Oh, even this is Its Face
A devotion to every situation for its Divine-ness
Even back then, it was almost unbelieveable to realize I could be so consumed by road rage, that I would launch into a reckless pursuit just so I could wind down my windows, stick my middle finger out and scream out “fuck you” to someone who cut me off in traffic. But I did. It was 2014, my road rage years. I don’t know what it was. Perhaps a manifestation of all of the frustration I was bottling up internally from the stress of living in Lagos, commuting almost 7 hours a day. I still don’t know what it was but it was really bad! Around that time, I had discovered meditation, had a consistent practice and the very first thing I noticed as a side effect was my reactions in traffic. I even wrote an article on Medium about how meditation had cured me of this road rage disease. I might have believed what I wrote at the time, but looking back, I suspect I had only scratched the surface of something that would end up being deeper transformation. And no, this is not about meditation.
Today, I find myself inspired to share a beautiful outlook on life, prompted by a rather “ordinary” experience—being cut off three times in a row while driving on the Interstate 95 today. What initially struck me wasn’t the incidents themselves. They bore no resemblance to the old familiar surge of fury, no tightening of the chest, no automatic urge to retaliate. Instead, there was space, an openness that held the event without clenching around it. But there was some other realization behind this that I haven’t shared as articulately. Perhaps with one or two friends and a hint here and there here on this Substack.
So what changed? I could say it is a shift in perception, a reframing of experience at its very core. I’ve since heard this transformation referred to as Bhakti Yoga, though the name itself is incidental. It’s a way of seeing. It’s a way of being. It’s a way of devotion. But this devotion is not so much in an act as it is about a state. But also, it’s not so much about the state but the act within a revelation. I will explain!
I found language, to explain this, in yogic philosophy. You see, at the core of all our experience, all we want is to be happy and to be at peace. We want to be free from suffering. Yogic philosophy in a way suggests that the root cause of all of our suffering is a forgetfulness and disconnection with our True Self. It then suggests 4 possible paths(perhaps there are more so forgive me if I am slightly ignorant about this) to the connection with this True Self, the original nature. The paths are Raja, Karma, Bhakti, and Jnana yoga. I won’t go into details here but it turns out most spiritual and religious practices in every religion and every culture points to one or more of these as its operating system. Raja yoga is the path of meditation and concentration. The end goal is to break through to seeing one’s own nature as that without blemish just like the end goal of the others. Karma yoga is the path of action and selfless service. The fruit of one’s service is devoted entirely to “God”. In Jnana yoga, the path is that of knowledge and self-inquiry. A lot of essays here on this Substack push this path through engaging with the intellectual as well as self-inquiry prompts I share in my meditations. Lastly, there is Bhakti yoga, which is the path of devotion and love. I practice each of these frameworks or frame of view as I see fit.
In the case of my relationship to the perceived senseless driving, the ability to see that the Divine shows up as the situation with the careless driving is so liberating! For most of my life, I, like many of us, saw the world in fragments. There was me and the other, the wrongdoer and the wronged, the adversary and the avenger. There was an unspoken belief that if someone took something—space on the road, my right of way, my sense of dignity—it was my role to take something back, to restore a balance that had somehow been disturbed. But all of this operates on a premise that, if you look closely enough, is about a sense of separation from gently unfolding. It supersupposes that my will is distinct from the current of life itself.
Bhakti, as I now understand it, is not merely about this woowoo coocoo love or devotion in the sentimental sense. It is the recognition that everything—every moment, every encounter, even every disruption—is a face of the same undivided reality. It is all the face of the Divine. There is nothing outside of this. The person who cuts me off in traffic? That too is Its face. The momentary flash of irritation? Its face. The awareness that sees both the event and the reaction? Still Its face. It is a recognition so total that the idea of opposition collapses. The wave does not oppose the ocean. The dancer does not fight the rhythm. In this recognition, in this humble recognition something dissolves—perhaps the very thing that once made anger seem necessary.
At its heart, this recognition is an unguarded intimacy with life. It is the dropping away of resistance, not because one decides to be passive, but because one sees clearly that there was never an enemy, never a threat, never a real reason to defend. In this seeing, love begins to show clearly. No, no, no! Not love as a feeling. Love as Love! The Love that is a way of seeing! Seeing is then the recognition that there is nothing more than surrendering to that vision of devotion by allowing everything—yes, even this—to reveal Its face. Oh, by the way, it is easy to imagine the devotion of every circumstance as the Face of The Divine to be something reserved for temples and chants, incense and deities. But in truth, this type of devotion is already at work in every moment we cease to resist what is. Every act of acceptance is an act of devotion. Every time we meet life without an agenda, without a demand, without insisting that it conform to our preferences, we are bowing to what is.
And in that bowing, there is a paradoxical discovery: We are not diminishing ourselves; we are expanding beyond the boundaries of self. We are not losing; we are dissolving into something vaster. And so, the driver who cuts me off—this small, trivial disturbance—becomes a doorway. Not to patience, not to moral superiority. No, no, no! Hell no! It’s not that! It’s instead, the recognition that there was never a ‘me’ apart from it. Only this. Only now. Only what has always been, wearing every face imaginable.
Even this is Its face.
Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you'd like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I'm grateful for your support in whatever capacity.