This weekend I was giving a pep-talk to my son, who was feeling down because of a certain class at college. I did my best to talk from what I believed, telling him of the parable of the wheat harvesters who were all paid the same, regardless of when they came to work: 'it is not for social approval or personal aggrandizement or even simply for sustenance that we should work, for work is not what it is about - it is about realizing God in all things - and that is the ultimate and only truly worthwhile reward.' Of course he sighed when I brought out scripture, and I don't blame him. Even worse, though, was my own realization as I talked that I didn't really mean it - that I wanted him to be successful in society's eyes, to make me proud. So, in honesty, I had to add, "don't even work for my approval. I'm too steamed in middle class American values. Do it for the ultimate cause."
To my surprise, he understood, but this showed to me how immersed I am in social behavior, regardless of theological reasoning. And so I also understood why he should sigh at the mention of scripture, and why anyone who's "with it" avoids it all together. It is because 'it,' the wisdom of the holy people, is seen as a moralizing rebuke of our own desires. Who, we want say, dares tell us what is wrong and right? We are adults and are free to run our own lives. Why listen to some ancient on antiquated rules of behavior?
I agree, if that were the case - except that, at the bottom, what the holy people are telling us is not what we usually think. It is not empty moralizing, or spanking us for bad thoughts and deeds. We only see it that way because we are so lost in our way of life, mistaking the vision of Truth for another reality that is mostly within our own limited concepts. In Christianity, it is easy to see why - God is seen as the Father in the Jewish tradition, and thus the condemning overlord of our behavior. Jesus had, for his time, no other choice but to speak through that template, so that people of his time could understand at least something . The Eastern mystics had no such tradition, and talked of "reality" much more as it really is - with God being equated to a void. However, their weakness is just as great as Christianity's, for as the Christians are hampered by the vision of God as a large human, those in the east are more often than not left in confusion, thrown like the Hindus to create gods out of animals and natural forces. We cannot conceive of God, so what is a wise person to do?
So it is that morality, in what it is really about, is very difficult to grasp. No, it is not about being a good little boy or girl, where the stern father comes to give a sad look or spanking when we have strayed. Rather, morality - what we take take to be laws of behavior, like not hitting one's little brother or sister - is about what Truth is about. It, the set of moral strictures conveyed by the holy, is really an attempt by the wise to get it through our heads that what we think the world is all about is dead wrong. It is not about being nice, but changing our distorted view of reality to coincide with Truth - and in Truth, suffering will end. Thus Jesus speaks in parables, challenging the minds of those who have studied them for two thousands years. And the eastern mystics? For most of us, we hear of cosmic duality and the void and give up in exasperation.
However, it must be the wise who are most exasperated. How can they break through our mirage of reality? How can they reach us?
To say that we must treat others as we treat ourselves, for instance, is giving us notice that we are all tied to each other as closely as our own skin. We do not see it that way because of our "fallen" perspective, but this is Truth. To treat others as oneself is to teach us, not to be nice, but to show the way to Reality. We are our brothers and sisters. See this and not only will strife end, but we will be seeing Reality, things as they really are beyond our social and perhaps biological blinders.
What about Karma and reincarnation? On the face of it, it looks like divine retribution: rape and ye shall return to be raped. But that's not the point, either; instead it means the same thing as the Christian Golden Rule - our neighbors are ourselves. Rape another and we are raping ourselves - that is, doing damage to ourselves as well. Reincarnation means that we have not realized this truth, and will continue in this blind alley of human thought for as long as we hold that people are separate and unequal. That it goes on for all eternity until the realization is made, I don't know. Maybe at death we do finally see the light, and forever. But in what we call life, suffering will continue as long as we do not see the Truth.
When we Catholics confess our sins, it is as though we were pleading to a father for forgiveness - in fact, that is what we are told. But we are not being forgiven, as humans understand it; rather, we are being handed the platform, the way out of our egotism through humility - and from humility, we might experience union, or the Reality behind our divisive reality.
And so on, and even as I try to explain what has come to me through readings, I have a very difficult time making the shift. As I found while talking to my son, I, too, am very much a part of the social reality, no matter my intellectual thoughts. It is an impossibly tough bind to get out of, as the basis for our thinking about reality forms the false reality of our total thoughts, as confusing as that might seem (called a tautology in philosophy. Once you accept a certain premise as the basis of reality, all other things necessarily fall into place behind it. Truth, that which is behind the premise, is then either distorted to fit the premise or totally ignored, for lack of consistency, or reference). The death of Jesus, for instance, is not a divine sign that we are evil, but that we must kill the very premise or premises that give us our false reality. (Whether Jesus in his holy person actually helps us in the end to do this, I don't know - that is beyond my grasp of ultimate Reality, but must rather become a fact in faith). The reason we must do so, to 'kill' our current reality, is not just for Truth's sake, although that would be enough; but to, as the Buddha put it, end suffering. And so it would, at least as far as we understand it now.
Why did I start this on a Monday? We can be fools in more ways than one, but the ideas here have tantalized me for months. There is Truth somewhere in there. Trouble is, it is so diffuculy to actualize in our current reality continuum. Maybe that takes something more than intellect, something that we can only pray for. FK
To my surprise, he understood, but this showed to me how immersed I am in social behavior, regardless of theological reasoning. And so I also understood why he should sigh at the mention of scripture, and why anyone who's "with it" avoids it all together. It is because 'it,' the wisdom of the holy people, is seen as a moralizing rebuke of our own desires. Who, we want say, dares tell us what is wrong and right? We are adults and are free to run our own lives. Why listen to some ancient on antiquated rules of behavior?
I agree, if that were the case - except that, at the bottom, what the holy people are telling us is not what we usually think. It is not empty moralizing, or spanking us for bad thoughts and deeds. We only see it that way because we are so lost in our way of life, mistaking the vision of Truth for another reality that is mostly within our own limited concepts. In Christianity, it is easy to see why - God is seen as the Father in the Jewish tradition, and thus the condemning overlord of our behavior. Jesus had, for his time, no other choice but to speak through that template, so that people of his time could understand at least something . The Eastern mystics had no such tradition, and talked of "reality" much more as it really is - with God being equated to a void. However, their weakness is just as great as Christianity's, for as the Christians are hampered by the vision of God as a large human, those in the east are more often than not left in confusion, thrown like the Hindus to create gods out of animals and natural forces. We cannot conceive of God, so what is a wise person to do?
So it is that morality, in what it is really about, is very difficult to grasp. No, it is not about being a good little boy or girl, where the stern father comes to give a sad look or spanking when we have strayed. Rather, morality - what we take take to be laws of behavior, like not hitting one's little brother or sister - is about what Truth is about. It, the set of moral strictures conveyed by the holy, is really an attempt by the wise to get it through our heads that what we think the world is all about is dead wrong. It is not about being nice, but changing our distorted view of reality to coincide with Truth - and in Truth, suffering will end. Thus Jesus speaks in parables, challenging the minds of those who have studied them for two thousands years. And the eastern mystics? For most of us, we hear of cosmic duality and the void and give up in exasperation.
However, it must be the wise who are most exasperated. How can they break through our mirage of reality? How can they reach us?
To say that we must treat others as we treat ourselves, for instance, is giving us notice that we are all tied to each other as closely as our own skin. We do not see it that way because of our "fallen" perspective, but this is Truth. To treat others as oneself is to teach us, not to be nice, but to show the way to Reality. We are our brothers and sisters. See this and not only will strife end, but we will be seeing Reality, things as they really are beyond our social and perhaps biological blinders.
What about Karma and reincarnation? On the face of it, it looks like divine retribution: rape and ye shall return to be raped. But that's not the point, either; instead it means the same thing as the Christian Golden Rule - our neighbors are ourselves. Rape another and we are raping ourselves - that is, doing damage to ourselves as well. Reincarnation means that we have not realized this truth, and will continue in this blind alley of human thought for as long as we hold that people are separate and unequal. That it goes on for all eternity until the realization is made, I don't know. Maybe at death we do finally see the light, and forever. But in what we call life, suffering will continue as long as we do not see the Truth.
When we Catholics confess our sins, it is as though we were pleading to a father for forgiveness - in fact, that is what we are told. But we are not being forgiven, as humans understand it; rather, we are being handed the platform, the way out of our egotism through humility - and from humility, we might experience union, or the Reality behind our divisive reality.
And so on, and even as I try to explain what has come to me through readings, I have a very difficult time making the shift. As I found while talking to my son, I, too, am very much a part of the social reality, no matter my intellectual thoughts. It is an impossibly tough bind to get out of, as the basis for our thinking about reality forms the false reality of our total thoughts, as confusing as that might seem (called a tautology in philosophy. Once you accept a certain premise as the basis of reality, all other things necessarily fall into place behind it. Truth, that which is behind the premise, is then either distorted to fit the premise or totally ignored, for lack of consistency, or reference). The death of Jesus, for instance, is not a divine sign that we are evil, but that we must kill the very premise or premises that give us our false reality. (Whether Jesus in his holy person actually helps us in the end to do this, I don't know - that is beyond my grasp of ultimate Reality, but must rather become a fact in faith). The reason we must do so, to 'kill' our current reality, is not just for Truth's sake, although that would be enough; but to, as the Buddha put it, end suffering. And so it would, at least as far as we understand it now.
Why did I start this on a Monday? We can be fools in more ways than one, but the ideas here have tantalized me for months. There is Truth somewhere in there. Trouble is, it is so diffuculy to actualize in our current reality continuum. Maybe that takes something more than intellect, something that we can only pray for. FK
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