There are truths in all traditions
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”―Anais Nin
My mother was raised Catholic and is not totally happy about it. She has expressed to me that she experienced trauma related to ideas about original sin that were taught to her as a child. Not wanting to instill in me the same feelings of guilt and shame, she chose to raise me outside of organized religion.
Feeling unsure about her own spirituality but not wanting me to miss out on the experience, my mom ended up raising me in an eclectic neo-pagan tradition. She taught me about different spiritual practices from around the world and practiced a variety of rituals with me.
My mom is now a staunch Atheist, but I’m glad that she chose to raise me with some kind of spiritual tradition.
Growing up, we celebrated holidays like Christmas and Halloween, but we also celebrated things like Winter Solstice and Samhain. One year on May Day, we made gift baskets and left them on the unsuspecting doorsteps of our friends and family, a throwback to the pagan traditions of my Celtic roots. We attended church masses with our Catholic family and Passover Seders with our Jewish friends, and at home, we sometimes even cast spells.
In the absence of a strict religious dogma, my mom taught me ethics that were based on treating others how I would want to be treated.
The Golden Rule
To explain the Golden Rule my mom gave me a Wiccan rhyme:
“Ever mind the rule of three, what ye send out comes back to thee!”
These days, I relate this memory to things like Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Newton’s Third Law of Motion, and eastern ideas about Karma. I don’t take this idea totally literally. That is, I don’t believe a cartoon God sits in the sky punishing or rewarding us for our actions. Instead, I’ve come to accept this pervasive idea about the world as a useful, if more ambiguous kind of spiritual knowledge.
The Rule of Three is a kind of truth about the world that’s been expressed by many in many different ways and seems to be true in practice. While I don’t believe in an arbitrarily judgemental universe, it does seem that the scales of our lives and the world always “balance” themselves somehow in the end, however complex the circumstances are. While it’s true that sometimes bad things happen to people with good intentions and good things happen to those with ill ones, the wheel always turns.
My spirituality is based on finding ideas like The Rule of Three and applying them to my own life.
These are ideas about life that seem to persist throughout most faiths and practices, despite their vast diversity and disagreement. As I grew older and I read more philosophy, theology, and mythology, I discovered that there are many common themes like this throughout all faiths and cultures.
While we all have our own traditions and ideas about God, life, and morality, I truly believe that most of us share certain basic human values at a deep level.
My opinion is that it doesn’t matter if you’re religious or spiritual, what your practices are, or if you believe in God. There’s a utilitarian value in spirituality whether you’re a fanatical fringe zealot or a calm, rational atheist.
You don’t have to take it too seriously, either. Spirituality has a sense of humor.
The Spiritual Wisdom of Religion
Spirituality helps us understand the values that bond us together as human beings, across race, nationality, gender, age, class, and ideology. It helps us pass on fundamental truths about life, ethics, and meaning through rich and layered metaphors, through stories and speech, through dance and song, through food and wine. It helps us connect to our roots and stay grounded in rituals and traditions. It helps us stay supported and connected by creating community.
Sure, it’s easy to point out the atrocities perpetrated and justified by religion throughout history– but true spirituality isn’t about submitting to some false authority with human flaws. True spirituality is about love, introspection, learning, and growth. It’s about putting in an honest effort to be a better person, and connecting with others who are trying to do the same. It’s about allowing yourself to be at peace in an uncertain universe.
While I’ve never fully committed to any one spiritual tradition or practice, I try to treat spirituality like a buffet. Faced with unlimited options, I take what nourishes my mind and soul and leave the rest.
I guess I’m an Omnist — but I don’t really like to put a label on it. Labels are limiting.
Even if you believe that your particular holy book was literally written by God, you have to admit that s/he’s sort of hard to understand sometimes. I’ve never read a religious text that doesn’t try to say things without quite saying them outright, and in my opinion, this is because of the nature of what they’re really for.
Spiritual ideas aren’t instruction manuals for how to live. They exist in order to encourage us to write our own.
These stories and adages are designed to be a little bit confusing because they are for our souls what a puzzle might be for our minds. We don’t do puzzles to find the solution, we do them because we enjoy and benefit from the process of solving them. The relatable vagueness of these stories makes them accessible to a wide audience.
We shouldn’t be good people because we are told to be, or because we are afraid of punishment. It’s better to act in a way that you truly believe in your heart is right. This kind of honest intention always produces better results than following instructions or trying to avoid pain. No one can tell you what to believe, and belief has no power unless it’s authentic.
I’ve found spiritual wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita, The Vedas, The Bible, The Torah, and the Qu’ran, but I’ve also found it in children’s books, sci-fi novels, poems, songs, and folklore. I’ve also gained the same kind of insights from simply observing the people around me, or having a conversation with a random stranger. Opportunities to learn and grow are everywhere, as long as you’re paying attention.
Belief Has Power
Regardless of what you believe, you can’t deny that believing in something is a powerful thing to do. We’ve all experienced this in our own lives — it’s hard to accomplish anything if you don’t at least have faith in yourself.
I’m on the fence about a lot of things when it comes to spirituality. I’m not sure if there is God, or what God is, or of where, if anywhere, I’m going to go when I die. I’m not sure if I’m a good person for trying to learn and grow and be better, or if I’m a sucker for not doing whatever I want all of the time, regardless of the consequences. I’m not even completely sure if I have free will, or if my choices really matter.
I think there are many questions in life that we will probably never get the answers to. If our species figures out a way to survive after the Sun burns out, I think it’s likely that we will still be combing the universe for answers, desperately trying to satisfy the insatiable curiosity that is part of what makes a human being, a human being.
But belief is a choice. I can choose to believe in something because it makes me feel happier, or more at peace. I can choose to follow a rule because it benefits me and those around me. I can choose to practice a tradition in the service of programming my brain with positive habits and ideas. I can choose to believe that I live in a benevolent cosmos because it helps me sleep better at night.
So I will. I’m always nicer when I get a good night’s sleep.
Originally published on medium.com on December 25th, 2019.
Esoteric Epistemology 