does language seem inadequate to the task of communicating this indescribable reality, but even the process of communication has pitfalls. I have been noticing recently how important it is to pay attention to who is doing the speaking and who is doing the listening. Which “I” is speaking and which “you” is being addressed.
As I have said, there are two selves, what Thomas Merton has called True Self and the false self. There is the little human self – the individual personality. Then there is the selfless Self, Universal Being, the One that includes all others, including the little self. Human language is the domain of the little self and is by nature dualistic, and hence the difficulty. Yet language is the only means that the Universal Self has to communicate, if this Self wants to use words. The Universal Self is in fact communicating wordlessly all the time through everything in the universe. It does not need words, but to communicate to humans through humans it has to humble itself to use words.
It makes me think of that passage in Philippians where the apostle Paul says that in Jesus the Divine Christ emptied himself and humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. For communication of Unitive Awareness to take place through words, it must be the Divine Christ, the Universal Self speaking and not the individual human self. Not only that, but the Universal Self needs to speak TO the Universal Self in those who are listening.
Communication involves a speaker and a listener. It has to be the right speaker and the right listener. Self speaks to Self. Spirit speaks to Spirit. Christ in me speaks to Christ in you. God in me speaks to God in you. God is speaking to God’s Self. You and I as individual egos are in the background while Deep calls to Deep, as the psalm says, encouraging Being to be aware as a human being.