SOS to spiritual grownups

[wcepler]

SOS to spiritual grownups:



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Sometimes in life you have to remind yourself that it's better to speak from the healthy and positive than rant about the unhealthy and negative.



Institutional religion is arguably the most unhealthy and negative force on planet Earth. Once that original transcendental moment gets gobbled up by the religious professionals and theologians, the institution kills the intuition.



More specifically, when the religious institution (and this certainly includes the 3 great western religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), presumes to "intervene" in your life and assumes the role of being an intermediary between you and truth or reality (you know, the ultimate stuff), then its game over.



It may be ok for religion to play that game with children, since they need spiritual support and protection, but for adults, all that institutional baggage is just dead weight.



And that's the good news! Religion for adults is an unnecessary luxury. Forget the theologians and priests and sheiks, etc. Who needs 'em? We have life itself to relate to.



Spirituality is the name of this game, and spirituality is in its essence is always one on one. It was one on one for Jesus, Mohamed, and the Hebrew Prophets, just as it was one on one for the Buddha.



It's also one on one for a Zen Master and your grandmother.



Hence, the tragedy of so much of what's now happening on the Earth (e.g., the Middle East cancer), is a conflict between people who have sold their souls to an institutional religion. They have identified their lives with a set of abstract religious game rules. They have their "masters" and rule books and it never occurs to them that what they need is already hard wired into their being.



Such people relate to religion much as an infant relates to a breast. But they aren't infants, and the abstractions they kill for (in the name of God) aren't breasts.



What would our planet be like if all grown ups related directly to life without the arrogant intermediaries of institutional religion? Wouldn't it be like seeing the full, crystal sky without the blockage of clouds?



Said differently, spirituality should never be confused with religion. Ironically, an atheist is simply the other side of the theist coin. They go together and neither have anything to do with pure spirituality.



So, religion is rejected (or transcended) not because it is so terrible, but because spirituality is so wonderful.



Spirituality is all and it lives in immediacy.



Lastly, and sadly, no one ever kills for "their" spirituality, because no one belongs to or has membership in spirituality.



Many, many humans already know these things, and more, but their numbers are still so minuscule that the planet continues to be destroyed by War in the name of God people -- the "righteous" ones, preaching their monotonous, locus-like certainties.



For spirituality God is a metaphor for mystery and war is the acting out of fear.



Life without intermediaries is freedom incarnate. Indeed, it is life itself, and there is no path to this place since we are all already there. Religion is not knowing this.

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wcproteus



ps: I haven't been a member of this site for very long, but I already think of it as being a kind of family. We certainly have a common enemy, i.e., the Bush/Republican juggernaut. Anyway, in that family spirit, I want you to know I've been doing some soul searching about a piece I recently submitted having to do with Joe Liebermann. It turned out that piece hurt some feelings and upset some people. Naturally, you can't please all the people all the time, but to tell you the truth, that piece was very uncentering and confusing for me to write and I don't think it was one of my better efforts. I'm probably trying to write too much as we approach the election

In any case, I touched on some serious things that are very hard to write about clearly. I now realize that piece needed more homework and it was too much "shooting from the hip". The last thing I want to do is to seem to imply things I totally don't believe. Now more than ever we need to stick together and if it's any help, I'm working to better educate myself about the themes of that piece and I thank you for giving me some passionate food for thought.

But isn't that what's great about such sites? We get to learn from each other and interact IN SPITE OF the Bush/Republicans.

Thanks for indulging my ps.

wcproteus.