I often open articles in this blog with interesting anecdotes, and this one is no exception. A couple of nights ago, I got to talking at a new age workshop with a friend who is very much into shamanic development. I mentioned that I am interested in quite a few traditions - shamanic, Vedic, hermetic, gnostic, rationalist, and so on. I also mentioned to her that my interest is in finding commonalities, building bridges between them, and to my original Christian traditions. Suddenly her tone changed. It was as if the tornado sirens had suddenly begun. She looked at me and told me, 'Christian - I want no part of Religion.'
I asked her what she meant by religion. She said that she had had bad
experiences earlier in life with organized religion, namely one particular
denomination. Unfortunately, this led her to see
Christianity as inherently negative. She threw the baby out with the
bathwater - rejecting a rich heritage and history, one inherently human with all its warts and blemishes.
I also asked her to note that I said 'tradition' and not 'religion.' What did she feel
was different between a religion and a tradition? There are a lot of
traditions that have little or nothing to do with established religions.
Among these are the meditative lineages - teacher-student lineages that
extend back thousands of years into the mists of time. There is the
gnostic tradition, the Vedic tradition, the many native American
traditions, etc. These are not organized religions but are widely
varied spiritual traditions, ways in which humans seek the divine.
Another time, as I was talking with a friend of mine who is a Muslim cleric, I offered to do a talk on hypnosis to his mosque. He looked at me and said that Islam forbids magic, and since hypnosis is magic, it is forbiden to Muslims. I explained what hypnosis was and he seemed to accept my explanation. Yet I wonder - was he simply telling me what he thought I wanted to hear? Were the rules of his religion preventing him from exploring, developing his own spiritual traditions?
Another incident involved the Catholic church. I had planned to teach a guided imagery workshop at a college dorm floor in a local Catholic college. We were all scheduled when the day before, I got a call from the housefellow telling me that he had to cancel. The administration found out about it and forbade it. Like Islam, the Catholic church forbids hypnosis as 'magic'. However unlike my Muslim cleric friend, this mid-level administrator was not open to discussion. He had made his decision and that was final. He wouldn't even speak to me about it.
For a moment, I had visions in my mind of Galileo before the Inquisition, of heretics being burned at the stake, and all of the sordid history of the traditional church, but then had to step back. This person was only doing what he believed in, what he thought was right. I put the whole plan on the shelf and moved on to other things. Yet I understood only too well what my shamanic friend meant when she said, "I want no part of religion."
Like my friend, I am uncomfortable with organized religion in many ways. I am an active participant in our church and hold many of the beliefs of Christianity. Yet I find that the further I explore other beliefs and traditions, the more they enrich my original spiritual understanding. The more we explore, the richer home becomes. In the words of T.S. Elliot, we return home and know the place for the very first time.
My positive experiences with Christianity have formed a solid foundation for my life. Yet other less positive experiences with religion have also given me some of my initial questioning kick, starting me on a life-long spiritual quest. Still, I often find myself returning to my old traditions, each time with more understanding of the commonality among the widely varying beliefs. We all seek God by many names and forms. We all seek truth, we all seek the greater good and we all seek to expand our consciousness - again, through ways many and varied. So, while I, too, sometimes find many of the old, formal structures problematic, I still revere the traditions behind them.
My own belief is in a bridge between religious traditions - understanding that can build commonality over division, love over fear. And ultimately, that's what counts, experience of the divine, the building of a spiritual understanding of our reality. Among the widely varied people of Earth, it's the same belief by many names.
