Spirituality in Action: The Road Ahead
In part, God lives, moves, and has being in every one of us, even as we have our being completely in God’s. The cycle of creation by which the One created us without our knowledge has entered into the next bend here on earth; now we must engage with rounding that curve.
It may be that what it’s all about for us as individuals and as a species is clarifying the unclarified; bringing definition to our own ambiguities; asserting the possible on the basis of desiring it with the awareness and passion of beings that have begun to know what we want.
A well-lived life resonates among stars and galaxies, continuing the widening outsweep of creation’s first Word.
If you don’t like the word God, substitute Nature, All Being, or Reality. If you don’t like the word “Word,” substitute something like “impulse.”
It may be that what it’s all about for us as individuals and as a species is clarifying the unclarified; bringing definition to our own ambiguities; asserting the possible on the basis of desiring it with the awareness and passion of beings that have begun to know what we want.
A well-lived life resonates among stars and galaxies, continuing the widening outsweep of creation’s first Word.
If you don’t like the word God, substitute Nature, All Being, or Reality. If you don’t like the word “Word,” substitute something like “impulse.”
Posted by Paul at 5:46 PM Permalink
28 Comments:
Very true. It is all a question of to whom one wants to be accountable. Do I want to be accountable to that essence of infinity which can not be contained in any language, or do I want to be accountable to the logics and logistics of the known grounds? By choosing the latter one carves out a niche for oneself by limiting the possibilities. Choosing the former is breaking away from the limitations. A foreman gets promoted to an enterprising executive by aligning with the first option. For him the ‘sky is the limit’.
The ‘first word’ is pregnant with meaning. It sits at the boundary between the expressed and the unexpressed. In Hindu philosophy this first word is ‘AUM’ which is a combination of the first, middle and last sounds in the vowels in Sanskrit language. These three vowels represent the presiding deities of becoming, being and consummation. The spirit of enterprise, which visits like a guest, transcends these deities.
Isn't the road one continuous curve?
Your second paragraph carries within it the notion of some kind of collective spiritual progress, on the level of knowledge or awareness. Is this subjective, i.e. based on your personal experience over this life? If not, what is it based on?
When I substitute Nature for God in your first paragraph, it sounds pretty obvious that the word Nature is merely a substitute for God, defined very clearly as an invisible paternal force.
Your paragraph about the well-lived life is presumably a poetic evocation of a personal feeling, as opposed to a dogma of a particular religion? (It sounds a bit like a universalisation of the well-lived life of Jesus of Nazareth, for example, whilst suppressing the more recognisable trappings of Christianity.)
Oh dear you better suppress me if I sound too critical here.
VINCENT: Really good/large questions. This passage, if it hadn’t been edited out of Original Faith, would have come toward the end of the book and evokes a considerable portion of it. So be ready to order!
Seriously, I can’t even begin to answer your excellent questions in a thread or even a post, but you’re onto the general drift of the book in that it does attempt to get at universals of human experience – but in a less abstract manner, which is the major reason this passage didn’t make the cut.
To clarify a couple things: I see spiritual progress for our species as a possibility but not a certainty. And God is as paternal or otherwise personal as readers want God to be. I don’t speak to doctrine in order to write something in this area that focuses on shared matters instead of divisive ones.
VISHESH: One characteristic of God, however conceived, that I’d expect is widely shared is ineffability, as I think you’re suggesting.
LUCY S: I like that too. Theologically speaking, there’s also the matter of God’s “immanence” – that is, involvement in the world in between its beginning and end.
In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from the creation to the development of the noosphere in the present, to his vision of the Omega Point in the future. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way ...
I could never even have predicted we'd put Bush in office for a second term, so the long-term behavior of my species is way beyond me . . . ! Can only hope for the best while doing one's own best is how it looks from my perspective.
MARK: In that regard, I've wondered about that "butterfly effect" they talk about in ... is it meteorology? Any complex system maybe ... and how it may apply to human beings.
I don’t follow how one proves the existence of anything at all through logic.
brutally simple! I am most certainly going to have to ponder that... much gratitude.
A well-lived life resonates among stars and galaxies, continuing the widening outsweep of creation’s first Word.
funny that you should mention that..., my teacher, my shaykh, was recently talking to a group of children at a school about the form of, uh, "worship" that we sufis do. Part of it is that we sometimes spin around in a circle, either individually or in groups.
The idea is that planets, galaxies, and stars make a prayer to ... by spinning around - So, sufis do this too.
It never occurred to me the relevance of this until now, between my teachers words and your post. Thanks.
When I was healthy, I jogged, often year round - from age 20 to 37. The best places to jog in small town New Hampshire are often cemeteries. Each of the small towns where I resided had cemeteries directly across the road from each other, so I could describe large, basically circular paths, not always the same ones, without getting bored.
On the contrary, I was one of those people who really loved running and got a lot out of it spiritually.
Thing is, I thought of it, and here and there in writing have referred to it, as my "Sufi dance" - without knowing that circularity was actually involved in Sufi dancing.
Thanks!
In HIM we live
and move
and haaaave
our be-ee-ing.
Speaking of passion, knowing what we want, and desiring beings with the rounding of curves...
with two simple words I can sum up why I believe in an Intelligent Creator...
Monica
Bellucci
Here (in UK) religion is the harmless hobby of a minority that most are too polite or too anxious not to be boring by arguing about. This applies whether they are for or against.
As a hobby, it gains its support by being essentially venerable, like history. Here on these shores, I mean.
But I am not sure that I will enjoy your book as much as the interaction (argument) that we have here (in this blog, I mean). What do you think?
This is unrelated to your post. Just wanted to say I'm sorry I haven't responded to your posts on my blog for a few days. Its been a crazy week. Plus, I had a bit of an accident falling down the steps in my house the other night. Landed in the ER and have been on pain killers! Will get back to your great comments and blog essays soon.
Karin
VINCENT: Thanks, Vincent. I’m pretty sure anyone who looks at it will be surprised. On the points you mention, it’s neither a hobbyist’s approach nor an effort to promote any form of doctrine or social/political views that are purportedly based on scripture.
KARIN, thanks, feel better soon and keep me posted.
DON I, thanks for stopping by –
I stand by my Monica Bellucci theory...
the ridiculous notion that atoms could randomnly align without the aid of a Designer over Billions of
(Saganesque) Billions of Years to accidently create such a heavenly body... of evidence..um..er..
is a concept of the Universe that is utterly preposterous.
If that is how little your imagination can muster about the rounding of curves then I shall excuse myself from this tomfoolery with the words of Louis B Mayer, "Include me out!"
Or is this just an excuse to keep talking about Monica Bellucci? If so, does your wife have a blog? I may have to report you, this being a spiritual blog and all . . .
I agree with what I'd assume your view is on this: that intelligent design is a misreading of the bible verses it tries to rest on as well as not being a scientific theory.
A life well lived is the most eloquent testimony to love, to life, to the mystery.
With deep gratitude,
Maithri
DON I: Sounds interesting, would be good if I could still read. I'm physically limited to online, and because of limited productive time, get to do little of that beyond blogging.
Wonder what "N2" would think of the book; he seems especially interested in quantum physics.
And since when do threads have to have anything to do with the posting? Not that mine is that off topic..the entire notion of the First Word bringing forth the Creation..I'm not THAT out of it.
We all want a fair shake at Life and we only want to be accountable if the rules of the game are even..and they certainly are not.
There are different Laws for the wealthy in every single Country on Earth.
Which is why everybody tries to cheat a little, here and there, to try to make amends for this injustice.
As for the more esoteric question I think that it is fair to say that we we can only remain semi content if we are all trying to adhere to the same set of rules which we do not.
Islamofascist assassins think that the other gods add up to zilch just as Pat Robertson thinks their theology is complete bs...so neither of them have any respect for the other or their creator...and the saddest part of it all is that they are both wrong anyway.
If Mr Robertson were President (THANK GOD HE IS NOT) he would have you know who in Venezuela terminated with extreme prejudice and there would be a new inland Sea joining the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Indian Ocean where tiny little Island of Israel would bask in the sun.
President Robertson would in his own mind feel completely justified and that he was being completely accountable to his Creator...others might disagree.
That's why I don't want anyone to think that picking and choosing some manufactured idea of GOD is OK to be a baseline. It is not OK and our History is one long example of what a terrible idea it is.
We are still trying to eliminate the competition..always have and always will..
atleast the warmongering
Mullahs (not the majority) who are preaching utter contempt and hatred of any others who do not wish to obey tham and be accountable to them are honest about it, I'll give them credit for that.
As to the rest, I think any reasonable person would agree with you that "religious" hatred and the attempt to force one's beliefs on others is misguided, to say the least.
I understand that "God" and "Word" have belief connotations that everybody doesn't share, which is why I have the italics at the end of the post.
I can dig that.Finding out WHY we are so different than the rest of Nature is the question to end all questions..everything else is conversation.
For us "clarifying the unclarified and bringing definition to our own ambiguities" has been sort of a hit or miss thing that has cost millions of lives.
What we need to do now is have a moratorium on inventing any new belief systems that are dreamed up by some guy who says Hey guess what God just told me...
I would like to see us address the state of affairs in a calm, cool collected manner (obviously I won't be on the panel) and let us re-examine the origins of all of the major belief systems. Why not use the scientific standards of being able to test and re-test them to get the same result..if they don't pass the sniff test then let's call it a day and start over. Fair enough?
OK now take it easy and don't bamboozle me too much..I have grown accustomed to your gentle manner and thoughtful responses..anything else will spook me and send me reeling back to my previous discussion on Monica Bellucci...which is where I probably should have left it. HAHAHA!
Have you ever poked around on pages of this site having to do with Original Faith the book? That might give you a better idea where I'm coming from. You naturally assume I'm talking about my beliefs, which is understandable considering that belief/faith/religion are generally seen as near synonyms.
However, belief isn't what I personally want to speak to. For example, you refer to a Creator; in OF, I don't assume readers believe in one, nor do I argue against it. Plenty of people are already having belief debates and have been for millenia.
On this blog I bring up all kinds of things to try to get people thinking. But what's front and center in my own line of interest regarding religion and spirituality is experience. When it comes to experience, we're in non sectarian territory.
Chapter one of OF is about love because this is a form of spiritual experience that most people have had, whether or not they see themselves as religious.(Btw, early in the book I define exactly what I mean by "spiritual" - again, experientially rather than in terms of doctrine.) And love is potentially a tremedously consequential experience, especially when a person clearly understands what it is - and what it is that stands in the way of living from out of it.
My guess is that believers who read OF will assume I'm a believer and atheists will assume I'm an atheist. I hope that's what happens because it means I will have succeeded in putting the focus where I think it's lacking.
My big problem will be getting atheists/agnostics/skeptics to pick up OF just because of the fact that it's in the religion and spirituality area. I do appreciate you looking in on this blog and giving me the chance to respond instead of writing it off because of the subject area.
Historian Thomas Cahill discussed how for Centuries the Protestants and the Catholics waged a senseless war against each other (which seemed like semantical nonsense to outsiders) just as the Sunni and Shia are doing today.
Have a lash if you get a chance.
I used to like Bill Moyer's stuff, also NOVA, Ken Burns - PBS had a lot worth watching. I'm too disabled and strapped for functional time to watch TV! Honesty, people can't imagine the circumstances under which I even manage to type.
It bugs me when Islam is presented as a "violent religion" in contrast to Christianity. You not only have the historical stuff to point to like Moyers was doing, but the situational stuff. Today you've got a whole bunch of young Muslim men out of work, impoverished, and feeling oppressed and disrespected by members of other faiths.
Listening to the anger of so many well fed Christian fundamentalists in the US just because people don't always agree with their ideas, something tells me that if they ever became impoverished and oppressed at the hands of others, you wouldn't exactly find them turning the other cheek. Just a hypothesis...
I don't find much traction in conjecture about the "male parent figure" of the Nazarene rebbi. I do have a suspicion or two that the presence or absence was not very important to the Hellenes or to the Romans who were co-pagans and a bit loser in their parent/child norms. The Semitics on the other hand were very much concerned then as now with the integrity of the females in their midst. Then as now, especially so among Muslims, it is a point of cultural honor that is inviolable.
So let's pass that by.
One of the chief hurdles that most Christians are unable to understand is how the spread of the teaching of the Nazarene was done so quickly. Simple answer is that the Levant, the home ground of the Jews was thoroughly Hellenized in those days. Alexander the Great had spread Greek culture from Macedonia to India and beyond. In his van were Jews who served the needs of the army and the conquerer in so far as victuals and other supplies went. As they moved into new territory they ran into old uncle Shmuel, who had left Jerusalem years ago and had a new life in some distant trading post maybe in what is now Pakistan. He had a family worship center and he spoke Dari. His boys had married into native families and the wives became religiously what the husband
was. It was a little tougher for the men that married into those families. They had to submit to adult circumcision. These instances of small numbers of Jews in remote locations was and remain very common. They were spread from the Gates of Hercules in the west to the India, Burma and the terminus of the Silk Road in China. When the ideation of the reformist Nazarene rebbi was in play in the years before Constantine, it was spread from the Levant to the outlying synagogues by same method that put Jews off at great distance from Jerusalem, that method was trade and travel. It had always been such. The churches of Asia Minor? they were an easy trek in the existing congregations of Synagogue Jews. In these centers as in others there was always some point of disagreement with the Temple authority. Saul's (Paul) original targets of opportunity were not Christians but reformist Jews who were an irritant to the Temple fathers. The reformists became followers of the Nazarene and when Paul began his travels in support of that he was dealing with reformist Jews who had abandoned the Temple for "the Way".
I did not just hear this in passing, nor was it something that came to me on a platter. It came by way of reading, research, and sitting in churchyards and meeting houses in far flung rural areas from North Africa to Pakistan. It is those very people who relate to the infinite in simple ways that are very much like the original "Jesus people" and the Christ cultists. They retain a simple theology and a moral base that starts with acceptance, toleration and hospitality for the stranger.
Now. Here is a challenge. If God is in charge, why does he keep sending us people from beyond our borders to do our hardest work?
I propose, if I may be a Theist for a moment, that it is a test. Sadly, many are failing that test.
If God hates practitioners of same sex relationships, how come he sends so many of them to Congress - bound by the conventional sacrament of marriage to someone else?
It is a test.
I now remorph into my non-theistic modus.
There are mysteries of a nano-scale and of a macro-scale that are God like.
We are beings of infinite parts experiencing an event called human. Sometimes, I may sound a bit pantheistic. Sometimes, I may sound a bit panentheistic. My middle ground, however, is to love those who would do me harm (after I have disarmed them), those who hunger, are ill or in prison. And, to seek justice in the way of the rebbi.
Intentions, actions and outcomes - if you do them in fear, then you are a danger to those around you.
I AM and so are you.
Lantern Bearer
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