Buddhists would call this source, this deeper consciousness, the Buddha mind or Buddha nature, while for Christians it’s the Christ mind or Christ-consciousness.
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Mystics would say this consciousness is to be discovered in silent contemplation in the “cave of the heart”, where you encounter pure being itself, beyond the dualistic/reptilian mind and grasping, fearful ego, what might be described as the “demons of our nature”.
Pope Francis, in his 2015 address to Congress, named the Trappist monk Thomas Merton as one of four great Americans (the others being Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day). Merton described the encounter with pure being, pure consciousness, as one of pure love, pure compassion, pure forgiveness.
In this encounter, the sense of other people as other is seen as illusory, a creation of the dualistic mind and the ego. Merton lived as a hermit, devoting much of his time to silent prayer and meditation. This became the ground for a revolutionary consciousness of deep, intrinsic union with all of human life and culminated in one of his most profound epiphanies, observing passers-by “shining like the sun” in the centre of a busy city: “It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts … the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are … There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.”
In this vision, this expanded consciousness, there is no division into Republican and Democrat, black and white, rich and poor, believer and non-believer, gay and straight; just human beings infinitely loved and with a divine potential for infinite love.
America’s future, and the future of the human race, will depend on whether the “better angels of our nature” will prevail or be shouted down by the “demons of our nature”.
Roland Ashby is a Melbourne writer.
