No Conditions to Meet

Scott Bradley

If I have a 'message', it is this: All is well and there are no conditions which have to be met to make this true. No redemption is required; all is embraced and affirmed within the Entirety. The world, you and I — all that is, is affirmed. This can be experienced. Freedom and joy ensue.

These are words. And I can only offer them to you as words. Yet, the sense I now have in sharing them is not one of conveying words, but of baring my heart. To open oneself to Mystery is to somehow open oneself to every expression of Mystery. There is a sense of vulnerability outside the constraints of fear.

I suppose there are all manner of metaphysical presuppositions implied in these words, yet none are intended. They are a denial of important assumptions within every religious tradition I know (even those which might protest otherwise), yet they do not intend to be so. They make no claim to truth; they would only suggest an experience.

It is here that the dialectics of reason and ethics usually get addressed. They arise in me but less than in my anticipation of their arising in many of you. What about what is wrong in the world? What about what is wrong in me?

My response is simple: Out of affirmation the heart is enabled to do the work the world and our own selves require as it was never able before. No longer are the means other than the ends themselves; no longer is war the imagined path to peace; no longer is the sense of injustice rooted in personal, egoic issues. It is a function of the 'understanding consciousness' to render reality to a realm of either/or, of A negates not-A. Yet to understand the utter affirmation of the Totality, is to be able to both embrace all things and to act upon them. All is well — and we can make it better.

And it is here that my disclaimer usually gets expressed. Here it is: I look out over the wonderful mess of me, thankfully and joyfully roll up my sleeves, and get to work.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.