FOOW Manifesto -- The Fish Never Leaves The Water

by Hieromonk Crustacean
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somewhat of a "Fish Out Of Water Manifesto," kinda sorta like

“Just sit there right now.
Don’t do a thing.
Just rest.

For your separation from God is the hardest work in this world.

Let me bring you trays of food
And something you like to drink.

You can use my soft verse
As a cushion
For your head.”
--Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
--Emily Dickinson

Poetry has a way of taking us by hand and leading us right into the heart
of the matter --and when the matter is God, as it is with all of these
selections, I find the results to be staggering and breathtaking. This to me
is what J.D. Salinger meant when he said, through his narrator Buddy Glass,
that a great poet will "take you within an inch of your life" --not your ego's
life, but your true life: God's life.

When poetry does this, it is usually fleeting; we read and admire, maybe feel that rush of the Word of God coming from our heart,
rushing through our blood, to meet the words head-on....then we put the book down and gradually or abruptly we are reabsorbed
back into our separate selves.

Religion/spirituality attempts to do the same, and then go the final inch. It attempts to acquaint you with your true life so
thoroughly that, rather than being transitory, the acquaintance will last your lifetime and beyond; so powerful should the
recognition of your true life be, that any thought of an obstacle between you and God should eventually (or in some cases,
suddenly) cease. If poetry lops off the top of Emily Dickinson's head, religion aims to come for the rest of her.

The difference between religion and spirituality is a matter of popular usage more than anything else. My experience in 20th/21st
century America is that when people say they are "spiritual but not religious," what they usually mean is they believe in God or any
other kind of spiritual entity but do not accept the traditional Judeo-Christian explanations of what that God/entity is, nor the
customs and rituals that accompany traditional worship. (Often this will also be expressed as something akin to "I don't believe in
organized religion.") Free to explore the smorgasbord offerings of the world's spiritual traditions, the Western spiritualist may find
affinity with another particular tradition --in which case, though self-identifying as spiritual, he/she is really a practitioner of
another culture's religion-- or in the case of people like Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith and Aldous Huxley, their affinity lies with
the whole buffet table, for their joy and nourishment is in seeing that all are well-fed more than in their own feast. Religious folks
in all cultures tend to frown on this approach, and sometimes for good reason: a non-commital perspective can speak of a lack of
devotion (though I'd heartily disagree in the case of all three people I mentioned). In one of the volumes I just gave back to the
friend who lent it to me, Rumi had a great poem addressed to "spiritual windowshoppers;" its message was basically this: buy
something, just so you can be part of the flow of commerce.

I agree, and frankly I could not care less about the distinction between religion and spirituality, or organized and disorganized.
What does interest me, passionately, to no end, is the distinction between our symbols of the Divine One and the substance of the
Divine One, and the way that the interplay between the two --one finite, the other infinite; one tangible and subject to change, the
other intangible and eternal-- creates every single idea and concept that we encounter in the realm of religion and spirituality.

In the second half of Part Two [of the Camerado Chronicles], we spent a good deal of time looking at symbol and substance, and
what can happen when we equate them, when we assume the particular symbols that we use to understand God are synonymous
with God rather than analogous. We end up taking the unity of the human family and dividing it into distinct camps with very
drastic differences in their preferred use of symbols to portray the same substance. And of course it doesn't stop there --each
camp, while agreeing on the most basic symbols, will also divide into subcamps, and these into sub-subcamps, until you have new
splinter camps forming over disagreement about some of the most microscopic symbolic minutia you could imagine. This
scenario in and of itself is not a problem --it's what makes the smorgasbord so rich with such diverse flavors. Those within each
camp who realize this can look to neighbors in other camps and feel a deep affinity because underneath the symbolic differences
the substantial unity is ever present.

There only arises a problem when these symbolic differences are mistaken for substantial differences; now there is no unity, the
fissures between subcamps run deeper than the surfaces, and in the case of the larger "base camps," all the way to the core of our
existence, to the point where even our true God wars with another false god. This may be all just good theater from God's
perspective --drama for drama's sake-- but for the actors who take the surface of life and all of it's divisions seriously, there is
little consolation other than the belief that they are right and everyone else has it wrong. At the extreme end of attachment to the
symbols and identity only with one's particular campsite (such as we see in militant Zionist and Islamic fundamentalists, and
Christians like Oliver B. Greene [preacher whose literalist Revelations tract starred in an ealier chapter]), one can almost seem to
lose touch with the substance of God in the clamor to validate the symbols.

Of course, the idea that anyone can be out of touch with the substance of God is an abstraction and an illusion unto itself. One
can certainly be out of touch with the locally popular symbols, or all symbols in some cases, but it is impossible to disconnect
from the substance. For a person to think this, is to give in to a uniquely human neurosis that I believe is caused by the very use
of symbols itself (and now we are finally getting to the crux of what Fish Out Of Water is all about).

Consider, if you will, a fish: it is born in the water, and spends its entire life
in the water. It doesn't have a "no water" experience in its memory to
which it can draw a contrast; consequently it probably does not "see" the
water that forms the base of its entire surroundings, nor would it be inclined
to give thought to the fact that it is continuously surrounded by water
(similarly, other than coal miners and avid spelunkers, we who dwell on the
earth's surface live almost our entire lives within the sky, and we are
inclined to think just as little about that). Likewise, no one has to teach the
fish how to swim, or how to use its gills to draw oxygen from the water.
Nothing about this fish's watery existence feels foreign to it, and if you
asked the fish where it's home is or where its heaven is, if the fish could
speak, I am certain it would say something like, "Well, right here, of course."

Are we all together on this? Does it all make sense --except for the talking fish?

OK, now dig this: when a human being feels separate from or out of touch with the substance of the Divine One/God, this is
similar to our little fish friend one day just going into a state of panic and thinking, "Hey, where's the water?? I don't see any
water!! How am I going to swim? How am I going to breathe? Oh no I'm going to die!!!" Silly little fish, we think, as we watch
it thrash about in the throes of anxiety in its aquarium: the water is all around him!

This must be what we look like from the perspective of God, or of a person who has realized his/her union with the infinite,
eternal, Divine One.

The fish, in this illustration, never leaves the water, but you could say that it thinks itself out of the water. This is what we do
with the Divine Reality that we in the West tend to call "God:" we think ourselves out of God.

A real fish, of course, would never do such a thing. We have to give it the mental capacity to create verbal concepts and
abstractions, attaching symbolic meaning to its perceptions, in order to let it represent a human being in this illustration. The
technique of anthropomorphism has always been used by the storytellers of the world to convey meaningful ideas about the
unique human existence and our perceptions, which unlike those of the fish (as far as we can tell) are entirely symbol-based.
Religion provides not just an example of this practice as a storytelling craft, but probably the best example, because the subjects it
discusses cannot be addressed at all without the use of symbols. One can describe a person or a finite object without using its
name, or point at it without using words at all. But one cannot describe God without using personifying symbols, nor can one
point at God without creating confusion. ("You're saying this chair is God? That guy over there in the white robe is God?")

So what is our personified fish telling us in this illustration? If we can stop thinking ourselves out of God, we will realize that the
union with the Divine One that we crave is already there. The fish never leaves the water. No magnitude or amount of sin can
sever or corrupt this union --except in your own mind. The fish never leaves the water. There is nothing you must say or do or
achieve or attain to create this union that existed before you were born, and try as you might --and God knows you will-- there is
no way you can undo yourself from God''s ever-present, all-encompassing embrace --except in your own mind.

The fish never leaves the water.

Rilke said it like this (translated from his native German obviously; and this poem, I believe, also illustrates this difficulty of
expressing the truth of God's omnipresence through language):

Only in our doing can we grasp you.

Only with our hands can we illumine you.

The mind is but a visitor;

it thinks us out of our world.

Each mind fabricates itself.

We sense its limits, for we have made them.

And just when we would flee them, you come

and make of yourself an offering.

I don't want to think a place for you.

Speak to me from everywhere.

Your Gospel can be comprehended

without looking for its source

King David of Israel seemed attuned to God's omnipresence as well when he penned these words that appear as part of Psalm 139
in the King James Bible (translated from Hebrew):

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike
to thee.

Awesome. You go King Dave! (woop, woop, woop!) Nothing in the KJB stirs up the Word of God feeling in me more than that
passage. Of course, this understanding did not prevent him from writing many other psalms which show that he was still very
capable of thinking himself out of God. David was a poet after all, not a yogi, or even a rabbi --and that's exactly why his writing
speaks to us. We can feel that fluctuation in his sense of intimacy with God that we tend to feel as our minds wander in and out
of "contact" with the Divine.

One more poem. This one is a Hermit Crab original. I think it fits into this discussion with uncanny precision; it involves a fish,
but I wasn't thinking at all about Fish Out Of Water --I was thinking about a friend whose husband goes to Alaska for three
months every year to fish for salmon. She had sent me a very nice, inspiring collection of quotations about writing, and I just
wanted to give her a couple cheery Quaker poems in return. But this is exactly what the FOOW message of this chapter is all
about:

CATCH AND RELEASE

If Jesus were a fisherman,
would He catch every fish in the lake,
throw them all in a crowded bucket,
and bring them home to his private aquarium?

I believe He would reel in one fish,
and say unto him, "My child,
your place is in this lake.
These are holy waters,
for God has blessed them with His sacrifice.
There are hungry men all along the shore
who would drag you out and pray upon your flesh.
Go and tell your brothers and sisters
not to take the bait!"

Then He would drop the fish back into the water,
and cast again.

The audible double-entendre of "pray" and "prey" indicates that the men on the shore do not represent the irreligious "worldly"
influences that are usually blamed for leading people astray. These surely can be a distraction to the spiritual life, but this is
already so well-documented and much-discussed that I don't have much to add. What I think needs to be addressed --especially,
but not exclusively, in the Judeo-Christian traditions-- is the way our attachment to the symbolic forms of religion separates us, in
our minds, from the substance of God; how religion itself, paradoxically, makes us think about God and think ourselves out of
God at the same time.

This is crucial for understanding why so much time has been spent drawing the lines between Christotheism and Biblianity in
Parts One and Two --liberating the former from the latter, for the eventual upliftment of both-- and why every church,
synagogue, mosque and temple needs a mystical wing, even for its own health.

For if we are fish, and the Bible is correct that Jesus made His disciples "fishers of men," (Matthew 4:19) then it is the church that
is responsible for making Christians feel like fish out of water.

(As a footnote to this chapter, let me add that some people, myself included, would say the fish illustration is not accurate because
it does not go far enough in depicting the intimacy of our relationship with the Divine One. Symbolically, God is the water in this
illustration, but the fish himself remains a pocket of non-God, as well as the pastel-colored aquarium rocks, the plastic seaweed,
the castle and the mermaid figurine. And this glass case that surrounds the water and everything within it --what's all the stuff on
the outside if not God?

I deliberately left the illustration as it is because this is a point where I think we can all agree to start. A created fish (person)
surrounded by uncreated Water (God) epitomizes the monotheistic model of our relationship with the Divine, and this is as far as
orthodox Christians are generally willing to go. The idea that God is also the fish and all the aquarium equipment, plus everything
outside the aquarium, is usually called pantheistic, a buzzword that draws an automatic talk-to-the-hand reaction from the
Christian mainstream (and probably that of the other monotheistic faiths as well, such as Judaism and Islam). Pantheism, you
see, is very unbiblical, and is usually the explanation of choice for why mystics, Christian and non-Christian, are people who have
been led astray.

I didn't intend to challenge that notion with the fish illustration. For one thing, pantheism as understood in the West and by
Christian scholars is a fabrication; it doesn't exist anywhere but in their minds. In other words, none of the so-called pantheistic
religions or philosophies of the East are actually pantheistic. This isn't the place to explain why, but the simplistic notion that
professes that God and the created universe are synonymous is a Western misconception of Eastern beliefs that we have not
equipped ourselves to understand. If we want to have a go at understanding them here in the Chronicles, we will have to equip
ourselves, and I'll be taking on that daunting task in the following chapters.

Equally daunting, and just as important, I will be attempting to show that traditional monotheism is an unfeasible philosophy, given
the professed qualities of God held by monotheistic faiths, and will begin to lay a foundation for an understanding of a middle road
between the illogicalities of mono- and pantheism, in a way that will uphold and give due respect to all of our most cherished
symbolic perceptions of our Creator. Not any one particular set, not some of them --all of them.)

copyright 2004 by Hermit Crab
a Fish Out Of Water production