Last month my family and I attended my nephew’s First Communion. It was the first time I had experienced a full Catholic mass in a long time, and I took note of one interesting change since my early church-going days. When the priest invited family and friends to receive communion, he also welcomed non-Catholics to approach as well. While it wouldn’t be appropriate for a non-Catholic to receive communion, we were told that we could receive a blessing from the priest – and indicate that wish by crossing our arms across our chest. After a few moments of reflection, I decided to participate.

It was after that ceremony that I had an epiphany of sorts regarding religion, belief systems, and my past approach to spirituality. I realized for the first time that it is a mistake to search for absolute truths within spiritual belief systems!

All my life I had felt that there was a truth out there waiting to be found, and for several years I thought I had found that truth within the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some 12 years later, after seeking truth within other spiritual traditions, I watched this Catholic ritual and it hit me that the validity of the ceremony had nothing to do with whether Catholic beliefs could be backed up scientifically. What really mattered was whether the Catholic faith contributed to the elevation of its believers to a higher standard of human behavior. Regarding religion, his Holiness the Dalai Lama said it well:

… fundamentally, all spiritual traditions perform the same function, which is to help us tame our mental state, overcome our negativities and perfect our inner potential.

The Two Mistakes

There are two critical errors – two big spiritual mistakes – that many people and religious organizations make:

• The view that spiritual explanations reflect scientific truths.
• Attachment to ideas, including spiritual ideas, resulting in people mistaking their identity with the ideas.

The consequences of these errors have turned so many people away from religion, and caused them to hate religion and view it with contempt. All the harm that has been caused in the name of religion, all the lives lost, could have been avoided if not for the above two mistakes.

Consequences of the Two Mistakes

To this day we see the struggle between religious beliefs and scientific discoveries. Believers want Creationism (or “intelligent design”) taught in US public schools alongside evolution. Moral “truths” are imposed on society as we witness the struggle for gay rights. Some religious refuse to accept modern medicine’s discoveries regarding the causes of many diseases.

And we are all too familiar with the harm caused when religions seek to impose their beliefs on others. We see open warfare such as the Christian Crusades or the modern day Islamic jihads. We’ve seen families divided and even destroyed because of religious differences. All because people will defend their beliefs as if they are defending their own lives – as if their very life were at stake. They have grown so attached to the belief that it is everything they are, and if the belief is threatened in any way then they will rise to defend it.

How to Avoid These Mistakes

We must keep in mind that while many beliefs- such as the existence of God or the afterlife – are impossible to disprove, they also have yet to be proven scientifically. If they were, then they would no longer be beliefs, but established facts. If any one religion were really true and all others false, then that should have easily been established by now. Yes, belief is important in order to obtain the most that the spiritual teachings have to offer, but we must find a way to hold onto beliefs without labeling everything else as false.

And we must find a way to discard beliefs that science has proven to be untrue. Let’s not forget that many beliefs have had to be discarded under the increased light of science. An excellent example of this was highlighted by the recent action by the Catholic church to give the astronomer Copernicus a decent burial. Copernicus had been considered a heretic by the Church for his ideas that the earth was not the center of the universe, but revolved around the sun. The initial position taken by the Church was the result of the same flawed thinking that plague many sincere believers of any religious tradition.

Ironically, it’s a spiritual practice that can actually help with the second part of this problem. This is the practice of non-attachment. Usually, this applies to not being attached to material possessions, but it also applies to not being attached to ideas, and it’s one of the most difficult things to achieve. We all are subject to pride and ego, and we wrap ourselves with external “things” that we use to define ourselves – our possessions, our job or career, our family … and our beliefs. An attack on those things is perceived as an attack on ourselves.

But even though we may not achieve that state of non-attachment, perhaps understanding the role attachment plays in our lives can help us to understand the actions of others, particularly with respect to their religious beliefs. I can add that the same applies to the skeptic and his beliefs.

You might be wondering, then, that perhaps the best approach is to not have any spiritual beliefs at all. After all, does it really make sense to believe something that has not been verified as scientific truth?

A later post will answer that question.

There are a few of these memes circulating, some involving seven random facts and some involving eight. Again, I waited so long after being tagged the first time (by Savvyology) that a couple other bloggers (NancyE at WaterFall’s Paranormal Life and One Mystical Monkey)
tagged me in the meanwhile.

So now to business.

The Rules

Reveal seven (or eight) random facts about yourself in a blog post.
Include these rules in the post.
Tag seven (or eight) other bloggers, listing their names in the post.

The Reveal

1. Ran the quarter mile and mile relay in high school track.
2. Was voted “Shyest” my senior year in high school.
3. Kept a pet caiman (south american alligator) in the bath tub at college.
4. My wife and I were taking a nap with our week-old son (our first) when we were rudely awakened by the Loma Prieta earthquake. That was frightening on several levels.
5. Hated – hated – oral reports in grade school, but eventually learned to give talks in front of groups of a hundred after a few years of ministry training with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
6. Am in the process of working on an oil painting of Sri Ananda Moyima.
7. My two favorite TV series in recent years are Heroes and The 4400.
8. Married for 20 years (this November).

Solicitations for additional details are welcome.

(It seems this meme has saturated the pool of bloggers that I’d consider for tagging, so I’ll forego that step. )

You may have heard jokes about them. You’ve probably encountered them when they came knocking at your door on a Saturday morning.

They are the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

If you aren’t really familiar with them, then you probably don’t have a strong view of this group one way or the other. Another religious group, you might think – maybe worthy of admiration for their zeal and strength of belief. They certainly are one group whose members take their beliefs very seriously. Unfortunately, many who have joined them have not had a good experience with their strict interpretation of the Bible and the social pressures to conform to a standard that goes against the flow of the rest of society. Also, unfortunately, these members had to suffer in silence as any criticism of the organization was viewed as tantamount to criticism of God himself.

And then came the internet, and the freedom that comes with anonymity.

Circa 1995-6, a small group put up a website called the Associated Jehovah’s Witnesses for Reform. For any Witness who felt that the religion was basically good but just needed some changes, those were exciting times. The talk of reform was on the net, but alas, the movement lost steam after a few years. Either the organization made enough small changes to prevent a massive defection, or the size of it carried a momentum that could not be significantly derailed.

Anyway, from that website (which no longer exists) I dug up a ‘call to arms’ and what I consider to be a pretty creative overview of the history of the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses from the days of the founder at the turn of the 20th century to the mid-to-late 1990s. My JW and ex-JW readers will be familiar with some of the terms, but for the rest here’s a short glossary of Witness-speak:

• Society: short for the “WatchTower Bible & Tract Society”, publisher of the Jehovah’s Witness literature and disseminator of doctrine.
• 1975: Many Jehovah’s Witnesses believed that the end of the world, or Armageddon, would occur in 1975. This was based on their chronology that 1975 marked the end of 6000 years of human history.
• 1914: Pivotal year for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Believed to be the beginning of the last days of this world.
• Generation: Refers to the doctrinal belief that one generation of mankind, beginning in 1914, would not pass away before the end of the world, or Armageddon, occurs. The exact definition of “generation” has changed over time. Initially referring to adults living during 1914, the definition changed to encompass anyone born since 1914. This had the effect of creating definite expectations for when Armageddon would occur – before the end of the 20th century. As time progressed well into the 1990s, the doctrine of the “1914 generation” was discarded.
• Bethel: The headquarters for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, located in Brooklyn, New York. Also referred to as “Brooklyn Bethel”.
• Nethinim: According to Jehovah’s Witness doctrine, only a small number of members are considered to be “anointed” and assigned the responsibility of “governing” the organization. Typically, these individuals were alive since the early days. As they grew older and their number diminished, members who were outside of that fold were eventually given the same responsibilities. They justified this arrangement by referring to the Israelite use of foreigners in service at the temple. These foreigners were known as the “Nethinim”.

And here is the work. (Keep in mind that this was written before broadband became prevalent, and the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses had just acquired a domain but not yet produced web content (you’ll see what I mean).)

This overview brings to light a common pattern in the development of any “new” religion. The founder is typically a highly spiritual person, but his (or her) successors rarely possess the same degree of enlightenment. And so the survival of the group depends on other qualities of the leadership, such as strong organizational and motivational skills. The same could be said for the development of political regimes.

Even though the high expectations for reform did not come about, the increase in communication made possible by the internet has served to limit the amount of strict control wielded by “The Society”. It also makes sense that any changes would need to come about by natural evolution rather than revolution. To be involved with a truly well organized movement requires losing yourself to a cause, and this runs counter to the reasons for wanting change to begin with – the desire to break free.

This was definitely an interesting chapter in the history of this 20th century religious phenomenon.

This message is being spread worldwide! And it made it to my door the other day.

A friendly, well dressed man carrying a young child came up to my door and dropped off a pamphlet. I immediately recognized the “look” of the tract as being from the WatchTower Bible & Tract Society, the publishing arm for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Evidently they are in the midst of a worldwide campaign to spread this particular message. I’m all too familiar with this work as I was actively involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses for a number of years, until my heart led me in other directions.

Now this message is not a new one for them. It’s been published from door to door since the early part of the 20th century. And while I was tempted to refute the tract, point by point, instead I started to think about what truths the tract might contain. Instead of assuming that everything it stated was wrong and a lie, I started to think that, maybe, some aspect of the universal human consciousness was speaking. And if so, then there should be some truths there, if I looked at it the right way.

I was surprised at what I found.

The Surface Message

On the surface, the basic message of this particular tract is that religions that do not teach the truth are responsible for so much pain and suffering in the world. But God will soon put an end to that and destroy all “false” religions, and then bless mankind. Of course there is also the warning – do not be caught having anything to do with these religions or else you will suffer the same fate.

Under the Surface

In the Bhagavat Gita, the story of Lord Krishna’s discussion with Arjuna represents the progress we each make on the road to enlightenment. It is a story of our own struggle. I believe that all religious and spiritual writings reflect this core theme. It’s a theme that can be found even within this tract from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A fundamental concept is that destructive and negative beliefs will eventually be purged from the hearts of people as if they were cut down and thrown into a fire to be destroyed. It doesn’t happen to everyone at the same time, but everyone is on that same path and will experience this cleansing in one way or another.

One way that this happens is when our higher Self directs the controlling ego to purge unhealthy and destructive concepts from our hearts. If we have distanced ourselves from these concepts and no longer identify with them, then we do not feel the destruction. But if we identify too strongly with them, then we suffer the loss as if we ourselves were being destroyed. On its own, the ego would not do this, but at some point our higher self “puts it into the heart of the beast” to carry out this act. Total enlightenment comes afterwards when the controlling ego itself is destroyed.

The question we need to ask ourselves is – how attached are we to our beliefs? If we are too attached, then we’ll experience grief when we realize that those beliefs no longer work.

How to prepare for the end of false religion

One way to “prepare” for this event is to determine as much as possible the ideas that are destructive and misguided. As Jesus stated, these can be identified “by their fruits”. Religious beliefs that dictate the killing of others. Spiritual traditions that foster oppression based on gender, race, or social class. These are a couple of obvious examples. Others are more subtle, and may not even apply to everyone equally. Perhaps a belief that was valuable at one time might no longer serve us in a later stage of life. How can we prepare in that case?

The phrase “non-attachment” usually conjures up thoughts of not being attached to material things. But the practice of non-attachment also applies to not being attached to ideas. To not identify strongly with an idea. Why would we not want to be attached to something we believe in? For one thing, no matter what view we have, there is always the possibility that it might be proved wrong at a later time. We might need to discard ideas that are actually harmful, or we might need to accept other viewpoints that foster our continued growth.

In yogic philosophy there is the concept that everything in the world is comprised of some combination of three basic qualities, called gunas. The person on a spiritual path is encouraged to cultivate the highest guna (sattvic) in their life. But, that is not the final goal! Even this highest spiritual guna is itself an attachment that must be discarded in order to truly transcend the world.

So it might be that beliefs that were invaluable at one time, now serve as a hindrance. The spiritual person must be prepared to evaluate how well certain beliefs continue to promote their spiritual growth, otherwise if a change is needed, the adjustment can be traumatic. For example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses cultivate a mindset that makes it very difficult to change ideas, particularly with regard to JW beliefs. They are taught that they have “the truth”, which gives them the needed conviction to pursue other aspects of their worship, such as preaching to strangers on a regular basis. But when some found that that particular path lost its usefulness for them, they’ve had a hard time adjusting, even to the point of being bitter over the whole experience.

The irony of that situation, in light of this tract, is not lost on me.