The Way of the Cross or Whatyagonnado?
I have on my blackboard in my kitchen C.S. Lewis’ quote that says: “Hardship prepares ordinary people for extraordinary lives.” That quote has sustained me through some troubled times and has actually come to make me view suffering, my own and others, as not as bad or not to be feared as I had previously thought. It is definitely worth noting that those of us who live in New Orleans have come to know transformation through suffering – from our own worst possible scenario – many of us have lost homes, loved ones, material memories to the 2005 Federal Flood – and this collective suffering is still manifesting itself.
Someone was recently speaking to me about “the way of the cross” – a term I’m surprised to say I was unfamiliar with until now. The concept is that many people have found their way to God through suffering. And I have to admit my newfound spirituality came to me from that same form and reading the tomes of racial history lately has shown me how many African Americans have come to define religious as their first identity.
I do believe that suffering is universal and inevitable — it is at the core in the teaching of Buddha:
The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha’s teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end. The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable.
But I am struck by the term the way of the cross because I had always (mis)understood that Christians believe the way of Jesus was he died for our sins and so therefore, he suffered so we wouldn’t have to – which is differently conceptually than the way of the cross or suffering to find God. Or maybe it’s not different and I just don’t know Christianity as well as I thought I did.
I read an interesting passage in the Power of Now this morning that I thought was very appropriate to the way I feel about my own spirituality and belief:
THERE ARE many accounts of people who say they have found God through their deep suffering, and there is the Christian expression “the way of the cross,” which I suppose points to the same thing. We are concerned with nothing else here.
Strictly speaking, they did not find God through their suffering because suffering implies resistance. They found God through surrender, through total acceptance of what is, into which they were forced by their intense suffering. They must have realized, on some level, that their pain was self-created. [emphasis added]
How do you equate surrender with finding God? Since resistance is inseparable from the mind, relinquishment of resistance – surrender – is the end of the mind as your master, the impostor pretending to be “you,” the false god. All judgment and all negativity dissolve. The realm of Being, which had been obscured by the mind, then opens up. Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love. And at the innermost core, there is the sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.
I don’t call it finding God because how can you find that which was never lost, the very life that you are? The word God is limiting, not only because of thousands of years of misperception and misuse, but also because it implies an entity other than you. God is Being, itself – not a being. There can be no subject-object relationship here, no duality, no you and God. God-realization is the most natural thing there is. The amazing and incomprehensible fact is not that you can become conscious of God, but that you are not conscious of God. [emphasis added]
The way of the cross is the old way to enlightenment and, until recently, it was the only way. But don’t dismiss it or underestimate its efficacy. It still works.
The way of the cross is a complete reversal. It means that the worst thing in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to you, by forcing you into surrender, into “death,” forcing you to become as nothing, to become as God – because God, too, is no-thing.
At this time, as far as the unconscious majority of humans are concerned, the way of the cross is still the only way. They will only awaken through further suffering, and enlightenment as a collective phenomenon will be predictably preceded by vast upheavals. This process reflects the workings of certain universal laws that govern the growth of consciousness and thus was foreseen by some seers.
It is described, among other places, in the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse, though cloaked in obscure and sometimes impenetrable symbology. This suffering is inflicted not by God, but by humans on themselves and on each other, as well as by certain defensive measures that the Earth, which is a living, intelligent organism, is going to take to protect herself from the onslaught of human madness.
However, there are a growing number of humans alive today whose consciousness is sufficiently evolved not to need any more suffering before the realization of enlightenment. You may be one of them.
Enlightenment through suffering – the way of the cross – means to be forced into the kingdom of heaven kicking and screaming. You finally surrender because you can’t stand the pain anymore, but the pain could go on for a long time until this happens. Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is. [emphasis added]
You then don’t need pain anymore. How much more time do you think you will need before you are able to say, “I will create no more pain, no more suffering”? How much more pain do you need before you can make that choice? If you think that you need more time, you will get more time – and more pain. Time and pain are inseparable.
So it is not as if you have to suffer to come to a place of freedom from suffering, it’s that you have to stop resisting suffering to get to the point where you can say “whatyagonnado?” and mean it.
I know I said the words once, twice, and three, and four times, and even here live:
But I lied them.
Now when I say whatyagonnado – it has meaning, it has depth, it is profound, it is the way.
