Overcoming name and form

(naama and ruupa)

This morning as I sat in meditation, I had this revelation.

Long ago, Buddhist philosophy taught me that the world as we know it, is constituted of naama (names) and ruupa (forms) and that both were the products of avijja (ignorance), or what Apostle Paul refers to as the carnal mind as opposed to the higher mind – the Christ mind – which sees both naama and ruupa as illusions or maya.

Let us take an example.

Take any name. Let’s say, neville . By that name we identify a person with a particular name (naama) and a particular form (ruupa). However, today, the name neville does not signify the same neville who was registered as neville say, 76 years ago. The neville of 76 years ago has long passed from view and not one atom, not one cell, in the neville of today has any relation to the neville of 76 years ago.

Therefore, neville of today is an illusion, a construct of our minds and a captive to a name!

Likewise, the form (ruupa) of neville. It does not take much thought to accept that the form of neville of today has no bearing to the form of 76 years ago. Again, we are holding neville captive to an illusory form, a construct of our minds.

The Buddha said that liberation for neville can come only when he can overcome both these illusions. He emphasised that that is possible only through meditation, over millions and millions of years of birth and rebirth, which is the time that consciousness takes to unshackle itself from the illusions of naama and ruupa.

However, the secret of Jesus Christ is that HE gave us a shortcut, whereby we can overcome naama and ruupa in one lifetime – and that is His Death and Resurrection.

Let me explain.

Jesus Christ Himself had a naama and a ruupa, a name and a form, but both were illusions.

"Who do people say that I am"? Only Peter knew the truth. Throughout His life on earth, Jesus was seen only as a man, the son of Mary and Joseph, a Jew, a healer, a miracle worker, a teacher, a carpenter, a rabble-rouser, a troublemaker etc – all layers and layers of names and forms, but not as the only thing HE really was, namely the CHRIST, God Almighty, manifesting as name and form, but still GOD.

At His Death and Resurrection, Jesus took His own name and form and, along with His name and form, He took the names and forms of all those born and yet to be born, and obliterated them. Likewise, He did away with the mind, the carnal mind, that creates and lives by these illusions, and He imparts His own mind – the mind of Christ.

Therefore, liberation for neville and whoever else, and equally for ourselves, consists of seeing that, after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, all are subsumed in Christ – one name, one substance, no diversity, no multiplicity, but the One Christ manifesting infinitely.