The Antidote . . .

. . . or at least one antidote to "an increasingly conservative world where everybody wants the answers without having to ask the questions" may be here:

Two steps are involved in preparing to seek direct knowledge of God. The seeker's first step is to assess his reliance on beliefs instilled in him by spiritual leaders, teachers, self-appointed gurus, or well-intentioned parents or friends. It is important to realize that the truth of an idea cannot be established based on the authority of its proponents. In fact, because of their positions some religious leaders no longer engage in actively seeking the truth. Ultimately, only when individuals are free to challenge authority does spiritual growth become possible.

This is from the Introduction to God Without Religion: Questioning Centuries of Accepted Truths, self-published by the Pranayama Institute with the help of an innovative new "authors' services" agency called Blessingway. (Hat tip: the AmbivaBro.) This is possibly the hottest new spiritual title outside of (way outside of) Evangelical circles. The author, Sankara Saranam, is almost absurdly qualified -- raised Jewish, he "formally studied engineering, music, Eastern classics, and comparative religion in universities" and "lived as a monk" before "becoming a yogi" -- and, with his radiant, Semitic, bearded Jesus face, seems fated to become one of those adoringly followed "Don't follow me!" figures, like Krishnamurti.

Saranam has as little good to say about organized religion as Sam Harris in The End of Faith -- to Saranam, "the study of religious history" is "a horror story of immense proportions", and "some of the greatest evils have emerged from displays of holiness" -- but he warns against "[throwing] out the baby of God along with the bathwater". In his view, God and truth are too big and all-pervasive to be confined within any exclusive system, and can be directly explored by any seeking, critical individual who is willing to use any and every God-given tool, from breath to reason. He issues an "invitation to worship by wondering rather than believing" (lovely!) and offers not only ideas but techniques which, "[w]hen practiced regularly, . . . help uncover not only better answers to spiritual questions but also better questions."

Saranam is critical of New Age movements as well as organized religion, but to me (who haven't read his book yet, only his highly sophisticated website), his critique of existing spiritual outlets is more original and refreshing than much of what he proposes in their place, which sounds suspiciously like yet more inflation of the Self-balloon to cosmic proportions:

Eventually, in ceasing to identify with a narrowing belief system, your identity will grow, enlarged by the very questions you have embodied. And with your newly expanded identity you will be more knowledgeable in spiritual matters, for the more we question any aspect of life the better we come to know it.

(From an interview:)

The sense of self, or identity, can expand to include all of humanity, regardless of nationality, beliefs, ethnicity, race, gender, or lifestyle. If a suburban midwesterner could identify with an Iraqi farmer, a straight white southerner could relate to a gay African American couple, or a Congressman could see a Palestinian merchant as part of his family, and vice versa, we wouldn't be able to propagate hatred and violence. God Without Religion guides readers to expand their sense of self until it encompasses every living being, eradicating all preconditions for conflict and war.

A dream so vast as to be virtually featureless. I miss reality's bite, the pinprick popping the balloon.

Since, on his website at least, there's nothing in Saranam's message that would offend or even particularly question liberal sensibilities (e.g. "though abortion opponents claim that by defending the rights of fetuses they are saving unborn lives, they are in fact attempting to disempower women by overriding their rights to control their bodies"), his book, with its precedence of the mystical over the moral and its eerily high-powered marketing campaign, may be preaching to the converted as cannily as any pitch for, say, The Purpose Driven Life. But this is ignorant and bitchy of me -- I haven't read his book, and (dead giveaway) I'm writing my own, which will say some similar things (and some dissimilar ones) with far less august qualification, but perhaps with more of that bite. So I'll shut up and read him. Or maybe I won't, lest I be influenced or intimidated . . .

- amba

UPDATE: This, from the post "Bonjour Tristesse" on Augustine's Blog, is a lot less abstract:

There is a secret cry inside every heart, sometimes so deeply hidden that it may not even be audible to the person who hides it. Whether they are complete strangers or someone you think you have known all your life, if you can hear a person's secret cry then all your defenses and criticisms crumble. You become one with them and you cannot do anything other than love them as yourself.

Why is it less abstract? Because Natalie recognizes that in life it's always a specific encounter with a specific person that triggers the moment of recognition and identification. Encounter with one real person is so much more powerful than benevolent meditation on any number of imaginary ones. Maybe that's what Saranam is talking about: maybe he means that suburban midwesterner is a soldier in Iraq, and that Congressman has been welcomed with warm hospitality into that Palestinian merchant's home. And maybe he's saying that without a certain predisposition to openness, those encounters can be missed opportunities. But so often it's the encounter that creates the openness, instead of the other way around. A predisposition to openness is often spread, bland as butter, over unadmitted preconceptions, so that the reality of the other offends instead of enlightening. Give me the particular and the unpremeditated every time, is all I'm saying. (Hmmm, interesting double meaning for "unpremeditated"!)

Comments

[Natalie]

Amba, thanks for quoting me and I fully agree about preferring the particular and unpremeditated. "To see the world in a grain of sand......" (Blake).
See the Augustine Interviews God cartoon strip series for my non-abstract personal. take on "God without religion".