April 23, 2018
(This is a long piece that I have broken down into smaller posts for the reader’s convenience. The first was posted on April 18 and the second on April 19. This is the final piece.)
It seems to me that men and cultures create all religions and belief systems in the attempt to explain the mystery of consciousness. They may have components that may be helpful to the perceiving-and-storage-unit that calls itself ”I” in its instantaneous here-and-gone existence. The Scriptures and the Vedas and the Koran are all made-up stories, not divinely inspired, told from the perspective of primitive cultures gathered fearfully around a campfire, trying to make sense of things, asking What? What is to be gleaned from them?
It seems to me that prayer is mostly making demands of whatever I might think is out there to do what I think it should do. Give me what I think I need, heal my wounds, take care of what I love, defeat my enemies, protect me from fear, make it rain, win this game. Occasionally there is gratitude, an impulse to say “thank you” and I am good with that kind of prayer.
It seems to me that there are insights that I can glean from religious myths.
From the Judeo-Christian mythology:
At the very basis, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thinking that you know good and bad, right and wrong, is the root of suffering, and gives the delusion that you know gods will, and you might take that for a license to do all sorts of atrocious things. You shall be my people, but not all those others. The others are mine enemies, slaughter even the babies. Wrath and sore displeasure. You have free will, however there are these commandments. Make no graven images, but the commandments are written in stone. Thou shalt love, as though love could be mandated. He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest. What a mean ill-tempered insecure little god this is. Who may abide it?
And then, love is all. Love requires sacrifice, which means to make holy. The Source, that which is, nourishes me. Take and eat, drink this. The love in which I am nourished is absolutely free, all I have to do is show up. Grace, which requires no merit, comes out of the blue. The water washes me clean and unites me with all that lives. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my life. Death is not an issue. There is undivided wholeness, communion, in which I am an integral part.
It seems to me that I have only smatterings of understanding of other myths, but I am attracted to these:
From the Hindu myth
All creation is a manifestation of a single inhabiting divine substance
Thou art That
What can be said about the all-pervasive Brahma is not this, not this, not this
Vishnu sleeps for 5 million years, his dream is this universe, he awakens and the dream collapses, he goes about his day for 5 million years, and dreams again, another universe, another day, another dream, endlessly
Shiva dances the destruction that makes room for creation, ringed by the flames of the stars, the drum of time in one hand, the fire of creation in another, another hand lifts the veil of illusion, the fourth hand is in the position of “do not fear
From the Buddhist canon
Life is suffering that comes from attachment and desire
All is an illusion, extinguish the flame
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form
There is an eight-fold path to freedom, dharma
At the center of the wheel of dharma is emptiness
Stillness and silence, the shining void
From the Tao
It cannot be spoken of, it flows everywhere, it cannot be grasped or comprehended
The opposites, good and evil, darkness and light, life and death, arise mutually and are inseparable
There is a natural order, an inherent pattern – at the first distinction the ten thousand things arise
Make no effort, let it flow of its own accord
The wise man comes and goes imperturbably, making no effort, leaving no trace
And at last, the credits:
The discerning reader may hear echoes from many sources for these observations. They include the works of:
Alan Watts
Krishnamurti
T. Suzuki
Carl Jung
Joseph Campbell
Joseph Chilton Pearce
Ram Dass
Fritjof Capra
James Gleick
Nick Herbert
Rumi
Carlos Castaneda
And surely others who I have forgotten
BB Blog 