What has been your life's journey?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

In order to facilitate more understanding in this forum, I thought that it might be interesting to outline our individual journeys towards a greater understanding of ourselves and our world. I doubt if anyone here has remained the same in their views and beliefs since childhood, and I am looking forward to reading about your life's journey.

I'll use my journey as an example.

My first memories as a child were in going to church. I was in the choir from age 3 on; I remember going to the sanctuary and looking at a stained glass window in the ceiling, thinking that was where God lived, and that He looked down upon us from there. I will say that I always had a feeling of love and joy when I went to the sanctuary. But I did also absorb the dogma of the Methodist Church-the Crucifixion/Resurrection, and the need to believe in Jesus to have eternal life.

And then, at age 13, my mother gave me a book to read--"The Passover Plot" by Hugh Schonfeld. http://www.amazon.com/Passover-Plot-Interpretation-Death-Jesus/dp/1852308362
For those who don't know this book, it posits the notion that it is possible that Jesus planned his crucifixion and how to live beyond it. It made me seriously question my faith--was I a Christian solely because I felt it was a way of insuring I would have eternal life? Was that the only role religion played, and, if so, what if it was a lie? I would say it was at this time that I really started searching for answers about the nature of life and reality and the role religion is to play in our lives.

At age 17, I had my first mystical experience, one that showed me a couple of things: one, that there is consciousness even at the cellular level; two, that there is an overwhelming unity of which we are all a part. At this point, I would say that the fear of death lessened a great deal, replaced by the question of what is the purpose of living this life. (FYI, I have never taken illegal drugs, though I have heard some who have tripped on LSD have had similar experiences)

Anyway, this personal experience sent me on a different path. It involved reading a series of books, including the Seth books, which talked about subatomic particles and that there is an underlying force that unifies all things--Seth termed it "All That Is". Other mystical experiences reinforced this concept and expanded it--the only way for me to continue on my path to understanding is through myself. This force, by whatever name you call it, can only be experienced through our own selves.

And where did religion go in all of this journey? Well, I recognized that what is important in religion is the message--the message of how a devotee is supposed to act. I was led to Universal Sufism, which strives to show the similarities behind all faiths and to show how science and spirituality are seeking the same thing.

My journey continues, as I explore and learn more about others' point of view. I continue to have mystical experiences, all of which come as great surprises, all of which I consider great treasures.

Thank you for reading of my journey. I am eager to read yours.

[panader0]

1. Peace, love for all things, understanding, humility

I have fallen short of my ideals many times,(mostly self-indulgence) yet keep them as a goal on my horizon. I believe roughly in the seven chakras
philosophy of Buddhists. The lowest one is associated with the anus, the need to eat, or survive. It is the lowest(physically) vibe in life. The next is sexual, centered in the genetalia, the vibe to reproduce (but you have to eat first) The next, centered near the navel, is power, the need to kick ass when needed. Then comes what is called "the great leap" to the heart chakra, the center of compassion. Then the Thyroid, the pineal gland (Third eye), and finally the last chakra, over the top of your head, your aura. Each successive chakra is less physical and more spiritual, going up the spine, and began to occur in human evolution when humanoids stood erect and their spines became vertical to the earth.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I am familiar with the chakras

and have done many different practices with them. I would be interested in knowing what practices you do--breath? Intoning? Concentration? Thank you for your reply.

[panader0]

6. Breath, intoning and concentration are all parts of life

You needn't set aside a special time for them any more than setting aside a special time to go to church to worship. As I work or sleep I breath. Concentration is a necessary part of work or playing my music. I see the greater picture in all things, however small.

[JerseygirlCT]

2. Thanks Ayeshahaqqiqa

That was interesting! I'm afraid my story is not nearly so.

I was raised R. Catholic, and was quite devout as a child. Immersed in my faith, in a very RC community, as I attended parochial schools and let's face it, as in many places in the greater NY metro area, lots of Catholics and Jews. (I remember asking as a child about what a Protestant was... hadn't encountered one up to that point!).

At the same time, I was raised by parents who had a very tolerant view of other beliefs - my mom just naturally humble about it, my dad probably because he traveled a great deal around the world and really enjoyed his encounters with other cultures. There wasn't any bigotry about "we've got it right, no one else can".

I remained a pretty active church attendee even until college. But at that point, having left a pretty forward-looking pastor, I ran into some pretty unhappy anti-woman stuff, and stopped attending.

That was actually a lonely time for me - I did miss the fellowship and a religious community. I missed the liturgy of the mass - I find it beautiful and meditative...

At any rate, once I had kids, I felt pulled even more so, and found a local Episcopal church one Easter. After learning a bit more about the church, I joined. It's been a good change for me.

But all through the years, I've personally done a great deal of thinking and questioning about what I really think and believe. I don't think that's going to end. I'm not someone to accept "because", lol. So my beliefs don't tend to fit with "standard" theology, and I'm ok with that. TEC gives me the room for that, so it's a good fit.

I've learned that I'm definitely of a universalist bent (my parents? An agnostic Jewish husband and a wonderful Jewish family that came with him?), and I do think all of us seeking the divine tend to experience it in different ways, which is good - we're all different people.

And I've already gone on far too long with a boring story, lol!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Not a boring story

one I find fascinating, maybe because in recent years I have spent a lot of times at Sufi retreats at either Catholic or Episcopal retreat centers. From what I know of Episcopals, they do have a wide range for tolerance, especially those in the Northeast.

[JerseygirlCT]

5. I might not hang around if they weren't so tolerant

of me, their resident wild-eyed radical universalist feminist inclusive nut, lol! I'm not the one to teach Sunday school, but I've been part of the parish leadership (not now, thank goodness... I'm burnt out, I think!) and there's lots of room for a whole range of beliefs. We think in terms of sharing worship, not needing to share every bit of dogma.

[More Than A Feeling]

7. Ok, I'll play.

I grew up secular, so secular in fact that I was in sixth grade before I became aware of this thing called religion (I was a very insular child). I thought it was the goofiest thing I had ever heard. An invisible being in two places or more at once! Absurd! I wasn't shy about expressing this opinion to my religious friends, either. One of them later told me that it pushed her to learn more about her faith, so in a twisted way, she was grateful to me for that. Another, I had a brief relationship with in High School that ended because she felt I wasn't sufficiently respectful of her faith. I remain friends with both of them to this day, by the way.

In my senior year of high school, things were not going well, and I started to wonder if perhaps I had been missing the boat on this whole religion thing. I started to resent my parents for failing to even introduce me to religion. I began seeking. I wasn't looking for truth; I was looking for emotional support to help me get over my relentless self-flagellation for personal failings so minor that no one would remember them five minutes later. I also wanted a little more "spice" in my reality. UU was the first one I looked at, but it seemed a thin gruel at best. At the time, I thought it was like the "Seinfeld" of religions: a religion about nothing.

When college started, I gave a brief glance to Buddhism. Unfortunately, I had no discipline to keep up a commitment to meditate. Part of it was that there was no social structure available to affirm a Buddhist orientation. The more serious problem was that I didn't really understand it: the words sounded pretty in my head, but I couldn't actually explain it to anyone.

Socially, I fell in with a group of Catholics, only one of whom was serious enough to want to discuss religion. My opinions of the supernatural and Christianity hadn't really changed since sixth grade, and I had never read the Bible. When he started quoting the Bible, I decided that I had to read it in order to be better able to argue with him. I was surprised by the figure of Jesus I saw there; my image of Christianity had been of damnation and hellfire, and here was what appeared to be love, gentleness and encouragement towards good deeds. I still didn't believe in God, but Jesus appeared to be an ok fellow. What convinced me that it was ok intellectually to believe in God was the argument from the anthropic principle (btw, that would be the argument that Richard Dawkins, for one, says is the least horrible of the arguments. At least I was fooled by the very best, although that isn't saying much).

I started out as Marcus Borg-type Christian (The Heart of Christianity was my intro, not Mere Christianity). I was still socially liberal (which meant I was for gay marriage, the environment, and pro-choice), and I did not evangelize. I picked a church off the internet specifically for its apparent liberalism (which became unintentionally the best decision of my life when I met the woman who will some day be my wife at that church). Then I fell in with the evangelical Christian group on campus. This started changing me from Borg-Tillich quasi-atheistic Christianity, to what I would have called the Emerging Church if I had known the term. I think that group had a majority of Green Party members in it, for example, yet the theology was as orthodox as it gets. I started reading C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, Phillip Yancey, and Brennan Manning.

As some of you may remember, it was during these years that I joined DU and moved into R/T forum. This was another of my unintentional best decisions: it kept me in touch with my atheistic past. I produced my fair share of "atheists are criticizing my faith and that makes me uncomfortable. Make them stop!" posts. Incidentally, I wonder if Trotsky remembers the time we went about twelve rounds of back and forth posts. It was also during these years that I found that mere belief and prayer were not enough to numb the pain of the darker moments of my life. If God and you are in a room together, you will still be lonely. I joined another bible study group, but it wasn't quite the same.

Then, I encountered the online book "Stripping the Gurus." I read it eagerly, lapping up the misdeeds of obvious cultists like Baghwan Rajneesh. The last chapter had an insight that stopped me cold: human nature hasn't changed much in 2000 years, so what made me think that Jesus was, in reality, any better than these modern jokers? I didn't believe in their "miracles"; how could I justify believing Jesus's miracles? That led me to Biblical archaeology, and the book "The Bible Unearthed" by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. It eviscerated the Old Testament, and I knew enough from reading Niebuhr to know that if the OT was wrong, the NT had to be wrong too. There was no "arc of history". One night, while walking to class, I asked myself what it would be like to see the world as if there were no divine entity watching me. And suddenly, I knew that there wasn't. The emotions I had been associating with the "presence of God" vanished. I regained my naturalistic worldview, and returned to atheism.

I kept it quiet for months while I adjusted to my old outlook again, but eventually my girlfriend found out. She did not take it well, and some of you may remember that saga as well. By that time I was in law school, and my classes were teaching me how important objective evidence was, which only made me more confident that I had had it right the first time; there was no objective evidence for deities. She thought that meant I wasn't believing because I just couldn't make up my mind. She asked me to read more and to talk to our pastor. I did make the phone call, but our pastor could not answer my new insights. Months of coolness followed, until I made a very tiny, one time only concession solely for the sake of keeping the peace. That seemed to satisfy, and things calmed down more or less.

From there, I realized that atheism was just a beginning, not an end. It's not really enough to say what you are against; you need to know what you are for. So my struggle to the present day is to define satisfactorily what I am for, and figure out what flavor that comes in (Pantheism? Taoism? Buddhism? Secular Humanism? non-theistic paganism? Wanna-be hippie? Still not sure). The latest innovation has been my shift to "strong" atheism: the affirmative assertion that no gods exist. I got tired of repeatedly asking for evidence: it seemed weak and defensive. I learned some things about logical proofs of non-existence of the supernatural, a creator, and deities, and they persuaded me to go affirmative. Also, I couldn't rightly reconcile naturalism with agnostic atheism, because naturalism is an affirmative worldview, and it seemed like hypocrisy and incoherence not to be a strong atheist, too.

I've also started reading the Bible again. It's amazing how much clearer the whole thing is when you know about when the gospels were written, and when you read it without the eyes of devotion. There are some fun Christian counter-apologetics that can be done solely using the Bible, and I posted an example here when I recently returned after a long absence. I find that I really, really wish I knew who truly wrote the gospels, when, and for what purpose. The mystery keeps my interest high. Sometime I'll post the personal hypothesis I came up with for their origins. Somebody might get a kick out of it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Thank you for sharing this

I was hoping at least one atheist would show up and share their story. I think one reason religious folks are afraid of atheists is that they have an overly simplified stereotype of what an atheist is and how they got where they are. This helps a lot.

If you are really interested in seeing how the holy books evolved, I would suggest "Desert Wisdom" by Neil Douglas-Klotz. He shares texts from many Middle Eastern traditions, including ancient Egyptian, explaining along the way how the native languages add a depth and richness to the ideas presented that are often stripped away through translation. He does give practices to go with the texts--what I find most interesting is the experience one gains by doing the practice--a greater depth of understanding of what is being transmitted. I think you may find it fascinating as well.

[JerseygirlCT]

12. Hi H&E

Good to hear from you here again- thank you for sharing all that.

Too bad no one can get you to read anything, huh? (In case this falls flat, that was a joke - your reading list is impressive!)

[ironbark]

8. Hi

I grew up in the coal mining and power generating Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia. Hard working blue collar people with a very very strong sense of community. Dad was a member of the Socialist Youth Alliance at the time Australia held a Referendum to determine if the Communist and Socialist Parties would be outlawed or not. The Internment Camps had already been built to house the Reds if the vote went against them and Dad was involved in the burning of membership lists.
My older brother studied ‘Hegel, Marx. Marcuse- Revolutionary History and Theory’ at Uni, learned Russian and was married to a card carrying Communist. My family and community tradition and conditioning is ‘Left ’….’Hard Core Left’ ;-)
By the time I was thirteen I had written on the Cubby House door (in Russian)- “Workers, students and peasants of the world unite” and beneath that (In Elvin rune)-
“Last night I had the strangest dream I ever dreamt before…I dreamt that all the world agreed to put an end to war”. Justice, equity, peace and fairness were the governing principles of the community I grew up in.
I maintained my strong Left leaning political idealism until my late twenties and the election of the Labour Government of Bob Hawk. Great hopes and expectations had been pinned on the Hawk Government and many poor and working class expected change. Things did change…they got worse.
Living and running a business in an inner city area torn between its traditional poor residents and the renovating YUPPIES moving in (and driving up rents) we saw the worst of urban poverty and homelessness. Looking out the shop window or around the neighbourhood it was not hard to see that The State was providing little more than enough to survive…and often not even that. It was also inescapable that the Churches (of various denominations) ran a host of welfare and support services feeding, clothing, sheltering and caring for the poor. My favourite Order was- ‘The Sisters of the Back Streets and Alleyways’ (Anglican I believe)…a wonderful street wise bunch of old ladies with indomitable spirit, relentless capacity to care and wicked sense of humour. Ultimately I was obliged to conclude that it didn’t matter and I didn’t care how wacky or oddball the ‘Theology/belief’ was…the ‘practice/service’ was vastly superior to anything The State (or the Armchair Revolutionaries) provided. The ‘Churchies’ could believe the universe was five minutes old and the moon was made of blue cheese as far as I was concerned…As long as they didn’t force those beliefs into schools and kept doing the vital good works.
At about the same time I entered the Welfare Field through my background in art and encountered immigrant Cambodian Christians (survivors of Pol Pot), Iranian Baha’is and Sudanese Muslims….all wonderful people from whom I leaned a great deal.
Still looking and tasting from the world philosophical and religious smorgasbord ; -)

Close to my core remains the land I grew up in-



http://www.erahul.com/Rickett





Thanks for reading.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Thanks for a fascinating story

I do believe that the core teaching of all faiths is talking much more about how we should act towards our fellow man than about whether or not we follow one dogma or another.

[JerseygirlCT]

11. That's a very interesting story

I'm looking forward to hearing more from you!

[HamdenRice]

13. That's an amazing story! Thanks for sharing nt