Connections of Different Sorts

February 2, 2009

I’m worrying about my relationship with an old friend. It seems to be suffering because I no longer drink. Maybe that throws a wet blanket on everything. Because I don’t lose the thread of the conversation; I will follow but I don’t get lost in tangents, and am not bamboozled by ridiculous arguments. I don’t take the bait on those with near as much heat as I used to when I was similarly trashed. So maybe I’m just no fun to talk philosophy with anymore. Maybe I’ve grown too pedantic and teacherly and know-it-all.

I have caught myself lecturing a couple times. See, I discovered that with all his knowledge of Buddhism, Taoism and even the fringes of Jainism and Sikhism, he knows next to nothing about the central beliefs of Hinduism. He knows enough to mask his lack of knowledge and understanding, so he starts with “Which hinduism? Jains or Sikhs? The Bhagavad Gita? Isn’t that the battle on the Plain, where the Pandava clan . . .” blah, blah, blah. Yes, but what is the message of the Gita? What does Krishna say in it? No clue. See? Slippery fellow to talk to. He begins to make you feel like a heel for daring to suggest he hasn’t fully considered all the aspects of something (all the while insisting he knows nothing so you cannot have hurt his pride), but if you push at the structure, you realize it is a house of cards. And then he says, “Well yeah, I told you I don’t really know anything about all this stuff. I don’t really care about it, either. Just something to pass the time.”

So I was lecturing him a bit, because I wanted him to at least have the alternate, Sanatana Dharma, jnana yoga, Upanishad and Gita reality in his head, as something to contrast to his very negative, life-denying and judgmental mixed up combo of Buddhism and Calvinism he’s got right now. He’s tied together the Buddha’s view that all life is suffering and there are no actions that relieve the suffering permanently except detachment, with his father’s beliefs that this world is run by Satan. So he has pretty well programmed himself to see only the negative, only death, sickness, greed, dissolution, evil, etc. And he sees no hope for the world; he doesn’t believe in a redeeming savior, he is not really even seeing Buddha as a figure that helps pull the raft. Pretty hopeless. And he really hasn’t stressed much of the compassion. He doesn’t seem to remember that the Buddha was always laughing and smiling; he wasn’t walking around wailing and glum.

There also isn’t much room for action. There isn’t any point so why bother? On the one hand, humans got themselves into this mess and will have to get themselves out. On the other, he doesn’t believe in actually working toward that end. Or at least, he’s been going around in circles about that for the ten years I’ve known him, freely admitting it might be an excuse to avoid having to do anything. A decade is a pretty long time to be in the same place philosophically and spiritually. I devoutly pray I will not remain in the same place I am right now for 10 days, let alone 10 years.

Chapter 8 of the CU will help me along the path. It begins by saying that inside “this fort of brahman,” meaning our bodies, “There is a small lotus, a dwelling place. And in that lotus there is a space. That is what you should try to discover.” The space is smaller than an atom and larger than the galaxy. It does not age, is never sick, is not killed, does not die, and no evil attaches to it. It is the eternal, joyful, blissful part of us that we should seek to know.

February 3
In the CU 8.2 it says that you get whatever kind of heaven you want. A person who has fully found that space inside the lotus – “If such a person desires the world of fathers, by his intention alone fathers rise up. And securing the world of fathers, he rejoices.” Or the world of mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, perfumes and garlands, food and drink, singing and music, women – whatever he desires. Okay, so it is not heaven, it is here on earth. Once you know the true Self, you control Reality.

Then again . . . 8.3 is impenetrable. It says all the desires (real) are masked by (unreal) desires. Though real, they wear an unreal mask “for when someone close to him departs from the world, he doesn’t get to see him here.” But, all the things he desires but doesn’t get, he will get by going there, “. . . for these real desires, masked by the unreal, are located there.”
Where is “there”? Okay, it can’t be heaven, or after death, even though the example is a departed loved one, because of the context. We are talking about that lotus-space in the heart, the dwelling place of atman.

And 8.3.2-4 confirms by saying it is like a buried treasure; those who don’t know it is there will tramp over it every day, never realizing they are walking on gold. In the same way, the people and creatures use and go into their own hearts every day, they never suspect such power is right there. “The name of brahman is Real (satyam).” I note that because my novel is all about people deciding what is “real” and what is not – creating and sharing reality in that way. [Probability Moon by Nancy Kress].

This is interesting and I need to share it with Mara. 8.4 “Now, this self is a dike, a divider, to keep these worlds from colliding with one another.” Doesn’t it seem more like “to keep them from flowing into one another” than colliding? Either way, we can and will pass over the dike eventually, into where old age, illness, death and evil cannot follow.
Oh man, this is so cool! But to explain why it is so cool, I have to explain so much about the novel I’m reading. I wasn’t planning to, but I just got to the point where she (Kress) explains the most recent scientific theories about the quantum basis of thought, of human consciousness. Our understanding of how the mind works is still limited, but it has gotten far enough to tell us that our first idea, electromagnetism, is certainly occurring but does not explain everything that happens in the brain. The second idea, neurochemicals, transmitters, was a huge leap forward and explained so much more. We can now analyze and tinker with brain chemistry in a much more sophisticated way than with electicity or – I guess what was really first, plain old mechanics – just anatomy – open it up and chop something out and see what happened.
But even neurochemistry doesn’t explain it all. “The electrical impulse hits the presynaptic grid; it has a measurable, constant voltage, the same voltage across all neurons. But sometimes it causes a release of neurotransmitters and sometimes it doesn’t. The probablility of release varies from .17 to .62 depending on the kind of neuron. And no one really knows why.” (Kress 200:128)
See, the problem is this – why do we have thoughts with no external stimuli? That’s one of the problems. And why, given that constant electrical impulse, does the exact same stimulus only have a 17-62% chance of causing some mental reaction?
Because, maybe, we are dealing with quantum effects. Probability waves. At the end of every nerve synapse we have vesicular grids. Billions of them. They are what control how much neurotransmitter is released with each nerve impulse. “Paracrystalline vesicular grids are very small. They operate according to the laws of quantum physics. They can cause quantum events outside their energy barrier, because part of their quantum probability field lies there. More and more, it looks like that is how consciousness affects the brain. Through altering the prbability field. There’s no other way for a purely mental event, such as deciding to get up from your chair, to produce an effect in the natural world without violating the law of the conservation of energy.” P.275
And when you start talking quarks, you bring in quantum entanglement. This has so many implications I can’t think through them all right now. It applies directly to my belief that metaphor is the mind’s language, not linear, digital, binary code. But check out what the very next part of the CU 8th chapter says, that blew me away with its timing:
In 8.5.3 it mentions two rivers “in” a “land” of brahman, kind of like a metaphor for perfect bliss and joy. These rivers are called “the rivers of the heart.” So in 8.6 it says these rivers flow like or with the rays of the sun, like a long highway they traverse the worlds, the one “up there” and the one “down here.” When we sleep and dream peacefully, we have slipped into those rivers and been transported to the sun “up there.” No evil can disturb us because we aren’t even here, not “really.” When we die, we rise up along these same rays, with the sound OM. “No sooner does he think it than he reaches the sun.” That’s the line that really grabbed me. “It is the door to the farther world, open to those who have knowledge, closed to those who do not.” 8.7.4

April 17-18

Will it get confusing if I start posting my most recent thoughts about the scriptures I am reading right now? I think it might, huh? But maybe I can at least provide some small pieces of background information every once in awhile. There are a lot of different ways that one can "be a Hindu." In fact, some would argue that everyone is a Hindu - some of you just haven't realized it yet. : )

But seriously, there are some basic things that just about everybody does, and then most people choose which of the four main yogas, or paths, to which they will dedicate themselves. The yoga one chooses is determined to a certain degree (or at least influenced) by one's stage of life and one's station in life (caste). For example, it would be very difficult for a craftsmen in the householder stage of life to practice raja yoga, which requires many hours of meditation and many austerities. But bhakti or karma yoga would fit into his daily life very easily.

There are references to the different yogas scattered throughout, but if you'd like rough sketches, I'll provide them next time or in a separate post. I don't want to make this entry so long its unreadble.

April 17, 2007

6 am. I kind of began meditating today. I sat on the couch for 10 minutes and tried to focus on my scripture, which is St. Francis' prayer. I got through it 5 times. So a full half hour should be between 8-10 times at that speed (but was that the right speed?). Even in that short time I noticed how undisciplined my mind is. It may get easier once I'm sure of the words, not reaching for them, but there sure feels like a lot of room for spare, random thoughts to creep in. And my body was wracked with yawns I had no chance of stifling. I can see there will be great difficulties ahead in learning to bring these wild horses, this driverless chariot under control. But isn't that what life is for?

Yesterday I had such strong impressions of people – especially on TV – as being incredibly deformed by their vanity, insecurity, their desire to be liked and admired. I am not quite communicating the feeling I had, nor the insight. Unhappiness, a deep unhappiness with self and soul and spirit, pervades our culture. And people wear it on their faces, in their search for something they hope will make them feel better, and they hope will last. Their bodies and faces are deformed, as by a cancer, a malignant growth twisting their features. All of us searching like crazy for love, and for meaning. It made me very sad. Appropriate to where I am in the Gita, with Arjuna slumped in grief and sorrow, heavy with the knowledge that his actions hurt the world.

Second Teaching

Arjuna asks "How can I fight with arrows those I should be worshipping?" While not a warrior, all of my actions in a day hurt someone, contribute to the pain of the world. And like Arjuna, it is because of my position in the world. If I were a poor farmer in China, I wouldn't do quite as much damage, though even then my "meals . . . would be smeared with the blood . . . of those I killed." Here, as a middle-class American, there are virtually no products, including vegetable foods, that weren't created by exploiting and ruining other souls.

The flow of pity

Blights my very being;

Conflicting sacred duties

Confound my reason.

As Arjuna refuses to fight, so I too have felt helpless. There is my duty to go to work, to research lives, to exploit subjects, students, and eat, drive, use paper, while at the same time I have the sacred duty of honoring each life, of treating the earth gently and with respect. Does one fight the neocons with all one's might? Or pray for them, hug them, love them?

It is so easy to be paralyzed into doing nothing at all. And now it is near 7 am, but I don't want to leave us again in this place of despair, so let's look at Krishna's answer, the start anyway.

You grieve for those beyond grief,

And you speak words of insight;

But learned men do not grieve

For the dead or the living.

Never have I not existed,

Nor you, nor these kings;

And never in future

Shall we cease to exist.

He reminds Arjuna of the infinity of the soul, of reincarnation. Reminds him not to put too much stock into information provided by his senses. They are fleeting. Only when we are immune to hot and cold, pleasure and pain, are we ready for "heaven"/immortality. Wise men are able to see that there is a boundary between being and non-being, and since we are all being now, we always will be.

Indestructible is the presence

That pervades all this;

No one can destroy

This unchanging reality.

I cannot fatally wound the earth and its creatures. A helpful message to take with me today.

April 18

[Spent most of the morning writing about the Virginia Tech massacre, and how class discussions of it went]

Second Teaching, cont'd

Again, always, the scripture speaks to me:

You grieve for those beyond grief

Our bodies are known to end

But the embodied self is enduring

He who thinks this self a killer

And he who thinks it killed,

Both fail to understand;

It does not kill, nor is it killed.

This is a good and right message for the day – for every day. We are born and die and are re-born. Those who died on Monday are not gone, they will return to life, just as they would have had they died later in this life.

Over and over Krishna makes this point, saying "therefore do not grieve." Your lament is not appropriate. It is a fundamental of this faith, and in fact I do believe it. I feel as if I've always believed, or known it, and became absolutely certain when I first did LSD. Still, it is not possible to just shrug off these deaths. It still feels wrong that they were unable to do more of what they needed to do before they have to start over.

One professor survived the holocaust only to be shot and killed by a student 60 years later. Was there more he needed to do this life? Or this cheerful, friendly, smart young black man who aimed to be a neurosurgeon? Even poor Cho, could not he have learned this life that it is not all pain and suffering? This is where the second main meaning helps – we are all one. "It does not kill, nor is it killed." The Jewish professor, the black student, Cho and I – we are all one. One being. Somewhere/time, there is a part of us that knows this. That understands the relationship between all of us. Somewhere Cho and I are best of friends; know and are known. So there is – whoa – this closeness, this knowledge of where each one is at and what they need and will do next.

It does somehow make it easier to bear when one realizes that the killer and killed are One. How can it be felt in the same way when one understands it is like a play, with one person playing all the parts? I'll take that through the day to chew on.

Committing to a Path

This is the post that I began the blog for. It was the decision reported here that I wanted to be able to explain, especially to my mom, and for which I wanted to provide the entire backdrop of my history for. So here it finally is. Unfortunately, I accidentally posted the next installment first (duh!) and can't figure out how to recall it. So all I can think to do is go ahead and release this one today, too. Sorry about that!

April 12

We watched the movie Elizabethtown last night and it made me so homesick I cried. Homesick? For Kentucky? Well, yeah. I did live there for 10 years. More than a quarter of my life. I knew it and understood it, more or less. Had many friends there, and knew how to make more. Plus, I realized, I was/am homesick for a time when I had less responsibility, when I was just a silly litle graduate student. And homesick for the newness of loving J, the falling-in-love days. And homesick for a pre-shingles me. Able to have fun and work hard, not crippled by pain and medication.

Would I really trade places with her? No way. I like who I'm becoming. I love my work, and I love J in a deeper way. I just feel wistful, and I still haven't made this place home, nor grown into my responsibilities. And I've been so sick and gotten so far behind that I feel I'll never live up to the opportunities I find here. But that, of course, is ridiculous. Maybe not ridiculous, but it has little chance of really happening. I'll get over this illness eventually. But it's hard to see from here to there, and even though I know J is here for me, and I have others, if I'd only reach out to them – I still feel very alone. Not lonely, most of the time, but alone. Well, no one can do my work for me.

[Long recounting of all the work to be done for the job and what had been left undone that week]

79

Failure is an opportunity

If you blame someone else,
There is no end to the blame.
Therefore the Master
Fulfills her own obligations
And corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
And demands nothing of others.

Okay, is it not uncanny the way this book responds to what is going on in my life and what I write? Gee whiz!
I typically have more of a problem with over-blaming myself. That doesn't mean there aren't times I blame others – usually J. I will just keep watching myself. The problem is that I am not fulfilling my obligations due to the total lack of energy I've had with this sickness.

But blaming myself will lead to blame without end. Or is it blaming the sickness? Will that lead to blame with no end? I must just try to correct my mistakes, and make no demands on others. I've tried to go further and lighten the students' load, as well. I can go further by slowing down, cutting later material and such so that they are not burdened by rushing, too.

There is more I could get here. But I'm running late for class.

April 13

I feel kind of torn. On one hand I believe I'm making some spiritual progress. The mantra, for example, has rooted and feels available, just under the surface of consciousness, ready to call up at various points through the day. I'm almost ready to make the commitment to meditate, and I feel like many things are shifting around inside, ready to make me more patient, more loving, and more compassionate. On the other hand, I feel a great sadness, a heaviness of heart that makes me feel very close to tears all day. I have a deep wish to run away. I don't know exactly why. I'm tired and overburdened. I feel so behind and overwhelmed with class work and grading. There are only three weeks left of the semester, which is both a great thing and a burden, as I'll never get all the work done in that time. I don't know if I can do this. Maybe I'm not supposed to be a college professor.

And then I think maybe I'm just tired, and a wave of enthusiasm will rise again and carry me forward. I am excited about all the work I have lined up, all the possibilities for the future. I'm beginning to see how, indeed, the internships and independent studies, RAs, TAs, etc., will pile up, and I will have as much going on soon as my colleagues have. But will I be able to handle it? I do remember feeling this same way the first year of graduate school, that the work was impossible – no way it could ever be done. And yet here we are; I got it all done.

The thing is: that was just me. If I didn't make it, if I failed, there was only me to be hurt. I wouldn't be jeopardizing an entire household, which is how I feel now. How terrible if I pulled J to this part of the world, ruined his chances of ever getting a tenure-track job, and then I didn't get tenure! That is what I'm afraid of. And I believe my guilt and fear is coloring my view of, and feelings toward J. In addition to pain and meds and illness, of course. I did suggest to him last night that we make an agreement that if I don't get tenure we'll figure out something completely different to do: join the Peace Corps, teach English in Kazakstan, work for a non-profit in Cambodia, something. Sell off our belongings, find loving baby-sitters for our cats, and hit the road. He said "Okay."

And probably the thousands out there who say so are right, that daily exercise and daily meditation will boost my immune system and my energy, as well as help my body heal and my mind let go of some of its bundles of fear and guilt, and wanting for things not to change. I can't stay an irresponsible grad student. I have to become something else. And it's wonderful; it is the freedom I worked so hard for. But isn't the brand new beautiful butterfly a little frightened sometimes? A little overwhelmed by her new facilities? A little shocked that she is no longer a caterpillar, and does she feel a little homesickness or a moment of longing to return to what was familiar and known, even tho it tied her to the ground or the tree? I think I'm just in that moment, maybe.

Knowing these feelings are transitory only partially helps me bear them. I think I'll be calling my sister and my Mom today. Reach out and get some support. Not by talking about it necessarily, but just making contact, opening channels of love.

I began reading Mantak Chia's book on healing through the use of the Tao. And it made me think about how I'm going to use it, how I'm seeing my spiritual path. For right now, and I realize it may change as I get wiser, I want to make Hinduism my spiritual home. It has been since I first learned of it in college, in 1993. Its Truth jumped out at me. Seemed SO obvious. But I tried to be true to it and my history and culture by practicing Christianity as a form of bhakti yoga. And it worked . . . for a while.

But it couldn't last, because of all the baggage. That same history and culture sickened me, as it seemed to have lost Jesus. So, realizing now that it won't work to pretend to believe in Jesus' message as described by the human Church, I have to go to the true Source, the religion I truly believe has it right. The one I feel is the Mother of all religion, as they all find a welcome home in Her.

So that knowledge, tradition, wisdom and those practices are my home and will be my path and guide. I have a lot to learn. It is like being a baby when others are middle-aged. I mean, its being a middle-aged person that acts like a baby. But I also believe Taoism has something to offer. It is a different path to the exact same place. And neither religion is exclusive. I believe I can safely borrow from the Taoist stockpile of wisdom and practices. Just as I can see the monotheists' mystics as on the same path – or I mean, on different paths but going to the same place.

The Taoists offer one way of understanding the body – the flow of xi, or chi. I know India has its Ayurvedic wisdom, but I don't have access to that right now. Might it be okay to simultaneously learn how to manage xi? I guess I can try it. The worst thing that can happen is I'll get confused and it won't work. Mantak Chia himself is a great combiner of methods – uniting what he believes was and should be one, and stripping it from magic and secret/occult trappings, much like the Buddha himself. If there are other practices that can help heal me, I want to avail myself of them.

Okay, time for the Tao te Ching. Last one but one, and this trip through the book will be over. The message of this one I get, but still feel a resistance. Not sure it is totally right, though it is totally Chinese.

80

f a country is governed wisely,
Its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
And don't waste time inventing
Labor saving machines

Oh! I just got it! Apply this to the mind, not the nation! If one governs one's mind well, it will work at its assigned labors, not dart off in a thousand directions. It won't keep suggesting short-cuts but will do the work properly. Aha! I'll have a different interpretation now of ALL the chapters on governance!

Since they dearly love their homes,
They aren't interested in travel.
There may be wagons and boats,
But these don't go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
But no one ever uses them.
See? And this refers to the senses, and the tricks of the mind to distract with tangential thoughts – the wagons and boats. One may know of a store of insults, put-downs, snappy comebacks, last words, but one never uses them. I get it! I first thought this was about provincialism, I mean, helped to explain Chinese provincialism – which it still might, as others might have interpreted this literally, too.

People enjoy their food,
Take pleasure in being with their families,
Spend weekends working in their gardens,
Delight in the doings of the neighborhood.

Be present. Be fully present and mindful in all you do. Connect with others deeply; listen fully to them, enjoy them, be fully with them and spend your free time profitably.

And even though the next country is so close

That people can hear its roosters crowing

And its dogs barking,

They are content to die of old age

Without ever having gone to see it.

And this, I think, is about not responding to desires – the desire to hurry, race to something novel, and wanting what the other guy has, keeping up with the Joneses. We ought to be in control of our desires, riding our senses and impulses instead of them riding us. Just because the Sirens send out their call – in SO many ways – doesn't mean we have to go. Fight the seduction to go see if what someone else has is better.

Doesn't this have to be the right interpretation? Even if it wasn't meant this way, it feels so right to me. This could make a great meditation scripture later. What does the translator say? Just this: "without ever having gone" Not that they are lacking in appropriate curiousity, but they have their priorities straight. So he's not telling us how to interpret it. Well, my version feels right and helpful to me, so that's what it is : )

April 14

The last chapter of the Tao te Ching.

81

True words aren't eloquent;
Eloquent words aren't true.
Wise men don't need to prove their point.
Men who need to prove their point aren't wise.
The Master has no posessions.
The more she does for others,
The happier she is.
The more she gives to others,
The wealthier she is.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing
By not dominating, the Master leads.

This does pretty much sum up the message of the Tao. As I have understood it. It is exciting to think of how much more I may get out of it later, when I am wiser, more spiritually mature.
Of course, the whole book belies the truth of the first stanza; much of it is very eloquent, as are many of the world's spiritual, mystical texts. But I guess the point is: don't believe things just because they are beautifully phrased. The next part I need to remember in arguments, and when I'm tempted to argue. I am an academic scholar; I believe in proving my points. But I don't need to do that outside the classroom and my scholarly writing, and even there I can do it in non-obnoxious, non-dominating ways. In personal arguments, especially about spiritual matters, there is no need to prove one's point. The proof should be in the life. Others will only hear the point when they are ready and willing to, anyway, regardless of how many logical proofs one supplies.

I know there are monks and sannyasin all over the world who truly have no possessions. I may get there some day, but for now, what I need to cultivate in myself is non-attachment. Own things, but don't let them own me. If I am asked, or I see a need, I ought to be able to give away whatever object is desired. And do it freely, with no holding on in my heart. Whoo – that will be hard. Especially with books. And art. Most of the rest I could easily let go of. So I'll work on it.

And, as ever, keep trying to learn to put others first. I like to think of myself as a pretty nice person, but I find it very difficult to put others first. I want to play with the computer. I'm tired and I just don't want to cook. I've been listening to people all day and I don't want to talk. I want to write. I want the TV off (I never win that one). It's all about me. I'm trying to shift to thinking only of what J wants, what he might need, but I find it difficult. I am a very self-centered, selfish person.

One thing that might help me with that is to remind myself it is the God, the Lord of the Universe, in J, that I serve. (Which also means it is myself – but leave that alone for now). It's helpful because, even though I love J, he is human, and we live together. It is harder to serve the person who just snapped at you, hurt your feelings, lost his temper, interrupted your reading, or put his stinky feet in your face. But to look at the eternal, sacred part of him, and serve that, I think it would be easier.

One more thing, and then I need to get to work. And it's changing the subject. I so very much want to share my growth and joy with my Mom, but I'm afraid to tell her really where I am. I'm trying to decide if I need to write to her and just say outright that I don't believe I will ever find my way to God through Christianity, and that my growth is/will be stunted if I keep trying to make that work. I may be able to find Jesus, especially among the Gnostics, but Christianity has too much negative stuff for me. It is always like beating my head against the wall.

I want and need to follow where the Spirit leads me. But I am afraid that will put something between us when I want our faith to bring us together. I guess I want her to accept, or to recognize that I thirst for righteousness, that I hunger after the Lord, that I have sought him earnesly most of my life. That seeking and yearning is taking me a different way, but I still believe she and I are headed to the same place; our goals are identical, though the method of arrival – indeed of travel – is somewhat different. Though really it doesn't differ that much.

Is it going to be okay? Can she, is she able to see this as positive? To not worry about me having been tempted by Satan or something?

The question arises because I do now feel there is a barrier to Mom and I really communicating. There will always be something held back. I don't want to convert her, or show her she's wrong, or fight or dispute. I want for her to walk her path, and for me to walk mine, and be able to share our ups and downs, to uphold one another in our efforts, to share inspirations, and all the things that fellow journey-women do. That is why I want to share with her where I am. I don't know that she even needs to know details, if she doesn't want to. Just that I've found my spiritual home In Hinduism, and that is where I'll begin to root myself. In the Sanatana Dharma. Should I write her? Or not? I want so much for her mind to be at ease about it.

Beginning the Gita Again

April 15

9:30 now. More conversation about Blackwater, Iraq, our corrupt, murdering government. I am beginning to feel that my evenings should be spent with other anti-war protestors. I am so horrified and sickened by our government, so full of outrage and sorrow. We need to remember Ghandi and his victory over the British. Achieved with gentle, peaceful love – no violence. And Nelson Mandela. We (J and I) should be studying their tactics and learning to use them.

I know that we are supposed to "accept things as they are" but I do not believe my spirit, my soul, can be clean when my government is slaughtering innocent people in my name. Ghandi was heck of a lot further along the path than I will ever be in this lifetime, and he found it correct and proper to take action. Do one's duty. Krishna said to Arjuna, "Fight the war, but fight with love of your enemy in your heart." This reminds me, I begin my beloved Bhagavad Gita today! . . .

You know, since I've given myself permission to really be a practicing Hindu, I am more able to take comfort – great comfort – in its tenets. I like the idea of being with Indy [my cat- about whom I'd been discussing learning to be fully present, rather than treat as an annoyance when she stomped on my journal demanding attention]and J and others forever, life after life. I'm glad J and I included that in our wedding vows. It adds even more incentive to solve whatever difficulties arise between us, as if we don't, we'll just face them again next life. I'm about to go upstairs and get the Gita, but I don't want to disturb the kitty. So – yesterday, I did quick research on my mantra, and I got tons of hits for the Hare Krishnas, of course. So I went ahead and went to their main web page and read about them. I found out I knew less than I thought I did.

The difference between them and basic Hinduism is that they believe Krishna, not Bhraman, is the "one" God. Krishna is not, therefore, an Incarnation of Vishnu, but Vishnu is part of him. They also believe that, as a form of bhakti yoga, one can and should devote oneself to Krishna and to the chanting of his name. They use "my" mantra, which is the master, or mother mantra, and believe that by chanting it they will achieve Krishna Consciousness, not just for themselves but for the world. They believe mostly what other Hindus do about the Problem [the human condition]– the loss of contact with one's true Self, and the cycle of birth and re-birth. But they believe that the exit from samsara will come through the chanting of the mantra alone.

There are several scriptures that support all of their beliefs. In the Gita, for example, Krishna says he is the one god. But without knowing all the scriptures myself, I still feel they are likely taking those statements out of context. In the Gita, I felt Krishna's statement was a reference to the fact that really, there is only God. Don't get hung up on worshipping me in this form, because I am God, and god includes and is all forms. Something like that. But I am just a baby in this ancient tradition.

As Miller says in her intro to the Gita, Krishna's message here is intentionally multi-faceted, intentionally open to multiple translations. I love that God in this tradition consistently insists on multiplicity, ambiguity, complexity. Isn't any god worth worshipping this diverse, this complicated, and paradoxically, this simple, this pure, this complete and unified?

I'm uncertain how to approach the Gita this time. Each teaching has so much in it. Perhaps I should just do it by feel. Today it may be right to just read the intro, remind myself of the context within which the Gita sits.

First note, something I don't recall learning, or noticing before, is that "dharma," traditionally translated as "sacred duty" has the original Sanskrit meaning of "that which sustains." At the end of the discussion between Krishna and Arjuna, Arjuna "can continue to act in a world of pain without suffering despair." Isn't this what we are all seeking?

J said to me earlier that maybe I'm praying to the wrong god, or the wrong incarnation. That I maybe should devote myself to Kali and pray for the end of the whole mess. I kind of agreed, but said really, it doesn't matter. Since they are the same god. And here is Krishna –

I am time grown old,

Creating world destruction

Set in motion

To annihilate the worlds

This ultimately leads Arjuna "to the realization that his duty to fight is intimately linked to Krishna's divine activity." How can I resist a teaching that shows me how to take up a life of moral duty and action and "the transcendance of empirical experience in search of knowledge and liberation"? This is the dilemma of the Eastern religions, and the one that is difficult for me, personally. I pray that this time my eyes and heart will be open and I will learn to move beyond my stuckness at the seeming paradox.

April 16

[Long discussion detailing plans for beginning meditation the next day, where, when, etc.] We'll work it out. I am going to begin tomorrow. And maybe, hopefully, my whole life will begin to change, and my body to heal. I am now eager and ready for the Gita's first teaching.

First Teaching – Arjuna's Dejection

I am not, obviously, a great warrior, but I suppose we are all in Arjuna's position in some way. I feel that the neocons and the theocons are my true enemies. They are trying to kill the things I hold dear. They would kill me without a second thought if it served their purposes and I was in the wrong place, as they show by their indifference to the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. I wish that I did feel the love for them that Arjuna feels for his enemy-kinsmen:

The greed that distorts their reason

Blinds them to the sins they commit

In ruining the family, blinds them

To the crime of betraying friends.

I do realize it is ignorance, fear and greed – enormous, insatatiable greed that drives the enemy and blinds them. And I can feel pity for them, as Arjuna does, and I regularly feel grief, though not really for the souls of the damned, like Cheney or Rove. And I should. Dick Cheney is my brother, as J and K are my sisters. That is a pretty big pill to swallow! Maybe big enough for one day.

I do feel great sorrow that our country is so torn, so divided. And if we move this out of the political arena into the "field of social duty"; what does this mean? Well, what are all the ways one does damage to the world just by living? Every time I eat meat, it is the death (and likely mistreatment) of an animal. Even milk and eggs now come only by the suffering of creatures. Perhaps plants, too. I drive my car every day, polluting and depleting the earth. Use electricity, and packaged items, throw away so much plastic, use and throw away so much paper – hundreds of trees a year. This hurts. For all these things I feel ashamed, and grieved. Yet what is the alternative? There is no alternative but death, because every action I take to perserve my own life, let alone my lifestyle, is the cause of suffering and death to so many beings I could never count them.

I lament the great sin

We commit when our greed

For kingship and pleasures

Drives us to kill our kinsmen.

Being filled now with the realization of the meaning of this passage – that all action leads to death and suffering – I too want to slump over in grief. I find myself in great need of Krishna's council. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Jesus in Context – April 6, 2007

Things are moving along slowly here – it is bitter cold, but we haven't had much more accumulation. I have been spending most of my time typing up these old journals; my I used to write an awful lot every day! How did I find so much time? I suppose now I just waste that same time each morning. Anyway, this next installment is missing several pages of its beginning – I've looked all over and can't figure out what I could possible have written on. Sorry! The next journal begins with a statement that I'd already been writing for 4 hours that morning, and then I still went on and on . . . well, you'll see.

April 6, 2007

[First part missing, as I had to switch to new journal]

What context was Jesus born into? If he was one of many wise souls that for whatever reason – perhaps living many lives, perhaps never having fully parted from the Source, whatever – he was born wiser than other men. But instead of being born into a context of shamanism – where he would have believed himself able to communicate with spirits – or Hinduism – where he would have believed himself at the end of many lives full of learning, or Buddhism – where he would have believed himself less attached, or Taoism – where he would have felt himself in closer harmony with the Tao, he was born into the context of Judaism. And Judaism would have – did – provide him with a history of prophets who spoke for Yahweh, who had come to be understood as the One God, one that had a special relationship with the Jews. And he would have been taught the tradition of the Messiah, one who would come and save the people.

And so when he came to understand himself as different, when he saw answers to dilemmas so clearly, when he felt his close tie to the Source, the Infinite Absolute, he would have interpreted that through the tools given him by his culture.

The compassion he felt for others was surely the loving God he'd been taught to adore. Being a wise soul, close to the Source, he knew the same things Sidhartha, Lao-tzu, Patanjali and the other Hindus knew. He had the same vision of what people were and what they needed to do, how they needed to feel. They all say the same things because they are all right. They are just seeing it through different filters, and they are only able, or they choose, to communicate that same message in culturally appropriate ways.

To bring this rambling discussion home to where it started, the text (Tao te Ching, 72) says "Therefore the Master steps back so that people won't be confused. He teaches without a teaching so that people will have nothing to learn." So there may be many other people born close to the Source, but they lived their lives and were examples to those they met, but they never collected a following, never had their sayings recorded, because they didn't say anything. They knew not to provide the people with anything to learn.

Jesus, in addition to being born into a time that sorely needed some direction (maybe – but there were other times that were worse) was born into a tradition in which those who spoke to god
said they did. Where god's talking or connecting to someone was interpreted as a lesson. There must be a reason for such a person to exist. So Jesus would "naturally" have understood his closeness to God as a reason for him to speak to people.

I also think this fits with my image of Jesus from the gospels as someone searching for his identity. Why was he so close to God? Why did God's love pour through him and out to others so easily? When he asks "Who do you say that I am?" I believe he's trying to understand himself, not teach a lesson.

So is it a bad thing to have a teaching? Looked at objectively, I think you have to conclude "yes." Look at what's happened as a result of Jesus' teaching. So much blood shed. So much hatred spewed. So much knowledge lost. Of course Christians will say that is highly regrettable, and some will say "but Jesus words must be followed!" And of course, each are referring to a different set of words. And don't forget, there will be rewards in heaven for those who were mistreated or faithful despite their spilled blood. Does the good done in Jesus' name make up for it? I kind of doubt it, because, as Lao-tzu says, if you just leave people alone, they'll mostly be good. People would have had these generous, kind and loving impulses anyway.

To be fair, Jesus may have ralized that. He didn't write a book, after all. He didn't give people verses to memorize. Or even rules to follow! Wow. No, he left a group of people that he had taght. And in fact, he tells people that others will convert because of your example, not your words. He said he left himself in the people, as they would now love one another and be close the Source themselves.

And it seems like the apostles really tried. They did live in communes, sharing equally. Their love for one another and their peaceful co-existence drew converts. They taught without a teaching.

Who was it who decided to travel around spreading the word? The very first was probably some one else, because a lot didn't want to just live quietly; it was Good News and they wanted to share it. But there is no argument that it was Paul who did most of the spreading. He is the one who wrote letters, who made it a "teaching." And his friend then wrote more of the history. Paul, who never met Jesus. Paul, who was hungry for the Truth, but perhaps never really knew it. If this is even remotely true, it is really sad.

Another thing, though sages are supposed to be silent, some in each tradition haven't been, or we wouldn't have any of their sayings. But – I think because of the tradition within which it was interpreted, not what Jesus actually said – the teachings of Jesus have inspired more hatred and diviseviness than any other holy text. That's partly because of scale – more people have read or heard the Bible than, say the texts of Zoroaster, which I haven't read but I get the impression might inspire quite a lot of division.

But think of the Pali Canon, the Tao te Ching and the I Ching. The Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita and the other Gitas, the Upanishads. Except for the story parts, all of these texts say "See for yourself." It is only the Semitic texts that claim they represent the ONLY truth, that you must believe them on faith alone, and that if you don't, you are utterly outcast. And only the Christian interpretation says that the punishment is for everyone and will be eternal.

The teachings of all the other close-to-the-Source people say or imply that there are other paths to the center, but this one works. How do you know it works? Because you try it. This is why I believe Jesus' words have been changed. Even when I consider his context, and the fact that he, like Buddha Gotama, may have considered himself the only one close to God/It. Even so, I think Jesus believed the others could become like him. I believe that from the words we have, reputed to be his, from the texts. If he hadn't believed in them, and in the power of his message, why would he bother trying to teach them anything?

So with a verse like, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life . . . "I believe Jesus meant the above. By that point he was a bridge. But he wanted them to BE like him in the important ways, and he wasn't saying there were NO other ways. He might actually have said "there is no other way to the Father but by me," and meant there is no quick way, no short cuts, because he knew human nature, and knew we would want something easy.

The translator's notes [for the Tao te Ching] say: "Therefore the Master steps back"; he doesn't act as guru or Messiah, because he doesn't want to keep people dependent on him, and thus spiritually immature. When people start to treat him like a holy man, he nips their adoration in the bud and points them to their inner messiah.

Ha! I'm so smart! I'd have to check the gospels, but it seems to me that some of the things Jesus said might be interpreted that way, if you can strip away the interpretation in which they have been embedded which assume he's a Messiah.

I mean, if a different group of people, non-Jews, were told the exact same things and treated the exact same way by Jesus, would they have come up with the idea that he was a savior? Or would they have seen him as a teacher like the Buddha or one of the Hindu gurus? I had that feeling this summer when I was studying the gospels. But I felt like I was trying to reach through smoky glass. Like there is a really different Jesus in there, but I couldn't reach him to pull him out.

Oh brother. That sounds like I'm trying be, or think I am Jesus' savior. If that were true, would that be one of those sins against the Spirit? I just mean that as I read the gospels I get the feeling that almost no one around him gets what he's saying. And like the Buddha, he gets a little frustrated because they just don't listen, or listening, they just don't hear. And I wonder if that's because he was saying a lot of things completely out of their experience, and since he was killed so early in his teaching career, he never really had time to explain it to them in a way they could understand. They just had to do the best they could, filtering what he said through their own knowledge and experience, their Jewish tradition and context.

2006 - Nature of Evil

With the end of August in 2006 came the end of free time for a loooooooooong time. It was my first semester in my first academic job, and I could not believe how busy I was. I had thought graduate school kept me busy! Yet I found time (usually in those few minutes before sleep, to help my mind wind down) to read a few pages of fiction or something non-work related. And finally, in November, I had something of relevance to this blog to say.

November 12
What is on my mind today? Mostly my book (A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry), and India in general. Here’s the puzzle – how can the most ancient, most enlightened, most cosmic and yet most sensible religion the world has ever produced, spawn such evil? There are times when I wonder if there isn’t something inherently wrong with Christianity, since it so regularly leads to exclusion, discrimination, intolerance, hatred and injustice. But one only has to look at India to see the same things, and for Buddhism look at Cambodia and Sri Lanka and China. For Islam there is Egypt and Sudan and Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jews also have bloody history and the current state of Israel could hardly be more evil. You know what they did this week? After the Palestinians had managed to hold to a cease fire for 7 months – a remarkable feat considering the heterogeneity of political/military groups in their midst – the damned Israeli army sent a succession – 6, not 1 – missiles to destroy a civilian apartment building in Gaza. 14 children were killed, 6 or 7 all from the same family. And what do the Israelis say? “We’re sorry, it was an accident.” Animals!
It is easy to see why some would come to the conclusion that religion is the root of all evil. I don’t believe that, but I do wonder why religion is so weak. Pundits talk about the power of religion to motivate people, etc., but really isn’t it that religion is powerless in the face of human greed and hatred? It certainly seems to me, looking back at all of history, that it is much more often the case that evil people turn religion into a tool, than that religion transforms and uses evil men.
I presented this to Jim just now over a cigarette and it spurred an hour long debate/discussion that began philosophically but ended with application. He first tried to make it about creating a stronger religion, one that could stand up to human evil, but we didn’t get far with that. It did lead me to say that I think humans are so fallen, so evil, that we can’t base a religion on human nature. He said I sounded like I was talking about Original Sin. I said not necessarily, the original “sin” could simply be a factor of how we evolved. Competition, he said, is the root of all evil. We are hard-wired to compete. Yes, and we discussed that awhile.
But, as I’ve said before, we are also hard-wired to cooperate. Our species would have died out had we not cooperated with one another. Jim made/used a clever metaphor of the Strong and Weak forces in physics – it looks like the strong force is stronger, it is when measured immediately. But it is the weak force that holds the universe together. So we both agree that what needs to happen is an increase in our awareness and practice of cooperation, rather than competition. We argued awhile about how to do that, and the extent to which it is already occurring.

November 13
Oh my. This book I’m reading . . . It is just one heartbreaking tragedy after another. Nearly unbearable to read. I keep looking at the table of contents, scanning the chapter titles for some sign of brightness, some hint of a happy ending. It doesn’t provide much optimism. How can people be so terrible to one another? Modern psychology, with its almost complete lack of attention to issues of power, provides no help in understanding it.
I, from my relatively safe, secure, loving childhood and privileged white middle class status, have no capacity for understanding what makes people hate so globally. I get being angry at someone you know, hating individuals for hurting or thwarting you. But how does that translate, or mutate, into a rage and hatred so general that one can be cruel to perfect strangers? And the contempt! How is it that people can sort others into categories and the despise and reject their humanity based on that category and their membership in it?
I have certainly felt contempt for individuals, and have bordered on hatred because of it. And I admit I’m more prepared to despise people who fall into certain categories – Neo-con Republicans, Bible thumping bigots, bigots in general. But I at least give individuals a chance. Its only when they open their mouths and utter opinions I find despicable that I feel contempt. And I don’t believe I have the capacity to deny food, water, or shelter to even those I despise the most, like Bush. I don’t believe I’m capable of beating or raping or setting their houses on fire, either. Or even shipping them off to be beaten and exploited and worked into the ground.
So how do so many humans find it so easy, so casual, to do all of the above and worse, to people they don’t even know? Just because they are poor, or black, or Mexican, or Buddhist, or Jewish or French, or female or working class or a stranger? I don’t even know how to begin to understand it. And it is so common! Much more common than simple kindness.
We talk about Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot as if they were rare aberrations. But really, aren’t their feelings and theories and callousness closer to the norm? There have been so many evil, despotic rulers, but for each one of them there are millions of soldiers, prison guards, gang members, lawyers, business men, shopkeepers, farmers and even religious leaders (high and low), who feel and behave in exactly the same ways. They just don’t have the power to do it on a grand scale. Although the inhuman decisions of CEOs and bankers destroy lives in vast, uncounted numbers.
How can one not despair? Why do we have it so good in the U.S.? Because we wrote laws and voted on them in an attempt to curb the worst abuses, to try to protect ourselves from the monstrous people in our midst. But now people, in their fear of unpredictable and largely fabricated threats of terrorists, are ready – no, eager – to suspend all those laws that protect us, just to have the illusion of security. Please tell me how removing all of our civil rights and liberties will prevent the spread of anthrax, or stop a nuclear missile, or prevent explosives from exploding? It’s a myth, but frightened people eat it up.
Maybe what they really need is a reminder of what happens in places without these protections. And someone to connect the dots for them, so they see why we must have freedom of speech, law of habeas corpus, and the right to face one’s accuser. Maybe they are so uneducated, taught all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, so that they don’t know.

December 21
Jim shared some of his struggle for meaning. By the end of that conversation I was convinced more than ever that he would benefit from Taoism. So I brought him down the Tao te Ching before I went to bed.

2006 - April

Almost exactly two years ago! My life is so different now - all because I have a tenure-track job. I was starting to feel really self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing for putting these parts of myself . . . my most secret and personal thoughts . . . out there for everyone to see. Then I did a search for "spirituality blogs" and whoa! there are some really wild and crazy things out there! Some really great things, too - and I've put links to the ones I liked I the best so far. But I found way more "holier-than-thou" blogs than anything. Ones where the headers are things like "Come in here and I'll tell you exactly how to read the Bible" or "You must read my blog or you will go straight to hell." Then there are the ones that say, "My blog is wise, hilarious, and cleverly written." There are some very strange ones, too, that I won't even begin to characterize. You can search for yourself and see what I mean. Anyway, I don't feel so bad now. And who knows, maybe some day I'll actually get a fruitful dialogue going with someone, which would be really, really nice. At minimum, I feel like my questions are better for someone to chance upon than some other people's cold hard certainty.

And before we begin with April 2006 - here is a link about Obama's preacher (yes, that mess), that I have to agree with here.

April 4
I’ve had about 2 ½ hours of sleep. Was mostly due to pain, but I also was worrying about the way I’d presented the Trinity – not problematically enough – and trying to remember the arguments of people like Origen, Marcios, Plotinus, Jerome, and Basil. I want to convey to the students that this is a difficult business. Jesus certainly didn’t preach it, his early followers didn’t believe it, and it didn’t spring whole and consistent out of nothing.
They, like me, have grown up so mired in it and the other Western Christian doctrines that they have no concept it could be any other way. That people, especially those close to the events, could disagree radically with one another over the meaning of what they’d experienced. I think today I want to present it differently. Talk about how we generally have the sense that if we could trace something back to its origins, we’d all be able to see it in a “pure” state. But with Christianity you do that search in vain. It was as diverse and as full of different interpretations from the beginning as it is today. Maybe even more so.
I want to encourage those who claim it as their religion to do some reading of and about the early Christians, to see that current doctrine had to be hammered out, and that not everyone bought the Nicene Creed, or agreed with the Apostolic Church. And they still don’t. Part of that, I suppose, is my personal agenda. I’d like them to know the same things I know.
But my other reasoning is 1) I hate ignorance. And mainstream American Christianity is ignorant and self-serving. 2) Ignorance breeds intolerance. I personally believe that Jesus’ message was not about hating others based on their belief of something different. I hate to see people claiming to have direct experience of God’s love preaching hate, or even being amazed that other Christians don’t share their exact interpretation.
The fact that they won’t find the central doctrines in the Bible anywhere hammers home the realization that it is ALL interpretation. Because they took it in with mother’s milk, the doctrine of their particular church seems self-evident. They don’t know, have never been taught, how it was really arrived at.

April 7
In other news, a new (old) Gospel has been found – the Gospel of Judas. In it, Judas is Jesus’ best friend, the only one he can trust with the important mission of getting him killed. He knows the others would fail, or falter at the last minute. I actually find that quite believable, but it does cast a new light on a lot of Jesus’ behavior. Seems to me it could be interpreted in one of two main ways.
The secular view would be that Jesus was a clever strategist, and realized that to make his movement stronger, to give him longer-lasting fame, he really needed to martyr himself. Maybe he was even crazy in the way suicide bombers are crazy and really believed God wanted him to die; that he’d be rewarded for it.
The other view would be that Jesus recognized his own divinity, was conscious that he was here to pay a price for all of humanity, and recognized when it was time for him to shed his body. In fact, the text of this new gospel has him telling Judas that his help is needed in freeing his spirit from the body.
What is really fascinating to me is how seriously everyone is taking it, when they utterly discount the other non-canonical gospels. People are funny. It does give me an opportunity to address the danger of bibliolatry. If you believe the Bible is divinely protected from error, rather than as a human endeavor, open to all human error, it only takes one demonstration that there was ever an error, or a mistranslation, and your whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

April 17
Wow, just read the Tarot reading I did on July 31, 1995. It was pretty much right on. I can really see that in retrospect. Maybe I should do another? Not today, there’s too much to do. But soon. Just to see what it says. Also was still looking for a savior, someone to bail me out financially. I wonder if I’m finally over that? I have come to terms with the idea that I’m always going to have to work. I don’t want to be the main provider in our family, but that’s the way it turned out, at least for now. Now that I did land a job, the thought doesn’t provoke as much anxiety as it once did. I was praying a lot then, and feeling very close to God. One common prayer – request for help to do better, to act in love, not as a slave to fear and rules, but as a transformed Child of God. Need to remember that.
Main lesson? I had a lot of anxiety and fear of being less than competent, but I prayed a lot and handed it all over to God, and things went pretty smoothly. I’ve known for several months that I need to spend part of each day in prayer. Knowing that, seeing how well it worked 11 years ago, and how things didn’t go as well when I stopped should serve as a pretty good sign of what I need to do, don’t you think?
On 8-22-95 I nailed my problem. The reason I had such a terrible time through graduate school and why I lost myself was because I caved in and lost the battle against cynicism. This is what I wrote then:
“In my fear, I have been reverting to my old defensive, cynical personality. I don’t like it. It’s not who I want to be anymore. I want to be gentle, thoughtful, silent unless I have something meaningful to say, kind, peaceful and filled with a subtle joy. That’s why I think putting myself in right relationship to God will straighten out much of my self-doubt and self-dislike.”
So wise, and yet my faith wasn’t strong enough. I caved in to peer pressure; other grad students were hard and cynical, not least Jim, and the work piled up, and I made a choice to go the way of the world. Quit going to church, quit praying, quit putting myself thru rigorous self-examination. And yes, I did finally manage to succeed and receive my degree, but at the cost of so much misery and despair, and the loss of my true self.
I’m still trying to find her, and it may be that only the God of my childhood can give her back to me. I’m hopeful, from what I’ve seen of [city I got a job in], that it will be a place that fosters the qualities I still most want to have and to display.
Something I think I need to do is write out a statement of faith, see where I stand. There is still something left, even when one strips off all the crap that I think the human church layered on. I need to find that kernel and build on it.
. . .
I want to begin today by reminding students that Christianity isn’t about good deeds, or being a good enough person. Its about receiving the gift of grace. About putting oneself in right relationship with God, and experiencing His love, and thus a release from guilt, darkness, and despair. From that experience, God’s love ought to flow from you and out to others. Then I can segue into Islam by saying that there is a sense that God decided to be more specific about how to love others, and he revealed this through another book – the Quran.

April 18
My idea yesterday to write out a statement of faith for myself was a good one. An ex-student of mine asked me to a while ago, and I put it off because I’m in a stage where my beliefs have been challenged and are in flux once again. I can’t just toss off a quick answer. It’s a lot easier to say what I don’t believe. But of course, now I’m out of time. Maybe I’ll have a chance later, but more likely tomorrow.
7:30 and I should be on the road but am not. When I get home I have to read at least 100 pages for class this afternoon, and I’ve got to get going on some of this other stuff. So maybe figuring out and writing down what I believe isn’t the highest priority. But it does feel somewhat urgent. Maybe, because I saw so clearly yesterday and remember what a difference faith makes in my life, how much better and happier I feel when I turn myself in God’s direction, and how much more I have to give others. I need that in my life. So I may need to make time for it. But right now I have to go.
First, as is probably clear by now, I do not believe in an exclusive God. That interpretation of Christianity (that it is the only valid faith system) has bothered me since childhood. With the doctrines of Original Sin and predestination, the message of exclusivity paints God as a mean-spirited trickster. Why would God have gone to all the trouble of making the universe, and then making humans and loving them like children, only to trick them into disobedience so he could punish them and condemn more than half of them to eternal torment? And then why would He introduce the only true way to a select group of people and prevent the rest from reaching Him? For me, that puts in conflict the notions that God is good and that he is all-powerful; He can’t be both and then behave like that.

What I can buy is the more Jewish and Muslim interpretation, that God created us in His image – by which I mean, made us to have sentience, to be conscious of ourselves, and to have free will – but we turned out to be weak. It may in fact be our very weakness that makes us so dear to Him. Like with puppies and kittens and children – much of their attraction is that they are learning, that they make mistakes, and are sometimes bad just to see what will happen; they are vulnerable and need protection and guidance. But are they evil? Even when they do bad things? I don’t think so. I just can’t buy it. Some do become evil, and I’m not sure exactly why. I suppose it could be that they are tempted by a powerful evil being. But I don’t think I really believe that. For one thing, it would mean God isn’t, cannot be, all-powerful. I suppose there might be room for angels who succumbed to their own weakness and became evil, a la Satan, but then there cannot be any doubt as to the final outcome. It isn’t really a contest. And anyway, I don’t believe it is necessary for humans to be tempted by a being. We find plenty of evil to do all by ourselves. I think Satan works best as a metaphor for our capability of doing terrible things, and our weakness.
But then one has to ask what the purpose of evil is? Why must there be pain and suffering and greed and hatred? Which is also like asking what life is for. For the first question, I think Orson Scott Card explained it very well in the Worthington Saga/Chronicles. In that book, Card shows how if God made a world where those things (pain, hate, greed, etc.) were impossible, if there were no possibility to choose them, then humans would all be robots. Without fear, there could be no heroism, no courage, and no triumph. Without pain, where would we learn humility, compassion, kindness? If greed were no temptation, then self-control, self-discipline and sacrifice could not exist. Without hatred, could we know what love is? So evil has to be a possibility. In fact, it has to be more than possibility, it has to be manifest. Some people must devote themselves to it, and all people must have some experience of it.
From that perspective, the snake in the garden was essential. Not an intruder, but part of God’s plan. But why? Why does it matter if we are courageous, humble, compassionate, kind and self-disciplined? Who cares if we can love? God must care for some reason. I can really only think of three, maybe four answers.

One, God is locked into a battle with an evil being, and needs good people trained up in these things to fight on his side. As I’ve said, I don’t really buy this. One could, but then even the definition of “good” is up for grabs. If there are two equal powers vying for control of the universe, wouldn’t “good” simply be defined by whoever wins? By choosing a side, all one is doing is saying how they would like life to be for future people. Which, come to think about it, isn’t a bad motivation. One fights for the “good” (however one defines it) because one wants life to be full of more goodness for future generations. But if it is a real battle between equal forces, then how could one side be the opposite of the other? I.e., to use a common example, if creativity is good, then evil could only destroy. Can one really believe in an entity who only wants to annihilate all existence, even itself? I know some people do, and they basically subscribe to the “sour grapes” theory. That Satan is so angry that he can’t be God, and be loved by all of creation – that he is essentially in so much pain from his separation from God that he’d rather not exist. But that means that he was created good, and there must be goodness in him. His bad behavior isn’t really evil then, but a cry for help. So he isn’t really the equal or the opposite of God. I guess I need to learn more about Zoroastrianism, since that is the origin of all this “darkness vs. light” battle stuff. For now, let’s set it aside as not credible.

Unless, maybe, what it refers to is more like matter vs. anti-matter. They are really opposites – negatives of one another, and when they come into contact they destroy one another. But they also create; that is, after all, the scientific explanation for how we got a universe. However, neither could be said to be evil. Our universe is made up of what we call matter, but there could easily be another universe made of anti-matter, that is the negative of our own. So they aren’t opposite in essence. One is just ours, and the other, “theirs.” Plus, doesn’t that imply the existence of something even greater that encompasses both? The matrix in which both matter and anti-matter universes are born and take shape? This is our second possibility. Applied to theology, it might suggest (as the Cathars believed) that there is a greater God than Yahweh/Allah, the creator god. It’s hard to fathom what that greater God’s purpose might be, but it would necessitate Its having created both God and God’s equal, opposing force. In which case, you would be serving that greater God regardless of whether you served God or Satan. Okay, but let’s leave this for now and say that an eternal battle between good and evil isn’t God’s motivation for creating us, and giving us free will. Why else might he have made us?

Third explanation: Perhaps He is training us for some other purpose? If life isn’t about recruiting people for one side versus another, then the only thing I can think of to explain the necessity of evil is for training. If not training to be warriors, then what? Maybe other realms or universes that God would like to create, or see created, but needs help with? Undermines his all-powerfulness, but I can sort of buy this. In other words, are we being trained to be creators ourselves? I’ll have more to say about this later, but clearly our creativity is a central part of what makes us human. Or, flipped the other way, our creativity is evidence that we were created in God’s image. So this is a possibility – we were created in order to beget more creations.
Maybe, but it still brings us back to why. Why create anything? For the sheer pleasure of creation? Perhaps. Of course, if there is no ultimate purpose, then this could be read as that God is kind of sadistic; it pleases Him to see us overcome pain and suffering and fear, to learn to be compassionate and kind, etc., and it doesn’t really matter to him what we go through to get there. I don’t much like that idea. I’d prefer to believe that there is more of a purpose to it. And I arrive at essentially two variants of the same thing at this point. Why is it important to God that we have self-consciousness and free will?

One answer is so that we can be more like him. But oops, that means that he also has to be subject to the temptations we are. Can’t be wholly good. Can be essentially good, but with some weaknesses. In fact, mustn’t this be true? We are said to be created in His image. Is it possible to create something with free will if one doesn’t have it oneself? I don’t know. If so, then I don’t see how God can be all-knowing, because how could he possibly predict what others – true Others – with qualities of which he has no experience – will do? So then life is just an experiment to see what such creatures will do.

Why would God want creatures that are more like him? Assuming now that God is self-conscious and has free will? My two answers are; 1) to have friends, and 2) to better understand himself. So ultimately I guess I’ve arrived at an understanding of a God that differs from the Semitic one somewhat, but isn’t wholly incompatible, either, with many of Yahweh/Allah’s actions and words. A God who is very powerful, enough to create this and maybe countless other universes. A God who is essentially good – I.e. moral, just, ethical. But also a God of free will who is subject to temptation. Maybe occasionally gives in to it? Maybe is also subject to growth and maturation? A God that was alone, outside time, without peer or senior or servant or lover or friend. Maybe God spent (spends, is spending, will spend) an eternity alone, enjoying himself. But at some point he becomes tired or dissatisfied with being One, and alone. So he starts creating things. It doesn’t really matter how many, or in what order, or how long it took, or the mechanism. At some point he creates our little planet and us humans, who are like him in some ways. Or I’d be more inclined to accept the Hindu version, that God said to Itself “Let us be many,” and broke himself up into billions of little souls. Now, in the Hindu version, this comes out of the sheer exhilaration of creation, but maybe also a desire to understand Itself better. This makes it a lot less sadistic, because God is putting Himself through all of these trials in order to learn and grow. Either way, what God really wants is two-fold; to experience companionship and be in relationship with others, and maybe to know himself better.

This is a God I can live with, in whom I can believe. Depending on how you look at it, either an imperfect God who is bettering himself, or a perfect god that is getting to know himself better. Perfect, because all there is, is Him. There being nothing outside of God, how could it be imperfect? The purpose of human life, then, generally and specifically, becomes providing these things. Be in relationship with God. Do your best to understand your own and God’s nature. Obviously, it is easier to study yourself. All of the world’s religions teach this, that the way to God, whatever called or however conceived, is through the self.

Going back to my comments about exclusivity and the nature of God, my instinct and my logic tells me that all of the world’s religions are right, and all of them are wrong. I think that each of them, followed diligently, lead one closer to God and to understanding Truth, Life, and Everything. [It’s just occurred to me that Binford’s concept of middle-range theory would be a helpful way of looking at it.] God exists (or doesn’t), but religions are man-made, and I think they all have ended up incorporating things that actually detract from our ability to be in relationship with God, and cloud our understanding. Still, they are the best things we’ve got so far.

So far, this is all logic and rationality. And of course, logic and rationality do not require that there be a God or a purpose at all. Like many others, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the surety that the search for meaning is hopeless. That in fact there is no point. Contrary to what the creationists say, or the proponents of intelligent design, there are very good theories (with plenty of facts to support them) for how the universe came into being, how the galaxies and planets formed, how life began, and how it evolved into producing sentient humans. Just because we cannot recreate it yet doesn’t mean one of the theories isn’t correct. Of course, these theories, especially their fine points, are still up for debate, but our explanations get better and tighter and more powerful every year.

I don’t believe one has to believe in a creator god. If there is one, I believe he hid his traces utterly. We will never find “proof” of God. And if he exists, I guess I believe that must have been part of his plan. It was important to him for some reason not to sign his work. I believe that looking for God in a “missing link[1]” scenario is a great way to set yourself up for a loss of faith.

April 20
I had a hard time last evening and night. I’d forgotten to take my 3rd pill of the day, at 12:00, or to pack one to take at 3:30, so went from 10am to 4:30 pm without. The pain was severe, and I couldn’t really beat it back all night. Had 2 crying jags – one right after Jim left and again trying to fall asleep. It gets so old, and even when one doesn’t believe in a vengeful God, it is hard not to feel one is being punished.
Actually, maybe that explains why people keep making religion be about rules. Even if it makes no logical sense, when bad things happen people want there to be a reason. If you don’t believe in witchcraft and sorcery, then you can’t blame it on others. If it isn’t someone else’s fault, some person’s, then whose fault is it? Maybe a devil – an evil being, but then you are kind of helpless. The only answer that gives one any sense of control is that it must be one’s own fault. One must be being punished. That way, all you have to do is figure out which rule you’ve broken, apologize and be contrite and stop doing it, and then you can stop the punishment and thus the pain.
Jim just read me a letter to the editor in which the writer describes a battle between the Church of Christ and the rest of the Christian churches over whether or not it is okay to worship with instruments, or whether it must be through only the human voice. I find the debate ridiculous. What was Jesus’ message but that people had gotten too hung up on rules, and forgotten about love? And here people are, all hung up about whether or not you can get into heaven if your song of praise is accompanied by a piano or guitar! Crazy! What can explain it? The only thing that makes any sense to me is that it gives people a sense of control over uncontrollable things. So we cave into the temptation to interpret pain and suffering as punishment even when that makes God into a petty tyrant, zapping people for every tiny infringement. Maybe I can work that into my lecture today about the law in Islam.

April 22
How can I express how tired I am of feeling the way I do? I want so much to get up on a beautiful Saturday like today and be full of energy. Clean the house, get some exercise, walk down to the farmer’s market, go shopping, have friends over, prepare an elaborate meal. Instead I’m chained to the chair, the couch, the bed. I can choose to do one of those things but only with the knowledge that I’ll pay a steep price. I hate it! I’m done with it! I’m sick of being so weepy and whiny. Of being a drag to be around. Of my candle barely flickering. Its been almost 11 months of torment. Isn’t that enough? I get so angry and frustrated and determined that I’m going to beat it, going to just throw it off and refuse to feel this way anymore. And next thing you know, I’m doubled over in pain – except that isn’t really true, because it hurts too much to double over. I’m in desperate need of a miracle. Where are all the saints and angels when you need them? Mom says I have to find a way to turn it over to God, and I’m sure she’s right. But how? One can mentally turn over physical pain all day, but the pain will still be there. The Buddha would say what I have to let go of is the notion and the desire to be any other way. It is my belief that I shouldn’t feel this way, that I’m entitled to be disease-free, that is the cause of my suffering – not the physical pain itself. But I don’t know how to let go of the disease-free idea of myself for more than a few seconds at a time. I know that I need to be grateful – must find a way to accept and give thanks for the gifts I’ve received as a result of this pain. I sometimes can manage that for a minute or two, but I can’t sustain it. I go right back to being furious and bitter and worn-out.
I think I really need to pray. Set aside time every day for prayer/meditation. It can’t hurt, right? At the very least it could help me calm down inside myself. And that brings me back to my statement of belief. I think I can indulge myself this morning.

I was talking about the limits of logic and rationality. Had established that they don’t require one to believe in God. In other words, I don’t think that anything exists or that has happened that can not be explained, or that is at least amenable to explanation, through logical argument, without recourse to “God.” I believe that is true of all the “miracles” – there is very likely a mechanism that could potentially be used to explain them. Just because we haven’t found the explanation yet doesn’t mean it does not exist. To think that our knowledge of physics will always remain at the level it is today seems very silly to me. For example, we cannot explain exactly what electricity is yet. But does anyone doubt that there is a rational explanation for it? No. We just don’t know it yet. So, if there is no logical reason to believe in God, then why do so?

Some argue that we need God in order to have morals. But that cannot be true. Human beings everywhere have the same basic laws against killing, lying, stealing, and being sexually promiscuous. These are things that, as Huston Smith points out, have such power to destroy communities that every community constructs laws and norms and sanctions to allow people to live together. Humans do not need God to hand down the 10 commandments in order to figure out that some actions cannot be tolerated. As any anthropology undergraduate could tell you, people will create moral orders, and justifications for them, regardless of whether or not God exists. So, logic and reason only get you so far. And as far as I can tell, they do not require one to believe in God.

But this kind of knowing is very limited. It can only ever explain what and how and when. It can never approach why. Someone could argue that there is no why. That why does not matter and that our search for it is the accidental result of having big brains. But I am in good company when I say that no; this search for meaning is an essential part of ourselves, of being human. So, while I acknowledge that in fact the anti-meaning biologists might actually be right – there is, after all, no way to prove they are not – that is a dead end. It sheds no light on how to live one’s life, and isn’t interesting to think about. So consider it a valid possibility and move on. If our flow chart takes us a different direction, then the fact that we humans are makers of meaning has to mean something in itself.

As does the reality that we have ways of knowing other than logic and reason. Theoria, vs. theory. Gnosis. Direct knowledge, or the faith experience. All of the world’s religions recount a similar experience, one that cannot be logically proved or scientifically demonstrated. It seems to begin with our awareness of infinity, even though we are finite. We can conceptualize something perfectly powerful and perfectly good, but we ourselves are weak and sometimes evil. Again, this could simply be because of some aspect of the way our neural networks work. But it leaves us with a sensation of having fallen short, of having been cut off, or cast out, set adrift, separated from perfection. Being limited, we long for the limitlessness we can imagine. There is a sense among much of humanity that we just missed, we put our foot wrong somewhere, and we are now out of kilter, not running true.

I paused to look up a definition of theoria that I could provide here, and ran across Karen Armstrong’s discussion of this very thing. Origen, a Platonist, and an early Christian, said that knowledge of the divine is natural to humanity. He thought it could be awakened and recollected by discipline. He figured we all had once been in perfect contemplation of God – through the Logos – but tired of it and fell away. Our fall was arrested by human bodies. We can make the ascent again (he thought Jesus had never fallen and had come to show us how to make that ascent). The point for now is that we remember God. Plotinus, a Roman who wanted to go to India to study but never made it, rejected Christianity but he said this (Karen Armstrong’s paraphrase), “Human beings are aware that there is something wrong with their condition. They feel at odds with themselves and others, and out of touch with their inner nature, and disoriented. But we constantly try to unite the multiplicity of phenomena and reduce them to an ordered whole. This drive for unity is fundamental to how our minds work and must reflect the true essence of things.” [Compare this with what Gotama Buddha taught.] To find the true reality, we must undergo catharsis (purification) and theoria (contemplation). Reality is One. Being One, it must be simplicity itself. Like Hindus and Buddhists, Plotinus felt that it is really more like Nothing; “We cannot even say it exists, since as Being itself, it is not a thing but is distinct from all things.” The relevant point at the moment is that the One has not remained utterly impenetrable, because we are able to arrive at some understanding of it. “The One must have transcended itself, gone beyond the Simplicity in order to make itself apprehensible to imperfect beings like ourselves. This divine transcendence could be called ecstasy, going out of itself in pure generosity.” How we come to know this One is to remember our original simplicity and return to our true self, which we do by going in – it is a journey through the self, back to the original divinity. This is essentially Buddhist thinking, phrased in Greek terms.

The word theoria was used by Plato and Aristotle. Wisdom (Sophia) was for them the highest of all human virtues, and is reached by theoria, contemplation. But contemplation is not logic alone, even for them. It includes disciplined intuition that results in ecstatic self-transcendence. Philo of Alexandria, a Jew and a Platonist, was one of the early proponents of the Logos, which he saw as the plan of creation but also part of God. “When we contemplate the Logos we form no positive knowledge of God; we are taken beyond the reach of discursive reason to an intuitive apprehension which is ‘higher than a way of thinking, more precious than anything which is merely thought.’” Basil, too, will use the word theoria to express the process through which one comes to understand the Trinity. It isn’t logical; its Truth cannot be apprehended through logic.

Okay, back to my own train of thought. We, humanity, have a sense of ourselves as broken, incomplete, and we conceptualize a state, or a being, who is unlimited, whole, perfect. We long for it and much of our lives are devoted to pursuing it. But, as I hope I’ve demonstrated, logic will not take us there. It is the wrong vehicle.

All of this is to answer the question I posed, “If there is no logical reason to believe in God, then why do so?” The answer is – because there is something in us that drives us toward completion, toward wholeness. And because we have more than logic as a tool for understanding and knowing. We have intuition, we have experience. And our intuition tells us that there is something more. When we follow it, we have experiences that go beyond our ability to logically or rationally conceptualize, beyond the ability of language to describe, or adequately convey. Our hearts, for lack of a better word, know these experiences to be True, to be utter Reality. These moments of direct knowledge show us that the world around us, so easily explained by words and reason, is but a dim approximation of what is Really Real.

All religions are disciplines to help us refine the ability to see with that Other eye. The reason to follow them, then, is not because they make rational sense or because one offers the best logical explanations[2]. The reason is because when we discipline ourselves in the arts of theoria and gnosis, we become more truly ourselves. We know it to be so. Our hearts, or souls, and even our bodies, respond to that truth. They respond with sensations and emotions of joy, peace, unity, satisfaction, wholeness, health, bliss. And our lives begin to feel less out of joint, less disconnected. Our relations with others run more smoothly, our sense of ourselves is more true, more satisfying. And, as with any other discipline, the more we practice, the more fully we orient ourselves toward “God”, the better we get at it, and the richer our blessings become. The kind of amazing thing is that this is true no matter how you conceptualize Absolute Reality, no matter, even, what kind of god God is.

In fact, those people of all different faiths and branches of religions who are most disciplined, who have turned themselves most fully over to this kind of seeing/experiencing/being, all end up sounding pretty much alike. And they all end up making those who want to argue about whether God is a trinity or not, or whether god is male, female, or other, or whether God cares if you eat meat on Friday, or sing his praises accompanied by piano, or whether you make an image of him to help you focus, or even if he approves of gay marriage or whether priests are celibate or all of the stuff religion gets bogged down in, look REALLY ridiculous. Completely missing the point, I think.

I end up here with a different view. If God is as we experience Him through intuitive contemplation, if we trust that direct knowledge, that revelation, then it turns out that it really doesn’t matter why God created the world, or even if he had a purpose at all. Our experiences here on earth are going to be the same, regardless. God might be intensely interested in us personally, loving us like his own children, or It may be royally, supremely, indifferent. Although indifference is not the right word. If we practice the discipline, our lives will run smoothly and we will experience self-transcending joy. It doesn’t matter if the sun cares individually about plants; when a plant is exposed to the sun it is nourished, and grows, and blossoms, and its flowers follow the sun with a kind of adoration and worship.

When I think of the words and lives of the people I most admire, that I think are closest to truth and wisdom (not those who think they are wise because they know a bunch of Bible verses), the image I get of God is more like the sun than it is like a human. I can kind of visualize something like a diamond sun, radiating away beyond all space and time. Just radiating out joy, bliss, creativity, being and – well, love seems almost too human an emotion. Benevolence? Goodness, surely. The opposites of pain, frustration, suffering. I’m not saying God is a diamond or a sun; But sort of like that. And we are all bathed in that Light all of the time. We cannot exist apart from it, our being is wholly rooted in it, and we experience joy, etc., when we turn our faces toward it. Seeing it like that, one is reminded of the incomprehensible vastness, power, and beauty that must be God.

How funny – A family of Jehovah’s Witnesses just rang the bell. I didn’t tell them what I was doing but maybe I should have. I’ll use that as an example later, but the title of their “Awake” was “How to Find True Happiness.”

But the thing is - How can any human conception of God be complete? How can anyone say they know the mind of a God that big? When we are faced with the vastness of the universe or the vastness of our own cells – how tiny a quark is! – and then think of the being that spawned that, and presumably knows it and understands it, I just cannot square that with a God who cares whether or not women wear pants. To imagine that I can even guess at the purposes of such a being is immense hubris. Even the Jewish notion of a God who craves human interaction seems wrong. How can one so great need little old me? But wait . . . because going back to our intuition, it tells us that in fact there is some kind of personal interest. Maybe that isn’t quite right, maybe that is how we interpret the intense pulses of joy and being and goodness that we tune into. But it is also possible that an infinite God might actually love each one of us, individually. Who knows? Again, it doesn’t seem to really matter. What matters is that we align ourselves with Him/It.

My intuition and my logic tell me that the Hindus are probably right. God is personal and impersonal. God is part of us and distinct from us. God is one, and God is many. Our distinctions, our dualities, do not apply. All of those ideas are human ideas, and fall short of what God must be. The monotheists, also, have their points, but I find a lot of their exclusivity, their attribution of human qualities to God, and their focus on rules, to be troubling.
The god of the East, and of Plato, is so immense that there is no Other. I believe this more than I believe in Satan, or some kind of competition. Monotheism at its best also conceptualizes God as this big. But the early Hebrew understanding of God as partial to their little group, partisan, in competition with and jealous of other gods, rings false. That doesn’t mean their God was wrong, of course, but I have to believe their understanding of God was partial and imperfect.

The bigger question is, would God as I understand Him, ever interfere personally in human life? Send messengers? His Son? I really don’t know. There are at least two ways to look at it. One puts the onus on God. God seeks out an individual to get a message across to the rest of humanity. Why? Because he does take a personal interest and wants people to behave in certain ways. Why? Either because he’s a tyrant with a bee in his bonnet, or because he wants to help humans find their way back to him – wants them to receive the blessings that are available by focusing on him. But another possibility is that God didn’t make any move at all; some humans, attuning themselves to God, obtained that direct knowledge and passed it on to others. True messages from God, but it works more like radio. Anyone could have received it at any time. God just is, his message is always the same, and occasionally someone hears it. And because it is so rare that someone listens, when they do they or others interpret it as God speaking individually to them[3]. Both seem equally possible to me.

But a lot of what people attribute to God, I think is completely of their own making. They WANT to believe God wants something (like that women wear veils, or Jews be massacred, or they get a certain job, the Bears win, etc.). Or at best, they’ve garbled and confused the message. I think that the Truth is likely very simple. But due to our fallen, multiplicious state, we make it complex and confusing. So something like “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” might truly have meant “I am the source of all things. Keep your focus on me and you won’t go wrong.” But people take it and the meaning becomes things like: smash the tools others make to help them focus on me, argue with one another about how many gods there are and whose is the most powerful, be merciless to those who interpret me differently, etc.

It is possible, though, that God occasionally gets tired/impatient/saddened by the way we keep messing up the message, and does in fact communicate directly with us, as through the Jewish prophets and Mohammed, through Zoroaster, and maybe others. And then what about Krishna and Jesus, who are thought to be God himself, come to earth? But that is going to have to wait for another day. I’ve been writing for four hours straight and my body is screaming. I need to get to the grading.

April 24
As I continue to re-read the gospels, even more questions arise. There are a lot of things in them that I can’t make any sense of. Some I’ve asked my parents about before, like why does Jesus allow the demons “legion” to destroy a bunch of innocent pigs? Why does he say that he speaks in parables in order that most will not understand, and will therefore not return and be forgiven? My folks’ answer was that these are mysteries. But at what point do the “mysteries” add up to more than what makes sense? When does the message become so “mysterious” that meaning is lost? I’m willing to believe that Jesus was so spiritually advanced that we less perfect beings cannot adequately judge, or understand him, get what he really meant. But doesn’t that mean we should approach everything he is supposed to have said with great caution?
I feel very ambiguously toward Jesus. I have a notion of what he was like from Sunday School and Church, but reading the gospels, he’s actually a much more complicated person than most Christians allow for. Really his actions and words are rarely straightforward. And he does certainly seem to be hung up on the idea that the world was about to end; something he was clearly wrong about.
Obviously, I’m going to attempt to write about this in a more systematic way, but I wanted to begin working some of it out “on the side.”
Part of the problem is that I can’t really be sure what Jesus said, and what was added later, or misunderstood. I do not believe that the Bible is divinely protected from error. But it is dangerous water to begin picking and choosing what you are going to believe out of it. I feel I want to have a very good reason for rejecting things, and not just take the easy way out by saying anything that doesn’t fit my personal notion of what Jesus must have been like must be in error. I want to carefully, faithfully, deal with what is there. It may take a long time. I don’t expect to be able to come to a definitive statement anytime soon. This is, must be, a life long search for understanding. But it feels important to me to take stock of where I am right now, so that I can proceed.

[1] A “missing link” scenario is one in which people say, “Okay, I see that A exists, and I see that C exists. I do not see evidence of B, and therefore this must be a place in which a divine being intervened to bridge the gap.”
[2] This is where I think the neo-conservative Evangelicals in the U.S. have gone wrong. Well, one of the places. They have allowed the language of science to win. When they argue that the Creation can be explained through reason and scientific evidence, they have already lost the battle, by conceding that reason and science are the only valid ways of knowing anything.
[3] At some point I’ll explain or provide links about the quantum physics of how in fact we may literally create reality for ourselves. Thus, people might in fact see real angels, avatars, etc., because they may really exist for them, for that time, that culture, etc. May also explain many miracles.