Tapati's posts with tag: spirituality
Once in awhile I read about people who have illnesses or injuries that trap them inside a body that can't function or communicate--with an awake and aware mind. We had a discussion about this on one of the pagan forums I visit. I was reminded of this song by Ani DiFranco:
Back, back, back
In the back of your mind are you learning an angry language?
Tell me, boy
Boy
Boy, are you tending to your joy, or are you just letting it vanquish*?
Yeah, back, back, back
In the dark of your mind where the eyes of your demons are gleaming
Are you mad
Mad
Mad about the life you never had
Yeah, even when you are dreaming?
Who are these old, old, old people in these nursing homes
Just scowling away at nothing?
Like big rag dolls
Just cursing at the walls and pulling out all of their stuffing
Yeah, every day is a door leading back to the core
Yes, old age will distill you
And if you're this, this, this full of bitterness now
Some day it will just fill you
When you sit right down in the middle of yourself
You're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair
So renovate your soul before you get too old cuz you're gonna be housebound there
When you're old you fold up like an envelope and you mail yourself right inside
Yeah, and there's nowhere to go except out, real slow
Are you ready, boy, for that ride?
Your arrogance is gaining on you, and so is eternity
You better practice happiness
You better practice humility
Yeah, you took the air
You took the time
You were fed and you were free
You'd better put some beauty back, yeah, while you got the energy
You'd better put some beauty back, yeah, while you got the energy
Back, back, back
In the back of your mind are you learning an angry language?
Tell me, boy
Boy
Boy, are you tending to your joy, or are you just letting it vanquish*?
Yeah, back, back, back
In the dark of your mind where the eyes of your demons are gleaming
Are you mad
Mad
Mad about the life you never had
Even when you're dreaming?
*I always hear this as "languish" which makes far more sense but every online version I look at says vanquish.
Seen on the blog of Advaitadas:
Although most western devotees have been initially taught that all westerners go to hell because they don’t follow the Vedic principles and that ‘ignorance is no excuse’, when I told this to Sadhu Baba he laughed and thought I had told him the joke of the year. Later, when studying the teachings of Vijay Krishna Gosvami, I understood why –
“Although not every human being has the same duties, obligations and ethics, there is morality according to country, society and time. Whatever is thus considered decent is accepted, and unless and until it is understood and realised to be wrong and unjust it should certainly be followed. Whatever I believe to be my duties and propriety that is my religious principle. If one doesn’t follow one’s fundamental religious principles one meets with woe and commits sin according to one’s local, social and temporal customs and ethics. Whatever obligation and ethics one believes in and accepts with a simple heart, that is one’s religious virtue and should certainly be followed. In some places the eating of fish and meat is established custom and at other places it is rejected as a sin as if it is poison.”
Vijay Krishna Goswami, June 1891.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------end quote--------------
This is an issue that I have thought about for years, ever since Catholicism emphasized the need for baptism in order to achieve salvation and go to heaven. (They have since softened their position on this issue, I've been told.) It always seemed to me that a loving and fair God would not punish anyone for doing what their culture, family, and upbringing had always told them was right, so long as they were sincere in that belief. It always seemed to me that God would give us many ways to approach him, just as parents accept any little gift their children give them with love. I am glad to see this passage which hopefully counteracts some of the ethnocentrism that leads to overzealous preaching.
I found this in a Buddhist magazine and had to chuckle:
Hair Braiding Meditation
By Polly Trout
May I be filled with lovingkindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.
May my daughter, who wants a billion tiny little braids this morning, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be well. May she be peaceful and at ease going to school with a billion tiny little braids.
May her best friend, who got a billion tiny little braids put in her hair at Club Med Ixtapa last week, be filled with lovingkindness. Also her mother, may she be peaceful and at ease. And the woman the mother hired to do all that cornrowing, may she be well. May she be happy.
May I be filled with lovingkindness as I put in these billion tiny little braids. May I be peaceful and transcend greed. Also, may I go to Club Med Ixtapa next season, when the beach will be even more inspiring due to my newly enlightened and greed-free state. May I be happy.
May my coworkers be filled with lovingkindness as they wonder why I am late for work as I make these billion tiny braids. May they be peaceful and at ease.
May my daughter not notice that these braids are not nearly as cute as her friend’s braids that got done professionally in Ixtapa, or if she does notice, may she be peaceful and at ease about that, please for God’s sake.
May my toddler, currently trying to vie for my attention as I make these tiny braids for her big sister, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be peaceful and at ease.
May my mother, who did this for me when I was five, be filled with lovingkindness. May she be peaceful and at ease. I wonder why I never thanked her for that.
May I remember this day sitting with my daughter, braiding her hair, late for work again, peaceful and at ease, happy.
http://www.halfsatori.com/2008/07/celebration-of-life.html
My friend Ananda's inspirational doodles about consciousness dancing through the cosmos to the universal beat.
I'm not a follower of Osho but I recently read this quote and what it says about religion, guilt, and social control is in line with my own observations. You have to realize that for most of human history religion has been aligned with government, and as such it was an enforcer of social norms and controls required by each government. You can see the culture wars in America as being a struggle between this idea that religion (specifically Christianity) should control our behavior and the idea that we alone should decide what is right and wrong and that should not be imposed on us by religion. While I don't believe in wallowing in guilt, taking responsibility for one's actions is of course the right thing to do, including making amends whenever necessary. Guilt, however, never helped anyone.
BELOVED OSHO,
I FEEL SO GUILTY WHEN WANTING TO EXPRESS MYSELF AND WHEN I FINALLY TAKE COURAGE TO DO SO, IT FEELS MORE LIKE A NO TO OTHERS THAN A YES TO MYSELF. THEN THE GUILT RETURNS BECAUSE OF THIS. POSTPONEMENT OR DEFIANCE ARE THE ONLY WAYS I KNOW BUT THEY SEEM PART OF A CIRCLE ANYWAY. BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE A WAY TO TRANSFORM GUILT?
My God!
Nobody has ever transformed guilt. It has to be simply dropped.
Why transform it? Do you want to preserve it in some form or other?
Guilt is not something that you are born with, it is not part of your nature. Guilt is created by the society.
For example, every religion creates guilt -- in different ways, but the technique is the same. All the religions live, thrive, on guilty human beings. First make them guilty -- once you have succeeded in making somebody feel guilty, you have almost killed his spirit. Now he will be a soulless slave to you.
As far as I am concerned, my whole work is in how to free you from guilt -- not to transform it.
I was born in a Jaina family. It is a very orthodox religion. You cannot conceive -- small things become guilt. You cannot eat in the night, that is guilt. If you have eaten in the night, you have gone down towards hell; you have taken one step downwards.
I don't see any problem. The religion is very old -- at that time, there was no light, no electricity, and it was understandable to prohibit people from eating in the night -- but why make it guilt? Just a rational explanation is enough, but religions are not interested in rational explanations. They don't miss a single opportunity in which they can make you feel guilty. Guilt is their power over you.
If we can remove all guilt from humanity, all the churches will be empty, all the temples will be empty. There will be nobody praying, nobody carrying Holy Bibles. But anything can be made into guilt. Sometimes it is very hilarious....
Up to my eighteenth year, I had not eaten in the night, and I was praised for it and I used to feel higher and holier than all the Hindus who lived around me -- they are eating in the night, poor fellows. They are all bound to go to hell. I was feeling tremendously happy that I was saved and these people were destroyed. But eating in the night... whenever you eat, somewhere it is night! So what difference does it make whether the night is here or the night is in London? The night is around.
In the Sikh religion, a Sikh is expected to follow five principles and each of those five is simply hilarious. A Sikh must have long hair... in the Punjabi language, these are called five "K's." The first K means kesh, hair; you cannot cut any hair of the body. The second K is katar. Katar means a special kind of sword -- now, what has a sword to do with a religion? -- every Sikh has to carry a sword. The third K is even more strange. I have been trying to find the religiousness of it but I have not been able to yet. It is called kachchha. Kachchha means underwear -- without underwear, you are finished.
My God! As far as I know, God himself has no underwear... because in no religious scripture is it described that God has underwear. But these poor Sikhs are having underwear. I was thinking, what is the matter? Why did underwear enter into it and become a religious principle?
Those were the days when Sikhism was born. India was under Mohammedan rule. And in war, if you use something that falls -- you are running and your dhoti falls away -- then kachchha is needed. Otherwise, katar will not do anything and you will become unnecessarily a laughingstock. But now there is no war and nothing is a problem. You can put the kachchha to rest!
But a Sikh cannot cut his hair. If he cuts it, he feels guilty. You have never felt guilty -- cutting your hair or shaving your beard, you have never felt guilty -- not even a far away, faint idea of guilt. What is there to feel guilty about?
But once the idea is put in your mind, and from the very childhood conditioned continuously, then it becomes difficult.
One Sikh driver used to drive me, he was my chauffeur. One night, when he was snoring, I cut his hair. In the morning he came running, crying, tears... he said, "I resign from the job."
I said, "What has happened?"
He said, "Can't you see? Somebody has cut all my hairs. He has destroyed my religion, my spirituality."
I said, "Just sit down. How, by cutting your hair, can your religion be destroyed?"
He said, "I don't want to listen to anything. It is written in the scriptures, and I don't want to listen to anything against my scriptures. So please, give me my kachchha and I am going."
Because while I was cutting his hair, I thought it would be good to take his kachchha also. So I pulled his kachchha out and he was so deeply asleep....
I said, "Kachchha? Who has taken your kachchha? You never take a bath -- I can say that my chauffeur is within a one mile radius, your kachchha sends such disgusting radiations. If somebody has taken it, be finished with it!"
He said, "No, it is my religion! And first I want to know who the person is."
And he had his sword in his hand. I said, "Calm down. I will bring you a new kachchha."
He said, "What about the hair?"
I said, "False hairs are available."
He said, "Then it is good."
These fools are all over the world, and they feel guilty. So you have to understand the psychology of guilt. Just understanding is enough, and it drops.
You have to understand that people, to make you spiritual slaves, have put ideas in your mind that "these things are wrong." That "if you do these things, God will be angry and throw you into hell." And naturally, nobody wants to go to hell -- except me, because I am immensely interested in hell. I don't want to go to heaven, for the simple reason that in heaven, you will find only dry bones, ugly saints, somebody holding his kachchha. In hell, you will find the best company possible. All great artists are there, all great poets are there. All great philosophers are there, all great mystics are there. In fact, anything that has happened on this earth and is beautiful, you will find in hell, not in heaven.
In heaven, you will find dusty old saints who are now suffering -- why have they made so much effort to come to heaven? And remember one thing that shows the situation: from heaven there is no exit. You can only enter, and finished. From hell, there are both doors -- entrance and exit. If you want to go, you can go. But nobody goes out. All the beautiful women, all the beautiful men -- it is twenty-four hours a celebration.
So I told my chauffeur, "Don't be worried. If you are going into hell, I am coming with you. You can remain my chauffeur there too!"
He said, "But I don't want to go."
But I said, "You don't understand. In heaven, there is no car -- what will you do?"
He said, "That is a real question -- I know only one job. Are you sure there is no car?"
I said, "Never heard... you can look into all your scriptures, in all the religions' scriptures. There is no car."
He said, "My God! Then it is better -- be finished with this kachchha and this kesh, I am coming with you! If you are going to hell, then there must be something in it."
Guilt has to be dropped.
Simple understanding, that's all.
You have been befooled, you have been conditioned.
Just drop it.
The moment you understand that this is something absurd, drop it. Transformation is not needed. And transformation is not possible either, because guilt is not a real thing. It is just an idea enforced in your mind. It is like a person who by mistake has learned that two plus two are five. Now, do you think some transformation is needed? All that is needed is to tell that person: "Two plus two are not five but only four." Just put four chairs before him -- two chairs on this side, two chairs on this side -- bring them together and tell him to count, whether they are five or four. And do you think he will have much difficulty in dropping the idea of five? There is no question. The moment he sees that two plus two is four, the five is finished.
Guilt is exactly like that.
It is the greatest crime against humanity done by your religious people. They cannot be forgiven.
God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing. --Hafez (aka Hafiz) of Persia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez
Something we used on our wedding program:  Apache Wedding Prayer Now you will feel no rain, For each of you will be shelter to the other. Now you will feel no cold, For each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there is no more loneliness For each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two bodies But there is only one life before you. Go now to your dwelling place To enter into the days of your togetherness and may your days be good and long upon the earth.
 I finally got our wedding pages back online. I used to have them on web space granted with my work email address at Cruzio. Once I no longer worked there, that email address was no longer active and with it went the web space. I have moved it to my domain web space. Here's the link: http://www.labyris.com/Wedding/At some point I need to replace the pictures since most of them were scanned at low resolution back in 1998 when I constructed the web pages. Our vows are there and it was nice to be reminded what a beautiful multicultural wedding we had. We drew in bits of Celtic, Pagan, Jewish, Italian, and Traditional wedding traditions. Our love of science fiction even played a role. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding and a wonderful beginning of our lives together.
Religion through coercion yields not faith but tyranny. --Tommy Denton, columnist, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
We are having an interesting discussion on the nature of the soul and the role of science in investigating spiritual beliefs and concepts on my forum. For anyone who would like to check it out, it can be found here.
Reading my favorite passage from Jalaja Bonheim
Banish Misfortune brings me back to my Celtic roots. I sometimes use a version I have here at home to set the tone for ritual and cleanse the space--literally banishing misfortune. :) Import.flv (7.0 MB)
Leann rocks Amazing Grace out of the ballpark, or rather, the church. I was looking for Laura Love's version, one of my two favorites (Ani DiFranco being the other) but this was awe inspiring in its own way. I am amazed at how many ways Amazing Grace can be sung. It just goes to show that God(dess) inspires us all to share our unique gifts. Import.flv (9.3 MB)
Nina Simone sings Feeling Good Import.flv (5.1 MB)
 When I was 19, a close friend of my husband and I was learning Vedic or Hindu Astrology and did my chart and the chart of my newborn son, Lakshmana. A few months later another friend also did an interpretation of my chart and also gave me a list of astrological periods that I would go through--major and sub-periods governed by the planets.
I was told a lot of things about myself and my future, of course. I was told that having Moon in Cancer in the 9th house, the house governing religion, was auspicious and one of the top 4 best placements of the Moon. I was told this is what gave me my inclination to seek a relationship with God. Further, I was told that having Jupiter in Libra in the 12th house, governing my death and next life is also auspicious and that I will "go upwards at the time of death." (I've since vowed to come back here so that's a non-issue.)
I was also informed that I would be poor all my life--the exact words were "with two malefics in the 2nd house of wealth, and Jupiter in the 12th house of loss, you cannot expect a powerful financial situation at any time in life." I took this to heart, coming from a poverty background and being in poverty at the time I received this information--so I resigned myself to poverty. This is where the notion of self-fulfilling prophecy comes in. When it came to money, especially once I became a single mom, I felt doomed to live in poverty and I didn't question that for several years--not until I began to question my whole belief-system, in fact. This pronouncement by my astrologer friend(s) plus the doctrine that there is no happiness in the material world cemented my pessimism about my prospects.
Astrology is an interesting phenomenon. It is very attractive to think that our destiny is writ large in the stars, and that we can get a guide map for our lives. Certainly it seems comforting to have some idea of what's up ahead rather than just set off into the great unknown future. Sometimes it seems that astrology does work--but is that coincidence, is astrology influencing how we choose to see and interpret events or is there some substance to it? My charts, done at that young age, didn't seem to indicate any of the major events of my life. My heart disease revealed itself during the most beneficial major period of my entire life--the Moon major period. The Moon was one of my best situated planets and all good things were to happen during this period. Somehow open heart surgery followed by a heart attack wasn't really in the cards, at least according to my chart.
Nor did astrology predict the severe brain injury of my son, Lakshmana. One would think that there would be a foreshadowing in either my chart or his. Not a word of any danger or illness was mentioned at that time in the charts done by two different astrologers. Oops!
Another aspect of my chart that both astrologers highlighted was the presence of Mercury and Saturn in Sagittarius in my house of speech. (The second house signifies multiple things, it is said that psychologically it affects "speech, sincerity and how we express verbally.") I was told that Saturn would cause me to be harsh or blunt by telling the truth even if it is unwanted. I was warned to work on this. (In fact I did because I could see that growing up in an emotionally and verbally abusive environment I had learned some bad habits and I had to change how I spoke for my children's sake.) I was also told that having Mars in Aries would make me very strong and that people might miss my more nurturing side (Venus in Scorpio and Moon in Cancer). While I still am inclined to despise hypocrisy and to speak truth, especially to those in power or those truths that people would prefer to ignore, I do try to be more conscious of how I do so. The question is, were these things there to be revealed by astrology--or, having been told about these things at an early age, did that strongly influence how I myself saw my personality? One of the critiques of astrology is that the personality traits described are something we all have to one degree or another, so we nod our heads a  nd say, "Yes, that's right, I do speak harshly sometimes!" I presently think that astrology is useful only in that it causes us to engage in self reflection and examine our goals and relationships. But if we ignore the reality in front of us because our chart says X, or if we assume we are doomed to poverty because it's in the stars, then astrology is a negative and limiting force in our lives. I would suggest taking it with a very large grain of salt and realizing that what we think about ourselves and our possibilities has a very real affect on whether we can manifest those possibilities. If you don't believe you can make a decent living and provide for yourself or your children, if you think there is no happiness to be found, and if you think that you are doomed to a loveless life, all because your chart told you so--then it's time to throw out the chart and decide for yourself what you can do and what you can have.
My shadow's
Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.
I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in
My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.
I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.
I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within
My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.
I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.
I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.
See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.
The video is not an official Tool concert video but it is interesting and helps shed light on the meaning of the song and the way Jung views the Shadow. Import.flv (14.0 MB)
Parabol/Parabola with Tool's own video from concert. Don't ask me what the video images mean! They are known for having some bizarre video but the music is what I love.
Parabol
So familiar
And overwhelmingly warm
This one, this form I hold now
Embracing you, this reality here
This one, this form I hold now
So wide-eyed and hopeful
Wide-eyed and hopefully wild
We barely remember
What came before this precious moment
Choosing to be here
Right now
Hold on, stay inside
This body holding me
Reminding me that I am not alone in
This body makes me feel
Eternal, all this pain is an illusion
"Parabola"
We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment,
We are choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside
This holy reality, this holy experience.
Choosing to be here in
This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion.
Alive, I
In this holy reality, in this holy experience. Choosing to be here in
This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion.
Twirling round with this familiar parable.
Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.
This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. we are eternal.
all this pain is an illusion.
Import.flv (24.3 MB)
Theme song for the TV series Saving Grace, about a police detective (Grace) who is assigned an Angel named Earl to assist in her redemption. Import.flv (7.4 MB)
http://de.geocities.com/preciousprabhupada/add/painkillerspirituality.htmlSpiritual Pain and Painkiller Spirituality: Issues of Spiritual Abuse, Religious Addiction, and Codependency in ISKCON by Dhyana-kunda dasi (1999) I once discussed a current ISKCON problem with a devotee leader. We noted how difficult it was for the parties involved to decide what needed to be done. "Why are we in ISKCON so gullible and fanatical?" -- I expressed my frustration. "Why are we so often disregarding our intuition?" "To anyone who knows a little philosophy, the answer should be obvious," he replied. "The mind can be our greatest enemy." Putting aside the question of whether or not intuition is a faculty of the mind (as defined in the Vedic tradition) his statement is a half-truth. Consider Bhagavad-gita 6.5-6: "One must deliver himself with the help of his mind, and not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well. For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy." Notice that the mind, when controlled, is said to be the best of friends to one who is *still conditioned* - not only to one who is already liberated and passes his days in ecstatic meditation on Krishna's intimate pastimes. Moreover, as Srila Prabhupada states in his purport to the verse above, what should control the mind is not an external agency but rather a higher inner voice: "But when the mind is conquered, one voluntarily agrees to abide by the dictation of the Personality of Godhead, who is situated within the heart of everyone as Paramatma [Supersoul]. Real yoga practice entails meeting the Paramatma within the heart and then following His dictation." The voice of Paramatma, Srila Prabhupada further explains, is nothing else than intuition and conscience: "Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivistah. . . Knowledge given by Paramatma from within the core of the heart is explained by the modern scientist as intuition. They do not know wherefrom the intuition is coming. And that is coming from God." (SP lecture on Bg 15.15, Paris, August 5, 1976) "Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivistah. Everyone has got experience. When we want to do something wrong, there is conscience: 'Don't do it.' 'No, no, let me do.' There is struggle. So this is the struggle between the soul and the Supersoul." (SP lecture on Bg 7.4., Bombay, February 19, 1974) "God has given advanced consciousness to the human being. Therefore he can feel the suffering and happiness of other living beings. The human being bereft of his conscience, however, is prone to cause suffering for other living beings." (SB 5th Canto, chapter summary for Ch. 26) Without getting into discussion of all the other scriptural statements that are or can be used in abusive ways, it is fair to say that the Vaishnava spiritual teachings contain warnings both against indiscriminately following one's thoughts, feelings, and desires, and against indiscriminately rejecting them. . . By disregarding the individual's innermost voice (the Supersoul, intuition and conscience), on the grounds that it might be cheating us, we sow seeds of spiritual abuse. Discernment is required, not censure. Intuition is the inner compass that protects us from being abused. Conscience is what prevents us from abusing others. The two are inseparably connected. Therefore a victim of spiritual abuse almost inevitably becomes a perpetrator, if placed in a position of power. .......... Fanaticism usually stems from fundamental distrust toward one's own thoughts and feelings. Stifling them results in a state of inner numbness, where the individual no longer knows what he wants and feels. In an attempt to give his life some order and meaning, he may try to supplant his lost "inner guide" with the voice of external authority. For such a person, religious authority with its claims to absolute truth has a deep appeal. (Porterfield, 1993) His surrender tends to be fanatical and blind, since he has discarded his capacity for critical evaluation. However, such surrender is not as unconditional as it appears; the person would ignore or distort, for example, teachings on emotional literacy or self-reliance, as they undermine his coping techniques. . . His "radar" picks up selectively on those teachings that can be used to justify blind following, self-abnegation, and hurting others. "For example, perhaps I feel unsure of myself and as if I don't belong anywhere. I cannot face my feelings of shame, loneliness and fear. Thus, I compulsively read the Bible or rigidly adhere to all the teachings of the Church, looking for absolute answers and a sense of belonging. Whenever that pain tries to come up, I get out my Bible or I go to Mass or I quote the Pope. Or, perhaps I have been deeply hurt and I am very angry. I have been taught to feel ashamed of such feelings and I am terrified of them. I believe that 'good Christians forgive', and I remind myself of Jesus on the cross. I tell myself that every time I don't forgive I am putting another nail in his hands. Whenever that anger and rage try to come up, I use Jesus on the cross to get them under control. Since denied feelings such as shame, anger and rage do not really go away but instead only build up within, the next time such feelings come up I may become even more rigid in my use of religion to get them under control." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) Religious addiction and spiritual abuse propagate in their own "disciplic successions." A religious addict almost inevitably goes on to spiritually abuse others: "Because my need to control inner reality through a rigid belief system is so desperate, I insist that everyone else believe in the same way as myself. Anyone who doesn't threatens my system of controlling my inner pain. Thus I have created a world where there are no surprises, inside and outside, because I'm too afraid of them. I am now off the track of evolution, and off the track of my own human process of growth. If I have children, or if I am a religious leader, I may spiritually abuse those who are looking up to me. By spiritual abuse, I mean that I will deny their spiritual freedom by telling them there is only one way to God, my way -- because anything else is too threatening to me." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) "I don't want to blame such people for what I am calling spiritual abuse and religious addiction. What better drug of choice than a perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing God out there who controls everything and everybody? Well-meaning people are set up for this in a culture that does not teach us how to deal with painful feelings, and in a church that has so often taught us that the truth is in the Bible, in the Pope, in the ministers or priests, in the sacraments... everywhere but inside ourselves. Religion is often taught as a system of control, of rules, rituals, of ideals: of shoulds. It's very easy to use all this to squelch the process of life, all the while thinking we're being good Christians." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) The task of relating the above to the ISKCON reality is best left to the reader. The problem has been known for centuries and was identified by Rupa Gosvami as an obstacle to devotional service - niyamagraha, blindly following the rules not for spiritual advancement but just for the sake of following. The Linns further state that their intention is not to say that the scripture and religious authority have no truth to offer. Their role as carriers of the tradition is essential. However, they assert, we can't relate to the carriers of this tradition properly if we are out of touch with or trying to escape from our self as we experience it here and now. Fear of or aversion for one's present self does not lead to the discovery of one's deeper, eternal self. What usually happens, ISKCON history tells us, is that after a few years, the neglected side of the person's nature finds a way to get attention; but by that time, the problems have piled up high. ............. One symptom of religious addiction is literalistic, black-and-white "letter-of-the-law" thinking. The Linns point out that Bill Wilson (co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) observed this kind of thinking in alcoholics, and family therapists identify it as characteristic of the dysfunctional families in which addicts are raised. "Precisely because it's a concrete, written document, the Bible easily lends itself to misuse by religious addicts. Because they tend to take everything literalistically, religious addicts can easily mistake what is nonessential in the Bible for what is essential to the gospel. This is what happens in "proof-texting," in which individual passages are used to prove points that may not be consistent with the overall message of the scripture. . . . Since the Bible is a big book, full of pronouncements about all sorts of things, it is a 'set-up' for misuse by literal-minded religious addicts and spiritual abusers. . . . Scripture may challenge us and it may call us to conversion, but it is not intended to shame us." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) D. Johnson and J. VanVonderen call this approach to the revealed text "scriptural abuse:" "In a spiritually abusive system, Scripture is employed to prove or to bolster the agenda of the person using it. . . . . Proof-texting occurs when someone has a point he wants to prove. So he finds a verse to do so, even if it means stretching or ignoring the original issue about which the verse was written or the context in which the verse is found. Because this is the method the leaders use, it is the method the followers learn to use. Consequently, there is little or any opportunity to become capable or 'rightly dividing the word of truth.'" (Johnson & VanVonderen, 1991) Symptoms of scriptural abuse are undeniably present in our organization. Since for ISKCON members, the recorded words of our Founder-Acharya are as good as scripture, the arsenal of quotes to (mis)use is probably greater than in any other religion. In temple classes, for years we had sannyasis [celibate preachers] quoting a certain set of verses out of context to condemn family life; later we had married men quoting other verses to condemn the sannyasis' "false renunciation." Now we have a debate on what the women's role should be (exclusively that of wives and mothers, or according to their individual propensities), with both sides wielding quotes - often without much concern for the context. "Another one shot down by the VedaBase" - a GBC member once succintly summed up the effect of the procedure. Approaches to scripture recommended by spiritual masters of the Vaishnava religious tradition will be illustrated here by quotes from two works by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, who calls for approaching scriptural revelation with awakened intuition and conscience. The first quote comes from an early work entitled The Bhagavata: Its Philosophy, Its Ethics, and Its Theology, the other - from Shri Tattva Sutra, written by the Thakura many years later, at the peak of his literary activity. "In fact, most readers are mere repositories of facts and statements made by other people. But this is not study. The student is to read the facts with a view to create, and not with the object of fruitless retention. . . . Here we have full liberty to reject the wrong idea, which is not sanctioned by the peace of conscience. . . . Liberty then is the principle which we must consider as the most valuable gift of God. We must not allow ourselves to be led by those who lived and thought before us. We must think for ourselves and try to get further truths which are still undiscovered. In the Bhagavata we have been advised to take the spirit of the Shastras and not the words. The Bhagavata is therefore a religion of liberty, unmixed truth, and absolute love. The other characteristic is progress. Liberty certainly is the father of all progress. Holy liberty is the cause of progress upwards and upwards in eternity and endless activity of love. Liberty abused causes degradation, and the Vaishnava must always carefully use this high and beautiful gift of God." (Thakura, Bhaktivinoda, undated) "The Divine Knowledge is characterized as the sun whereas all the scriptures (shastra) are rays of that sun. This saying reveals that no scripture can contain the Divine Knowledge to the fullest extent. The self-evident knowledge of the jivas [living beings] is the source of all the scripture. This self-evident knowledge should be understood as God-given. The sages endowed with compassionate hearts have received this self-evident knowledge (axiomatic truths) from the Supreme Lord and recorded the same in the scriptures for the benefit of all jivas. . . . The independent cultivation of the self-evident knowledge is always necessary. This is the important thing needed in understanding the Truth along with the study of the scriptures. Since the knowledge itself is the origin of the scriptures, those who disregard the root and depend upon the branches cannot have any well-being. . . . Since knowledge itself is the root of the scriptures the one who has attained that self-evident knowledge will not be ruled by the scriptures, but only they will guide him with advises. In case of ignorant people, this is not so. They must be governed by the rules of the scriptures for their upliftment, if not they will have their inevitable down fall due to the sensual addictions." (Thakura, Bhaktivinoda, undated) Both quotes from Bhaktivinoda reproduced above end with warnings: liberty can be abused; creative attitude toward scripture requires personal integrity and a measure of spiritual advancement. The writers discussing spiritual abuse acknowledge this, too. Uncritical reliance on external guidance and authority is not always a sign of religious addiction. It is also typical for an early stage of faith development. "If reliance upon external authority helps provide security and structure for continued growth into higher stages, then it seems to us a part of healthy development. However, if reliance upon external authority is a way of compulsively avoiding one's own reality, then it seems to us more likely a sign of religious addiction. A measure of whether a particular religious behavior is healthy and stage-appropriate, or addictive, might be our ability to tolerate and gradually move toward respect for and even dialogue with those who are different." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) This leads to an additional insight into the nature of spiritual abuse: "Just as emotional abuse includes expecting a two-year-old child to behave like a ten-year-old, or keeping a ten-year-old as dependent as a two-year-old, so spiritual abuse includes pushing people to a stage of faith development for which they are not yet ready, or trying to keep them at a stage that they have outgrown." (Linn, Linn & Linn, 1994) References: - D. Johnson, J. VanVonderen, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church, p. 13. Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1991.
- K. M. Porterfield, Blind Faith: Recognizing and Recovering From Dysfunctional Religious Groups, p. 66. CompCare Publishers, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1993.
- M. Linn, S. F. Linn, D. Linn, Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious Addiction, p. 19. Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, N.J., 1994
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