So what, now what: The Golden Rule

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message. - Malcolm Muggeridge

The Blind Men & the Elephant - my posting for January 1, 2012 (qv) - is a parable that tells me that all religions are partial views of a truth. That truth, which seems to be at the core of virtually all religions, is the Golden Rule.

Here it is, in the words of the major religions of the world:

Christian: Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.

Unitarian: We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Native spirituality: We are as much alive as we keep the earth alive.

Zoroastrianism: Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself.

Jainism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated.

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary.

Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.

Baha’I: Lay not on any soul a load that you would not want to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.

Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.

Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

Confucianism: One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct… loving kindness. Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.

Taoism: Regard your neighbour’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss.

Sikhism: I am a stranger to no-one; and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed I am a friend to all.

Simple, isn't it! That's the message. All that remains to be decided is what you would like others to do to you, and do it to them. Which brings us to the second veil.

The other side of theology

Sometimes it's a long time between drinks in Erleichda. Since my last posting I've concluded stage one of a comprehensive personal study of theology and philosophy and reached certain conclusions.

I've whipped through Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and certain primal religions. You might notice that these are the major chapter headings in Huston Smith's The World's Religions.

I've considered the teachings of Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Kant, Mills, Nietzsche, the Dalai Lama, Camus, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Dawkins, Teehan and countless other experts.

This personal search has been going on for many years, probably most of my life, not just since my last posting, so my conclusions are not totally superficial.

Here are some of my conclusions.

When it comes to the question of the existence of God, there are only three answers - yes, no or maybe.

If the answer is yes, there may be one god or multiple gods, all or any of whom may or may not be interventional.

No matter what the answer is to the preceding questions, by any reasonable definition of God, he/she or it must be beyond the possibility of human understanding. Ayn Rand said that God is "a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive." I reject the reasoning of the atheists - I lack the arrogance which is a pre-requisite to atheism.

With no certainty possible, I have reached the position reached by the Ch'an Buddhists some 1500 years ago, when they decided that if they needed to renounce all desire to achieve Nirvana, then the last desire, the desire to achieve Nirvana, would be the first desire they would renounce.

The Ch'ans, in rejecting the desire to achieve Nirvana did not necessarily reject the concept of Nirvana. Having rejected the need for God, or any perception I might have of God, I am now able to open my mind to the possibility of God, which is an interesting position to find myself in. I can only state with conviction that I choose to believe that what I choose to believe is true.

Voltaire thought that " If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." I say "Not necessary, but very convenient".

If I define (as I do), God as being "What is", then I can move beyond the need to believe in any particular anthropomorphic projection of God, and understand that observation is revelation. In the words of Spinoza "The more we know of things, the more we know of God."

I'm back to what I posted on October 19 2011 (qv). There's just no point in theology, which is my excuse for not doing what needs to be done, endless quibbling about how many angels can dance on the point of a pin and similar mysteries.

On the other side of theology is the important question: "So what, now what?" That's the only question that matters. 

Here are a few opinions that I've discovered on my journey that are worth sharing. Being a Lennonist, I have to quote Lennon first. He said " I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

George Santayana: Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."  At the same time, when Bacon penned that sage epigram... he forgot to add that the God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men's minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

Leo Tolstoy: How important the concept of God is, and how instead of valuing what has been given us, we with light hearts spurn it because of absurdities that have been attached to it.

R. Buckminster Fuller: God is a verb, not a noun proper or improper.

Albert Einstein: That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Voltaire: To believe in God is impossible. Not to believe in Him is absurd.

And finally for now, from Art Hoppe: "If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?"

The First Veil and the Age of the Crowned and Conquering Child

Tom Robbins, describing the dropping of the first veil in the Dance of the Seven Veils, (see my posting for 7/1/12) writes “despite an often ostentatious masculine display that would indicate otherwise, the sexual drama… was largely, historically, directed by the female. That was particularly true among human beings, in which species the male has gone to ludicrous and often violent lengths to compensate for what struck the more insecure of men as an inferior sexual role.”

That makes it sound like a matter of gender. I prefer to see it as a matter of sexual energy, rather than role. Daoism refers to this energy as yin and  yang.

The Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions notes that Yin-yang refers to two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.

“Yin is conceived of as earth, female, dark, passive and absorbing… Yang is conceived of as heaven, male, light, active and penetrating… They both proceed from the Supreme Ultimate (T’ai-Chi).”

In his translation of the Tao Te Ching, Arthur Waley writes: “Yin and yang are categories, corresponding to male and female, weak and strong, dark and light… At the same time they are… quite definitely forces; for yin is the vital-energy (ch’i, the life-breath of Earth, just as yang is the life-breath of Heaven)… They are two independent and complementary facets of existence, and the aim of yin-yang philosophers [is] the attainment in human life of perfect balance between the two principles.”

Aleister Crowley was known as the most evil man in the world, and has few admirers among feminists. However he did have at least one interesting idea about relationships between the sexes. Crowley believed that there have been two ages in human progress, and that we are now entering a third. Here’s an oversimplification of his belief:

The first was the Age of the Great Goddess, when humans were ignorant of sex and birth, and life seemed to come from the woman alone. This was an age of worship of the feminine.

The second was the Age of Osiris, in which we realized that the man had a hand in creating life – women brought forth life, but life came from the man. Men became the ruling force. That’s where we are now, and it’s time to move on.

In the third age, the Age of the Crowned and Conquering Child, the ideas of the first two ages will be reconciled and transcended. Just as the child is the product of both parents, and leaves home to start a new life, so humans can move on to a life in which the masculine and feminine can work together in a mutually respectful way.

I like that idea. I choose to believe that we can achieve balance between the two principles, and this is the aim of Sh’am Buddhism.

The illusion cast aside by the dropping of the first veil is that life is about any sort of struggle between yin and yang. Or that yin is female and yang is male.

Of course, as Robbins concludes, we spend a lot of time and money suppressing the sensuality of the Great Mother, “who smiled upon all manner of sexual expression, including that which moderns were to label ‘promiscuous’ and ‘pornographic’… however… eventually every manner of carnal play [will] go back into full production, for like it or not… that was the way of her world”.

The shoulders of giants

Alain de Botton (The Consolation of Philosophy) suggests that clever people should get their ideas from people even cleverer than they are. “They should spend their time quoting and producing commentaries about great authorities who occupy the upper rungs of the tree of knowledge.”

This is especially so “when they express our very own thoughts but with a clarity and psychological accuracy we cannot match… What is shy and confused in us is succinctly and elegantly phrased in them… our borrowings from them indicating where we find a piece of ourselves, a sentence or two built of the very substance of which our minds are made”.

Of course, we can carry it too far. We may be led “to dismiss aspects of our lives if there is no printed testimony”.

Montaigne knew such a person. “Whenever I ask [him] to tell me what he knows about something, he wants to show me a book: he would not venture to tell me that he had scabs on his arse without studying his lexicon to find out the meanings of scab and arse”.

I sympathise with that acquaintance of the great philosopher. I do it all the time, I’m doing it now.

Of course, it’s not absolutely necessary that there be anything new under the sun.

The Dance of the Seven Veils

In Skinny Legs and All Tom Robbins uses the Dance of the Seven Veils as an analogy for the stripping away of the illusions that come between us and reality.

Here’s the scene: “As her bare feet slapped the floor in time to polyrhythms more ancient than Petra, Salome whirled and dropped and whirled again… pushing and contracting her pelvis, as if straining to expel a child. Her eyes were wide and hot, and the purple scarves swirled all about her. She danced thusly for close to twenty minutes before the first veil fell.”

Much to the surprise of her audience this did not reveal her face, it revealed her loins.

The first veil reveals the sexuality of the earth – the biological, feminine, fecund rawness of life. Life is a sexual drama, and a struggle between the feminine and the masculine. Robbins sees the natural as “The Great Goddess”, which is labeled “promiscuous” and “pornographic”, especially by a male patriarchy in an attempt to compensate for what is perceived to be an inferior sexual role.

The second veil drops, revealing Salome’s waist and belly. It’s a reminder of the interdependence of all of nature – plants, animals, the very earth itself. Humanity cannot exist apart from nature.

The third veil drops and reveals her neck and shoulders. The idea that we can solve our problems politically is revealed as an illusion – our problems are philosophical, not political. Political activism is superficially attractive, seductive because it offers the illusion that we can improve society without the inconvenience of transforming ourselves.

The fourth veil has concealed Salome’s arms – the message is that religion is not an adequate response to the divine. Since it bears false witness, religion is blasphemy, and when allied with politics it becomes dangerous and repressive.

The fifth veil drops and reveals the dancer’s ankles. This reveals the illusion of money – ‘insufficient funds’ is an illusion, security is a form of paralysis.

The sixth veil uncovers Salome’s breasts, and reveals the illusion that we can sacrifice the present to the future. Those who tie their future to dreams of an afterlife have no life to enjoy ‘after’.

The seventh and final veil reveals Salome’s face, and leaves her naked. The illusion of the seventh veil is that you can get somebody else to do it for you. You alone are responsible.

This is the bottom line. The mind of humanity is ultimately one mind, but you alone have to establish your own personal, unique, direct relationship with reality, the universe and the Divine.

Everything in your life is there because you chose it, and you chose it out of love and wisdom for yourself.

The World's Religions

In his book The World’s Religions, Huston Smith writes: “We shall try to describe states of consciousness that words can only hint at. We shall use logic to try to corner insights that laugh at our attempt. And ultimately, we shall fail; being ourselves of a different cast of mind, we shall never quite understand the religions that are not our own. But if we take these religions seriously, we need not fail miserably. And to take them seriously we need do only two things. First, we need to see their adherents as men and women who faced problems much like our own. And second, we must rid our minds of all preconceptions that would dull our sensitivity or alertness to fresh insights. If we lay aside our preconceptions about these religions, seeing each as forged by people who were struggling to see something that would give help and meaning to their lives; and if we then try without prejudice to see ourselves what they saw – if we do these things, the veil that separates us from them can turn to gauze.”

In choosing to believe that all the world’s religions are in my life because I choose them to be, I choose Huston Smith’s words to express precisely my belief.

If there is anything original in Sh’am Buddhism it’s accidental. Serendipitous, perhaps. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Seven Blind Men

John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) wrote The Blind Men and the Elephant, a poem which tells of six blind men experiencing an elephant. I have taken the liberty of adding a seventh blind man, for reasons that will hopefully become clear.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Seven men of Hindustan, to learning much inclined,
Went to see the Elephant (though all of them were blind)
That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the Elephant and happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side at once began to brawl:
"Bless me, it seems the Elephant is very like a wall".

The second, feeling of his tusk, cried, "Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp? This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear".

The third approached the animal, and happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, then boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant is very like a snake."

The Fourth reached out an eager hand, and felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most; deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant is very like a rope!"

The Seventh swore that he could see, he never would be led.

He found no elephant at all, and this is what he said:

“It’s clear to me the elephant lives only in your head!”

And so these men of Hindustan disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right and all were in the wrong.

So oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant not one of them has seen!

As a Sh’am Buddhist, I choose to believe that everything in my life is there because I chose it, which obviously means that I have chosen, to be in my life, all the theories of the universe held by all philosophers, both ancient and modern. That doesn’t mean that I choose to believe them. Most of them seem fairly confident that they are revealing the whole truth, but the resulting conflict reveals the truth.

When people insist that theirs is the whole truth, and the only truth, they tend to adopt doctrines and dogma to preserve their stand, and thus religions are formed. 

As Tom Robbins so aptly puts it “A longing for the Divine is intrinsic in Homo sapiens... We approach the Divine by enlarging our souls and lighting up our brains. To expedite those two things may be the mission of our existence.” 

People on such a mission are not amenable to control. Politics is the science of control, hence the attraction of organised religion to politicians, and the attempt to confine people within prisons “constructed of ignorance and superstition, held together with fear... [and] called ‘synagogues’or ‘churches’or ‘mosques’”.

“If you experience it, it’s the truth. The same thing believed is a lie.” (Werner Erhard).

Sh’am Buddhists are the blind leading the blind. We understand that when we take a position we are quite likely to be partly right but completely wrong. So we search for common ground rather than differences, or just for insights that are useful. Gradually a picture of the elephant starts to emerge from the mist.