eternal life

One phrase that keeps cropping up in my reading of the gospel of St. John is 'αιώνια ζωή' - eternal life. Christ repeatedly promises eternal life to his followers. Initially, Watashi-wa found this problematic.

For a start, 'eternal life' sounds very boring. To tell the truth, I am rather looking forward to a nice long rest. Really, who wants to live for ever?

Secondly, it is not hard to see how it plays into the corruption of religion, something that has understandably driven many people away. 'Do what we tell you and give us your trust and your money, and after you die you will have a wonderful eternal life.' Easy to exploit people that way, I'd say.

Finally, it does not sit well with traditions like Zen, which teach us to do things precisely NOT as means to an end, but for their own sake, 'with no gaining idea'. At  most, zazen practice can be seen as an expression of one's fundamental sincerity. That, at least, is Watashi-wa's understanding. 

But, in fact, I am sure that the 'eternal life' of the gospels is not 'life without end'. Rather, it is life when you remove the past and the future. How do you do that? By ceasing to identify with the ego which looks to the past for its identity, and to the future for its fulfillment. We are usually so lost in thought, so identified with the ego, that we do not even realise it. But access to real spiritual experience can only occur when the incessant chatter of the egoic mind quietens, and when identification with thoughts temporarily ceases. The fullest and clearest description of this that I have come across is by Eckhart Tolle.

So 'eternal life' is life in the present moment. The present moment never ends. All we can ever experience is the present. When we recall the past, we do so in the present. When the future arrives, it is the present. Eternal life is now, always and for ever NOW.

In its original form, the Christian religion is presenting something deeply radical and profoundly mystical: the reduction of time to a singularity. How else to understand Christ's words: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.'

Or my favourite phrase in all of the scripture that I have read: 'νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.'/ 'Now AND forever, unto the Ages of Ages.'

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'Before Abraham was, I am.' 

Who or what is this mysterious 'I am'?

It is the One Life that is common to us all, that lies beneath the illusion of separation engendered by the egoic mind. It is the Unmanifested, the Eternal Tao, the Logos, God. And it is always and for ever in the present moment, hence the present tense.

How can one experience this 'One Life', this 'I am'?

Tolle says: 'You have to die before you die - and find that there is no death.' He means that you die to your former egoic self, to your compulsively thinking mind, to your constant and obsessive attempt to locate your true identity in your thoughts and emotions. 

I think Christ is referring to the same thing when he says:

'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.' (Matthew 16:24)

'Deny himself'... this is not just giving up cigarettes or going on a diet. It is denying the egoic self - the fragmented, thought-identified self. 

And also:

'Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.' (Matthew 10:39)

We will lose the life of the ego, but we will find the One Life beneath it.

And I think that my old friend St. Porphyrios must be referring to the egoic self when he talks about his 'old self':

'I don't like to converse with the 'old' self. That is, it grabs me from behind, by the cassock, but at once I open my arms to Christ and so, with divine grace, I show contempt for it and cease to think about it. I act like the little child who opens his arms and falls into his mother's embrace. It's a mystery and I don't know if you understand just how fine a matter it is.'

Αμήν/ Amen.