Paul had spoken of those who accept the received answers of their religion and find no calling to be seekers. Their satisfaction comes from being in the bosom of a congregation. Cool and detached, I had responded that I would not write about the hypothetical experiences of others, for I would not judge them or guess what went on in them. I said it in all sincerity and now I am shocked at myself, for in writing that I was blind to almost half of my life, when I did accept received answers and believed myself to be in the select band of the saved. The guilt of knowing the “truth”, when others didn’t, impelled me to preach to every new-found friend. I had experienced a conversion, been initiated into a religious organization, accepted its philosophies, pursued its goals and defined my life in terms of its horizons.
So, I reflect wryly from my sleepless bed, I have reached the stage of denying my own past. Is the Vincent of those years a blank to me like the inner life of a stranger? It’s odd that I find it easy to refrain from judging others whilst remaining harsh on parts of my past life.
I lie restless, starting to construct a new philosophy which will allow me to deny that man. “It’s all right. Now I am being my true self. Then, I was living a false life. It doesn’t count because I was steeped in ignorance at the time.” It sounds good. Now I can get back to sleep.
But it won’t do. I had said exactly the same thing to myself when I experienced my conversion, all those years ago. Am I not doing the same thing, blocking off uncomfortable aspects of truth, just as I did then, to get the same illusion of peace?
People accept God into their lives because he is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving: the perfect ally to take with you wherever you go, in the altar of your heart. For His sake, you suppress doubt and the unenlightened behaviour of the “natural” man, the descendant of Adam after the Fall.
Today I was prompted to recall that as a child I had secretly read The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis. I’d found it amongst my mother’s books but didn’t want to discuss my religious mania with her. I think I was 13.
This is the extract I looked up yesterday, part of which was quoted in the London Times the other day, in reference to a forthcoming book (Enough, by John Naish).
I will speak unto my Lord who am but dust and ashes. If I count myself more, behold Thou standest against me, and my iniquities bear true testimony, and I cannot gainsay it. But if I abase myself, and bring myself to nought, and shrink from all self-esteem, and grind myself to dust, which I am, Thy grace will be favourable unto me, and Thy light will be near unto my heart; and all self-esteem, how little soever it be, shall be swallowed up in the depths of my nothingness, and shall perish for ever. There Thou showest to me myself, what I am, what I was, and whither I have come: so foolish was I and ignorant. If I am left to myself, behold I am nothing, I am all weakness; but if suddenly Thou look upon me, immediately I am made strong, and filled with new joy. And it is great marvel that I am so suddenly lifted up, and so graciously embraced by Thee, since I am always being carried to the deep by my own weight.
It was very seductive to my young self, and still strikes a chord in my heart: but a warning note too. If “my Lord” is the divine within my own self, to behave like this may be harmless, and to many it may epitomize the worship of God. But suppose I project this notion of “Lord” on to some living patron, teacher or lover?
I see in the heart of religion both glory and peril, salvation and perdition. I have lived through it and survived. I’m drawn to the inner joy more strongly than ever, but have renounced the path of self-abasement prescribed by Thomas à Kempis.
a wayfarer’s notes 
To pre-empt any confusion, I'd better clarify that my childhood religious manias lasted no longer than a reading of the book which inspired them. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was another example I was very secretive about. My “conversion” on the other hand occurred when I was 30, and did not involve Christianity at all, though it was comparable, especially as it was prompted by sharing with those who like me had been brought up within English Christianity, but whose teenage rebellion had taken them into eastern mysticism.
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Self-abasement is the same thing as killing the ego, most spiritual systems teach it, but it is drawn from a truth, yet it is almost always extended to that death to the ego.
Christianity and some others, even some esoteric and occult systems, teach it for the benefit of the person having to replace a supposedly dead ego with another ego, the church or somesuch, for you cannot live without ego.
Ego is ultimately the consciousness and nothing more. Bringing it in line with 'God' or the concept as it stands depending on ones' level of maturation, is the right thing, killing it or giving it to another conscious entity is not the right thing but will lead to more of the same, trouble, no God concept.
But even this problem is part of the maturation process and necessary for some, they have to give themselves away for a time, then learn not to.
The Christians also blend faith with ego, and then insist on one giving ones' faith to 'God' personified by the church, then one has faith in yet another conscious man or manmade entity, not God. There is a fine line, some cross it and go wrong, others sense it and heed it and stay right.
I know from my own past and my driving some of it underground to my consciousness, and then suddenly one day, hearing it as it was, realizing myself that I had denied, this is a part of growing and completing oneself in 'God', or in the concept of it.
One does have to weed the garden and do housekeeping to find and clean out the old stuff, understand oneself more fully and go on anew.
Very enlightening post, Vincent, well said to, a confession that many can use.
I just earlier wrote a comment on a post on Sophia's blog, under her post on Father-Authority or God. It was about the need existing for all these phenomena of spirituality, different things at different times in different ways and for different reasons, all in one person. So there are no 'steps' to God, no order for the journey can be given, people are just too diverse and complex for that to be, that is how people are different than angels, systems are for angels and angels for systems. Humans are all over the map all of the time with no boundaries or citizenship in any one system. That is a model for our future.
My opinion Vincent.
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Sorry, I forgot to do the email thing.
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I have been routinely disenchanted by those who attempt to bring a metaphor to life, including my own feeble attempts to do so.
God is a popular one, angels as well. I prefer to treat them as symbols attached to concepts that are sometimes difficult to articulate, rather than the genuine article.
I don't regret those times in my life when I allowed myself to believe, albeit for a brief moment in time. In the same way, I allow myself to explore impossible ideas, for the stimulus of the intellectual process, as opposed to the real possibility of bringing them to fruition.
I must confess that I don't often speak of those times. Not from a sense of shame really. I guess I don't find it all that important or relevant to my life today.
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Similarly Vincent, I have gone through and continue to, much of what you describe. Quite like I wrote in my previous comment on the last post, I have come to the conclusion that all of these people I have been are me. It isn't easy to accept without judgment, because I am very adept at self judgment and punishment, but I also realize that to borrow from your last post again, these are all stages of development, all of them are me, all of them are authentic, all of them are additive. None of them to me are to be discounted or ignored or devalued. They all led me to where I am now, and are all part of me. When I am in more balanced moments I can remove the judgment. I can even fathom that if I am a creation of God, then all that is me is also a creation of God. If I am created in God's image, then everything I have done or am is also God's image.
I am liking more and more seeing religion from a medical model as posed by John Thatamanil. Basically, each religion provides a unique diagnosis of the human condition and a corresponding prescription of beliefs and practices to heal it. Whatever religion you are in will conform to the corresponding treatment. Given that throughout our lifespan our human condition may be plagued by different diagnoses, we may require (or not require) a different treatment.
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Might I suggest a book … Blue Like Jazz (Non Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality) … that you might or might not find interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Like_Jazz
An interesting quote from the book, “My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care.”
I am reading it now. I am a Christian, but I abhor the politics and the “ego” (as Jim said) that has become associated with Christianity. This book strips that away. Having “faith” and being “spiritual” are vastly different things. I have always thought and felt this. So far it makes for a very interesting read.
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Thanks for the book suggestion, Beth. I think it will appeal to Christians, but not me, as I have never been a Christian! That may sound odd from what I have said about years of compulsory church and scripture lessons. They were never voluntary & I felt free to stay on the outside.
The books I read such as A Kempis and Bunyan were solitary discoveries and all the more precious for that: to discover something that resonated within me.
I remained (and remain still) a non-Christian, admiring certain things from the outside.
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Joanne, there is much of great present relevance to me in what you say. I am not fully able to accept parts of my past, particularly the 30 years religiosity following my conversion at age 30. there was nothing particularly terrible about it, except that I repudiate the version of me that it produced!
I do very much appreciate your comments coming from your own struggles about which you have often spoken.
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Charles, I am with you on the use of the god-metaphor and the angel-metaphor, but I am careful whom I speak to on such things. Hey isn't that funny? This blog is open to the entire world. Yet no one comes to heckle or misunderstand, whether wilfully or ignorantly.
& as I said to Joanne, I am not to happy with speaking of those times when I had a religious belief, not because there was anything wrong with the belief in itself (as true or as false as other beliefs) but because I repudiate that version of me now. You cannot hurry acceptance, so I better just leave it alone, and enjoy the me that believes nothing and experiences everything.
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Jim, I see you are speaking of the same thing, accepting all stages of our journey. Yes, that acceptance will come when it does.
I never bother with condemning ego or evaluating it positively either. What I have observed is that religions ( I include “spiritual paths” that don't call themselves religions) want you to let go of ego-attachment in order to re-attach it to their path and values. It's a conjuring trick.
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I read Thomas à Kempis.
Filthy rags!
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“But we are all like an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6)
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It doesn't sound odd at all. Believe me.
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Hi Vincent,
You cannot be so rough on yourself. The common thread between then and now is that you have been becoming. You may have become something different now than what you were then, but then as in now you were in the becoming process. You were and are becoming who you are and will be. Each step makes you who you are, and if you hadn't gone through what you went through then, you would not be who you are today.
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Sophia you are right logically, but acceptance requires more than logic.
Siegfried, yes, but when we read we are able to spit out what we don't like, and make excuses for the author by saying he is using a metaphor, or in a certain mood. I'm not defending A Kempis or Isaiah now, but that is how I would behave then.
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Joanne, I wonder if you would mind saying more about John Thatamanil. Can you point me to a book or site giving the ideas you speak of?
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Vincent,
I know too how difficult it is to embrace the earlier stages for what they were and what they contributed to our becoming, and to even hold them in esteem and value them. But at least for me, knowing this logically is helping my heart transformation. Even now I know my current struggle through this stage is part of my development, my process, my becoming.
I haven't read his book yet (it is on my list), published last year, but John Thatamanil is an assistant professor of theology at Vanderbilt University who has written a book entitled “The Immmanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament.”
In an article by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, in which the Rabbi is addressing a question he received about religion, he talks about this book, in which Thatamanil poses that each religion offers a unique diagnosis of the human condition and a corresponding prescription/cure.
To quote Rabbi Shapiro in part, “Hinduism, especially in its nondual formulation, Advaita Vedanta, roots the human condition in ignorance, avidya. We are ignorant of our union with Brahman, God, and acting from ignorance, we cause ourselves and others needless misery. Depending on your personality, healing comes through the medicine of the four yogas.”
Similarly, Rabbi Shapiro continues on to discuss the diagnosis by the Buddhists (endless suffering), the prescription being living the Eightfold Path, the diagnosis by the Christians (sinfulness), the resurrection of Christ being the cure, and so on with other religious models.
Essentially people identify their disease and seek out the proper cure for what “ails” them.
John Thatamanil can be found at the following link:
http://tinyurl.com/23wf7o
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Incidentally Vincent, in case you are interested, since you have mentioned atheism in a previous post, in the same article I refer to by Rabbi Shapiro, he also talks about another book he enjoyed very much, a collection of thoughtful essays on atheism.
After having read some of the harsher books attacking religion by authors such as Hitchens and Dawkins, he appreciated the passionate hearts of atheists in this book who speak more on their journey to atheism rather than focusing on the attack on religion.
It's called “Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life” edited by Louise Antony.
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