Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Merry Christmas from LITD
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:5
One of the big impetuses of the quest among many Americans over the last 45 or so years to find some spiritual path unfettered by tradition (Western tradition, anyway) was the yearning for something authentically "mystical." The trajectory of this quest is rather embarrassing to recount. It began on a serious enough tone. Guys like Alan Watts, who was an ordained Episcopalian priest, sincerely sought to grasp the essence of Buddhist doctrine. He was followed by the likes of Leary and Alpert, who likewise poured over ancient Eastern texts in search of their core wisdom. But, even in this early stage of the quest I speak of, let us remember that good old partying was an element of the activity. Girls and booze and hip music. Let's be clear that both Watts and Leary were alcoholics. And, by the early seventies, the quest was no longer so serious, devolving into wince-inducing juvenile flirtation with "channeled entities" and preoccupations with diet and exotic forms of relaxation and exercise, not to mention chaotic personal relationships resulting from disregard for bonds among the people so engaged.
I recount, with one-paragraph brevity, the arc of this phenomenon because it really has permeated our culture quite thoroughly. Look at your Facebook newsfeed this morning. Unless all your friends are Christians, you will see postings of the "Coexist" poster, well-wishes for a happy day "no matter what you believe," and maybe even a greeting related to that fraud among holidays, Kwanzaa.
It's all led to much disillusionment. As one after another "spiritual path" has not panned out, people have baled and become agnostics who feel they don't have much time to consider spiritual questions at all.
The irony is that the most mystical event in all of human history is at the core of the Christianity to which most Americans were exposed in their childhoods. How much more mystical can you get than a moment at which there was a joining of the realm in which things are transitory, in which things rise and fall, and live and die, with the realm in which things are eternal and not subject to decay or defilement? It happened. It happened when the power of the Highest overshadowed a Jewish girl at her prayers and conceived in her a son, made of cells and organs but also a Spirit that was not bound by the laws governing them - because that Spirit had authored those very laws.
Heaven and earth, nirvana and sangsara, the temporal and the eternal - we have proof that they are one. He overcame the world - by loving it. He invites us to use his greatest gift to us, our free will, to love it likewise, to give up our defilement of it. If we can do this, its natural beauty is restored, and all creation exalts its unmistakable divinity.
Shortly before his death, Johnny Cash described himself as a "C minus Christian." That probably describes me, and may even be aiming a bit high. In any event, as far as your humble correspondent has thought this through - and it's been on my own, since, at present, I'm not a steady church-goer - this seems to be what today is all about.
Merry Christmas.
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Thank God for our spiritual seekers. Is that a knock on alcoholics? Aldous Huxley called Bill Wilson who founded AA "the greatest social architect of the 20th Century." Of course, with his fooling around with hallucinogens, Huxley would have been jail fodder from Nixon on. I once spoke personally with Kenneth Cohen, long-time pupil of Watts and author of The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy and he denied Watts was an alcoholic, although reports are that he was. He said he drank a lot of wine and smoked cigars which lead to his death in his late 50s but it was in no way as sloppy a death as Kerouac's. People like Kerouac are late stage alcoholics and compelled to drink. He was Catholic and patriotic unto the end. You do injustice to these men when you appear to write them off as somehow sadly lacking in morality.
ReplyDeleteAnd meditation is as alive and vibrant as it ever was, during its multi-millennia history. Now science is proving it more than efficacious for a multitude of human frailties. Speaking of science, it has done much to correct past falsities. Yes, we are more secular as a human race than ever before in human history. Thanks or no thanks to science and modern technology. But seekers still seek. To each his or her own self be true.
ReplyDeleteBut they were posing as something else. Why were they not candid with us in their lectures and writings during their lifetimes? And, as I say, horniness was [part of the mix as well. Huxley, too. His wife used to line up mistresses for him.
ReplyDeleteI, like many who wasted time on all that hippie hoo-ha, thought those guys were just about meditating and ringing the little bell. It was a bamboozle job, a house built on a foundation of sand that could not withstand the strong winds.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that they were posing as something else. Never heard that Huxley story. But, so what?
ReplyDeleteAll of those mentioned wrote about alcohol and its influence on their lives.
ReplyDeleteThe overall point of my post was that over the last 50 years America has lost the collective maturity to look at actual Truth and instead has sought balms and distractions designed to sugar-coat the reality of sin.
ReplyDeleteForgive me of little faith but I have a hard time with virgin births, and angels. Science has a hard time with them too. I missed the word sin in your post. I should have known. Alcholism is indeed still viewed as a sin by many.
ReplyDeleteYou are trying to make alcoholism the focal point of the post. It was merely one factor employed to bolster that which was my point.
ReplyDeleteNot really, you appear to damn meditation too, when in fact it is practiced more often by more people than ever who are finding it a way to serenity and awareness amidst the exhaustion and chaos of modern life. Channeled entities are sought by a tiny fraction of the seekers amongst us. You are aware, however, of the numerous Catholic mystics who have supposedly channeled Christ and the Virgin, if they have not actually seen them, though a few claim they have. Neuroscientists are still investigating these claims. Can you identify a few of these so-called exotic forms of meditation and exercise you mention and clue me in on the sinfulness of same? Seems to me that any transcendence would be preferable to that induced by demon rum. Of course none of those mentioned was likely without sin when it came to the sexual realm. What's up with that virgin birth? Does God want to demonstrate how lowly we are that he cannot even come amongst us the natural way? You do realize that numerous virgin birth "myths" in other traditions have been uncovered since the Age of Reason.
ReplyDeleteBut none of this is the point. I thought you'd probably have some other-virgin-birth-type accounts handy. I ask you this: Why did those traditions not take hold the way Christianity did?
ReplyDeleteChristianity has its definite benefits, belief in a personal God which works, it really works. I'd like to be able to say it was the Holy Spirit. But it was often spread by sword (or more the fear thereof) too.
ReplyDelete"Christianity was still a small minority religion even in the time of Constantine. And beginning with his conversion, force was used to support it: already in his reign pagan temples were robbed of their wealth by force, being given to Christian churches instead, while by the end of the same century paganism was actually outlawed, and over subsequent centuries gruesome displays of force were used to terrify the disobedient into compliance. Likewise, no one reading the history of the Christianization of the Americas can possibly believe "force was the exception, not the rule." The history of the European Middle Ages is likewise just as bloody (simply read The Carolingian Chronicles for the Christians' own account of what they did). Indeed, actual force was often not necessary precisely because the threat of it was enough."
Read more at http://www.amazon.com/Did-Christianity-spread-sword/forum/Fx2WKAUOBUGP6S9/Tx25HQ7SOXCRSAS/1?asin=1420802933
It's not a matter of it "having benefits." It is either the truth or it's not.
ReplyDeleteMany continue to wrestle with whether it's truth or not.
ReplyDeleteDo we really need a virgin birth, a resurrection, the miracles even? And is sincere and honest doubt a sin, nay tantamount to a denial of Christianity?
ReplyDeleteReal doubt, of the type experienced by Mother Teresa, Malcolm Muggeridge, St. John of the Cross, has an unmistakable dignity to it. The wholesale flight into clearly juvenile attempts at "spiritual quest" does not.
ReplyDeleteOK, then I will infer that few humans are qualified to doubt in your opinion. I still think you ignorantly dismiss alcoholism as sin and meditation as basically worthless and that all one needs to do is surrender to believe the unbelievable about Christianity and if they don't have anything to add to it they must simply accept. It's just not my read on it all, that's all. Be well and go forth to love and serve the Lord.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably taken out of context so we will need to turn to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for elucidation
ReplyDelete"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person's life. God is in everyone's life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else - God is in this person's life. You can - you must - try to seek God in every human life.” Pope Francis I
Well, yes. Exactly so. Seek God. Don't gaze at your navel.
ReplyDeleteThe navel is the source of bodily energy or chi emanating from the tan tien, if you will. The current il Papa actually condeded that meditation might bring one to a closer understanding of God (but not Jesus), I find that pretty trippy (without the drugs).
ReplyDeleteIn his homily on the feast of St. Thomas, the pope said people have tried a number of ways to experience the living Christ and none is as effective and direct as encountering him through "his wounds. There's no other way."
"A refresher course" is useless for learning how to encounter the living God; all it takes is "getting out onto the street," the pope said, according to a report by Vatican Radio.
"In the history of the church, there have been some mistakes made on the path toward God," Pope Francis said. Some have believed God could be found through meditation alone or by trying to "reach higher through meditation. That's dangerous! How many are lost on that path and never get there."
Perhaps they acquire greater knowledge or understanding of God, he said, "but not of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
Read more at http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1302895.htm
Xtra, Xtra, This Just Posted on Facebook by the Dalai Lama!
DeleteDalai Lama
I feel optimistic about the future because humanity seems to be growing more mature; scientists are paying more attention to our inner values, to the study of mind and the emotions. There is a clear desire for peace and concern for the environment.
Like · · Share · 47,3781,1678,679 · about an hour ago ·
He'd fit right in at a Unitarian-Universalist coffee hour.
ReplyDeleteWatts was far from "disillusioned", and this post is flawed from the very first sentence (BQ's, not John's). Over time, I have found that "maturity" lies less in my certainty of knowing the "Truth", but rather in accepting that wisdom is available everywhere.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is the pursuit itself that misleads us. That certainly seems to be the part that offends you most -- this "juvenile" quest to find something beyond the tale of the New Testament.
For myself, I am intrigued by the philosophy and wisdom of Buddhism. But my objective is to abandon the pursuit, and allow whatever Truth there is for me to find me awake and open.
Well, that's laudable. But stay serious about your search.
ReplyDeleteThis is blasphemy but since you stress the power of the Highest overshadowed a Jewish girl at her prayers and conceived in her a son, made of cells and organs but also a Spirit that was not bound by the laws governing them - because that Spirit had authored those very laws, reminds me, this all reminds me of a joke that goes:
ReplyDeleteHow did they know Jesus was Jewish?
Because he lived at home until he was thirty, he went into his
father's business, his mother thought he was God -- and he
thought his mother was a virgin.