If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search; it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it! Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God, is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do! Or we turn to look at our shadow, and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose; which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty…and in all its flaws. And in so doing better understand the world around us.
This sounds very, very wise. It's not. This is what I call a "middler's answer." It's the type of wisdom that those that fall between the faithful and the faithless love. These answers generally take one of these forms:
The search for god is god. (as above)
We are a part of the universe / god attempting to understand itself.
The realization that we are not god is god.
We are all one.
Enlightenment is the end of the search for enlightenment.
Etc. If it's punchy and tautological, odds are it belongs in the middling category. All too often, these concepts are taken from one of the eastern religions (Buddhism being the most heavily borrowed from) without the context of the rest of the faith. A lot of Americans are willing to spout off the Essence of Oneness, while omitting the Path of the Bhodisattva. (Don't worry if you don't know what that means, that's kind of the point -- Wiki has some great articles on Buddhism).
What's important here is that these seem like answers. They sound as though they settle the question of where man fits in the universe very tidily, without leaving around some absent deity. They don't settle anything. What they do is take a very positive concept and rephrase it away as something mystical or spiritual.
Hidden in the examples listed above is one of the great fundamental truths of existence. It is every person's duty to find what truth they can. When you get down to it, this is all we have. We are born with our faculties and our instincts, and nothing else. Everything we learn about the universe stems then from our attempts to understand it. This is the crux of philosophy, science, and religion. If mankind has a universal feature, it is that we all must search for meaning, in some form. The middler's answers play to this fact. We are all looking for truth, and these ideas seem to provide it.
But they don't . The middler's answers are just that: answers, not wisdom. Read again the quote above from the Dalai Lama. What has he said other than, "keep looking," in so many words? So do keep looking, that's all we've got. Please don't think this Starbucks-cup "wisdom" will actually teach you anything.
Now onto my super-secret second point of this article. It really, really irritates me the extent to which westerners idealize the eastern faiths (specifically Buddhism, Shinto, and Hinduism -- for some reason the Jainists, Sikhs, etc. don't get the same treatment). From t-shirts to making your blog posts sound more impressive, eastern wisdom is everywhere. Consider these two statements:
"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly."
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."
They are both relatively wise statements, and express a good point eloquently -- life is about living. Which would you put up as a status message in your favorite chat program? What if you had to source them? The first is attributed to the Buddha, the second to the Apostle Paul.
To nail this point home, I opened this post with a quote from the Dalai Lama. At least I told you that I did. That speech was actually delivered by a reptilian alien on the TV series Babylon 5. Does it seem quite so wise now?
Be well,
Chris.
The problem with "wisdom" like that, is that it takes secular, rational ideas, and labels them "god." My pet theory is that people do this so they can feel "spiritual" (which is good!), but avoid actually believing anything religion has to say. Most of what religion has to say is too ridiculous for intelligent people to believe. So they take things that make sense, them label them "faith" or "spirituality," when really it's just common sense.
ReplyDeleteMy question is: why are they doing this? Is it to avoid the "atheist" label? Is it because it makes it easier to believe there is magic in the world? Is it so they can feel like part of the spiritual club?