Eternal Presence

Across the known realms of creation, there is one conclusion for all beings. It is the inevitability that all must die. To understand this experience, the dualistic perception of life and death as understood through the past few millennia has been characterised by the restrictions of time and space. To explain the reality of such experience covering both a known and yet-to-be-experienced future beyond the grave, humans have developed a range of narratives. Each narrative has reflected features common to the world we presently live within. Imagination stretches into realms we do not know of other than projecting concepts we have come to know from our earthly experience. Some believe that there is nothing other than this world and that once we die our existence ceases. Our body decomposes as the cells return to the earth only to be reconstituted in some other form of physicality. Ancient civilizations were known to fill tombs with earthly goods so that the deceased would be well endowed with an abundance of earthly supplies for the presumed afterlife. More commonly embraced across major religions is the notion of reincarnation with its belief that we return to the world as we know it, save for a different time and circumstance of history. The purpose is the continuation of one’s growth until there is no need to return to this earth for one to arrive at the ultimate spiritual goal of nirvana. For Christianity belief is in resurrection following the recorded historic account of Jesus' resurrection. Jesus is spoken of as the ‘first fruit’ of a resurrection experience, his disciples to follow a similar path beyond earthly death to enter greater union with the Father. Once again growth is the stand-out characteristic, imagined to include a time in paradise before the completion of the journey in heaven.

Throughout history, these concepts have commonly been explained through dualistic terms and bear many characteristics derived from the way we have come to describe earthly life. Other obvious examples which illustrate this approach include the interpretation of the return of Jesus known as the Parousia or Second Coming. This event is assumed to come in a future time in history. Another example would be the concrete interpretation of Jesus' words that in his Father’s house are many dwelling places.[1] Heaven takes on a glorified special interpretation of our present world. It is worth noting the interpretation of Jesus' reference in parables to hell which is assumed to refer to a specific place and consequently led to many theories of a location for eternal punishment. The parable of the sheep and the goats Mtt.25:1f has the King sitting on a throne and calling all races together and separating the sheep from the goats before welcoming the sheep to stay in his company while cursing and casting out the goats into a place of eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. While this is a parable, once again it is commonly interpreted with time and space dimensions. Such common dualistic interpretations of life are shaped by these notions of space and time and as we know of in life in this present realm of creation. Such limits impact the essential message. The integral perspective seeks different interpretations for a wholistic world of unity, time free, and beyond space.

The emerging integral era has encouraged increasing numbers of people to speak of life beyond the grave, free of such dualistic traits. With regard to the question of death an examination of the scriptural passages involving Jesus' conversation with his disciples concerning death enables one to perceive experience time-free and aperspectivally, that is without the strictures of time and space. I present the notion of ‘presence’ as the common thread that applies to such experiences as core to both earthly living and the essence of existence beyond the grave. I am using ‘presence’ to capture the substantial essence of a person’s sense of being and the quality of knowing one another that enables a person to live in a relational way, characterised by presence with other beings. Personal ‘presence’ is a way of speaking of the essence of community that arises out of ‘Being in Becoming.’

One particular example illustrates Jesus' difficulty in teaching his disciples about such a non-dual integral perception. It is found prior to his pending death in his conversation with the disciples led by Peter, Thomas, and Phillip, as recorded in John chapters 13 and 14. Having indicated to the disciples that he is only with them for a short while longer it describes the three men questioning Jesus on where he is going. A little later a related question from Philip to Jesus is his request to show them the Father. To both questions they struggle with Jesus' response for the truth of such issues can only be found outside answers which depend upon the dualistic notions of time and space which characterises the disciples' mentality at this stage of their life. Jesus emphasises that the answer to the first question lies in loving one another. From Jesus' point of view to follow him is to emulate the life of love that Jesus displays. It is the way of discipleship. Peter is determined he can follow Jesus. Jesus rejects Peter’s brave declaration by predicting his forthcoming denial of Jesus. Peter’s love of Jesus falls far short of the love that Jesus will display. Peter’s love is still young and he is far from ready to display love by approaching Jesus' example. In his former stage of life, Peter has so often followed the call of the fish into the sea of Galilee even if it meant into a treacherous storm. He is presumably still perceiving of following Jesus as a physical journey characterised by bravado. This is not the journey that Jesus will take ‘in a little while’. His journey is one of journeying into the depths of a love requiring obedience to one’s internal integrity. For several years Jesus has been teaching his followers of this qualitative journey, the way of faith and trust in one’s being. Such a way of love stretches far beyond a journey shaped by the measures of space and time, but speaks of a human attitude, more precisely a sense of the quality of one’s ‘presence’ within the context of life’s circumstances. To Peter, he declares, ‘I give you a new commandment: love one another; as I have loved you.’ Jn 13:34. Philip persists with a similarly formed dualistic question. He beckons Jesus to show them the Father. It implies he believes one might be able to see the Father in physical form. Jesus again emphasises that to see the Father is to know him in the quality of life as Jesus lives, notably in his way of loving. He declares I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me. These are qualities that shape a sense of the persons ‘presence.’ Could Philip not see Jesus with an awareness that aroused his own deeper spirit, for if he had, he would have at least glimpsed the Father as ‘presence’?

To further deal with their limited perception Jesus calls them to trust. He then uses dualistic imagery (for this is necessary for the dualistic mind of humans of the time) to paint a picture of the experience beyond the grave by describing that in his Father’s house are many rooms/dwelling places. He uses such imagery to focus their thinking but emphasises the sense of Jesus' presence within all that they will experience once they die. Jesus declares that he is going to prepare a place for them, that he will come again to greet them so that where He is, they may be with him also and his way there is known to all. The heart of the illustration is not the space-time earthly image of rooms but the realm of Jesus' all-encompassing ‘presence’ with them on their journey to the goal of the ultimate purpose of life, the fulness of union with the divine which is not lost in physically dying.

The central message of the journey through earthly living, death, grave, and beyond is living an increasingly refined quality of love in the way of Jesus' example where one will increasingly know the eternal ‘presence’ of the divine. It is the presence of a love expanding into time-free companionship in which one will encounter the ‘presence’ of the divine grounding of all that is. It is a journey that shares one’s presence with the time-free aperspectival Jesus, whom Christians refer to as the Christ, as the ever-present companion known through ever-deepening love. The journey is of a maturation, ever opening to greater realms of being. Jesus declares, ‘Unless a grain of wheat dies and falls into the ground it will remain a single grain but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life will lose it and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.’ Jn 12:24, 25. The journey from life to death is not merely a physical and time-oriented event, but part of a growing path of ever-expanding creative expression into the fulness of being. Death which concludes our earthly life is one earthly event, however, it is a relatively unique event in a continuous process of dying and rising. For Jesus, it will be encountered in embracing the command to love as he has loved. The love we encounter in each moment is a love that is known in the process of dying and rising. It cannot be ultimately understood through dualistic imagery shaped by time and space but rather by integral awareness which opens one to the loving ‘presence’ of the divine, in this realm of experience or beyond the grave which is the essence of all consciousness. Presence is that which nests in the notion of ‘being in its becoming’.