Friday, January 31, 1997
RELIGION:
Connection with beliefs can be built by personal experiencesBy
Patricia J. Gentry
I read Chieh Chieng’s article "Questioning religious devotion"
in the Jan. 16 issue of the Daily Bruin with great interest. He
expresses beautifully the quandary many people seem to feel
regarding their faith. The established organized religions do
provide fellowship, and their rituals can provide comfort and
demarcation for life’s passages and transitions. In this service,
they are not without value; however, when it comes to deeper
spiritual needs, many people experience the emptiness and confusion
that Chieh Chieng expresses so well. But, there is a way that we
can achieve a deeper spiritual connection that will not only give
us a personal basis for religious belief but can even reconcile us
with the organized faith of our birth.
The myriad of faiths of our world have sprung from enlightened
individuals who were able to touch, in the deepest recesses of
their own being, the essence of a presence that cannot be fully
described in words. Such individuals are called "mystics." This
does not mean they are mysterious people; a mystic is a person who
has had an original experience of God. Not that "God" is the only
way to describe the experience. It is just one of the names that
has been given to it. It cannot be truly and completely rendered in
words. The mystic, Lao Tzu, said, "The Tao that can be named is not
the real Tao." The mystic touches the invisible fabric of the
universe and discovers the oneness that expresses itself as all of
creation.
The language used to explain deep spiritual insight is the
language of paradox and metaphor. This tends to make all sacred
scripture somewhat unintelligible and misleading if read literally.
Unfortunately, the further the founder of each faith recedes in
time, the more literal the interpretation of the teachings becomes.
It has been said that two fundamentalists belonging to separate
religions will always argue, but the mystics of those same
religions will understand each other perfectly because they have
shared the same inner vision.
Mystics have tried to teach us that we must pursue our own inner
vision, our own original experience of God.
This is not found by following rules and rituals by rote but by
seeking our own connection to the divine in the silences of our own
souls. If we have never tasted chocolate, no amount of description
can ever tell us what it is really like.
Sometimes, our place of worship can seem like an empty box of
candy that is always being redescribed to us. God, like life, can
be like that proverbial box of chocolates: you don’t know what you
are going to get. But once you have tasted it for yourself, you
know what you have. Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you"
(Luke 17:21). Similar references are found in all the sacred
literature. When we seek this original experience for ourselves,
our scriptures become clearer and our place of worship more
meaningful and fulfilling.
Another purpose religion serves is to allay our fears about the
vicissitudes of life. In times of personal need, when our lives,
finances and relationships seem to be going wrong, we often turn to
our place of worship for comfort and prayer. Prayer works.
There have even been recent scientific studies on the benefits
of prayer  as an aid to healing, particularly  that
appear to confirm this. But it is not supposed to be a way to avoid
all of life’s ups and downs.
Some of us may enjoy going to Disneyland and riding on Splash
Mountain but, when it comes to our own lives, we want the I-5
stretching from the foot of the Grapevine to Stockton on a clear
and pleasant day. Unfortunately, life is usually more like Splash
Mountain. Many of us spend a great deal of time worrying about the
future. The tragic thing about this is that, even if the dire
events we imagine never materialize, we have still spent our entire
life in fear. Take the example of two people about to ride on a
roller coaster.
The first person does not want to be there, resists, hangs back
and has a miserable experience on the ride. The second person
approaches the ride with a willingness to let it do whatever it is
going to do and to meet it with courage and a sense of fun. That
person has a great time. The ride is exactly the same. The twists
and turns are identical for both people. What makes the difference
in their experiences? Attitude.
If we approach life with a willingness to meet its challenges
with the best that we have in us, life will be fun, rewarding and
worthwhile. And our faith will carry us through all the ups and
downs.
Another value of religion is that it encourages service.
Albert Schweitzer said, "There is no higher religion than human
service." He also felt it was the only way to be truly happy.
Places of worship can be excellent centers for community service
because they provide a meeting place for similarly motivated people
to meet and combine talents.
But service has a deeper side. Service is doing anything with
love. It doesn’t matter if you are running a homeless shelter or
dishing up hamburgers at Lu Valle Commons; if you are doing it with
love, you are serving.
Kahlil Gibran said, "Work is love made visible." If you work
with love, you will do your work well, and that will bring you the
added benefits of reward and recognition  two things that
almost always prove elusive if sought purely for themselves.
If we seek our own original experience of God in the silence of
our own being, are willing to meet life’s challenges with the best
that we have within us, and find a way to serve and do our work
with love, we will create for ourselves a personal experience of
religion that will be more than a religion that is about Jesus or
about Buddha. Rather, it will be the religion of Jesus, Buddha and
all those who have reached within and touched the face of God.