The Unsettling Nature of Uncertainty

I'm currently reading Huston Smith's book, Why Religion Matters. I'm not quite sure what I expect to get out of it but I have to say that as of right now I'm finding it disappointing. It seems Smith's biggest argument for why religion really matters thus far, and I am still relatively early on in the book, is not necessarily because it's true but that it provides a panacea for the masses. It provides hope and inspiration, a sense of community, those sorts of things. One could easily respond  to that argument by asking a question of their own. If religion matters  because of  only those benefits what happens when an individual can find them via other avenues?  If our  personal longing for hope and meaning can be found without God or the sense of anything transcendental or spiritual to inspire us, doesn't that then render religion and spirituality irrelevant?

I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed though. It's not as if the book was titled, "Why Religions are True" or "Why Religions are Real".

Religion claims the heart, science appeals to the intellect.  But is there a way, I wonder, how a purely scientific perspective can not only help satiate the intellect's hunger for answers but also appeal to the heart's longing for meaning? All of the world's religions would undoubtedly answer with a resounding no. The Gita, especially, asserts that hope and meaning can only be found in the eternal, not the impermanent, and the scientific worldview only addresses the material world which is by default impermanent. Smith asserts that science can provide meaning more easily for the actual scientist, but not for the ordinary person. The reason being is that the scientist is actively involved in discovering the natural world as well as creating and innovating. The rest of us just bear witness to what is discovered and what is created, and there is a fundamental difference between the two experiences. Smith writes:

"...the creativeness of their vocation probably makes it easier for scientists than for most other people to create meaningful lives for themselves....[there is a] difference in fulfillment that comes from inventing the Polaroid camera, on the one hand, and buying one, on the other." p. 39

Smith quotes Ursala Goodenough in her book The Sacred Depths of Nature, when she discussed how her nature has "no Creator, no superordinate meaning of meaning, no purpose other than life's continuance. But regardless of that it still filled her with feelings of "awe and reverence".

He responds to this realization she made in her book by writing the following:

"We can be glad that it does, but how much comfort can we draw from that fact when the awe nature awakens in human beings is, like all emotions, no more than a Post-it note, so to speak, affixed to a nature that is unaware of being thus bedecked. Reverence and awe are human sentiments that extend no deeper into nature than human consciousness extends, and in a universe fifteen billion light-years across...To speak of nature's depths as sacred in themselves, without human beings imputing sanctity to those depths, is to be guilty of the anthropomorphic thinking that John Ruskin dubbed "the pathetic fallacy"-the fallacy of imputing feeling where there is none.

Goodenough's "sacredness" is in her eye, the eye of the beholder, and in the eyes of those who share her sensibilities. What is the depths of nature-its deep structure on which human sentience bobs like a rose petal on the sea-is insentient, quantifiable matter." p. 38-39

The words that immediately caught my attention in the above passage were, "but how much comfort can we draw". Those words are like a red flag that is instantly raised in my mind. Such an instinctual reaction sometimes makes me think that perhaps I'll always revert to a state of skepticism in which I cannot ultimately escape.  Whenever I come across the idea of pursuing comfort when it comes to areas of spirituality and considering reality as a whole it makes me pause and incredulously ask myself, "are we looking for comfort, or are we looking for truth"? I think comfort and truth very often do run concurrently with one another but that that isn't always so. And if it isn't always so then I suppose there comes a time when we have to make a choice. To choose that path that seems steady and bright offering an undercurrent of optimism and hope or a path that is much more uncertain where you only see the entrance and whatever else awaits is unknown. Instead of an undercurrent of hope and optimism this path sometimes brings feelings of foreboding and uncertainty.

Personally, I find uncertainty unsettling and I think most people do. I feel like the uncertainty that creeps into my consciousness, whispering nagging questions that I cannot yet answer and producing doubts in areas where I finally thought I had found some conclusions, pollutes and threatens my sense of spirituality. As a defense mechanism there are times when I try to ignore these questions and thoughts that arise and loom over the castle of sand I have neatly erected by the shore, threatening to sweep it away. If only I had a stronger foundation like so many others seem to have. Those individuals I have met that are firm and convicted in their spiritual orientations. What is my problem? Am I just ultimately a hopeless skeptic?

I have found  meaning in the writings of the Gita and Upanishads as well as other Vedic literature and have experienced great spiritual satisfaction in reading them. I consider them inspired sources in which I can draw both tangible transcendental truths from regarding spiritual realities as well as practical truths regarding our existence in this material world. But then there are times when something inside me seems to force me to step back, right when it seems I am almost ready to find myself in a spiritual state of conviction,  and wonder,"How can any of us really know what is real?" I enter a place of uncertainty that threatens to knock me off my spiritual foundation.

I feel like such uncertainty is like entering a bottomless abyss. It is as if the human heart longs for something tangible to cling to, but it is in the letting go that it enters into genuine inquiry. This reminds me of the passage from Alan Watts' book, The Wisdom of Insecurity:

The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.    p. 24

It seems like, no matter how hard I try, a battle is continually being waged between my heart and intellect deep within my subconscious. Sometimes one side seems to have claimed victory but then, like a phoenix, the other side rises out from seemingly nowhere and makes an appearance, casting its dark shadow on the battleground once again. No...the war isn't over...not yet!

But does any of this really have to do with the question of whether or not religion matters? I guess I do get side-tracked sometimes;continually concerning myself with whether or not I can feel or "know" with a shadow of a doubt if things are factually true which can sometimes be irrelevant as to whether or not they really matter. I do believe religion and spirituality do have their purpose and play an important role in many people's lives. Radhanath Swami, in a lecture you can view here, describes just how important of a role religion can have in  people's lives:

"In a very broad sense it is to transform our consciousness from arrogance to humility. From vengeance to forgiveness. From greed to generosity. And most of all, it is meant to connect us to the love within us so that we might be instruments of compassion in everything we do. This is the universal principle of religion. To absorb ourselves in the love of God and to be truly and genuinely compassionate to all living things..."

...And thinking about it that way, religion matters greatly.


Well, in the beginning of this post were some preliminary reactions I had to ideas shared early on in Huston Smith's  book, Why Religion Matters. The rest of the post consists of my own  personal reflections that I wrote this morning in a sort of "stream of consciousness" sort of way towards those ideas.


I'd love your thoughts! Please leave them in the comments section. Thank you!

Death

My walks through our town often take the same course. I go down one of the busiest roads in our area. It  whistles and buzzes with the rhythmic swooshing and sporadic sounding of car horns. Then hanging a quick right I traverse through our town's cemetery before coming out on a road perpendicular that takes me back home. I suppose I could just take the sidewalk that lines the perimeter around the cemetery but, in all honesty, something attracts me to this seemingly grim place. In fact, almost every time I walk through there I wonder if someone might think me morbid for making such a custom of visiting an earth that is fertile with the decaying flesh and bones of individuals who once felt life pulse through them. That laughed and wept under the same sky that now breaks warm hues through my consciousness as it shines down upon our town's lake below, in its brilliance reflecting a world of impermanence.

Being there reminds of the ever changing nature of life. The only constant is change. I recently had a conversation where the purpose of life was discussed. It dawned on me that perhaps the primary purpose of life was not to necessarily love others or make a difference in the world but simply to live. To fully live. To meet each moment where it finds us and become completely immersed and saturated in the awareness of the  interconnectedness that Is. Like a wave that rises to its full height, crest reaching towards the heavens , poised at the pinnacle of each moment conscious awareness of the present allows us to experience God in all His transcendent glory. When that happens all of the other notions we have of what makes life meaningful, like serving and loving others, follow because we want to nurture the interconnectedness that we experience. A deep empathy arises within us and spills out covering the world around us in God's love.

Should we fear death? What is death and what happens when we die? These questions have undoubtedly been asked since the first homo sapien capable of consciousness initially became aware of death.  Perhaps this occurred after taking his first meal and feeling warm flesh grow cold and stiff, witnessing entrails staining emerald grass a ghastly crimson hue. A flash of revelation dawning on him that he was ending a life to preserve his own. Or maybe even from seeing the leaves begin to change color, turn an earthy shade and fall to disintegrate into the ground below. An intense fear must have arose the moment he realized that he would meet the same fate. From the earliest times religions have sprung up as a way for man to help make peace and reconciliation with his unavoidable demise.

I just finished viewing a documentary, "Flight from Death:The Quest for Immortality". It showed the results from many psychological studies that point towards the defensiveness individuals and groups have towards their versions of immortality which are generally embedded within their psyches through their religious beliefs. Myths and religious constructs, whether you believe them to be true or not, certainly have an affect in providing people with a sense of security and a deep sense of meaning to life which helps to make death less mysterious.

The beginning of the film was very interesting as it took the viewer from one culture's creation story to another. I found it fascinating. It then showed why tolerance towards other beliefs can be such a precarious goal.  When one opens themselves up to accepting another person's belief as valid, it begins to threaten their own belief of immortality which provides them with their sense of meaning and purpose. That threat can shatter the very sense of their  foundation of their existence. 

When the foundation which is the basis for their belief of immortality is threatened, defensive measures ensue, oftentimes violent, as the studies and historical accounts reveal. The film noted historically that all other murders by individuals, like serial killers,  were a drop in the bucket compared to the  amount of killing and violence linked toward the defense of people's beliefs in order to maintain their sense of security over their perceptions of immortality. To feel like their sense of immortality is valid and true, and thus their eternal fates sealed and secure, people have been known throughout time to attempt to either conform others with differing views to accept their own or eradicate them. How tragic and utterly unnecessary. 

In a book I'm reading, from Alan Watts he describes the anxiety and near obsession we have with death as being like that of a cat chasing it's tail. He chases his tail because he hasn't the notion of his whole self and sees his tail as a separate part of himself. If he could only realize that his head and tail were connected by his elongated and sleek torso he would realize that it were all one and lose his intense and rather distracting obsession with pursuing something he perceives is outside of himself and a completely futile pursuit. That is exactly the relationship life has with death.  It is a different side of the same coin. It is a natural part of our existence, for to have an eternal life would, really , be near torture. A soul needs its time to rest.

We differ from the rest of animals in that our consciousness allows us to perceive and project our own theories about what the future holds. This can lead to intense fears and anxieties. We see death around us and know that it lurks around the corner of our life's story, not knowing which page will be the last, the ending a mystery that has been sought to be answered throughout time. In The Book On the Taboo of Knowing Oneself, Watts describes the transition from life to death as something not to be feared but more as an awakening of sorts to be welcomed as a natural course of one's existence. When a person is imminently facing their inevitable end with refusal  and grandeur illusions of escaping it they are doing themselves a grave disservice in not preparing themselves to enter into a glorious awakening. Death should not be feared, but welcomed when it is time, as a natural course of things.

"In death we doff the persona, as actors take off their masks and costumes in the green room behind the scenes. And just as their friends come behind the stage to congratulate them on the performance, so one's own friends should gather at the deathbed to
help one out of one's mortal role, to applaud the show, and, even more,
to celebrate with champagne or sacraments (according to taste) the great awakening of death."
~ Alan Watts, The Book On The Taboo of Knowing Who You Are p. 33

You might not feel that you obsess about death. I certainly don't think I do. The psychologists and neuroscientists in the documentary brought up the point that even though we might not seem to be dwelling on death consciously we are continually exposed to the reality of death. It could be from the evening news as we listen to an act of violence resulting in murder being reported. It could be driving by a bad accident and the thought of life's fragility flashing through our minds. Even if we seem to readily enough dismiss these occurrences our subconsciousness has been proven not to. The documentary further revealed through studies that the reminder of death in our subconscious mingled with our own interpretation of immortality effects the way we perceive events and participate in them.  When death is subconsciously being thought of test subjects have been known to be less sensitive, even conjuring up malicious intentions, to those of different belief systems. 

We can't really control, as far as I know, what our subconsciousness is exposed to or thinks. We can, however, begin to reconsider our notions of death and thereby start to build a more secure and healthy foundation for the way we approach others in the world. Realizing that even if we dare to consider another person's version of immortality, that regardless of either their version or ours, death is a natural process, comes to us all, and is merely an extended journey of our eternal existence.

The tragedy that happens to so many is that they are obsessed with their own mortality, as well as other meandering thoughts, that they fail to live in the present moment which is the only real kind of living there is. So some people die without really living at all. Perhaps our biggest fear shouldn't necessarily be death but should, instead, be whether or not the life we had to live here on earth was squandered. When we cultivate a habit of mindfulness, of living in the present moment, the abundant miracles and wonders of life begin to rise up and make themselves known. We live life fully. Living in the present moment ushers one into experiencing a deep sense of interconnectedness with all that is, and helps to vanish much of the unease regarding the turning of the last page of one's final chapter.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the comments section. Thank you!

Lose Your Religion and Find God: Thomas Merton

"Let no one hope to find in contemplation  an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt". This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.

This false "faith" which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our "religion" is subjected to inexorable questioning. This torment is a kind of trial by fire in which we are compelled, by the very light of invisible truth which has reached us in the dark ray of contemplation, to examine, to doubt and finally to reject all prejudices and conventions that we have hitherto accepted as if they were dogmas. Hence is it clear that genuine contemplation is incompatible with complacency and with smug acceptance of prejudiced opinions. It is not mere passive acquiescence in the status quo, as some would like to believe-for this would reduce it to the level of spiritual anesthesia. Contemplation is no pain-killer. What a holocaust takes place in this steady burning to ashes of old worn-out words, cliches, slogans, rationalizations! The worst of it is that even apparently holy conceptions are consumed alone with the rest. It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is".

In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may not mercifully realize that, after all, this is a great gain, because "God is not a what", not a "thing". That is precisely one of the essential characteristics of contemplative experience. It sees that there is no "what" that can be called God. There is "no such thing" as God because God is neither a "what" nor a "thing" but a pure "Who". He is the "Thou" before whom our inmost "I" springs into awareness. He is the I Am before whom with our own most personal and inalienable voice we echo "I am."                    ~ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Merton is not suggesting losing reverence towards Scripture or faith in the God of the Bible but what he is saying here is to experience God we have to strip away from the layers of our consciousness preconceived notions that we have acquired and absorbed through our culture of who God "is".  As our souls open up to the light and love of God the awkward silhouettes of our illusions start to rise forth and we must have the courage to let them pass by so that we leave our minds and souls empty of them, thus making room for the true knowledge and experience of God. Our faith is to be active, perhaps interactive is a better word to use. We are to interact with God and not just be  passive, accepting truths and knowledge from others and not testing the validity of such claims by asking questions and experiencing the truth for ourselves.

It is not a comfortable process, in fact it can be quite painful and in some ways it can feel almost like we are losing our faith because we are stepping out of the complacency we have rested in for so long, cradled by the words and assumptions of man and plunging into the reality of God through our own experiences with Him, relying solely on the Spirit to guide us.

As he says, " It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is". "

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I seek with my whole heart to clear the clutter that rests buried deep beneath layers of subconscious at my soul's center and make my soul a wide and empty space, a space exclusively reserved for God to fill and dwell within it. What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them!

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for bringing us safely into a new day. We thank you for your love and compassion and for the wonders of creation that surround us. Every beautiful sunrise, every smile joyfully etched on a child's innocent face, every mountain gilded with glaciers and wildflowers sings out in praise to the God who creates and sustains all of life. Thank you!

Help us to open up our hearts to you more and more. May we see reality as it is, clear our minds and hearts so that we may experience you more fully and not be trapped and mired down in the illusions which distract us. Help guide us in our journey for we seek you above all else. We desire to delight in your glory. May we give you all glory, honor and praise.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.