Recently, I wrote about ecumenicalism.
Fresh from the enthusiasm of a Buddhist meditation seminar I attended, I advocated (with the fervor of any devoted newbie) a point of view that, at my core, I don't completely agree with. You see, spirituality doesn't involve merely the communal (if it did, then we wouldn't see such an emphasis in so many religions on prayer, fasting, and meditation) but an individual search to know, at some level, one's creator. In essence, one cannot have spirituality divorced from identity, from the core truths of our individual beings that make us who we are.
Let me begin with a question:
Do you know who you are?
I don't mean knowing your name, or your social class, or what position or job you hold. I mean, deep down, when all of those things are stripped away . . . who are you? What do you value most in yourself? In life? In relationships? What makes your blood boil (or to run cold)?
What resonates with you?
In other words, deep down, when all of your relationships and plans and dreams come crashing down around you . . . what's left?
The most damnable aspect of this world is that it asks so many people to be something different than who they are . . . and one of the chiefest voices crying out for people to abandon their identities is religion. "In the name of God" has become the world's most destructive phrase, because it often accompanies the act of depriving someone not only of life and livelihood, but of who they are. And to lose who you are is to lose the only means by which you can walk in this world without becoming overwhelmed in its depravity, its cruelty, and its misery.
It is, in essence, to lose your own soul.
Those who lose their identities beyond the point of getting them back become ghosts, walking zombies unseeing and unremarkable. They do nothing, they accomplish nothing, and they are nothing . . . except breed others of their own kind (either by devouring or infesting them). Eyes hollower than the darkest night, they wander aimlessly, and despite their large numbers, they wander alone.
To know yourself, then . . . to really know yourself, is at its essence what it means to be alive.
Fresh from the enthusiasm of a Buddhist meditation seminar I attended, I advocated (with the fervor of any devoted newbie) a point of view that, at my core, I don't completely agree with. You see, spirituality doesn't involve merely the communal (if it did, then we wouldn't see such an emphasis in so many religions on prayer, fasting, and meditation) but an individual search to know, at some level, one's creator. In essence, one cannot have spirituality divorced from identity, from the core truths of our individual beings that make us who we are.
Let me begin with a question:
Do you know who you are?
I don't mean knowing your name, or your social class, or what position or job you hold. I mean, deep down, when all of those things are stripped away . . . who are you? What do you value most in yourself? In life? In relationships? What makes your blood boil (or to run cold)?
What resonates with you?
In other words, deep down, when all of your relationships and plans and dreams come crashing down around you . . . what's left?
The most damnable aspect of this world is that it asks so many people to be something different than who they are . . . and one of the chiefest voices crying out for people to abandon their identities is religion. "In the name of God" has become the world's most destructive phrase, because it often accompanies the act of depriving someone not only of life and livelihood, but of who they are. And to lose who you are is to lose the only means by which you can walk in this world without becoming overwhelmed in its depravity, its cruelty, and its misery.
It is, in essence, to lose your own soul.
Those who lose their identities beyond the point of getting them back become ghosts, walking zombies unseeing and unremarkable. They do nothing, they accomplish nothing, and they are nothing . . . except breed others of their own kind (either by devouring or infesting them). Eyes hollower than the darkest night, they wander aimlessly, and despite their large numbers, they wander alone.
To know yourself, then . . . to really know yourself, is at its essence what it means to be alive.
posted by Brian Bly at 12:03 PM
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