Sit Together

“I think Jesus got it exactly right when he answered that question in Luke 10:27 by summarizing Judaism. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind,” he said (quoting Deuteronomy 6:5) “and your neighbor as yourself” (from Leviticus 19:18). In the famous “Judaism on one foot” legend, the great sage Rabbi Hillel put it this way, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary. Now go and study it.”

It’s about making ourselves vulnerable to the pain of yearning, and available to the presence of the Divine that comes pouring into the broken-open chamber of the heart when we allow ourselves to rest in the mystery. Nothing can lock up the doors of the soul faster than dogma—especially the flavors that encourage us to set up certain groups or individuals as worthy and condemn others as beyond salvation. It’s not that I am claiming that all religions are essentially the same. They are not; they are, thankfully, gloriously, different. But I believe all religions are calling us into a state of oneness—with Ultimate Reality, and with each other…

As a Native New York Jew who grew up in the counter-culture of New Mexico and spent my 20s in northern California, the American South is as foreign to me as Mongolia. Maybe more. And so visiting the Bible Belt is a perfect opportunity for me to walk my talk and reject the impulse to “otherize.” … the minute I started talking about the beauty of Islam, I saw smoke coming out of some people’s ears. And when I led the group in chanting the name of God in Arabic, mature grown-ups began to leave the room. I was stunned. What happened to the love fest I had come to expect? I found myself catapulted into the role of stranger, and I was not welcome there. That night I spoke to my husband on the phone. “Tough crowd,” I said. “Remember where you are,” Jeff said. “You are in Martin Luther King country. Be a prophet of peace.” “Good idea,” I said.

And so I showed up again the next day disarmed and ready. By the end of our three days together, heart-gates were swinging open and the most dogmatic were testifying to the connecting power of love. But what about me? What about my close encounter with breaking the commandment? I almost otherized. I started to tell myself a whole story about how some of these people are not at all like me. They are narrow minded and racist; I am open and inclusive. I support universal health care; they voted against their own interests. They believe in heaven and hell; I dismiss such notions as being something along the lines of “the opiate of the masses” — delusional and dangerous. Even our costumes were radically different: conservative polyesters (them); flowery silks and low-cut linens (me). I have way more in common with Mongolians stirring pots of goat stew over dung fires on the Steppes. Off I went, spiraling into my lonely little specialness.

But then I caught myself. I reminded myself that if we are all one, we are all one. That the illusion of separation is what causes violence and oppression. The minute we identify an individual or a group as being the Other, we banish ourselves to a spiritual wasteland and justify treating someone else with anything less than lovingkindness. This is the sin. This is what it means to miss the mark: the drawing of artificial boundaries to bisect the circle of our interconnectedness with all beings.

Here’s a practice I try to cultivate: When I travel to a different community, I show up. I ask my hosts to share with me what they love most about their lives, their landscapes, their faith. I accompany them to religious services in their church and I hang out with their kids; I eat their regional foods, swim in their waters, hike in their mountains and explore their neighborhoods. I listen to them. This discipline is bearing fruit. Rather than feeling depleted and beaten down when I return home to my safety zone (where people are more like me and I can count on being agreed with), I am stretched and gratified — like a good workout at the gym. My love muscles are growing.

It’s nice when I can preach to the choir and everyone nods their heads, tears of gratitude springing to their eyes in response to my suggestion that we are naturally inter-spiritual beings who are specially designed to embrace the sacred everywhere we encounter Her. But it also feels good to extend myself beyond the confines of my own little sub-culture once in a while and sing this love song in foreign lands where people may actually believe that all Muslims are terrorists and all Jews are greedy and all gays are going to burn for eternity. Because when we sit together and begin to peel back the layers of possibility, it turns out that just about everyone everywhere affirms that Ultimate Reality is a unified field and that no matter what names we ascribe to it, God is One. And its true name is Love.”

“Mirabai Starr was born in New York in 1961 to secular Jewish parents who rejected the patriarchy of institutionalized religion. Intellectual artists and advocates of social justice and environmental responsibility, Mirabai’s family was active in the anti-war protest movement of the Vietnam era. In 1972, Mirabai’s mother, father, and her younger brother and sister uprooted from their suburban life and embarked on an extended road trip that led them through the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where they lived for many months on an isolated Caribbean beach, and ended in the mountains of Taos, New Mexico.  There, the family embraced an alternative, “back-to-the-land” lifestyle, in a communal effort to live simply and sustainably, values that remain important to Mirabai to this day.

As a teenager, Mirabai lived at the Lama Foundation, an intentional spiritual community that has honored all the world’s faith traditions since its inception in 1967.  This ecumenical experience became formative in the universal quality that has infused Mirabai’s work ever since. Mirabai was an adjunct professor of Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years.  Her emphasis has always been on making connections between the perennial teachings found at the heart of all the world’s spiritual paths, in an effort to promote peace and justice.

Mirabai speaks and teaches nationally and internationally on the teachings of the mystics and contemplative practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss. She is available for interviews, speaking engagements, workshops and contemplative retreats. She lives in the mountains of Northern New Mexico with her husband, Jeff Little (Ganga Das). Between them, Mirabai and Jeff have four grown daughters and six grandchildren. Mirabai’s youngest daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car accident in 2001 at the age of fourteen. On that same day, Mirabai’s first book, a translation of Dark Night of the Soul, was released. She considers this experience, and the connection between profound loss and longing for God, the ground of her own spiritual life.”