Here we are at the end of another Easter weekend. A religious feast celebrated by Christians with prayer and deep thought in equal measure with a zealous over indulgence of chocolate eggs and, bizarrely, chocolate rabbits.
That probably should read most Christians, of course, as many reformation churches, amongst others, discarded Easter, along with Christmas, as being pagan, ironically.
I have also discovered, refreshingly, that the US is now calling Good Friday Spring Holiday. I suppose this is another push toward a globally euphemistic holiday system, to avoid conflict between race, ethnic and religious groups (please excuse me for missing any other taxonomic sub-divisions who may be so disappointed at their exclusion as to burn flags and/or effigies).
The final Orwellian result is predictable and expected to be displayed in calendars and diaries of the near future in the form of numbers. For example, New Year, would be Holiday 1; Epiphany, Holiday 2; Shrove Tuesday, Holiday 3, and so on. Any new religions, including political flavours, demanding inclusion within the existing structure would be given temporary status using alpha-subdivisions, for example, a holiday introduced between H1 (New Year), and H2 (Epiphany), would simply be called H 1A. This would be ratified and agreed by the UN council for Holidays and Free Time, and the numbering system re-aligned each 100 years.
In keeping with the pseudo-mystical spirit of the weekend then, I have been giving thought to Life the Universe and Everything (sleep well, Douglas).
I’ve spent a large part in the free time of my life absorbing, among other things, the offerings of the more famous world religions, to try to find out the truth that lies behind them all; if there is, indeed, a “universal” truth. I was always concerned at the reconciliation between science and religion; like most human beings, wanting to cling to a belief that there must be more to life than spending four score years and ten wondering how we are going to die, and what happens afterwards, if anything, and what we can do, also, if anything, to make that transition as successful as possible.
As an aside and by way of illustration, let’s briefly mention Zoroastrianism. It is one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, yet most people can’t pronounce it let alone come to terms with its tolerance and simplicity. Zoroastrians traditionally pray several times a day. Some wear a kusti, which is a cord with three knots tied in it, that reminds them of the maxim, ‘Good Words, Good Thoughts, Good Deeds’, this phrase could, in fact, summarize the religion. Zoroastrianism is a home and community oriented religion. There is no tradition of monasticism or celibacy. Most worship happens in the family home. Yes, nowhere to go to show off your best Sunday hat.
Zoroastrianism is also about action. Zoroastrians work towards improving the local community and society in general. They tend to give generously to charities and are often behind educational and social initiatives. Men and women, rich and poor, and young and old are all seen as equal. One only surpasses the other through their righteousness.
Obviously such a harmonious religion which has been extant for some 3500 years is bound to attract the beady eyes of the Christian Police.
Which politically incorrectly reminds me of fire. Zoroastrianism uses the flame to represent God’s light, or wisdom; other religions use fire for different purposes, for example on February 17, 1600 the Catholic church hung Giordano Bruno upside down and naked, and burnt him to death. Yes, not much tolerance or reconciliation there. Why was he murdered in this gruesome way? Ahh, that’s easy, for “holding erroneous opinions”. So how come George W hasn’t been dragged kicking and screaming into the Campo dei Fiori? For goodness sake, who knows how far we would have come by now without the destructive, bigoted dogma of organised religion, or organised incompetence (George W, once again) come to that, but here, I’m jumping ahead and beginning to sound like a bigot myself.
A Bigot is a person or organisation obstinately or intolerantly devoted to their own opinions and prejudices, especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.
Some people who have been interested or patient enough to scratch the surface of my soul, know that my personal belief structure lies in the ever present, integrated and fully saturated nature of the Universe, let’s call it universal interrelatedness. More economical use of words may have resulted in “omnipresence”, but then you’d think I was talking about religion again, and even though it’s Easter, we really don’t want to go there. but we will another time, I promise.
I recently finished reading the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons again. It reminds us of the apparent dichotomy of science and religion, but offers a neat solution. That, in turn, reminded me of Giordano Bruno, mentioned above, for speaking his mind. Arguably the first martyr to science. This also brings us nicely back to omnipresence and my concern at the reconciliation between science and religion.
Perhaps you may consider me a butterfly, scavenger, or simply a misguided soul, depending on your strength of belief. Why? I have identified the common features of most religions, taken the bits I think make sense, filtered out anything that smacks of intolerance and ended up with a life philosophy that I can really believe in, without the need for images, books, old men with long white beards, amulets, symbols or a perfect smile.
This obviously goes against the grain of mainstream thought, which dictates that a component of your religion, to be effective, must be painful, mysterious or at least test your patience. Most importantly, apparently, is that it isn’t something you should be able to pick and mix. Hah! This is where developing your own belief structure suddenly has advantages.
I discovered something that I am really comfortable with, though I don’t have a name for it, as this would detract from its strength, and simply turn it into Yet Another Religion; a category, a name, the word you put on the form when you’re asked your Religion. If you really forced the issue and I had to hang a label, I would hesitatingly and reluctantly call it the Universe.
Suddenly science and belief philosophies start to sensibly meld into one. Everything is connected. The universal interrelatedness. Whatever you would like to label the focus of your belief, God, Allah, Ahura Mazda, Ain-Soph-Aur, and so on, is the collection of all components, particles, atoms or bits of matter (or anti-matter) – I don’t really mean tiny components like the bits of sand you get in sandwiches on holiday in Margate, but I know you understand where I’m coming from.
Physicists already know this. Material objects dissolve into patterns of probable interconnections. Suddenly a particle is no longer an independent entity, but a collection of relationships that reaches outward in an unbroken web to encompass all dimensions of the universe.
This is why, in quantum physics, it is not possible to measure an experiment without affecting the experiment itself. The act of observation changes the object of measurement.
The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole
W. Heisenberg – Physics and Philosophy
I suppose a big chunk of my personal belief comes from Mahayana Buddhism, because itself is a eclectic bundle of teachings; of course the inseparable nature of philosophy and religion naturally leads any seeker toward Zen and its delightful, paradoxical, in-your-face sensibility. Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?
Old pond
A frog jumps
The sound of water
Matsuo Bashō – 1686
A lot of the flavour in my belief also arrived via Raja Yoga. Raja Yoga aims at controlling all thought-waves or mental modifications. It was, in fact, during the study of this I had my first out of body experience!
All of this goes a little bit toward explaining the butterfly flapping its wings in a jungle in Brazil causing a tornado off the coast of Florida – I did say a little bit.
Well, anyway, try to imagine that everything is interconnected, and has an effect on everything else. At a more discrete level, our moods can cause an effect on those around us, our anger and fears and can cause dangerous ripples of negative emotion to wash over people and things in our immediate vicinity, and of course pass that on to people and things in its immediate vicinity, and cascade away to touch everything else on the planet, and outwards into the Universe, obviously in a diluted way. Likewise, positive emotion, love, happiness can have the same effect of being passed on almost indefinitely and create waves, or ripples, of positive emotion.
This may even be a “Theory of Everything”. It would explain why astrology seems to work, how we sometimes think the same things as people we are tuned into – think about it.
Animals sense this effect really well, they are more sensitive than us humans. We have been desensitized by generations of sex and drugs and rock and roll. Lovely.
Even plants have this ability. It might have been Lyell Watson (New Age Scientist) who talked about a room of plants reacting to someone who walked into the room who had earlier been in and violently smashed and trampled one of the plants – the plants remembered, or sensed. The experiment had hooked the plants up to sensitive instruments to measure subtle electrical changes. It was a while ago when I read this, it’s possible I have paraphrased or misquoted this beyond all vestiges of original content – well, why not – but you get the drift.
Finally, a most important ingredient in this New Religious Construct is tolerance. I have discovered that tolerance is a real alternative emotion. Don’t get angry, get tolerant. Developing tolerance, I suppose, is the bit I mentioned before where some part of your religion must be painful or test your patience. But at least I’m not asking you to believe in a virgin birth.
Anyway, looks like we have run out of time again. Maybe more on tolerance (and anger management) another time.
