Why Not Become Fire?

Embarking on a journey of self-discovery means going into unfamiliar territory alone. On this path, you receive some guidance from those who have gone before, their sparse lanterns intermittently lighting the way. But what was set down as flame passes to dim light and you travel farther along. For a while, you may find yourself alone in the dark.

I was feeling this way a couple weeks ago and asked the universe for guidance. I found myself absentmindedly opening a book on tarot. As sometimes happens when I am seeking spiritual answers, I found myself on a page I had never read. It was the description of the Hermit, a card in the major arcana. I was born on the day of the Hermit, March 9. Archetypally, the hermit is a symbol of wisdom and guidance to others, represented by the lantern he holds. It is also a lonely card. One that I have often identified with.

The writer of the passage was exploring the symbol of the hermit through a story of the Desert Fathers. The Desert Fathers were hermits, ascetics, monks, and nuns (Desert Mothers) who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. The story goes:

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said:

‘Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do?’

Sound familiar? It did to me. I was working on my websites, working that constant scene of social networking, meditating for guidance, trying to help my friends, learning to be a better writer and thinker, and always trying to fix, fix, fix. We are all like this, trying to increase the list of things we think make us a good person. But you can hear the complaint in the Abbot Lot's voice, right? The sense that he has done all the right things but what he was doing it for - the carrot on the end of the stick - still eluded him. The story continues:

The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: ‘Why not be totally changed into fire?’

When I first read this, the answer seems incongruous. "Why not be totally changed into fire?" But then I realized the answer is incongruous because it has to be. You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it. A good answer to “how shall I live my life” is always going to represent a paradigm shift.

Revered Lilli Nye, an American pastor, wrote her own take on the parable. She says:

And as for Abbot Lot, he was also missing the forest for the trees (if one can apply such a metaphor to someone living in the desert). Abbot Lot kept all his spiritual disciplines with rigor, and yet he was not fulfilled by them. He asked, “What else should I be doing?”

Abbot Joseph didn’t suggest to Abbot Lot that if he worked a little harder at his practices, if he got a better meditation stool or added a particular new prayer to his already long list, he would find what he was seeking.

Like Brother Lot, our lives are full with our efforts to be good, to attend to the many needs of our families and our work lives, to be healthy. Perhaps we seek fulfillment with extracurricular activities, volunteering in the community, mind-body disciplines, or getting into hobbies that bring us pleasure. But in all of this activity we are at risk of becoming strangely dissipated rather than more integrated. For some of us, although we strive to manage complex and rich lives, there can remain a longing for a simple wholeness within that ever eludes us.

Abbot Joseph would not say to us, “Why don’t you take up tai chi?” Or, “You should get this book by Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh” (so you can add it to the stack of books on your bedside table that you are hoping will give some insight into the riddle of fulfillment). Brother Abbot wouldn’t say, “Have you considered getting a personal trainer? It really can make all the difference.”

He would say, “Become fire!”

When I first ‘got’ the parable, I imagined my hands in flames, my belly filling up with fire. I could feel how there was just this longing for wholeness at the center of me that never seemed to fill no matter what I did. I have all those wisdom books by my bed - thousands of pages written and read on the subject of wholeness, spiritual and emotional well-being, enlightenment and happiness. And yet when I imagined becoming flame; when I ignited the passion living dormant in me as a feeling, not as a concept, the ache went away.

The sermon ends:

Maybe what we can hear in this is, ‘Give yourself to love.’ In the final quest for our deepest answers, what we seek is a way of being alive to life that comes from knowing, in our core, why we are living. It is a total qualitative shift.