Pauline tweets:
"[I] wonder why anyone would think it appropriate to close a business letter with 'Have a Resurrected Easter'"
There's a fine line between witnessing for the joy of spiritual experience, and just being obtrusive. To some extent the line is in the mind of the hearer. One who has had an experience of awakening has an almost irrepressible desire to share it. Jesus and Buddha, among other sages, commanded their students to teach.
To be fair to your correspondent, he or she may simply have been inviting you to share a joyful experience. However, there are pitfalls in the urge to immediately broadcast one's experiences. Adyashanti discusses these in his book, The End of Your World. These include the fact that the speaker probably does not fully understand what has happened, or the significance of the experience. In addition, there is a phenomenon Adyashanti calls "ego enlightenment" in which the ego hijacks the experience and seeks to use it to aggrandize itself.
We Westerners are so accustomed to the missionary zeal of certain sects that we assume anyone who talks to us about religion or spirituality is trying to "convert" us. This may or not be the case, but ego senses a threat to its own convictions and rises immediately to their defense. A person who is comfortable and secure in the Self with his or her own spirituality, and who recognizes the defensive reaction as coming from ego, is likely to be willing to share the joy of awakening with another, without feeling any need to raise a barrier or to convey or receive anything more than the sharing itself.
It has been my experience that adherents of organized religions often seem to have been hijacked by ego en masse. Even when confronted by one of these individuals who insists on "saving" you, it is more consistent with enlightened spirituality to thank and bless such a person, responding to what is loving and caring in their message, than to reject it entirely.
1 comment:
Hey Alan!
I have little doubt that the business-letter-writer was "inviting (the reader) to share a joyful experience". Kind of a step upward from the customary "have a nice day".
But where is the line between zealotry and common sense?
In this case the writer was a consumer of the service provided by the company I work for. But does he close all his letters that way? What if he is applying for a job or making a sales pitch? If the person at the other end has an unenlightened ego, that will not be good for his cause.
I have also seen religious messages in notepaper, and even on checks, similar to the way people have sports team logos or cute kitties or flowers imprinted. I mean, come ON! Is nothing sacred?
(pun intended)
Ah well, had to vent.
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