Salvation

In recent years I have had two very transformative experiences. The first was receiving my first (and so far only) reiki attunement, and the second was the more gradual, less defined, but intensely powerful transformation that came with a short but (then) regular yoga practice.

How is this about salvation?

Well I have always associated salvation with Christian Soteriology; being saved from something (delivered) or saved for something (redeemed). But it seemed to be such a passive experience. Something that is done to you, by God.

The attunement was a bit like that, you just offer yourself, make yourself available and ‘it’ is done to you. However the real transformation happens later, through what you do with what is conferred.

Yoga was, needless to say, far more active. In fact I thought it was all activity, until I started noticing more profound spiritual changes. This is why I am calling it salvation. It wasn’t just the increased energy / more positive outlook experienced by many who take up some form of regular exercise. It was more complex and powerful, a gradual changng of who I am.

I asked some friends who have a more ‘orthodox’ (i.e.Christian) experience of salvation what they felt and a selection of their reponses are as follows:

I remember closing my eyes in prayer and just feeling like things were so much better – they were right again. I have a hard time remembering the bad things in my past. Well maybe that’s not the right way to say it….its more like those things I held on to that caused me so much pain at the mere thought, they didn’t hold that power anymore.

I still get sad and am dealing with my emotional distresses but they don’t seem to hold the weight that they once did.

This experience was the consequence of quite a profoundly moving moment which was both physical and transforming (as the original moment of transformation was quite personal I chose not to quote it, but focused rather on the calming and stabalising after-effects). I personally had no such single moment of metamorphosis into a saved being, but there were a number of yoga sessions over a period of time where I had mini breakdowns and experienced tearful waves of elation and despair.

Another friend states:

Reading the bible and learning the things that Jesus did in his short ministry causes a person to emulate that. You become a kinder, more patient, giving, loving person.

And:

Does something real happen when you accept Jesus as your saviour? A real “transformation”, so to speak? I believe so, yes. That your spirit – the real you (which is housed in your body) – is changed and becomes new. So, it does change you.

These two testimonies seem to me to be more theortical; faith rather than witness, and I am not knocking faith – I have a lot of respect for the faithful. However the Buddhist / Hindu journey I am on doesn’t leave much room for it; whereas Christian experience values is as much if not more than more concrete “evidence” of spiritual salvatation.

A former Latter Day Saint has an interesting take:

From an LDS perspective being saved is something that ultimately happens at the resurrection when everyone is assigned a kingdom of glory. any time before that you still have time to blow it (or salvage it).

This is theoretical in another sense, in that it doesn’t come from a position of faith but one of disenchantment or lost faith on the part of the speaker. There is distance, and this is “for information only”. It is forbiddingly absolute too, there is nothing to discover, no work to be done – or more properly the work is not in gaining the reward but in deserving (and holding on to) a reward that is freely given in exchange for love.

And finally:

This feeling does change me as it opens my Sight both physical and mental to this that this world is alive and there is an ever present spirit here. It puts my life in perspective to see this subtle change and makes me think on if what I am doing will be positive effect to all of existence around me. All I think in that moment in time is, I hope so. Then I continue on my way with this beauty captured in my memory.

This is closer to my experience than any of the others, but then the testimony is from a rather mystical Christian who is, I believe, strongly influenced by both oriental and new age thinking.

Clearly I am too early in my journey to find answers. In truth I am hardly able to phrase question or know whether a question is an appropriate compass for for spiritual orienteering. I will instead finish with a statement of faith. Intentionally, that very faith I questioned in this post:

I believe salvation is a metamorphosis. A change that effects every sheath be it flesh, or spirit, or soul. There is I before and I after salvation and they are distinct if not different. The transition can be gradual or instantanious, for many it is painful. But the consequence is homecoming, affirmation and tranquility. It isn’t enlightenment but it is a cosmic confirmation that you are on the right path.

Preservation

‘Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual’s instinct for self preservation.’ Albert Einstein

My initial response to the concept of preservation is it’s like an N.R.A approach – be willing to take a life in order to protect one. I have always believed that is utter crap. I have argued this on The Northlands I won’t go into it again except to give this summary and link:

The reason I hate guns is if we have got them we use them. I have had really fucking awful days when the thought of a quick and painless end to it all would have been attractive. Thank God I didn’t have a gun. I have had fucking awful days when I could have cheerfully blown my husband’s head off and done a happy dance in his pooling blood. Thank God I didn’t have gun. I strongly believe people do not have the right to bear arms… no matter what is says it says in your constitution.

It is also (as in the image I chose to illustrate this post) an illusion. A rose pressed into a Bible like a blood stain. How can a dead thing be considered preserved? The simulcrum is all that remains; the mammoth in the ice, a damp fossil. Take the DNA, create a new beast and what have you preserved ? A sense of man as god? Or a faker? Magician or illusionist?

So is preservation ever worthwhile? I think it is a subtle power. Culture preserves a sense of self and Faith a sense of Soul. We should be willing to die for something. If not the right to bear arms then maybe the right to lay them down.