Tears of Joy

Tears of Joy

     As I wait on my “pause” of sorts, I am intrigued by amount of spirtual searching going on.  Perhaps this is all because my wife has been watching Global Spirit, a series hosted by John Cleese (formerly of Monty Python so perhaps he’s doing his own spiritual searching).  In the episodes, the attempt is made to find out how cultures and religions throughout the world and history have approached being here, living here on this planet, what life is, and what is the definition of “oneness.”  The only show of traveling “inward,“ as Cleese mentions.  You hear that all the time, trying to be “one” with the universe, or forgetting oneself and becoming a part of the whole.  As one Sufi mystic put it, we have been approaching it in the wrong manner, that of being human and searching for how to be spiritual; instead, he says, we need to realize that we are spirtual beings who are searching for how to be human.  It’s an interesting show at times, as shamans and monks and physicists and aboriginal leaders and religious scholars all converge head to head to discover where their views collide and mesh. 

     It has so far reminded me of something Sarah Murray noted in her book Making An Exit when she attended a ceremony in Bali, a grand event where tears are thought to harm the body’s passage onward (should you begin to mourn with tears, you quietly leave the ceremony).  She writes: In Bali, the five elements from which Balinese believe humans are made --earth, fire, water, ether, and air-- come together in death to return the body to the universe, and to regenerate the soul.  It’s called Panca Maha Bhuta--the energy of nature.  Each new rite brings the soul of the deceased just that bit closer to this new life.  It’s like matriculation and graduation only without the exams.  And for those left behind, familiar customs guide the bereaved through their mourning.  Like a play with many acts, death in Bali unfolds gradually, until in the end, as a brilliant fiery conflagration, sends the soul up to heaven through swirling smoke and showers of sparks, grief is transformed into joy.

    Crying, whether at ceremonies or at a movie theater, is also mentioned in her book: Our lachrymal system has two mechanisms, one producing and one draining away tears.  A variety of lachrymal glands manage the different types of tears we produce, all of which contain varying concentrations of chemicals, hormones, and proteins…We produce three types of tears--basal tears, which continuously lubricate our eyeballs to prevent them from seizing yp in the sockets; reflex tears, produced when foreign objects such as particles of dust get in the eye; and psychic or emotional tears, which respond to our psychological state…the third tear category is harder to explain…Emotional tears contain manganese, which affects temperament, and prolactin, a hormone associated with depression.  It’s thought that releasing these elements through tears helps balance the body’s stress levels, relieving tension.

    It all sounds good, these automatic functions.  And indeed, in my watching of the series Gunther’s ER (as an anatomist, his earlier series was an introduction to our automatic systems such as breathing and blood flow; in this series, he shows how traumatic events such as a car crash or choking can affect our systems and, with the aid of an emergency room doctor, what they --and you-- can look for and do to save a life), our bodies slowly turn into little more than another animal.  Intricately put together, the human body is slowly exposed and one can watch as everything from nerves to tendons to broken clavicles are revealed with measured precision.  And as with the Balinese, the initial mourning or repulsion seems to slowly give way to something different; as Gunther himself says throughout each program, he gives thanks to these donor bodies and wants nothing more than to thank them and treat them with respect for helping to educate future generations. 

     All of this made me wonder if that was why rituals, whatever they were or wherever they are practiced, are maintained throughout the centuries.  One common theme (so far) from the guests on the Global Spirit series seems to be to forget the me-me-me, that what happens to each of us is unimportant, and that it is only by letting go of those thoughts that we can move on.  For many of the outside people interviewed, from an aborigine sitting on his remote land in blistering heat to a shaman “feeling” his ancestors in a forest, the theme extends beyond I-I-I as humans, and moves onto everything on this earth, from the trees to the mountains to the waters to the insects.  The oneness of this planet.  And perhaps these rituals are meant to remind us of that, a meaningful distraction to the many of us no longer paying attention.

     Who knows?  Each of us continues our own searching, marveling at the spectacular moonrise or the invisible winds bending the trees that we can’t even move no matter how hard we push.  What forces are out there?  And those are only those we can “see,” not those we can imagine.  So for me, my pause continues as best I can.  The stillness acknowledged, as one monk said; rather than seek the silence, seek your thoughts in that silence he said, those ramblings going on as you try to meditate or fall asleep.  Those thoughts are you, those thoughts are us, those thoughts are the oneness…