Edward's Reply to "God?"

Edward originally posted this as a comment under my post, but considering its girth I told him I'd put it on the big stage for all to see:

Alright, I am going to have to utilize some of the Eastern spiritual principles I was talking about in my last comment here, because my fucking computer just deleted a very, very long comment that I was writing in response to this and was almost done with. I am trying to hard not to fucking lose myself in anger here. WHY THE FUCK IS THE MOUSEPAD SO MOTHERFUCKING SENSITIVE AND WHY IS IT ALWAYS CLICKING OUT OF PAGES OR MAKING ME CUT AND PASTE INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY FUCKING DOCUMENT?

Alright, now that that is off my shoulders, let me try to recreate what I was saying, although there is always that sense that you are doing a worse job, that you can't quite recapture the magic--this reminds me of Colderidge's great unfinished poem "Kubla Kahn," which came to him from an opium dream, and in the writing of it he was interrupted by a visitor who caused him to lose his train of thought, rendering the poem incomplete, one of the greatest could-of's in literary history. Speaking of Coleridge, he reminds me a lot of me. Filled to the brim with absurdly ambitious ideas about what he would create in his art, obsessed with literary history, he was also a good-for-nothing cursed by drug addiction and laziness. He died at a young age, and despite having one of the greatest minds in Western intellectual history, he was never able to complete almost anything he set out to accomplish.

Anywho...as to my personal beliefs, I think I tend to ally myself with what Daniel is talking about in his final paragraph here. I find the notion that any sort of higher power resides in the interconnectedness of all creatures and all things, instead of in a human-like, conscious entity, to be far more compelling. I suppose in that sense, I believe a lot more in the things taught to us by the Eastern faiths than by the Western ones. I think we could all stand to learn a lot from all of the world's faiths, however.

I used to be a lot more violently anti-religious then I am now. I was one of the many pseudo-intellctual atheists out there. I was full of anger and disgust with what I saw as the unintelligent masses flocking towards the safety of Christianity. I am a lot more accpeting of others' faiths now then I used to be, though. Personally I think it is more helpful to see God as being in all things and in all creatures then to see him as some sort of distant being. I don't believe in a higher power that dictates morality and decides the fate of our afterlives. Perhaps some religious people might find my choice of the world "helpful" offensive, but I see religion as being very pragmatic. I have heard of many studies that say that those with faith are much happier then those without it, and I believe this to be true. As I said before, I think we could all do to learn lessons of wisdom from all of the faiths out there. I think religious wars are silly and childish, since religions share so much more then they lack.

I think our culture especially would be a great deal better if it learned some lessons from the East. If all of us just learned to meditate and to slow down and savor the moment and to respect all life, we would actually begin to feel a sense of togetherness and of beauty, drawing us out of our shells and out from behind our computer/cell phone/TV screens, to experience the beauty that surrounds us and binds us and lays dormant within us, waiting to come out. I would really like to start meditating and practicing yoga once I move out to an area where yoga lessons are provided. It's interesting that in India yoga means so much more then the flexiblity exercises that we associate with the word. It is a total plan of a variety of activities and exercises designed to draw us closer to the Godhead, or Brahmin.

I think in the vast wealth of religious texts from around the world lies a collective wisdom of thousands of years' worth of experience and deep thinking that we could all stand to learn from. May I recommend the introductory book about the world's religions entitled (handily) "The World's Religions," by Dr. Huston Smith. It is an excellent book to familiarize yourself with all of the major faiths out there. It is not a cut-and-dry book that merely writes down the habits and customs and beliefs of the major religions. After each chapter about a particular faith, you really feel like you know the "core" of that faith, like you know the people who practice it, and personally, after every chapter I read, I wanted to convert to that religion. But that is the thing: we can learn from ALL these religions. To me, you don't have to just arbitrarily choose one and then put all your chips in with that faith. That seems rather naive and immature. There is so much to learn from each faith, just like there is so much to learn from all cultures of the world.

I cannot wait to start reading the Bible, but after that I want to try to read all of the major religious documents in the world, from the I-Ching to the Upanishads to the Koran to the Bhagavad Gita to the Analects of Confucius. I recommend that everyone read as many religious and philosophical texts as they can. Practicing spirituality, whether it is by going into nature and becoming connected to the ancient Mother which people have felt themselves drawn to for millenia or through meditation or through visiting the local places of worship for a religion that you are unfamiliar with or through reading and contemplating religious textings, all of these things help broaden a part of your mind that we otherwise neglect in this increasingly secular society that seems to be throwing away the wisdom of its forefathers in the face of the easy pleasures of technology and materialism.

Here is a quote about both religion and music--I see both things in the same light, just as I see all things of beauty in this world: "There is a philosophy which says that in order to feel God, you must begin to believe in Him, just as in order to feel the warmth of a stove, you must come close to it. This is also true with music. In order to feel its warmth, you must come close to it, and open your heart to it. Sometimes this can be awfully hard work....But music is not so aggressive that it will come through to you without your help. In order to feel its warmth and beauty, you have to shed your emotional insulation, just as if it were a coat, and prepare to listen with your heart. The key to finding happiness in music and to understanding it is not knowledge, because the music itself will teach you whatever you need to know. The key is feeling."

This is how I feel about everything. You have to be open and receptive to ALL things in life. I used to have an attitude that was negative, I guess is the easiest way to put it. I still see plenty of others around me that share that attitude. You cannot wait for the world to happen to you--you have to grab the experiences around you and EXPERIENCE them, instead of just letting things happen to you. I admit I still have a hard time with this, but time is fleeting and we must begin to live the beautiful life now. What Daniel quotes is correct: "When I think I'm cool, then all of a sudden I'm cool." It is the feeling that matters; it is your attitude, and we should try to accept the faiths of all others and to see the beauty and truth in each religion out there. While some things we may see as ridiculous, try to find the beauty in these religons. Get what you like out of each one and put that to use in your everyday life.

And I also agree with Daniel that it's better to be agnostic then atheistic. I just see it as being the only logical answer personally. I will never have proof that God definitely doesn't exist, so how could I be an atheist? But then again, we are pretty much agnostic about ALL things. But that is a question for philsophy: as Descartes says, "I think, therefore I am," and to him, that was the only thing that could be certain. Our senses can play tricks on us, so our mind is the only thing that we can trust in.

But in the mean time, let us all try to find beauty in all things and to be kind and loving to others. I think for me personally, I like to draw the sense of interconnectedness of all things and the idea that we should remain forever in the moment from Eastern religions, and from Christianity and Islam, to draw out the idea of being kind and loving to others, especially those who need it most.

--Edward