Monday, October 24, 2011
Finding Peace in a Religion
A friend asked : It seems you have sampled many religions. Did you finally found peace in one of them?
My reply:
Regarding "finding peace" I am better able to cope with life's sorrows and the gradual loss of old age, ending in death, because I have studied many religions and seriously practiced several (Greek Orthodox, Korean Zen Buddhism and Guyanese Hinduism) BUT my life is not free of suffering, regret, anxiety.
Also I read many books on psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, self-help and between that and the religion studies I came to understand myself and others a little better.
It helps to realize that everything passes, everything is transitory, nothing is permanent.
We must not say "I am sorry that it is over" but rather "I am glad that it happened and I experienced it" whether we mourn the end of our school days or childhood or the loss of a loved one.
The Way of the Tao in the 33rd stanza says "he that can be content with whatsoever he has; he has attained true wealth" - that desire is the source of all suffering - we suffer because we want things that we do not have (a sports car, better job, sexy lover) and we have things that we do not want (e.g. cancer) - and that mind makes all things which perhaps was first expressed by Schopenhauer in the West.
I practiced Greek Orthodox Christianity for 20 years (one of which was as a novice in a monastery in Boston)... 2 years as Buddhist, 2 years as Hindu ... and gradually I ceased to feel the need for corporate worship but am content simply to think and write each day.
Most corporate human endeavors are corrupt and corrupting. Power, fame, wealth corrupt.
Another thing I realize is that whatever we come to understand in life is for the most part subjective and based upon years of small experiences; hence we may WRITE about our experiences all we please but the simple READING of what we write cannot convey to anyone the precise convictions that we have come to hold through our experiences.
Cardinal Newman coined the phrase "illation" to denote the gradual effect of years of experiences which slowly bring us to our values, views, principles, convictions. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh is an excellent illustration of illation in the life of the protagonist Charles Ryder as we follow him from his carefree college days and through his marriage and affair, and into World War II.
