Haggai: God's Splendorous Shake-Up

The world is shaken, you say? The old gives way to the new?

I say to you, the only true shaking is the mind that lets go of 'old' and 'new.' The splendour you seek is not in a future temple, but in the Inner Kingdom, revealed when you no longer prefer the 'splendid' nor fear the 'ruined.'

When you let go of all such distinctions, the Great Way, which is the only splendour, stands perfectly clear, just as it always has.

Reflection - The Splendorous Shake-Up

Friends, beloved, fellow seekers,

We gather today, and many of us feel that the world is shaking.

We look at our lives, we look at the headlines, we look at the world around us, and we feel a tremor under our feet. There is a sense of anxiety, a feeling that the old ways are crumbling, that the foundations we trusted are turning to sand. The prophet Haggai knew this feeling well. He looked around at his world and saw ruins. He saw people living in their own "paneled houses," tending to their own comfort, while the very center of their spiritual life—the temple—lay in rubble.

And he called out for a "shake-up." He said, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.'" Haggai saw a world obsessed with personal, splendid trifles while the great, collective, sacred work was left in ruins. And he promised that God would "shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land," to re-order these priorities, to fill a new, physical house with a new, physical splendour.

This is a human, and very understandable, response. When the world shakes, our first instinct is to build something. To create order from the chaos. To build a fortress, a new system, a "splendid" temple to protect us from the "ruined" world. We want to fix the outside.

And I have seen this. I have seen the same impulse in my own time, and I see it in yours. But I say to you, the word of the prophet is true, but our understanding is often too small. The world is shaken, you say? The old gives way to the new?

I say to you, the only true shaking is the mind that lets go of 'old' and 'new.' The splendour you seek is not in a future temple, but in the Inner Kingdom, revealed when you no longer prefer the 'splendid' nor fear the 'ruined.'

When you let go of all such distinctions, the Great Way, which is the only splendour, stands perfectly clear, just as it always has.

This is the core of our spiritual vision. It is The Way of Non-Preference. Haggai was troubled by the distinction between "paneled houses" and "ruined temples." And let's be honest, (a little smile here), aren't we? We are obsessed with this distinction. We scroll through images of other people's splendid lives, their paneled houses, and we look at our own ordinary, and sometimes ruined, day, and our mind is lost in confusion. We make the smallest distinction—"this is good, that is bad," "this is success, that is failure," "this is holy, that is profane"—and in that very instant, we are as far from the Kingdom as heaven is from earth.

The Hsin Hsin Ming, the teaching on the Trusting Mind, puts it plainly: "Like and dislike are the diseases of the mind."

Haggai’s shake-up was to get people to do something, to build something external. The splendorous shake-up I speak of is to stop doing something. To stop building the walls of preference in your own mind. The true work is not to replace the "ruined" with the "splendid," but to see beyond that duality altogether.

This is where we find The Inner Kingdom. I said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What does this mean, to be "poor in spirit"? It means you have stopped trying to build a splendid spiritual portfolio. It means you are no longer hoarding "treasures on earth"—and this includes the treasures of being "right," of having correct opinions, of being on the "right side" of history, or even of being "spiritual."

When you are "poor" in this way, you are empty of preference. And in this emptiness, you find everything. The kingdom is not a reward for your good building. The kingdom is the realization that there is no builder and nothing to build. It is the merging of the two circles. It is the peace that passes all understanding, because it doesn't depend on understanding, which is just another form of preference.

This is not a new idea. It is the hidden truth in all great traditions.

Consider the Bhagavad Gita. The warrior Arjuna stands on the battlefield. His world is not just shaking; it is about to be torn apart by his own hands. He sees his teachers, his cousins, his friends on the other side. He faces the ultimate distinction: to create a "splendid" kingdom of righteousness, he must "ruin" his own family. And he collapses in despair.

What is Krishna's advice? He doesn't say, "Don't worry, Haggai is right, your splendid new kingdom will be worth it." No. He points to something deeper. He says, "The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead... The unreal has no being; the real never ceases to be." Krishna points Arjuna inward, to the eternal Self, the Atman, which cannot be ruined and does not seek splendour. It is beyond the shake-up. The Gita's unique message is to find this eternal, unmoving centre, and then to act in the world from that place, as a matter of duty (dharma), without attachment to the "splendid" or "ruined" results.

Or let us listen to the heart of the Sufi, the great poet Rumi. When he says, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there," where do you think he is pointing? He is pointing to the Inner Kingdom! It is a field beyond the "paneled house" of our "rightdoing" and the "ruined temple" of our "wrongdoing." Rumi's path is one of ecstatic love, Ishq, a love so total that it annihilates the self that holds preferences. The "beloved" is not a splendid person or thing, but the Oneness that is revealed when the two circles of lover and beloved merge.

Both the Gita and Rumi, in their own unique ways, echo the same truth: the splendorous shake-up is internal. The Gita calls for a liberation of the Self from the drama of preferences. Rumi calls for a loving annihilation of the self that holds preferences. Both are paths that lead to the same field. Both would agree with what I told you on the Mount: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"—not a God of splendour, but the God who is the Oneness beyond all such small distinctions.

So what does this mean for us, today, in our shaking world?

This is Wisdom in Action. It is not enough to have these insights; we must embody them. You turn on the news. (And perhaps you should turn it off more often, but that's another sermon.) You see the "biggest large-scale impact news event" of the week. Let's say, a truly divisive political election, or a sudden economic crisis, or a frightening climate report. The world is shaking.

Immediately, the mind splits. One half of the world sees "ruin," the other half sees "splendour" (or at least, their preferred path to splendour). And the "disease of the mind" takes over. We are filled with anger, or fear, or self-righteousness. This is where A Higher Ethic comes in. "You have heard it said, 'love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies."

How is this possible? It is impossible, so long as you are clinging to your preference for "splendid" versus "ruined." You cannot love the one who you believe is ruining your world.

But... if you practice the splendorous shake-up... if you first find the Inner Kingdom where "ruined" and "splendid" are just two brushstrokes in the same painting... then, something changes. You see that the "enemy" is just as trapped in the disease of preference as you are. You see the plank in your own eye.

From that place, you can act. This is not apathy! This is the most radical action. To love your enemy doesn't mean you invite them to ruin your house. It means your heart is no longer ruined by hatred for them. From this place of non-preference, of pure seeing, you can "build the house on the rock." The rock is not a splendid outcome. The rock is the Great Way itself. Your action, born from that stillness, will be wise and true, whether it is building a shelter, casting a vote, or speaking a difficult truth.

Haggai wanted to build a splendid temple of stone and fill it with silver and gold.

But I say to you, the true splendour is the letting go of the need for splendid temples. The true gold is the silence of a mind that has no preferences. The world will always shake. That is its nature. It is a world of change, of "old" and "new," of "splendid" and "ruined." Let it shake.

The true shaking, the splendorous shake-up, is the one that shakes the mind loose from its chains of like and dislike.

This, finally, is Beyond Words. We can talk about this all day. We can build beautiful, splendid theological houses. But the Way is beyond language. It is an experience.

So I ask you to practice this. Today, when you feel the world shake—when you feel anxiety, or anger, or righteousness, or fear—stop. Do not try to build a splendid new feeling. Do not try to analyze the ruined old one.

Just be with the shaking. Let it be the "splendorous shake-up" of the mind itself. Let it shake loose your preferences.

Let go of longing and aversion. Let go of "ruined." Let go of "splendid."

And the Great Way, the Inner Kingdom, the Field of Rumi, the Self of the Gita... will reveal itself. Perfectly clear. Just as it always has.

It is the only temple. It is already finished. And it is within you.

Go in peace.