Don't let the Middle East (or Texas) colonize your head, or determine whether you're warm, or mobile, well fed. What you don't know will kill you. All those childhood Biblical full-color illustrations - the camel, the wise men dressed in robes, the olive trees, a city with a wall - are still floating deep in the psyches of Americans. Then they refuse to study the Region, its literature, archaeology, making no effort to learn the original languages, Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, or trace the syncretic nature of Mid East religions (e.g. Zorastrianism, the Magians, weather gods, desert paganism, esoteric schools). Nor do they subject the articles and rituals of their faith to comparative analysis, in order to isolate what is essential from what is not. Add to this the utter dependence on Mid East crude, which still is not admitted into our consciousness. Does that make it more or less powerful? The society says "What you don't know will not hurt you." But we argue the opposite. Just as the Gnostics said, we humans are deeply asleep, our psyches overwhelmed by self and thought. Therefore dark forces occur, driven, politically.
Contrast the humility of a Moses or the Nazarene or Muhammad with the arrogance and presumption of the political cleresy: both the pope and Iran's supreme leader, the vilayet-e-faqih, claim to be infallible. That's a relatively recent idea, not part of any tradition. Since the effort is to loosen the hold of the personality over the essence, one cannot let ego get control, even a little, of one's spiritual effort.
The corporate fallacy of religion: If you ask the typical acolyte, he'll tell you that he is serving his religion and God also. "I'm doing the work of God" or "God tells me I serve Him." Others say their defending Christianity or Islam or some social religion, like Communism. All this is highly blasphemous: God doesn't need you, you need God. We are but worms, unable to even help ourselves. We have ideas about our religion and share them with an exclusive group. But the reality is, there are as many Christianities and Islams as there are worshipers.
Religion offers a chance for spiritual quest, not some identification, like a sports team or an army, in competition with other sports teams, other armies. This search is very private. A human interested in spiritually evolving if free to use whatever discipline, meditation, prayer, chanting, or scriptural passage, which she, he finds useful. Period.
Contrast the humility of a Moses or the Nazarene or Muhammad with the arrogance and presumption of the political cleresy: both the pope and Iran's supreme leader, the vilayet-e-faqih, claim to be infallible. That's a relatively recent idea, not part of any tradition. Since the effort is to loosen the hold of the personality over the essence, one cannot let ego get control, even a little, of one's spiritual effort.
The corporate fallacy of religion: If you ask the typical acolyte, he'll tell you that he is serving his religion and God also. "I'm doing the work of God" or "God tells me I serve Him." Others say their defending Christianity or Islam or some social religion, like Communism. All this is highly blasphemous: God doesn't need you, you need God. We are but worms, unable to even help ourselves. We have ideas about our religion and share them with an exclusive group. But the reality is, there are as many Christianities and Islams as there are worshipers.
Religion offers a chance for spiritual quest, not some identification, like a sports team or an army, in competition with other sports teams, other armies. This search is very private. A human interested in spiritually evolving if free to use whatever discipline, meditation, prayer, chanting, or scriptural passage, which she, he finds useful. Period.
