Biblical Stories of Awakening: Moses

I am continuing to look at stories of spiritual awakening in the Bible. This episode explores one of the most famous accounts - the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. 

Transcript

I am continuing to look at stories of spiritual awakening in the Bible. One of the most famous is the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. Before I get into that story I want to mention some things about Moses that helps us understand the type of person who experiences spiritual awakening. In short all types of people can.

For one thing Moses was old when he woke up. Normally we think of spiritual awakening as a relatively young person phenomenon. The Buddha was thirty five years old according to Buddhist tradition. Jesus was around thirty years old according to the gospels.  Nisargadatta was thirty-seven. Adyashanti was 31. I see a pattern here. But there are outliers. Ramana was 16. Moses was eighty. So there is hope for people of all ages. There is no age limit for spiritual awakening.

Also our social standing and occupation do not matter. The Buddha was a prince, but Christ was a pauper, born in a stable not a palace like Gotama. Jesus was a carpenter. According to the book of Exodus, Moses spend the first forty years of his life as a prince in the household of Pharoah, but the next forty years of his life as a poor shepherd. 

Also our moral character does not disqualify us for spiritual awakening. Moses was a murderer. He had to flee from Egypt because he murdered an Egyptian taskmaster and tried to cover it up. So Moses was not a moral person. It does not matter who we are or what we have done during our life. Spiritual awakening is available to us all. It is Amazing Grace. It is a recognition of our true nature. 

Our religious background does not matter. People from all walks of life, all religious traditions and no tradition experience spiritual awakening. Moses was raised as the grandson of Pharoah in the royal palace and was given an Egyptian name. Even though he was a Hebrew by birth, he was trained in the religion of Egypt. I think this inter-faith upbringing was influential in the creation of the religion that was founded on the teachings of Moses.

The spark for this new phase of Hebrew religion was the Burning bush experience. Moses’ awakening experience at the burning bush is clearly an example of awakening to nondual Reality. But what developed soon afterward in Mosiac religion with the Law and priesthood and sacrificial system are not consistent with nonduality. Religious hierarchy and religious legalism do not emerge naturally from nondual realization.

Yet the spiritual movement that began with Moses quickly became encrusted with legalism and religious hierarchy and ritual. This is the type of religion that Jesus rebelled against over a 1400 years later. 

I suspect that there are two layers of religious tradition in the Book of Exodus. We have the spiritual awakening of Moses, which I think is the core of Hebraic spirituality. Then we have a later tradition of law, sacrifice and ritual that developed later around the figure of Moses. That is what most of the Torah is filled with – most of Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy.  I suspect this legalistic part developed centuries later and was read back into the story and figure of Moses. 

We see the same thing happening with Christianity, and many other religions for that matter. There is an original spiritual insight and awakening, followed by centuries of later religious tradition which smother the original genius with rules, hierarchy and ritual. So let’s look at Moses’ spiritual awakening.  

At the time Moses was a simple shepherd tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, who was a Kenite and a religious figure in his own right. He is referred to as a priest of Midian. Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro on the slopes of the holy mountain called Horeb. He noticed on the side of the mountain a bush that burned with a heavenly fire, which did not go out. 

So it says he turned aside. That is significant. He was willing to turn aside from his ordinary routine when something of spiritual significance caught his attention. He was not afraid of stepping outside the box. He drew closer to this strange sight to get a better look, and a divine voice spoke to him through the burning bush, calling his name. 

Moses responded saying, “Here I am.” At least that is how it is normally translated. In Hebrew it is one word hinne. It is usually translated “Behold” or Lo.” It is an exclamation, which here ought to be translated something like “Wow!” or “Awesome!” or “Would you look at that!”  

God tells him to take off his sandals for the place he is standing is holy ground. He had walked that land for forty years. God was always present, but by grace on that day he noticed it. I have quoted Browning before: “Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” Moses woke up from the ordinary world to ever-present Spiritual Reality. 

This bush was Moses’ Bodhi tree, the tree of enlightenment, his stairway to heaven, the Tree of Life. God begins a conversation. God identifies himself as the God of his ancestors, and that he is calling Moses to set his people free. This is usually interpreted exclusively as physical freedom, but can be interpreted as spiritual freedom. It probably means both. One leads to the other naturally. Moses was going to be the one to announce and facilitate this freedom.

Then comes the essence of the theophany. Moses asks God’s name, just like Jacob had centuries earlier. God answered Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Hayah Asher Hayah. And God said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM (Hayah) has sent me to you…. Say this to the people of Israel: “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.’ ” (Yahweh  is a form of this same word, to be.

God is revealed here as Being Itself, the Ground of Being, to use Paul Tillich’s terms. This I AM-ness is the same truth that we see in the great teachers of nonduality. This Divine Self is the essence of spiritual awakening. This was revealed to Moses and experienced by Moses. Moses realized that the ancestral God of his Hebrew heritage is the eternal I AM.  I AM is the One God at the heart of all spiritual traditions. 

This is the core of Mosaic spirituality. We see Moses continuing to experience this Nondual awareness in the narrative of Exodus as Moses repeatedly enters the Tent of Meeting to bask in the Presence of I AM. This is why the Hebrew deity called Yahweh was not represented by a physical image in the tabernacle or the later temple. Instead the God of Israel was represented by empty space that was above the ark of the covenant. 

This imageless spaciousness – this Void - is Divine Reality in the original Mosaic revelation. It meant spiritual freedom, which was manifested as economic and political freedom from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. The working out of this follows this story. The Exodus gets all the press. It is what Jews to this day celebrate in the Seder meal. But the Exodus was the result of the Awakening of Moses at the burning bush. That I AM is timeless Reality. Moses awoke to this Reality and it transformed his life, and it changed the history of Israel forever.