Abraham Lincoln
gave one of his most famous speeches while running for a Senate seat. In this speech, he tried to convince his
listeners that America would not survive if it continued to live according to
two totally different sets of rules. He
said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And, truly, if the people of those times had
not sought to rectify this chasm, who knows what state we would be in today?
Any kind of
dualism seems dangerous, especially when the implications – material, spiritual,
ethical and otherwise – for each way of living are not considered. The current battle for controlling America’s
memes seems to be playing out between two forces – liberalism and conservatism. It is probably not that simple, though. The key point here, though, is that we are in
trouble if we tear ourselves apart because we would rather be right than
survive as a nation.
All of that
being said, the real reason for this essay is to address the divide that
happens within individuals.
We have discussed
all term the separation between Plato and Aristotle, the City of God and the
City of Man, the ethereal and the corporeal, religion and science, spiritual
and logical. What I have tried to
convince you is to admit the possibility that all of these separations only
exist in the human mind, and that they may not be relevant to the rest of the
universe. They are separations we have
created because we desperately want to capture the universe with our minds
using some reliable meme-set. We believe
that, if we can somehow define (make finite and knowable) the secrets of the
universe, there will be a sense of peace in that.
That is when
scientists begin trying to come up with theories, experiments, even whole
disciplines that will reliably provide valid answers to these secrets. Different sciences pop up, left and right,
hoping to eventually lasso in the elusive mysteries. Of course, the other reason we have lost our
way with science is that many of its considerable resources are now actually
focused on making life easier, less confusing.
Technology, instead of trying to address all of the conundrums and
enigmas, is now being used to entertain or anesthetize us away from what
troubles us.
On the other
side of the aisle, new spiritual disciplines have arisen for thousands of years
(probably longer than that if we count prehistoric examples), usually in
response to the fact that the previous disciplines either were not providing
enough answers or because the people running the current religions were
straying from the original “true” ideals.
Siddhartha Gautama abandoned Hindu practices because he felt they were
not leading him to Nirvana. Martin
Luther left the Catholic Church because he felt it was straying from the ideals
of Christ. Henry the VIII left because
he wanted a divorce. Joseph Smith and
his followers started Mormonism because they felt it was a truer faith than
earlier forms of Christianity. Islam of
today seems to be torn between whether it should peacefully or aggressively
establish its ideals worldwide.
Is it
preposterous to think that there might be more than one God and that any one
particular God is better than the others?
Is it equally preposterous to assume that any one faith can claim that
it has a superior way of approaching or appeasing that one God? How could we ever know that? For example, if a person were looking for a
new form of spiritual discipline, either because he lost faith in a former
religion or because he was not raised on any particular spiritual practice, how
would you suggest he choose? He could
not simply take people at their word that their faiths were the best faiths,
mostly because they would all likely say something to that effect.
Is it not also
true for science? Is it also a religion
of sorts? Do many of us sit back and
wait for scientists to fix this or cure that?
Do we not continue to mistreat our planet, hoping that someone will
design a shell that will surround the globe so we can control global
warming? Either that, or, like in Avatar,
will these knowledgeable scientists find another planet for us to exploit? Is it not true that we keep hoping that
scientists will design pills or surgeries that will protect us from our own
lack of mental or physical discipline?
Here is an
irony - Is there anyone out there praying to God that scientists will develop
non-carcinogenic cigarettes or a cure for lung cancer so that he will not have
to go through the struggle of quitting the habit for himself?
What should we
rely on – faith or reason; emotions or logic; science or religion; love or
discipline? Can the answers really be so
obviously bipolar? Does it not make
sense that the answers are in between, on the outside, or running throughout
the entire spectrum of these myopic ways of “knowing” the universe? Is it not true that a human “knowing the
answers” to all of these questions is a lot like a minnow trying to describe the
sea to us?
The very act of
knowing with certainty tries to take the immensity of the universe, oceans upon
oceans of data and relationships, and condense it into a tidy package that the
human mind can comprehend and then casually manipulate to his liking. Is this not a ludicrous expectation? Could it ever be that simple?
Or is it
possible that we should recognize our limitations while celebrating our
abilities, and then continue to discover the potentials that lie all around,
within and throughout this vast playground?
Truthfully, I
do not know. But I do know this: I want
to train my mind, body, and spirit to not work against itself, because that
seems to be one of the key reasons that we end up feeling like we are not a
part of this amazing experience.
As John Donne
said, hundreds of years ago (the parenthetical additions are mine):
No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent (universe), a part of the main; if a clod
be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind (the universe). And therefore never send to know for whom the
bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Only in our minds can we be separate
and alone in the universe, because we are the universe, and the universe is
us. Open your mind to this, and you will
begin to continuously rediscover the infinite wonders around, through and within you.
