Accepting paradox.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
It seems like accepting paradox is the key to enlightenment and to our own peace of mind. It seems that we are both a loving God/Oneness and individual “souls”. And it seems that God is the same: someone we can pray to as well as being our own ultimate identity. When Buddhists speak of “emptiness”, is this what they are alluding to? Are we both individual souls and also NOT individual souls because our ultimate identity is God who is being us?
Response:
Accepting paradox may not be the key to enlightenment, but it is a good place to start. When we can hold seemingly contradictory ideas in our mind at the same time, then we are learning to relinquish a certain ego control that life must fit our limited understanding if we are to accept it. But the truth of life is that it is full of mystery, paradox, and feels no need to conform to the limitations of our linear rationality.
The paradox of existence being both individual and universal is parallel to the idea that God is both immanent and transcendent. That might or might not relate to your question on Buddhist emptiness, depending upon who you talk to. But regardless, I think you are on the right track in recognizing that embrace paradox is a way to move beyond our conditioned controlled worldview. It does open our consciousness into an acceptance of the mystery and uncertainty of life, and that unpredictability is part of what makes life so interesting, fun, and beautiful.
Love,
Deepak
