The Stranger

standing on the beach
with a gun in my hand
staring at the sea
staring at the sand
staring down the barrel
at the Arab on the ground
I see his open mouth
but I hear no sound
I'm alive...I'm dead

Part I: what a strange man

Meursault, schizoid personality, misanthrope? No, perhaps not, he's a stranger to this world. He's totally honest, cordial, a hard worker, and not at all devoid of virtue. His ways and motives are not the same as what's deemed or conditioned as normal or expected.

Meursault seems limited largely to his sense perception, and operates daily (and in his usually fond memories) on the level of how things taste, smell, look, sound, or feel to him. He seems to take these things as well as relationships quite simply as they are without interpretation, attaching any additional significance, or deriving any particular or expected meaning from them. Meursault can also find himself oppressed by his senses at times. Too much wine, bright sunlight, and heat in particular can prove difficult.

Meursault's neighbor Salamano beat and cursed his scabby old dog for years, but when the dog disappeared, Salamano was concerned of his whereabouts, and he wept. Meursault did not beat or curse his mother, and further acknowledged that he did love her, but when she died, Meursault didn't want to view her body, nor did he grieve. People called Salamano's relationship with his dog pitiful, but he is to be exonerated for his grief. Meursault had no judgement or feeling on the matter; he merely observed the sights and sounds of the situation. Meursault also had no particular judgement or feeling on his mother's death; he merely observed the sensory input of the vigil, procession, and funeral Mass.

I can turn and walk away
or I can fire the gun
staring at the sky
staring at the sun
whichever I chose
it amounts to the same
absolutely nothing
I'm alive...I'm dead

Part II: what a strange world

But that abstraction known as the French People convicted Meursault for the lack of grief over his mother's death, even though his crime was killing an Arab man on the beach.

From right after the killing, there was no doubt of Meursault's guilt; he confessed; his attorney plead guilty. Yet the resulting investigation and court trial were an object lesson in theater of the absurd, and Meursault observed that, "In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me." Nor did the proceedings seem to have anything to do with the man whom he had shot.

Meursault is put on trial for all manner of things. Drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette during his mother's vigil. Not crying during her funeral. Premarital sex. Being intelligent. Not having a soul, which somehow the prosecutor contends also implicates him in another murder case going on at the same time...an odious patricide. Everything but the dead man on the beach. Ultimately he's tried and condemned for not attaching the same interpretations, significance, meaning, and emotions to things as others do. Sentence: his head.

I feel the steel butt jump
smooth in my hand
staring at the sea
staring at the sand
staring at myself
reflected in the eyes
of the dead man on the beach
(the dead man on the beach)
I'm alive...I'm dead

Redux

In The Stranger, Camus explored what he called the nakedness of man when faced with the absurd. If you find philosophical absurdism (or its cousins existentialism and nihilism) lacking, don't fret. One can still learn from Meursault even if his radical simplicity is a path far more than one could ever be capable of taking.

We need to learn that things are as they are, which is not always the same as the interpretation, significance, meaning, or emotions attached to them. Perhaps too, we'll need to accept the injustice of men for our non-attachment. Nonessentials are frequently decreed as essentials in religion, science, culture, society, and relationships. We're constantly being required to offer a pinch of incense at the altar of the accepted meaning of these things, and these are jealous gods.

Manufacturing Consent: Ayn Rand

anti-concept: n. an artificial, unnecessary, and (rationally) unusable term, designed to replace or obliterate some legitimate concepts—a term which sounds like a concept, but stands for a “package-deal” of disparate, incongruous, contradictory elements taken out of any logical conceptual order or context, a “package deal” whose (approximately) defining characteristic is always a non-essential.

Our world abounds with anti-concepts. They manufacture opinion; they manufacture consent. They are rhetorical smoke and mirrors calling out pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Find them. Uproot them.

Reflections

the Moon doesn't diminish the Sun
the Moon reflects the Light of the Sun

the Mother doesn't diminish the Son
the Mother reflects the Light of the Son

Say What?

Who said what:

1. If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced. 2. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. 3. Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them. 4. Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants. 5. There are two mistakes people usually make when it comes to the devil: one is not to believe in him at all; the other is to believe in him too much. 6. History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it. 7. Diane, 10:03 am, Great Northern Hotel. Sheriff Truman and I have just been with the one-armed man or what's left of him. In another time, another culture he may have been a seer, a shaolin priest. In our world he's a shoe salesman and lives among the shadows.

A. G.K. Chesterton B. Fox Mulder C. Joseph Heller D. Dale Cooper E. C.S. Lewis F. Winston Churchill G. Mother Theresa

SI COMPREHENDIS...NON EST DEUS

For if you comprehend, He is not God. Be there a pious confession of ignorance, rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To reach to God in any measure by the mind, is a great blessedness, but to comprehend Him is altogether impossible. — Augustine, Sermo LXVII

That is why the Zen Masters say: "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." Here we must be very circumspect. The "Holy Object" must be destroyed in so far as it is an idol embodying the secret desires, aspirations and powers of the ego-self. — Thomas Merton

Rethinking Nothingness

The western way of thinking tends to equate nothingness with nonexistence or annihilation, which of course makes nothingness an unattractive proposition. It also has the scent of atheism, and so is rejected as alien or contrary. But it would seem that the eastern way of thinking conceives of nothingness differently. Nothing would be more precisely understood as ‘no-thing’, or that is, stateless Being infinitely beyond any attributableness. This is simply extreme negative (apophatic) theology. So then, achieving nothingness isn’t nonexistence, it’s attainment of great knowledge of that no-thing.

And this way of conceptualizing God certainly isn’t alien to western thinking. The Via Negativa, in a less rigid form, is the theology of Byzantine and Oriental Christianity...God the ineffable. Latin Christianity (as well as the endless stream of sects that have split off from it) tends to employ cataphatic theologies, or the theology of attributes...a God of things. But even that isn’t so clear cut. The Byzantines and Orientals share the same creed (which paints God as things) with the Latins. Also the Latins have a deep tradition of the Via Negativa as seen in the mysticism of The Cloud of Unknowing or St. John of the Cross’ The Dark Night of the Soul. Also, while God is the unmanifest no-thing, he is also the manifest incarnation. More so, God places attributes on himself: God manifests himself in archetypes like lover, father, or judge; and God manifests himself in matter in a very real way like a flame, a son, or bread.

Be careful what you ask for

Those who sacrifice to other gods will go to those gods. The ancestor worshipers will go to their ancestors. Those who worship the elemental powers and spirits will go to them. So, also, My devotees will come to Me.

What of the self-worshipers, shall they go to themselves...eternity constructed of infinite iterations of self and nothing more. What manner of hell is this; and so too the demoniac shall go to the demons.

East Meets West: I

There are many similarities between the world’s religions, so much so that some think that all religions are just different paths to the same end. As a result, new ways of thinking and new religions have been constructed to promote this ideal such as New Age spirituality or the Bahá'í faith. But do all of the many paths lead to the same place? I don’t think that they do, because while there might be so many superficial or even uncanny similarities, there are also many fundamental and mutually exclusivizing differences.

My query begins at this point: parallels...what does it mean exactly?
<< Preface      East Meets West: I      East Meets West: II >>

It’s difficult for any nondevotee to really understand another’s religion. Krishna said, "Having gained this knowledge, one quickly attains supreme peace or liberation. The irrational, the faithless, and the disbeliever perishes. There is neither this world, nor the world beyond, nor happiness for the disbeliever." On a simpler level what I think he’s saying is that even if you read the scripture and study the religion, if you don’t have the faith, you just won’t "get it". This would be applicable to any religion, but there is more to it than this. Religion is not only about what one studies and believes, it is not only about what one does and how one lives, it is about Who one loves and how one gives them devotion and service.

This is just as true in Christianity as it is in Hinduism, but I think that it is helpful to begin by thinking of Hinduism as really more of a cultural framework (than a singular religion) in which are found many varying schools of thought, religions* (yogas**), and cults***.

*religion comes from Latin and means to bind, so a religion is a system in which someone is bound by and to that which and to whom they believe (see cult 3). This does not need to imply the supernatural in any way, as based on this definition scientism, humanism, atheism, etc are all beliefs that bind conscience and behavior and can therefore be construed as religions. However, the most common context for religion is spiritual or supernatural and so is a system of how one is bound to or united with a god or spirit. In Christianity, for example, we hear Jesus say, "take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me."

**yoga comes from Sanskrit and means to yoke, so from an etymological standpoint, religion and yoga are equivalent. This is particularly true when yoga is used in its broadest sense where it is the process of attaining union with the Ultimate Reality. But there are also many types or schools of yoga. Of particular interest in this context is bhatki yoga, which is the spiritual practice of rendering loving devotion to God. Many in the west are also familiar with hatha yoga, which involves physical and mental exercises practiced so as to order the mind, command the body, and control the passions. For some this is the end in itself, but in the greater context of yoga, these exercises are part of the discipline of devotion and the process toward union.

***cult should always be used in the nonpejorative sense: 1. formal religious veneration; 2. a system of religious beliefs and ritual; 3. a great devotion to a person (deity), idea, or object.

The reason why one should think of Hinduisms instead of simply Hinduism is because there are so many fundamental differences in cosmology, theology, and praxis between the various schools, but instead of looking at this time at these differences within Hinduism, I’m more interested in looking at the first fundamental difference between Christianity and Hinduism.  

What’s the matter?

What is the value of the material universe? The Judeo-Christian view on matter is "and God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day." Since this is the end of the "sixth day", we know that includes every aspect of the created universe including that uniquely spiritual-material being...the human person.

Now not everyone thinks that matter is so good. There have been many sects, who have believed that matter, and therefore the universe is either profoundly flawed or even evil, and that the person is essentially solely a spiritual being who is trapped in a human body, i.e. degenerate or evil matter. Within the western traditions, Gnostics (Manicheans, Bogomils, Albigensians (Cathars), and Waldensians) are some sects that have held some combination of such beliefs. Carried to the extreme, such beliefs have perpetuated an encouragement of sodomy, contraception, and abortion for the purpose of preventing spiritual beings from being incarnated into matter and even encouraged suicide and euthanasia for the purpose of liberating spirits from their material existence. Christianity has rejected all of these means and all of these ends, although some protestant sects have backtracked on this rejection in the past century.

Indeed, Christianity is centered upon an incarnate God...a God who saw that His creation was essentially good, yet in need of redemption, and assumed form within it. Back to Hinduism, we also see a tradition of the Ultimate Reality or Supreme Personality of Godhead assuming material, human form millions of times. Since it’s unlikely that divinity would pollute itself with something that is essentially evil, it then would then be reasonable that the Hindu view is that matter is not evil. However, and this is a big however, common to probably most schools of Hindu and also Buddhist thought, is the concept of maya in which the material world is a lesser reality and a form of illusion to be overcome. This leads to the common view and goal in both Hinduism and Buddhism of the final release of the individual soul from any reincarnation into material existence. What this in turn results in varies by school. For some it is the extinction and absorption of the personality into either nothingness or into Godhead, and for others it involves the preservation of the personality while achieving union with Godhead. In contrast, Christianity teaches the resurrection of the material body into a glorified form, while also preserving the personality and achieving union with God.

There’s a lot more to the matter of matter, and there are many more religions to survey for differences, but the important thing to take notice of in this brief survey is that the understanding of the very nature of the universe and the human body is fundamentally and radically different in various religions, whether these things are essentially good, neutral, or evil is of no little difference. Returning to the question do all of the many paths lead to the same place? Well, the various paths usually state where they believe they lead, and we can see that some paths claim to lead to different, similar, or the same place. Since there’s a world of difference between annihilation and a personalist union with God, why then, should anyone maintain that all paths lead to the same end?