|
* * *
There is that in the human that can surface, says Thomas Merton, in the audio recording Thomas Merton on Prayer, when one senses the inner call of the Sacred, yet digs in the heels with a defiant no, a fist, so to speak, in the face of God. This is, to me, the rare case. Merton sees doubt, or skepticism, as integral to faith, due to changes over time. In the past, he says, it was simpler to believe. In the defiance against faith, however, Merton says one is no longer facilitating between doubt and faith, which is an act of fidelity; instead, one is choosing disbelief over the Sacred that tugs at her or his heart, which is an act of bad faith. While this one has refused to worship the All, it worships itself, and its self-love becomes its curse, for life turned in on itself is death. And, as Jesus taught, and other wisdom teachers, the self that refuses to die to itself while alive lives a living death. Such is true, not for it is a religious truth, but for this is the way Nature works, thus intimating that religion, when true, is not unnatural but a corrective to our unnaturalness we have come to believe is natural. We are simply not shaped to live in adoration of ourselves; we are formed, like a bud, to blossom outward to commune with a larger Whole. Religion, when functioning well, invites this opening to the Whole and provides means to assist in doing so.
Of course, all this does not mean religion always is true to the purpose of religion. Nor does it mean all religion is the same. We cannot assume either that all religion leads to the same goal, which is another falsehood based on a widespread lack of in-depth knowledge of the vast array of religions. To say the end of Theravada Buddhism is the same end as Primitive Baptist is glaringly incorrect.
* * *
Can we be religious without being in a religion? Yes. In this sense, we are acting religiously. However, the danger is persons not prepared to be religious will try to create their hodge-podge spirituality to serve the ego. In contrast, religious systems, despite their failings, are designed to reign in the ego and deter from the shadow side of independent thought and action. Again, Genould: "Independent thinking can also be blind, when it seeks to ignore its own shadow areas." So, that I can create my version of spirituality can mean that the ego that likes its way is having its cake and eating it too. One can hear the ego, "I don't trust those religions, but I trust myself."
Oh! how like the self in its self-trust, while blind to the fact that the "I" itself does not see its set-up - to continue its miserable reign by asserting its facile, false self-empire. In trying to be independent, it ties the ties of self-servitude around itself, so perpetuating its hell, while, ironically, adding the fuel. This self-delusion is the fallenness Christianity speaks of, the dukkha, or suffering, Buddhists say shrouds the world. Both of these faiths are designed to remedy this failed project of self-glorification and its consequent misery.
And we infrequently hear, if ever, the word at the source of this self-defeating self-infatuation. This word is considered unfashionable to apply to the I: "pride." Religion, any wisdom path, is designed to humiliate the I, so turn the I from itself to the adoration of and surrender to its Source and love for others, even as a glimmer of the Sun turning to the Sun who birthed it and gives it Life. In praise of the One or another, be it human or animal or plant, do we not find our real being outside the narrow limits of our self to itself; the very act of genuine praise lifts us into the higher atmosphere of Life and Love and Beauty.
Continued... |
