Compelling Religious Stories
The early stages of life are marked by the development of, and
identification, with our ego, with our story, with the sense of
self. Virtually all of us start out here. Ego development, and
the discovery of personal freedom, which includes boundaries and
limits, is an important stage of learning in early life. This stage
is characterized by a dependence on, or a grasping at, beliefs. Our
well-being is very much tied to what we think and believe. Our
thoughts, our stories, define who and what we take ourselves to
be.
Religion, and fundamentalist, black-or-white thinking in general is
a part of this developmental process. In Zen, they say of this
stage, Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.
Everything is just what it seems to be, in other words. The
mountains are over there, and we are over here, and we are just
trying to make some logical sense of our existence. We are trying
to find something to hold onto, some belief, or concept, or ideal,
whether religious or otherwise, that will give us a feeling of
meaning, purpose, and security.
However, it is precisely this need for meaning and security that
drives us at this stage. Doubt, fear, and the quest for some kind
of certainty are common themes in our early lives. We realize we do
not know who we are, or what is going to happen to us when we die.
Or we find ourselves suffering in some way: an illness, financial
misfortune, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or a
betrayal of some kind, followed by broken trust and shattered
confidence.
Our fear and suffering cause us to look for something to believe
in, something we can cling to for our psychological, emotional, and
spiritual well-being. We want to know that the mountains and rivers
are going to stay the same, they that will always be there. We want
to know what is going to happen to us, both in the near future, and
at the very end of our lives, when we die.
This stage of the journey is very dualistic, us and them, me
and it. It is very much a journey of faith as we hope, or trust,
that there is indeed some greater Power, some benign energy,
whether we call it God, spirit, Tao, or Buddha nature, behind
creation. So strong is this need that many of us, at this stage,
develop a personal relationship with God, or whatever we call that
power. We look to God, or our idea of God, whenever we are in
need.
Some of us attribute the miracles in our life to Gods grace. Yet,
we may wonder, what about the disasters that occur, the times of
great personal loss or suffering? What about when an airliner with
300 people aboard, many of whom also probably had a personal
relationship with God, crashes? How do we make sense of that? Can
it be rationalized? Or do we accept that it is a mystery? At this
time in our journey through life, the last thing we want to be
confronted with is that, in the end, we are just a random event in
a cold and meaningless universe.
Here we eagerly grasp at answers, and religion is very much there
to provide them. The function of religion, at least in its outer,
or mass appeal aspect, is to address our existential fears, and to
provide answers to these soul-searching questions of ours. Man,
throughout history, has created many religions, and they all have
their own story, their own explanation of the nature of God,
creation, and what happens to us when we die. Some religions even
try to claim God as their own, as if theirs is the one true
religion, and all the others are false.
Religion still has a role to play, even in an awakened world, but
religion in and of itself cannot give the experience of true inner
peace. After all, the main limitation of identifying with a
particular religious story is that our inner well-being becomes
very much dependent on what we think and believe.
We may adopt, for example, a particular set of beliefs, a neatly
ordered worldview such as that offered by many religions, and which
is designed to give us the inner security we seek. But should
someone (or something) challenge our beliefs or present a different
or opposing perspective (and in a world as diverse as ours, this is
always happening) it can throw us into confusion. It can, and
inevitably does, throw us back into fear as the very belief system
we have become dependent upon is now being called into
question.
Beliefs, by their very nature, are divisive. They keep us in a
state of resistance and fear. You can not cling to a belief and be
in a state of welcoming. Holding on to a set of beliefs is the
exact opposite of the all-embracing openness that awakening
represents.
Not only do beliefs stir up conflict and doubt within us (Which
belief should I hold onto, which should I reject?) they invariably
create separation and rifts between one set of believers and
another.
Most of the trouble in the world today is caused by the attachment
to fundamentalist belief systems, whether religious, cultural, or
political. The more we see that all beliefs, even the most hallowed
and emotionally-charged ones, are just mental constructs,
assumptions of truth, but not truth itself, the more we find
ourselves wanting something deeper, something more solid than mere
words and ideas.
Jim Dreaver (www.jimdreaver.com)
