I guess you could say that I have a mission. My mission is to be part of the natural reform of religion that is taking place as parts of the world become better educated. This is quite a natural process, as information becomes more and more easily available to more and more people, more complete understandings of the big picture become available. Through this, those that seek truth are able to piece together a theory of everything from the work of countless scholars, writers and thinkers who have come before us, making all this possible like it has never been before in known and recorded history. Therefore, I have decided to offer my contribution to this process, both because I wish to serve, and because it is ingrained in my soul, I cannot not do it, I feel compelled deep inside to be a part of this.
Religion appears to me (and many others like myself) to be a topic that contains so much beauty, yet so much that is ugly, so much peace, bliss, compassion and love, yet so much fear, hate, anger and intolerance. I like to use the phrase "poison candy" to describe the current state of religion. I believe the rock band Karnivool said it well with these lyrics: "Politics - Religion, you paint us, as both a cancer and a cure....". This state of affairs is most obvious with the three Abrahamic faiths, but also apparent in countless other religions such as Hinduism (despite my deep love for it) for a good example, and particularly so amongst many of the indigenous religious traditions. Therefore it seems quite natural and logical that one would seek to reform religion, keeping the baby but throwing out the bathwater. There are clearly many who agree with me, hence the growing popularity over the past 100 or so years of Spirituality removed from Religion, and the many religions built more upon reform of previously existing traditions then entirely new revelations (I may offend some here is stating Buddhism & the Sikh faith are clearly wonderful reforms of Hinduism).
I see myself as a Perennialist, that is I believe that there is of course one absolute, objective, spiritual reality of which all beings are ultimately subject, but that reality is so vast that there are virtually infinite ways in which reality can be constricted to give the impression of diverse realities. Essentially this is traditional Indian mysticism, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are so close to identical in their philosophical inner cores, understandable as they all are essentially built around the direct perception of Reality through deep meditation. These truths however are not exclusive to India, they have been discovered by people of all ages and nations through various spiritual practices, however here is an important factor often overlooked: In many of these cases the direct perception of Reality is seen through the lens of religious and cultural conditioning. Few are they who ever really get fully beyond their own conditioning. I do not however belief that all religions are founded upon perception of truth, I think all students of religion would do well to listen to some of the arguments put forth by the so-called "New Atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and my favorite; Sam Harris). In fact, I think some of the clearest thinking on religion comes from people that do not believe in it at all in any form.
It is this last element that I believe the New Age movement is falling a little short of the mark in it's attempt at establishing a Perennial religion and attaining harmony amongst followers of diverse faiths. Most followers of eastern religion and the New Age movement make little if any attempt at resovling the difficult and often mutually exclusive elements of different faiths, and this has left a big gaping hole through which critics have been able to deride such attempts. This appears to be changing, as I am seeing more and more people let go of the "soft" approach and harden up against those perpetuating religious dogma. It is ironic that many accuse perenialism of being soft and wishy washy when in fact many of its proponents have been amongst the most ardent scholars of comparative religion as well as being the most sincere practitioners of the spiritual path; for example: Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell etc.
There are of course many reasons why spiritual Perennialism is not generally accepted as a worldview by the general public, many of which originate with either the religious right. It is really quite interesting to see the depth to which critics will stoop to defame perennialism and defend their own ideologies; twisted logic, selective presentation of facts, semantics and endless strawman arguments are just the beginning. Therefeore, I decided to immerse myself into the world of comparative religion to offer a way through for interested parties. There is a vast twisted web of conflicting arguments in these fields that make it quite difficult for anyone to see clearly the light that shines through the topic of religion. Thus, I have made an attempt at unweaving this web, both as it was something I felt compelled to do for myself, and to also offer it to others.
Hari Om
Thursday 4 August 2011
Tuesday 2 August 2011
Gut feelings and "The Secret"
One of the most popular concepts in New Age spirituality is that of the Law of Attraction, the belief that thought is primary over matter and that the material world is created by thought. The concept itself can be found through mystical and occult literature the world over from early Vedic scriptures through 19th century western occult literature. It's popularity in the West can mostly be ascribed to three sources though, firstly a book called "The Science of getting rich" by Wallace D Wattles, secondly the vast literature published by trance medium Esther Hicks, and finally the in/famous telemovie come hit DVD, The Secret. When I first watched The Secret I had distinctly mixed feelings about it. On one hand it seemed like an attempt at another inspirational modern spiritual film in the them of "What the bleep....". On the other hand.....it made me want to throw up. The presentation was beyond triple cheese, but what was worse was the constant emphasis on material wealth. It seemed like the focus of the whole movie was how to get rich by supernatural means. Making matters worse was the juxtaposition from one speaker to another, going straight from one telling us that there it is an awfull lie that there is a limited supply of resources and that there is not enough to go around to another boasting about how he owns several luxury homes, has servants and travels the world on a sort of permanent holiday. My gut feelings told me that there was some truth behind this movie, but that it being distorted and perverted like a jewel covered in mud. I had the same instinct when I first read the Bhagavad-Gita, of which I was introduced by a work colleage who was a Hare Krishna. The translation which he lent me was their own translation and commentary created by the founder of the Hare Krishna sect * A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In this version, regardless of what the actual sanskrit verse stated, the commentary just over-rided it by stating: "Well, since we are currently in the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) the only valid spiritual practice for mankind is chanting the maha mantra (Hare Krishna..etc)", even though the maha mantra is not mentioned once in the entire scripture. Kind of like hearing a Protestant Christian tell you about how the Bible teaches that you are saved solely by faith alone regardless of what the red-letter verses of the Gospels say.
It turns out that the obvious conclusion was true. Rhonda Byrne it seems has been exposed as more of a con-women then a sincere spiritual teacher. She has been sued by quite a number of the buisness and industry people involved in making her movie the viral success it was: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-secret-of-rhondas-success/story-e6frg8h6-1111117271174 , as she quite literally screwed the very people that helped make her a multi-millionaire whilst she was simultaneously preaching a gospel of enlightenment. More then anything else though, she screwed over the very people responsible for basically all of the content of the movie itself, that being Esther and Jerry Hicks. The original version of the movie was essentially built around the teachings from Esthers trance work, yet Rhonda later went on to simply cut Esther out of the movie altogether as it suited her business plan more. Quite simply, she offered Esther the choice of either handing over intellectual property rights to Rhonda or being cut out of the movie, kind of like saying: "So what I'm going to do now is screw you, but you have a choice as to how you would like for me to do it." Fortunately for Rhonda, Esther eventually decided to just let her cut her out of the film after initially moving to fight it out with her in court. What Rhonda Byrne did, was essentially replace Esther Hicks with a bunch of people that had learned mostly from her, but which could for the most part not express the concepts with the same clarity and poise. Adding to the mess was the way in which the film was edited, leading to an end result that deserves as much of it's criticism as it does it's praise.
Here is a clip from the original version of the film which featured Esther trance mediumship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJ8dp4zK7A . Now this is what it should have been, this is beautiful, inspiring and uplifting. When you read, watch or listen to the Hicks material you get the real source material for The Secret, and you get it in its proper context. The Hicks material is not solely focussed upon money, but it discusses money in it's appropriate place. If you are interested in the Law of Attraction, read some of Esther Hicks books, they are gold, and especially good for helping you to understand the quite simple link between thought processes and emotions. It really is so simple that mainstream psychologists could do themselves a favour and learn a lot from it. http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php , http://www.youtube.com/user/AbrahamHicks . If you are interested in understanding the bigger spiritual picture of which the Law of Attraction fits into, try reading The Kybalion (http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.php) or the Yoga Vasistha (http://www.yogavasistha.com/), although the latter is quite dense and advanced. The former on the other hand is quite short, concise and readable, despite it's depth. The Secret was not without its worth, but its a sorry shame that such spiritual teachings were revealed to the world in such a dumbed down and dirtied form.
God Bless, Hari Om.
*Footnote: The Hare Krishna sect is technically called ISKON - International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Whilst they maintain that they are not Hindu, they are in truth essentially a modern derivitive of the Vaishnava sect.
It turns out that the obvious conclusion was true. Rhonda Byrne it seems has been exposed as more of a con-women then a sincere spiritual teacher. She has been sued by quite a number of the buisness and industry people involved in making her movie the viral success it was: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-secret-of-rhondas-success/story-e6frg8h6-1111117271174 , as she quite literally screwed the very people that helped make her a multi-millionaire whilst she was simultaneously preaching a gospel of enlightenment. More then anything else though, she screwed over the very people responsible for basically all of the content of the movie itself, that being Esther and Jerry Hicks. The original version of the movie was essentially built around the teachings from Esthers trance work, yet Rhonda later went on to simply cut Esther out of the movie altogether as it suited her business plan more. Quite simply, she offered Esther the choice of either handing over intellectual property rights to Rhonda or being cut out of the movie, kind of like saying: "So what I'm going to do now is screw you, but you have a choice as to how you would like for me to do it." Fortunately for Rhonda, Esther eventually decided to just let her cut her out of the film after initially moving to fight it out with her in court. What Rhonda Byrne did, was essentially replace Esther Hicks with a bunch of people that had learned mostly from her, but which could for the most part not express the concepts with the same clarity and poise. Adding to the mess was the way in which the film was edited, leading to an end result that deserves as much of it's criticism as it does it's praise.
Here is a clip from the original version of the film which featured Esther trance mediumship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJ8dp4zK7A . Now this is what it should have been, this is beautiful, inspiring and uplifting. When you read, watch or listen to the Hicks material you get the real source material for The Secret, and you get it in its proper context. The Hicks material is not solely focussed upon money, but it discusses money in it's appropriate place. If you are interested in the Law of Attraction, read some of Esther Hicks books, they are gold, and especially good for helping you to understand the quite simple link between thought processes and emotions. It really is so simple that mainstream psychologists could do themselves a favour and learn a lot from it. http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php , http://www.youtube.com/user/AbrahamHicks . If you are interested in understanding the bigger spiritual picture of which the Law of Attraction fits into, try reading The Kybalion (http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.php) or the Yoga Vasistha (http://www.yogavasistha.com/), although the latter is quite dense and advanced. The former on the other hand is quite short, concise and readable, despite it's depth. The Secret was not without its worth, but its a sorry shame that such spiritual teachings were revealed to the world in such a dumbed down and dirtied form.
God Bless, Hari Om.
*Footnote: The Hare Krishna sect is technically called ISKON - International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Whilst they maintain that they are not Hindu, they are in truth essentially a modern derivitive of the Vaishnava sect.
Hello Virtual World
Greetings!
I have been writing for some time now, mostly on the subject of religion, spirituality, philosophy, the paranormal etc. Most of what I have written has not been shown to anybody, however I did write a blog several years ago under the pseudonym Jim Clark: http://www.theparadigmexperiment.blogspot.com/. I have for the last few years been writing a book on religion also of the title "The Web Unwoven" of which I will attempt to get published very soon. I decided that I would like to start blogging again on a range of topics, but this time I will do so far more informally then I did in the past. My previous blog was a sort of dress-rehearsal for the creation of my book, a medium through which I could work on my writing skills, and flesh out my thought processes. The posts on that blog were mostly very long, and I would spend quite some time developing and editing the pieces before posting them. I will not be doing that with this blog however, I will simply write and post, no editing, no thought, I will just do. The pieces will likely be relatively short and I will try and keep them on narrow topics. In my book I have gone to great lengths to present a big picture of religion, and cover every single related point I can think of in the process. This blog will be more of a fun and easygoing means of expression for me, a chance to just express my thoughts without going to the lengths of covering every single possible objection as I have done through my book. I hope that some will derive some enjoyment out of my writing, and perhaps learn something in the process. If anybody has serious objections to what I write, well..........you can just read my books when they come out!
God Bless, Hari Om.
I have been writing for some time now, mostly on the subject of religion, spirituality, philosophy, the paranormal etc. Most of what I have written has not been shown to anybody, however I did write a blog several years ago under the pseudonym Jim Clark: http://www.theparadigmexperiment.blogspot.com/. I have for the last few years been writing a book on religion also of the title "The Web Unwoven" of which I will attempt to get published very soon. I decided that I would like to start blogging again on a range of topics, but this time I will do so far more informally then I did in the past. My previous blog was a sort of dress-rehearsal for the creation of my book, a medium through which I could work on my writing skills, and flesh out my thought processes. The posts on that blog were mostly very long, and I would spend quite some time developing and editing the pieces before posting them. I will not be doing that with this blog however, I will simply write and post, no editing, no thought, I will just do. The pieces will likely be relatively short and I will try and keep them on narrow topics. In my book I have gone to great lengths to present a big picture of religion, and cover every single related point I can think of in the process. This blog will be more of a fun and easygoing means of expression for me, a chance to just express my thoughts without going to the lengths of covering every single possible objection as I have done through my book. I hope that some will derive some enjoyment out of my writing, and perhaps learn something in the process. If anybody has serious objections to what I write, well..........you can just read my books when they come out!
God Bless, Hari Om.
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