 Commentary on the Odes of Solomon – by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
 Rejoice in the Lord!
Contradiction and confusion
There was an old vaudeville routine where someone would be telling news to another. At one point, the hearer would say: “That’s good,” and the narrator would say: “No, that’s bad,” and continue on to explain. Later the hearer would comment “That’s bad,” and the narrator would contradict and say, “No, that’s good.” And so it would go on: “That’s good,” “No, that’s bad,” That’s bad,” “No, that’s good,” until the end which was always “bad.” In junior high school I heard a joke version that began: “Fortunately, a man was flying in a airplane; unfortunately, the engine quit; fortunately, he had a parachute; unfortunately, the parachute did not open;” and it, too, went on to end most unfortunately. This is really the way of most religion. No matter how positive the initial statements may be, fear and condemnation get injected somewhere along the line, ultimately resulting in a conviction of incapacity and unworthiness.
A few years ago on the Internet I found a website that expounded the innate perfection of all sentient beings, affirming that liberation was the natural goal of all humanity. Then it went on to fulminate and fume against anyone who dared to disbelieve their One and Only True Master, describing the eternal darkness and suffering that would be the lot of unbelievers. That was awful, but worse was to come: the horrendous fate of “disciples” who dared to read anything but the Master’s writings or to even walk into a building owned by another spiritual organization. There was a lot of talk about how the Master mystically implanted some kind of enlightenment device (I am not joking or satirizing) in the astral bodies of all disciples, and how these devices would become deformed if the disciple committed the crimes just mentioned, or even began to question the Master’s words. As a result they, too, would wander eternally in darkness and pain, but it would be much worse than that of the unbelievers.
I have found this malignant schizophrenia in virtually every spiritual group I have met or made the mistake of joining. Things are all smiles and sunshine at the first, eventually developing into clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, and terror. “Bad You! Bad You!”–another version of: “Bad Dog! Bad Dog!”
In Pilgrim’s Regress, C. S. Lewis satirizes this by having someone tell a tenant how much–oh, how much–the landlord loves his tenants. So much so, that the landlord had prepared a pit of fire for any tenant that insulted his love by breaking the rules. So, the messenger concluded, we must all love the landlord very much and trust in his love so he will not torture us in the fire pit–something he very much did not want to do. Is it any wonder that so many “true believers” are crazy in a part of their mind?
Here is an example. After my first trip to India I stayed for a while in the home of a devoted yogi. One day she answered the doorbell and I heard the following.
Grace: “Hello, how are you?”
Unseen man: “Oh, I’m still thrilled with Christ!”
The Unseen, not permitted to come in the house, then invited Grace to come to some kind of church party at someone’s home. Grace managed to graciously decline and get the door closed. Then she turned to me and said: “I won’t ever go anywhere with him again! That man is a minister who wanted to convert me. Once I went with him to another ‘party,’ and while we were there he told me: ‘You know, tonight on the way home I could stop the car and poke your eyes out and make you accept Jesus as your Savior.’ So I called my daughter to come get me and take me home. But he keeps calling and coming over. He claims he saw Jesus in a vision once time–but only his feet.” I did not want to ask her how he recognized Jesus by his feet. I knew that something as logical as “by the stigmata” would not be forthcoming.
In the scriptures of both the Jews and Christians–major offenders against spiritual sanity–we find many exhortations to “Rejoice in the Lord.” Then a lot more calculated to make us afraid to get near God much less rejoice in Him. The whole thing is a lot like offering somebody trick gum or candy that burns or an object that shocks when touched. Even more is it like the old wallet on a string gag.
It has been my observation that most religionists rejoice in the absence of God. After all, if we really pare away all the high-sounding rhetoric surrounding the Christian doctrine of the Atonement the real idea is that the wrathful and “offended” God had to have somebody to torture and kill to “satisfy divine justice” so Jesus distracted his attention by dying in our place–a colossal injustice: the innocent dying for the guilty–so God would leave us alone. No wonder the whole Western world is so confused morally and spiritually. A different outlook
But it does not have to be that way. In fact, we should refuse to ever let it be that way with us. Moreover it was not so originally with the followers of Jesus, as is revealed in the Seventh Ode of Solomon:
“As the impulse of anger against evil, so is the impulse of joy over what is loved, and brings in of its fruits without restraint.
“My joy is the Lord and my impulse is toward Him, this path of mine is beautiful.
“For I have a helper—the Lord; He has generously shown Himself to me in His simplicity, because His kindness has diminished His dreadfulness.” Spiritual impulse
In Indian spiritual writings we are told that human response can be divided into two streams: attraction and aversion–raga and dwesha. Raga is attachment/affinity for something, implying a desire for it. Raga may range from simple liking or preference to intense desire and attraction. Dwesha is aversion/avoidance for something, implying a dislike for it. Dwesha may range from simple non-preference to intense repulsion, antipathy and even hatred. “Raga-dwesha” is the continual cycle of desire/aversion, like/dislike that can be emotional (instinctual) or intellectual.
In the purified mind raga-dwesha are still present, but as manifestations of viveka–discrimination based on spiritual insight (jnana). Therefore negativity evokes an active aversion as the force known as vikshepa: a pushing away, an ejection of the negativity. “Anger” is not a very good translation, actually. “Rejection” or “elimination” would be better. Even the Greek work in the New Testament translated “anger” is orge, which means to have an intense feeling or reaction. It implies a strong rejection, rather like that of a healthy immune system in response to toxicity. So Saint Paul wrote: “Be ye angry [orgidzo], and sin not.” That is, feel strongly about something but do not let it lead to egoic passion. Interestingly, orge and orgidzo also mean to intensely desire something, to reach out for it with strong attraction. As psychology has discovered, desire/aversion are really the same thing moving in opposite directions.
The author of the ode, then, is telling us that there is a deep-rooted impulse-response to objects, that in the purified heart there is repulsion for evil and attraction for good–“good” being the Supreme Good: God. Joy
Here the poet is telling us that joy–delight–arises in the pure heart when it contemplates that which is loved. Joy is the response, not a grudging sense of duty or a feeling of incapacity and incompetence–the common response to religion. This is how we know whether or not we love God. It is not dedication (loyalty), reverence, awe, or admiration that we will feel, but joy–ananda.
And this joy is a generous response. It both gives and receives, therefore it “brings in of its fruits without restraint.” There is simply no need here for consoling, coaxing, and “inspiring” the devotee. Needing no external influence, with joy he embraces that which leads to the Divine Vision. For this reason Jesus said that “the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” There is no idea of “sacrifice” here even though all else is “sold” in order to buy that “field” wherein the treasure is hid. This is the perfect picture of a yogi. Regarding Jesus himself, whom we look upon as having sacrificed his life, Saint Paul assures us that “for the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame.” His perspective was joy, for he was the embodiment of love.
Of such a one Krishna says: “To obey the Atman is his peaceful joy; sorrow melts into that clear peace: his quiet mind is soon established in peace. If we desire to have the same delight, Krishna further says: “You find yourself in this transient, joyless world. Turn from it, and take your delight in me. Fill your heart and mind with me, adore me, make all your acts an offering to me, bow down to me in self-surrender. If you set your heart upon me thus, and take me for your ideal above all others, you will come into my Being.…For I am Brahman within this body, life immortal that shall not perish: I am the Truth and the Joy for ever.” To exchange unreality, darkness, and death for Reality, Light, and Immortality! That is truly joy.
To abundantly and “without restraint” gather in “the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance”–that is joy. The Godward
“My joy is the Lord and my impulse is toward Him.” This is a completely theocentric matter. There is no burbling about “a beautiful religion” that “answers all my questions” or “gives me peace” or “spiritual association.” There is nothing worse than centering on a religion in any of its aspects, including its teachers or adherents. GOD must be the total focus. As the Desert Father, Saint Arsenios the Great, said: “Unless you say: ‘God and I alone exist’ you will never find God.”
Certainly religion is important–even essential–but it is only a instrument. No one admires the piano or the violin, but rather the brilliant pianist and violinist. Religion is a tool to be used by the seeker; the seeker is not to be a tool of religion.
On the other hand we cannot imagine a sane pianist or violinist claiming they have no need of a piano or a violin, so neither should we credit someone who says they need no religion. Nonsense is never sense.
There is within each one of us an elemental impulse toward God. Although our intelligence (buddhi) must cooperate in our return to God, still it is never a merely intellectual or emotional impulse. Rather it is inherent in our essential being itself. It is part of our eternal nature. Therefore to be an “awakened” person means to be experiencing and acting upon this godward impulse. The beautiful Way
“This path of mine is beautiful.” What a contrast with the usual attitude of how the path to God is a matter of sacrifice and ascetic self-denial. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” says the meek and lowly Jesus, but we forget that although a yoke is easy and light to an ox, it will break the back of a dog. Those who shoulder the yoke gladly are those for whom it is intended. But those who whine and bark are not.
How is the path beautiful? “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” It is beautiful because it increasingly brings us nearer the Divine Beauty. Again, God is the measure of the matter, not the seeker or the mechanics or requirements of the search. The Divine Companion
“For I have a helper—the Lord.” We are not alone on the path. The Lord of Beauty Himself is our companion.
But He is not a passive companion. Rather “He has generously shown Himself to me in His simplicity, because His kindness has diminished His dreadfulness.”
In Eastern religion, including Eastern Christianity, it is a fundamental tenet that God is a Simple Being in the sense of being totally incomplex. God has no “parts” but is an Absolute Unity. It is when we start splitting God up and turning Him into a pie chart, like we have done to ourselves and the world around us, that we get into trouble, because we are trying to turn the Real into an illusion. It is when we see God as a multiplicity, attributing an infinity of forms, attributes, actions, and reactions to Him, that confusion results. But the author of the ode has seen God truly, has not only seen but experienced the Divine Unity. And in that vision the supposed “dreadfulness” of God has vanished. Certainly God is awesome–even terrifying–as an object; but when He is experienced as the Eternal Subject that ends forever.
So it all comes down to what it always does: spiritual experience. Which results only from spiritual practice.
“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy.”
More on the Odes of Solomon:
Odes of Solomon – text
Commentary on the Odes of Solomon:
1. The Crown of Life
2. Clothed in Love
3. The Changeless God and Ever-changing Man
4. Love, Hope, and Joy
5. Avoiding Evil
6. The Song of the Holy Spirit
7. Rejoice in the Lord!
8. The Meeting of the Two
1) Psalms 33:1; 97:12; Joe 2:23; Philppians 3:1, 4:4 [Go back]
2) Odes of Somon 7:1-3 [Go back]
3) Ephesians 4:26 [Go back]
4) Matthew 13:44 [Go back]
5) Hebrews 12:2 [Go back]
6) Bhagavad Gita 2:65 [Go back]
7) Bhagavad Gita 9:33 34 [Go back]
8) Bhagavad Gita 14:27 [Go back]
9) Galatians 5:22, 23 [Go back]
10) Matthew 11:30 [Go back]
11) Proverbs 4:18 [Go back]
12) Romans 15:13 [Go back]
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