## GIVE ONE'S LIFE AND HAVE IT BACK

Enrique Martínez Lozano

Jn 10, 11-18

In a certain sense, the verb "give", which plays an important role in the fourth gospel, could define Jesus: It is him who gives, lays down his life (or "the laid down"): " For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son" (3:16).

A "laying down" that reminds us of the grain of wheat image: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces a lot of grain" (John 12:24).

This image makes us realize that there is a law that seems to rule everything, but we often forget about it. All we know is a mystery of death – rebirth. Only what dies may rise from death; only what is laid down can be returned. And we all may find ourselves in this dynamics.

I would like to express this by using Claudio Naranjo's words:

"One thing is clear: that the process of our individual awareness evolution is a kind of psycho-spiritual metamorphosis – a transformation – that entails a death and rebirth process...

"We go through several little psychological deaths and in doing so, we leave behind certain motivations and aspects of our personalities created during our childhoods, something that surrounds us or something we had to adopt as a kind of defence...

"As we get rid of what is obsolete and limiting to ourselves, our inner potentiality emerges, some major awareness that we call spirit and it is like the flower of our life. Using the language of Transpersonal Psychology, we leave behind our "ego" and we start setting our real self free from the prison of our conditioned neurotic compulsion".

The mystery of death-rebirth in human beings is the possibility of stepping from our ego to our real identity. It is such a crucial step that, up to what we know, it can only be achieved by going through "the dark night", in which we give ourselves thoroughly in order to really find ourselves in another level of our identity.

Our ego is the grain of wheat that, once dead, lets the ear we really are emerge.

Jesus went through this step (as it was probably meant to be stated in the record of the temptations), and this made it possible for his life to be devoted to others.

This capacity of devotion to others is one of the first signs of personal maturity. A mature person is that who can love and lay down their life for free. This person will not do it either as a moral volunteer or as a seeker of religious reward.

Devotion roots from an understanding of who we are. It is true that the experience of one's own vulnerability can lead us to help others in their vulnerability. However, it is only when we understand that our identity is free universal Love – transpersonal identity, as Claudio Naranjo referred to it- that devotion to others flourishes spontaneously.

It is the well-known allegory of the "good shepherd" that clearly shows Jesus' laying down his life – visualized on the cross – being part of himself all his life.

We are dealing with an image that may seem both anachronistic and dangerous nowadays. Anachronistic because those scenes of a shepherd looking after his flock have mainly disappeared of our developed urban world. Dangerous because this image of the flock involves the idea of following the herd, which our modern conscience rejects viscerally, since it evokes the binomial power and subjection.

Contemporary men and women are not searching for "shepherds", even if they are often lured to follow somebody, but for path companions who have experienced what they say they have and who, for this reason, can be efficient guides.

It was not like that in the 1st century Palestine. As it is stated in Psalm 23 – "the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing"- the image of the "shepherd" was applied to Yahweh, and referred to the loving care that enables one to live in unwavering trust.

That is why, nowadays, although the image is obsolete and has an authoritarian reminiscence – it may turn out to be positive to go on using this image of the "shepherd" in the Christian community-, its content is still current, as it proclaims a never-ending devoted attitude to others.

Besides, such devoted attitude is based on a mutual "get to know each other", as this verb is understood in the biblical world: "to know" refers to something that can be experienced on terms of intimacy.

In this sense, devoting his life to others is what Jesus did, who "went around doing good" (Acts 10:38). It can also be considered as a name of the Divinity: God is Devotion, pure Donation, pure Love and Care. This is what characterizes the Source of everything which is real.

And our vocation is also devotion, because it is our identity. We are not the narcissistic ego that revolves around itself in an egocentric devouring movement, even if we often think this is what we are as a consequence of our ignorance and emotional deficiencies.

We are not this ego which is nothing but a number of mental and emotional guidelines, firmly set in our psyche. We are unconditioned Love, which is care and devotion.

Also from this perspective, we can also recognize Jesus as the "mirror" of what we are. He lives and shows his real self...and this makes us awake to what we really are in a shared non-dual Identity.

The text speaks of "give one's life" and "have it back". For, in fact, we only have it back when we give it. Without devotion, we are shut up in a narcissistic shell, far away from the clear awareness of Life. We are the worm which will not become a butterfly.

As we open up and devote ourselves, what turns up is Life, and we find ourselves in our genuine identity. We are not the ego we have temporarily, but the Life expressed itself in this specific way.

The mystery death-rebirth, which I mentioned above, consists of the ego dying so that the life we really are is born. In Jesus' words, "those who want to save their lives will lose them. But those who lose their lives for me and for the Good News will save them" (Mark 8:35)

"Losing one's life" for Jesus is to assume his way of life, unidentified with the ego and devoted to the end.

With these words we are faced up to a real challenge: Understanding our lives as continuous learning, until we can recognize who we really are; in terms of the gospel itself, this learning is "metanoia", conversion, stepping from the ego to the Awareness we are.

traducción de Pilar Domínguez Polo

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