Re-Source

One of my favorite useful passages from the I Ching says, if you want to know what kind of person you are, look at the effect you have on others. If you’re making someone cry, that’s not a good thing. If you are turning one friend against another, that’s even worse. That’s what I see beginning to percolate in the toxic climate created by Trumpish hatefulness as he blames the Democrats for the disasters he creates. The I Ching also says it is the inferior person that puts blame on others, far better to look for the error in ourselves. As a philosophy aimed at bringing peoplee into harmony with unfolding circumstance, it has served me for over forty years, most of which I’ve systematized into weekly personal ritual that strengthens what’s best in me by emphasizing what matters. It’s a way to center, return to the larger context, reviewing the self in action. When religious scholar Elaine Pagels was asked in a radio interview what she believed, she said she felt that belief was overrated, that she appreciated the practice of her Christianity. A Jewish student said much the same thing, as an uncertain atheist her engagement with the practice of her religion connected her to meaningful traditions. One of my Muslim students said that the fast for Ramadan reinforced her sense of gratitude for what she had when breaking the fast at sundown. Weaving the practice of spirit through life routines is a way to reinforce the positive. Peter Breggin (author of “Toxic Psychiartry”) felt that what people suffered from today is more often a spiritual/emotional overwhelm when the old sources have been rejected.

There is an accumulated wisdom in all religions that is a resource available at all times. The differences between them are imagery that grew from the originating culture so it is most easily understood by those who grew up with it. People don’t have trouble accepting that different cultures speak different languages, why should there be such a battle between the different ways to express what’s beyond human understanding. The code of each religion is what speaks best to different regions. The conflict is artificial, based on history and imagery that can be twisted into a substitute for the actual. Beneath the imagery is a universal human essence. Each source, philosophy or religion is a finger pointing to the moon. If it helps you see the moon there you go. The finger is just a finger, guiding the gaze toward the Essence. In the Tao Te Ching it says “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

There will always be more than we know.