04-13-2006, 08:39 AM
Namaste,
I am a writer. My manner of speech is naturally poetic - which is to say that I use much illustration in what I write - because there is more to an account than the dates, times, and actions that took place. The world is not black and white to me, so I cannot express it in black and white. There is much that I feel that I do not believe I have the words to express coherently. May God grant that I have the proper speech to express myself accurately.
To understand the beginning of a journey, you have to understand both why it began, and where it began at.
The southeast of the United States is called the Bible Belt. It's a band of states in which the overwhelming majority of religious groups there are christian of some sort. Specifically the conservative sects - these are the hate mongering christians that are the source of most of the bad reputation that many attribute to christianity. They are Zealots, and I have expressed my view on that. I grew up straddling the religious fence between Mormonism on my father's side, and Southern Babtist on my mother's. Both families were religiously charged, save for my own two parents. So, it was my grandparents who actually fought over which faith I should follow. My parents married very young, so they didn't yet see themselves as Adults who could make decisions for their own children, although no parent ever makes the right choice. It isn't their Job to choose properly, they are supposed to simply provide the original template which their descendants will hopefully improve upon.
This same area, perhaps not unfittingly, is also one of the most notorious for all manner of prejudice. They hate homosexuals, people of any other race - this area of the US supplied more troops to the war in the middle east than nearly any other region, if you were ever curious about what most of those soldiers thought about while doing their aweful jobs - people of any other religion (and this includes between christian sects, sometimes), or in general anyone who isn't anglosaxon christian. It's true that a lot of people in America have a similar outlook, but none so fervently act on it as those in my homeland. So, I was raised constantly taught to hate black, jews, asians, anyone east of germany. I was too young to remember the moment or the time when I stopped listening to this, but since before I can even remember I have known that the presence of Hate was unnatural and dangerous. That isn't to say that I have never hated - I certainly have, but only once.
As I grew older and was able to comprehend more of what my two religions were teaching me, I became increasingly more uncomfortable. Firstly, they taught different things, and both claimed to be the authority. Obviously you can see how this will confuse a child. Secondly, some things - but only SOME - were slightly similar, and yet the two claimed exclusion. It progressed like this until my parents divorced - by which time I had no faith at all, I was 9. After this my father left, and so I was strictly Babtist, at least in practice. This means, to my family at the time, church on sundays and prayers during meals. At one point my siblings and I began to pray before bed each night, but I do not remember why. We did, though, until I left home. In any case, even by my present standards of habit, this is by no means remotely a serious approach to religion. Once my mother left my father, though, she talked about hating people or things a lot less, and she did not really talk about anything like race or other such subjects of prejudice. She stopped going to church at all, eventually, and we went with my grandparents still, until we eventually moved away to another county where they did not care to drive. I was eleven or twelve, and after this I only stepped foot in a church once every couple of months, and on certain holidays. So, relgion became a non-entity. At this point, though, I had become curious.
So, as a teenager it was in my nature to begin to rebel against what has come before me - that is, my parents' and my grandparents' traditions which had been forced on me. And by forced, I certainly do mean that I was dragged to church - I never wanted to go. Not because I didn't see a reason so much as being there just made me uncomfortable. The majority of sermons I have heard in my life have centered on how to judge other people, which people to judge, what will happen to them when they die - like they were always scaring us into not being or doing things. There was only ever a cursory mention of God's mercy, and there were always exceptions. What's more, I went to different babtist churches which all taught different interpretations of some of the same material.
I digress... so, as a result my first personal foray into my own sense of spirituality was Wicca. For those not familiar, modern day Gardnerian Wicca is a 1900's mish-mash of various european witchcraft/druidism traditions. the worship of the duality in nature. I was of course drawn in for the same reasons as any other teen in my demographic area - spells. Just do this and this and you'll get what you want. It is of course more complicated than this - wicca, I mean, I won't talk about magick here - but most teenagers never get that into it, normally it is simply a fad. I saw something there that I hadn't seen in Christianity, though, and it lead me into the heart of the Tradition, at least as far as research goes - I certainly had no access to any coven or something like that (I wouldn't be surprised if they burned a witch in that place...). Here I learned the first fundamental Seed that has since grown. That I am not seperate from God, nor is anyone. Christianity doesn't talk about it like that. God is a man in the Clouds who smites you when you do wrong and may or may not let you into heaven, depending on who you're talking to and who you are. I knew that a lot of what I was practicing was flappery and distraction, but I had friends to appease - such is the teenage life here - who I wanted to try and share this understanding with. They were never interested, and eventually I stopped and left all together. I've revisted the tradition in my Seeking since, but have never found much more there than this first inspiration.
Let me be specific, and say that Wicca itself did not give me this first Seed, but rather Wicca was the cause. There are many interpretations of the details of this tradition, and one of them that I came across was the belief that the God and Goddess (more or less official deities of Wicca) dwelled within a person, within all people an all things - that they were litterally the Duality of Nature, and all things posessed both of them in full measure. Now, I even at this time was hesitant to classify God by gender or nature yet, but when I came to this and thought on it, it was as though I could not push the thought from my mind - I was prompted to accept it, after a fashion, and considering other ideas was difficult. I have since then come across many other ideals, many other traditions with different beliefs, and there is yet nothing I have been guided to that has surpassed this Revelation. I call it that because it felt like somehow becoming less blind, less disconnected. I did not feel as finite as I had before it seems, or as lonely. I was fourteen, and this was the time in which the root of my faith took hold. I have never doubted that there was a governing intelligence since then, and have always been hesitant to define it, for when I look at God in myself, he is both totality and the void, making up all that I am and all that I am not - that sounds extreme, but I mean it to say that no matter what shape I give him, I always seem to only be looking at a part. As though you might look at a person's nose from two inches away, and move back another inch. You are seeing more, and it looks different, but you know it isn't everything - you know what a whole person looks like. In the same way, I know what a 'whole' God looks like, because I cannot directly comprehend it. He is at the limit of, and perhaps far beyond, my conscious mind's ability to conceptualize beyond a sense of unending vastness.
So, I consider my first revelation one of Connection.
Once the reality of God was impressed on me, my life began to take a turn for the better. I began to think more carefully about my course of action, about what i said to people, and how I felt about things. At first it was the thought of the afterlife - If I could not deny there was a God, then i could not deny there was an afterlife, that there was a greater consequence to my actions than what i will immediately understand. I would not say that I feared God, rather I feared failure, or wasting my life thoughtlessly. By and by, just through idle thought and some conversation with Christians - who have a structured viewpoint, and are therefore useful conversationalists because you can be certain of what they are talking about and generally how they mean it; and if not then I already had the necessary language to understand - about the nature of God, about morality, subjects like this, I began to think a little differently. At first I was hard headed - in fact, I have never stopped being hard-headed in many respects! - and unwilling to consider anything which would restrict my freedom as a teenager. I contemplated things like chastity, charity, etc., the actions of morality shall we say. But they held no place for my own life just yet it seemed like. I still lived with my parents, I had only just started working a job and certainly didn't have much money, and no sense of value for it anyway. In hindesight I understand now that Life Experience and Spiritual Experience are the same thing - so it is natural that I didn't fully grasp the importance of some spiritual responsibilities, because I did not understand the meaning of responsibility.
It was this growing sense of connection to God, actually - and I'd rather this not be used against me, with the understanding that I do not believe it is a sin, plain and simple, and God has never given me reason to believe otherwise - that prompted me to come out to my parents. About this time they were asking abour girls. My stepfather especially - for my mother had re-married when I was about 13 - put a lot of pressure on me to get involved with sports, though I was already practicing martial arts at this time (also a key factor in the developement of my spirituality, as my first teacher was a buddhist, and the first non-christian adults I had met). If I didn't play some sport, I wasn't masculine enough.
Well, combined with my teenage need to define myself as an individual, was the growing belief in my responsibility to be honest. The purpose and meaning of what we say to others, how we express ourselves and the reason we must do so, had been a great part of my thoughts at this time. Ultimately it was about the connection between the inner self and outer self - if I was not honest outwardly, how could I be sure I was honest inwardly? So, I told my parents that I'm Gay.
Both christians, both southerners, both very conservative despite their lack of religious Zeal, they instantly turned on me. Everything i said or did became suspect, they no longer trusted me, and chaos ensued. Ultimately, ran away from home, at 15. I would return once when I was 17 briefly, and it's been just me and my own spiritual family since then. I learned a valuable lesson about people, then, which would later be a valuable lesson about Spirit - that honestly often has a price, but the gains far outweigh the cost. This is true of interaction with people, and it is true with our connection to God. We must be Honest when we examine our Self, when we ask our questions and Seek the answers. Sometimes this honesty will cost us our habits, or the things we believe we care about, but only through that Honesty can we grow, and continue to Seek.
I moved to minnesota, a place in the northern central united states. To live with my Father. I mentioned that I have hated only once in my life, and this was him. He left me and my siblings without a word and i didn't hear from him until he came to pick me up at the airport. I had been caught, arrested, spent two days in Juvenile prison, and then was picked up by my stepfather and dropped off at the gate. During this time I contemplated God's justice, his benevolence. At this time I questioned it. it is difficult not to feel victimized by God when you are blinded with fear. During the flight to Minnesota, as the sun rose over the eastern wing that I was sitting next to, the thought occured to me again and I felt immediately gripped by guilt. Even as a teenager, I was not a deeply emotional person. I had mostly expressive emotion - anger, jealousy, this emotions that make us Act out - and had never been given to guilt. It prompted me to recognize the course of events as a whole, and by the time I landed I understood not fully, but more so than I had, the nature of the events and their lesson. Our suffering is very often our own cause - and when we are released from it we often feel relieved to be out of God's angry sight. But it was God that had delivered me, even in this minute instance. it gave me pause, and made me consider the suffering of others in much worse places than where I had been, and I realized that the whole affair was not suffering at all. It was a chance to be held still, to be forced into reflection because I so desperately needed it. You may say that I assumed all of this, and much of it was - I since have evolved into a new view of these matters, but based on the same idea - but each thought struck like a hammer on an anvil, and the gravity of my present situation, and the lesson that was being offered to me, began to weigh down on me.
I was an angry teenager, I had been an angry child. I had been angry since my father left and it had festered and grown and finally exploded out of me - and I had not given it a second thought, even amidst my thoughts of God and honesty. I felt I was being honest by expressing my anger, though much of it was simply reactionary as well, and certainly it was augmented by the instability of the teenage brain. But the source of it was my Father. My anger had clouded my senses and steered me into disaster, so God the merciful was placing me square in front of its source so that I could resolve it and heal. I didn't even know my father even knew where I was. He was married with two children by this time, and before I went to him I certainly never imagined he'd be in Minnesota - which is more or less a thousand miles from where I lived.
This became my second revelation - God teaches through Life. From then, I began to dedicate myself towards learning diligently. I became more reasoned at this time, and through the course of my stay with my father I did mend my wounds. I learned that my own life is meant to teach me certain truths, and that God would never abandon me as long as I was diligent. When i made mistakes I would pay, but I would only pay in order to learn. I released my anger here, coincidentally enough amidst the seasonal blizzard that seemed to go on for most of my time there. In the end I felt my place was back in Georgia - that while I had healed my own hatred, I had much to recover at home, and no more great need to be with my father. He at best appreciated me, and I at best appreciated him, but our relationship's foundation had been broken long before. So, i returned to Georgia, but not home.
I was taken in by my friend and her family. They were actually the first fervent christians I ever knew who simply accepted me as I was and encouraged my Seeking. Allison, my friend, I still live with, and she has been a living conduit of lessons since the day I met her. She was a dedicated 'saved' christian at the time. We grew close quickly, and when we came to the subject of spirituality, I related to her my own thoughts on God.
While I began to interest her in the deeper meaning of God's presence in the heart as I saw it, she explained to me the True Christian's view on Jesus as the savior. At this time I tried to open my mind and heart to the idea - trusting that it would only be allowed in if it were Truth - and only parts of it would fit. I would not fully digest those parts until much later on, and had very imminent worldy concerns to dominate my thoughts at the time. However, I now looked at my predicament as a Lesson - an assignment to be thoroughly understood and acted upon. it is hard to be critical of oneself in the right way with so little experience. On the one hand is the assumed social structure of a person and their place in the world, on the other was the concern for what my place in the world should be according to God if he had such preferences, and finally my own hopes and dreams hanging from my neck, as yet too loosely defined to allow me a solid foundation on which to stand.
So i worked, I slept, I ate, and i hung out with my friends. By God's merciful grace I was blessed with a group of spiritually minded people who had the same kinds of questions but many, many different views. However, it wasn't like when I was a child, two religions arguing together. Each of these people believe in a personal connection to God. Even Allison's views were radical christian opinions - certainly not Cannon, at least. one of them had a particular way of gaining guidance from God - he believed that Angels were the intercessors and messengers, who speak to us through the world, through inspiration, through dreams, and through happenstance. This was his explanation of Tarot cards. For those not familiar, Tarot cards are a deck of, traditionally, 78 cards each representing a particular symbolic facet of human experience. I have my own theory on the purpose and use of this tool, but at the time it was simply a matter, cut and dry, of asking a question and getting an answer.
So i began to study them, and to memorize their nuances. it took me a year to commit them to memory, another year to grasp their subtleties, and another two years to master them, or at least, become proficient at interpretation. They have been a cornerstone of my spiritual developement. One may consider it fortune telling, or some nonsense like that, but Tarot, regardless of the original intention, serve as a material vocabulary of symbolism. Through faith, discernment, and a thoughtful examination of Self, God can offer guidance through a language that your consciousness can more easily understand. I believe that if the intention is Pure, and one's faith is strong, then the message will be True.
Since then, I have decided that the function of Tarot is not to give direct answers, but to inspire self reflection and supply inspiration towards a certain line of reasoning. It is meant to highlight facets of Self and the relationship between the Self and the World, or the Self and anything else. I believe that God does not give direct answers. He Guides. We must be willing to do the work, to carry our burden, so to speak, if we are to be worthy of the answers we seek.
And yet, with my first years working with the Tarot, I did believe that it gave direct answers. I became lazy in my meditation and prayer, because I did not think it was necessary. I became lazy in my contemplation of Self, because I thought this handy tool could just show me what I wanted to see. My spiritual progress stopped, although I thought I was doing spiritual seeking. I did readings to discern the messages of the world around me. What did this event mean, what did this coincidence point to? Answers which made only bits of sense came through the cards, and often I would later realize that the answer had been true, but misleading. I became depressed about my spiritual growth and not a little bit hurt by my own 'mystical ineptitude'. it was allison who prompted me to leave the cards alone for a while and get back to the old fashioned meditation and contemplation. When I tried, I found I had lost my discipline, my fervent dedication. The fire in my spirituality had gone out.
It was at this time that my third Revelation occured. I had lost my fire because I had stopped feeding it. I had instead been standing idly by my life expecting God to just explain everything that was going on. I didn't realize that he was explaining my ignorance to me. I knew that I should be Seeking answers, that I should be mindful and thoughtful of my life, that I had to learn through life and no other way. Yet I had abandoned that truth which was just as strong in my heart as when it first came to me. I took up my Work then as just that - spiritual Work, which had to be done in order to Grow. i put down the cards for a long time, and didn't pick them up until I felt called to again. And then, I used them only to inspire contemplation, not direct my actions and assumptions.
When I say 'revelation' I want to be sure that you know what I mean. It was around this time in my life that I gained an understanding of this myself. A revelation and a realization are not the same thing in my vocabulary. Realization is simply coming across a line of reasoning, spiritual or intellectual, which suddenly makes sense, or clarifies/explains something else. A Revelation, in my vocabulary, is the amalgamated completion, or rather plateau, of many realizations. It is the moment when the necessary stones have been laid, and suddenly you are momentarily on stable ground again. You feel as though you have stepped onto some higher platform. There is elation, and perhaps a bit of fear as well. Each Revelation seems to somehow conflict with some other part of one's heart. A Revelation is the revealing, or perhaps rewarding of, a Tenet of your own covenent with God. And that covenent may be the same between God and every other person, but you haven't agreed to it until you have this moment of understanding and acceptance. You cannot deny the Revelation itself - for it leaves no room for doubt - and so you must begin the work of adjusting oneself to it. If you deny a Revelation, you may as wel stop seeking and in this I agree with some of the verses i have seen posted here. Willful ignorance of Truth is as bad as turning one's back on God all together, and only by living by the new Truth can you ever hope to find the next.
So it was about this time that I came into contact with a much larger group of individuals who were also spiritually minded. Many of these were more pagan in their beliefs - polytheists, wiccans (the rare adult kind), agnostic psychics, etc. - although some were very christian. They were an intelligent lot and a lot older than i was. I was 18 at this time, the youngest besides myself was in his late twenties. They were also very argumentive, though not in a violent manner. Opinionally Confrontational, shall we say. Every visit to our matron's abode - an older woman who actually formed the group as a kind of discussion forum for spirituality, herself an ordained minister - was an evening of this discussion. It was here that I learned the value of conviction. one must fully understand one's own beliefs, not simply follow them blindly. Each successive layer, each rung on the ladder if you will, is built upon the foundation of the previous Revelations. To this day, spiritual debate is my proferred method of seeking inspiration, far and above anything save personal communion. I questioned my own views, and was forced to support them again and again. And so to this day do I revitalize my conviction by doing this very thing I am doing now, and I learned a greater lesson then, that would become a fourth Revelation when I grasped its magnitude.
God is in all things, God IS all things, and he speaks through all that is around me. If I am mindful of my interaction with people, if I am mindful of the reaction they cause in me, of the questions they pose to me, then I may understand what it is I should be contemplating. We must live our Revelations, and we must at the same time constantly Question them. In questioning them we are able to demonstrate them to ourselves, and only in this way can we fully understand their importance.
Here is another way of saying that, because this one has always defied my attempts to express it properly. Conviction of faith is the only means by which one can benefit from it. Conviction is derived through demonstration of Truth. Demonstration of Truth only occurs when we ask for it. Or when others inspire us to ask ourselves for it. Humans will always challenge one another's beliefs, and I believe this element of human nature to be present for that purpose specifically - to derive conviction or drive us to seek Truth that we can be convicted in.
This revelation was marked by the same elation and fear as the others. In this case, fear came from the knowledge that I could not always reason my conviction, and sometimes was lazy about doing so. I was willing to accept my Revelations at face value until this time, and act on them accordingly through habit. Some may believe that spiritual Habits are the same as Spiritual Practices - they are not. What we do by habit we do unthinkingly, and by rote. Practice is mindful, present, and passionate. At this time I had many habits of expression, habits of thinking, habits of prayer and meditation which I was not really present for - I simply did them because I had gotten used to doing them. I took this Revelation and tried to make one positive Habit - to be mindful of my practice, and my acting on the tenets that had been shown to me. Not only accept their Truth, but constantly look for it.
To this day, such a practice, while at times taxing (less so as time passes), has both strengthened my conviction and furthered my understanding of the Revelations themselves. They expand over time, it seems, as I contemplate them more deeply. Or perhaps illuminate is a better word.
many events transpired between that time and this, but my most recent Revelation was one year ago, after leaving my homeland in the south to come to New York, where there is much, much more to live and to interact with than at home. It came to me while i was with my friends, discussing the possibility of a family in the future, once we're finished with school and such.
We all have some understanding of what Love is. Most would characterize it as a pull, some think of it as more like a reaction to something that resonates with you. Everyone knows it's a connection.
This last Revelation I cannot demonstrate, because I am still observing it's nuances, and have not yet grasped it's full implication although it has already changed my life. Love is Connection. We interpret it because it causes a feeling in us, this sensation of Connection. I mean this as litteraly as I can possibly mean anything, it is not a comparison or a metaphor. When you love anything you become connected to it. When you love God, you are connected to everything, because God is Everything. That connection should be strengthened and sought after above all other things. At first I thought this was kind of mushy, something out of disney movies and whatnot. But the more I have contemplated this Revelation, the more I have observed my own feelings and reactions, the more have I come to understand the reality of it, if not it's meaning for my life.
I have had many experiences in this life, some because I caused them through ignorance, and some that I went seeking. I have dabbled with all manner of occult affairs, and had many realizations about the relationship between man and God, and the purpose of Reason, of Curiosity, of Faith, Morality. These five revelations, these key stones of Growth and communion, are the foundation of all my thoughts, my actions, my intentions, and my purpose in life. I agree that one should love God and no other - there is no need, because to Truly love God is to Truly love all that he is and that he created. That means the same things as if one loved a person with all of one's being. But, we should always remain open to a furtherance of the truth we think we have. Again and again I see the same five truths demonstrate themselves int he world around me, sometimes in ways that I would not have imagined. It is from them that I reasoned my own five tiers of morality. I do not believe there is a Fault in using one's own reason and intellect to discern God's will. I believe this because these things are both gifts from God which are intended to serve a purpose. We use our intellect to remember and abide by God's Truth, but are often lead to believe that doing our OWN thinking is not good for us. it is in this way that the Mind of Man atrophies over the ages, and people become little more than innocent sheep to be lead by men who do think for themselves. If those sheep had been using their Gifts properly, they would not allow that to happen. The proof is in the pudding, as it were.
I accept no other Truth except that which God gives to me through my own hard work. I certainly take everything else into consideration. Certainly each Revelation is rested upon a foundation of Realizations, which occur only through observation of the world and God's movement within it.
To sum up,
1. God is in all things, God IS all things - you, me, that guy over there, the trees, the sand, etc. no exceptions - and so are all things thus connected. So is the universe one of unconditional equanimity, for we are all equally connected to and manifestations of God.
2. God teaches through Life lived. All suffering, all joy, all of life is a streaming message from God, endlessly. The only way to Grasp that message is to pay attention to life. Because God is in all things, all things are his Voice, and there is no word spoken that does not come from his lips. Only through mindfullness and thoughtfulness can we understand the truth in what we are hearing.
3. Life is Spiritual Work - we must be diligent and devoted, and we must use what we are given, if we are to continue to Grow. All of our Growth is dependant on our own desire to do so. If we stop, God will not just hand us the next Truth. Truth must be earned through faith and Work.
4. It is not enough to blindly accept Truth at face Value. Truth is not a sentance, or a verse, Truth is a function of reality, a law by which all things are put into motion. We may know it's presence through Revelation, but we may only understand it's value and meaning by questioning it's validity and testing it in life.
5. Love is Connection.
and by these laws,
Harbor no negative intention - one must Love all of God, not parts of him, and God is All, therefore love All as you would love God, and harbor no ill intent. Ill intention towards oneself or one's fellow man, is the same as harboring ill intent towards God, and ultimately oneself.
Do not judge yourself or others - regardless of culture, race, tradition, past sins, or anything else, all things are Equal, for God is all of existence. Your own deeds or the deeds of others serve their purpose in the universe, and you should make no judgement on the value or worth of a person based on what only God could know. Let man sort out his offenders as he will, but have only compassion and love for those that offend you, and do not judge them, for their own actions are the seeds of their own lessons from God, and lessons to all those who look on.
Never harm another - physically, psychologically, economically, etc. - except in direct defense of human life - our actions have consequences. Our words, our deeds, even our thoughts. To do harm to one is to spit upon all that God has made for you. Cherish all of creation and always seek to attend to its wellbeing. This is the only way to be free of pain.
Recognize unconditional equanimity among all beings - be neither prideful nor self-degrading. God is All, and All has equal purpose. All things die, all things pass, no man triumphs over another on the final day. Therefore deal with all beings equally, and give the same respect to a beggar as to a king; a prophet as to a heathen.
Be as responsible as you can for your fellow human being - Just as all things are a message from God, so are we all individually the embodiment of God's message, and it is our responsibility to offer our message freely to all who would listen. In this seek to offer compassion and understanding to every being, just as God offers the same to you. We are all dependant upon one another, and it is through human compassion that God's gifts are oft delivered. Therefore do Good works freely and with gratefulness to do so, or expect no such responsibility of others.
These are the tenets of my faith as they stand. This is not the full extent of my thoughts on God, or many other matters, but it is a start, and it encompasses the moments in my life, as well as the surrounding theme of each era, which I feel demonstrate the origin of these tenets and my feelings on them both at the time and presently.
This post was made in response to the invitation to do so, and after the ordeal of composing it, I would very much like to hear about the progression of other members' spiritual growth, both Muslim and non-muslim alike.
With God's mercy and grace, hopefully I expressed this all clearly, without too much distraction. I do personally hold these tenets and truths to be universally occurring in human nature. I believe that most religions practice similar tenets selectively, picking and choosing what situations they are valid in. I feel that this is a major flaw in the Religious practice of this age.
Namaste
Mahasvapna
