Sometimes we unexpectedly find heroes in unlikely places. When I resigned from the LDS church in 2011, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me that four years later one of my heroes would be a Hindu monk who lived from 1863-1902. I had never heard of him, and my guess is that you haven’t either.
Although we in America learn plenty about Europe in school and in the news, we learn next to nothing about India. So it’s no surprise that we in the U.S. have never heard of a man who is widely regarded as a national hero in India, whose birthday is still celebrated there as a national holiday, and who Gandhi identified as one of his main inspirations in the struggle for Indian independence: Vivekananda.
Vivekananda
Vivekananda recognized the looming conflict between science and religion, and he learned from an unexpected source how to integrate the two. He helped develop and promote a science-affirming spiritual philosophy, and became a pioneer of Religious Humanism in both the East and the West.
Vivekananda saw the conflict between science and religion first-hand in his own home. His father was an attorney and a scientifically-minded atheist. He blamed religion for intellectually weakening the Indian people to the point where they’d become vulnerable to colonization by an outside power. Vivekananda’s father believed that to achieve political liberation, the Indian people must first cast off the chains of their religious superstition.
Vivekananda’s mother, on the other hand, was a devout Hindu who loved Hindu scripture and regularly worshiped both at home and at temples in the typical Hindu fashion. When Vivekananda was growing up, his mother would read him stories from the Mahabharata, the mythical history of the gods and their dealings with the ancient Indian people. Vivekananda was inspired by these heroic figures who personified various virtues, and he recognized that striving to emulate such heroes helped him and others develop good character.
Vivekananda would later say that as a result of his upbringing, he had a scientific mind but a religious heart.
In his college years, Vivekananda tended more toward his father’s outlook. He considered himself an atheist. Like many upper-class Indians, he received a Western education in British schools in India. He studied Schopenhauer, Darwin, Nietzsche, and other Western luminaries in philosophy and science. He admired the great strides the West had taken in science and technology, and yearned for the day when the once-great Indian civilization would do the same.
Unbeknownst to Vivekananda, his life’s path was permanently altered one day at school when his psychology professor suggested that if any students wanted to see first-hand what someone in a trance looks like, they should visit a monk named Ramakrishna at the Kali temple in Dakshineshwar, just outside of Calcutta. Vivekananda and some of his classmates took up their professor’s suggestion.
Kali Temple in Dakshineshwar where Ramakrishna lived
When they met Ramakrishna, Vivekananda got right to the point: he asked Ramakrishna if he’d ever seen God. Ramakrishna’s response surprised him. Rather than ducking the question as had everyone else he’d asked, Ramakrishna immediately replied: “Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him as I see you here.” It would take four years for Vivekananda to grasp the meaning of Ramakrishna’s response.
Ramakrishna told Vivekananda that he had been dying to unburden his mind by sharing his thoughts with someone who could understand them. He invited Vivekananda to return often to continue their discussion.
For Vivekananda, Ramakrishna was an enigma. Ramakrishna was known for spending hours in meditation each day, during which he would go into trances and ecstasies that Vivekananda dismissed as delusions. In so many ways Ramakrishna was Vivekananda’s polar opposite. Ramakrishna believed in God, but Vivekananda was an atheist. Ramakrishna performed ritual idol worship, but Vivekananda rejected idol worship as rank superstition. Ramakrishna was uneducated, but Vivekananda was a dedicated student and passionate seeker of knowledge. But despite these sharp differences, Vivekananda said he felt inexplicably drawn to this strange monk.
Ramakrishna in meditation
Vivekananda’s inability to articulate why he was drawn to Ramakrishna made him intensely curious to discover the answer. Over the next four years, he visited Ramakrishna at the temple regularly. Vivekananda appreciated Ramakrishna’s personality and sincerity, but he constantly disagreed and scoffed at Ramakrishna’s teachings. For example, when Ramakrishna shared with Vivekananda the monistic philosophy of Advaita Vedanta–the idea that God (Brahman) is everywhere in everything–Vivekananda ridiculed the idea: “How absurd! See that pot over there? That’s God! See that fly on the wall? That’s God!”
Over time, however, Vivekananda grasped this concept of Brahman, and it changed his outlook forever. As Vivekananda would later explain to Western audiences, the God of Indian scripture–Brahman–is a principle, not a person. Like the Greek philosopher Democritus, the sages of ancient India who wrote Hindu scripture observed that matter can be broken down into smaller and smaller particles. For example, a boulder can be crushed down to rocks, rocks can be crushed down to pebbles, pebbles can be crushed down to sand, sand can be crushed down to dust, and dust can be crushed until it becomes almost ethereal. Democritus reasoned that everything must therefore be constituted of particles too small to be seen by the naked eye, and he invented a name for these theoretical particles: “atoms”. More than two thousand years later, Democritus’ reasoning was scientifically confirmed with the atomic theory.
The sages of ancient India reached a similar conclusion several centuries before Democritus, but they went even further than he did. Unlike Democritus, they did not think the inquiry into the nature of reality could end with the individual particles of which matter is comprised. Rather, they reasoned that if we could break down material reality to the furthest point possible, the Ultimate Reality we would discover would be something like a cosmic energy field. And they gave it name: Brahman. For thousands of years, Indians have regarded the sound “Om” as the “sacred symbol” that represents the hum of the energy of the Universe–Brahman.
If Vivekananda were alive today, he would not be surprised at all to learn that scientists have discovered atoms and even smaller elementary particles, quarks. Nor would he be surprised by the concept of “dark energy” and the fact that, as far as physicists can tell, there’s no such thing as “nothing” in the Universe–that even the near-perfect vacuum of space contains relativistic quantum fields. None of this would come as a surprise to a believer in Brahman like Vivekananda.
From the Western perspective, applying the word “God” to Brahman seems wildly inappropriate because it is a naturalistic concept, and the West has defined God as being supernatural–as being separate from and independent of nature. From the Western point of view, a naturalistic concept like Brahman doesn’t deserve to be classified as a theistic idea.
But from the Indian point of view, it is only logical to regard Brahman as God. The cosmic energy field that has evolved into galaxies full of stars and planets is Eternal in that it has no beginning or end, Absolute in that it lacks nothing, and Infinite in that it contains the limitless potentialities that have evolved from it. Moreover, that cosmic energy field is the ultimate source of all our “blessings”: our lives, our health, our loved ones, the materials that shelter and clothe us, and the food that sustains us. For the sages of ancient India, these qualities made Brahman every bit deserving of the title “God”.
When one understands the concept of Brahman, one can understand what the Hindu means when he says “God is everywhere and in everything”. One can also understand the meaning of Ramakrishna’s answer when Vivekananda asked if he’d ever seen God: “Yes, I have seen him. I have seen Him as I see you here.” Because the ultimate source of humankind is the cosmic energy field of Brahman, Hindus see divinity in everyone. They greet each other by saying “namaste”, meaning “I bow to you”.
When Vivekananda came to understand the concept of Brahman, he realized that he needn’t choose between science and religion, nor between atheism and theism, because the God of Hinduism–Brahman–is a naturalistic concept that is compatible with science. Moreover, the cosmic energy field that is the ultimate source of our lives and blessings is perfectly worthy of our awe, reverence, gratitude, and devotion. We can have scientific minds and religious hearts.
After four years of arguing with Ramakrishna, Vivekananda finally accepted Ramakrishna as his guru (teacher/mentor) and became his disciple (student). It was at that point that he took on the name Vivekananda, which means “the bliss of knowledge” (his given name was Narendranath Dutta). But to Vivekananda’s dismay, their relationship was cut short by Ramakrishna’s death in 1886.
Vivekananda and other disciples of Ramakrishna
Vivekananda was twenty-three years old. He had graduated from college but had not yet dedicated himself to a career. He was at one of life’s crossroads. Eventually he and some of Ramakrishna’s other disciples decided to form a monastic order to perpetuate Ramakrishna’s teachings. But Vivekananda was adamant that it must be different from the existing monastic orders in one respect: charitable service must be one of its key missions.
At that time, the prevailing interpretation of Hinduism embraced the caste system and the doctrine of karma. The two were a lethal combination because together they promoted the idea that the poorest castes deserved their station in life. Moreover, the prevailing view was that one’s spiritual welfare was more important than one’s temporal welfare. As a result, charitable service was not a priority for Hindu monastic orders.
Vivekananda strongly felt otherwise. He had studied Christianity in the British schools he’d attended, and he greatly admired the Christian emphasis on charity. Moreover, he did not consider spiritual and temporal welfare to be disconnected. “How can a person develop spirituality if he doesn’t have clothes to wear or food to eat?” he would ask. And so on Christmas Eve of 1896, Vivekananda and several of Ramakrishna’s other disciples met together and took their monastic vows, including a commitment to live as Jesus lived by serving the sick and the needy.
After taking his vows, Vivekananda decided to follow Hindu monastic tradition by wandering the countryside and meditating in the forest. He set out on foot taking only four possessions with him: a bowl, a staff, and his two favorite books–the Bhagavad Gita, and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.
Vivekananda in his wandering years
As Vivekananda wandered throughout India, he found his countrymen in a more impoverished state than he’d ever imagined. He’d seen poverty in his hometown of Calcutta, but he’d largely been sheltered from it by his upper-class upbringing. For the first time in his life, Vivekananda was now experiencing poverty personally, and he was distraught to find his countrymen in deep poverty all across India.
For the next five years as Vivekananda wandered India’s cities and countrysides, he tried to figure out a solution to India’s impoverishment and political captivity. He saw the psychological effects of chronic poverty on the Indian people; they felt powerless and hopeless. Vivekananda didn’t believe in the existence of any supernatural deity that could liberate the Indian people in answer to their prayers and offerings. He knew that to become capable of overcoming the most powerful empire in the world, the Indian people would have to find confidence and strength within themselves.
“Religion is the manifestation of the natural strength that is in man.”
-Vivekananda
Vivekananda firmly believed that the Indian people could find their inner strength and confidence through the concept of Brahman. Although the concept of Brahman is a predominant theme in Hindu scripture, it was apparently too abstract a concept for most people to grasp. Over thousands of years, the concept of Brahman became overshadowed by a pantheon of mythical gods and goddesses, each of which personified various virtues and were thought to possess certain powers. Statues representing these mythical gods and goddesses were worshiped in temples all throughout India.
In Vivekananda’s view, the Hindu religion had been turned into a superstitious scam by self-interested priests who taught the people that if they donated money to their temples and made offerings to their idols, the gods represented by those idols would give them blessings. These idolized gods and goddesses were treated like divine vending machines: the people squandered what little substance they had on temple donations and offerings hoping they’d receive blessings that, in reality, came no more reliably than was already offered by chance.
In Vivekananda’s view, the worst aspect of this superstition was that it made the Indian people look to some mythical external source for help, when what they needed to do was to look within themselves to find strength and solutions to their problems.
For Vivekananda, the concept of Brahman had tremendous implications that, if understood, would enable the Indian people to discover their innate strength and potential. His thinking went something like this: Every living and non-living thing in the Universe has evolved from Brahman, that cosmic energy field that is Ultimate Reality. Galaxies full of planets and stars, our magnificent Earth with its towering mountains and oceans teeming with life, thousands of species of plants and animals–everything that exists evolved from Brahman’s infinite potential. Each of us is a product or manifestation of Brahman. We therefore ought to consider ourselves gods and goddesses, kings and queens, princes and princesses; the human species could have no higher birth than to have evolved from Ultimate Reality. Each of us has a tremendous amount of innate, undiscovered strength and potential.
But Vivekananda was not solely interested in improving India’s self-image. He was keenly aware that Britain’s moral justification for colonizing India was rooted in its perception of the Indian people as uncivilized barbarians. Vivekananda believed that India had brought that image upon itself to a degree. His country was steeped in old barbaric customs that he found abhorrent, such as the caste system. To make matters worse, the British people’s ignorance about India made them incapable of distinguishing between customs that arose from Indian culture as opposed to Hindu scripture. As a result, the British often erroneously assumed that India’s barbaric cultural customs were rooted in Hinduism, when in fact they were not.
Vivekananda in his wandering years
Near the end of Vivekananda’s five-year sojourn throughout India, he met a raja (a wealthy Indian prince) and they discussed the plight of the Indian people. The raja agreed with Vivekananda that India’s image in the West sorely needed improvement, and he told Vivekananda about an upcoming World Parliament of Religions that the Unitarian church was hosting in Chicago. The raja encouraged Vivekananda to represent India and Hinduism at the World Parliament and offered to pay Vivekananda’s travel expenses to Chicago. Vivekananda agreed, and he made the long voyage over land and sea.
“I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.”
-Vivekananda
Vivekananda delivered five speeches at the World Parliament of Religions, the first of which he gave on September 11, 1893. The last two paragraphs of his speech are still as relevant today as they were then:
“Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.
“But their time is come. And I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”
Vivekananda at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893
In his subsequent speeches at the World Parliament, Vivekananda discussed the root causes of religious intolerance, the Hindu religion, India’s need for humanitarian aid rather than Christian missionaries, and the religion that Vivekananda called “the fulfillment of Hinduism”: Buddhism.
Vivekananda’s speeches were widely reported in American newspapers, and he immediately received numerous invitations from admirers all over the United States who offered to provide him room and board if he would come lecture in their cities. He accepted their gracious offers and spent the next two years lecturing American audiences. Vivekananda developed a following wherever he visited, and attracted prominent admirers like Leo Tolstoy, Nikola Tesla, and William James.
In 1894, Vivekananda founded the Vedanta Society in New York. Vedanta means “the essence of the Vedas”, the Vedas being a term commonly used to refer to the Hindu scriptures. The purpose of the Vedanta Society was to promote Ramakrishna’s universalistic interpretation of Hinduism and religious tolerance. In time, Vedanta Societies were formed in other U.S. cities as well.
In 1895, Vivekananda carried his message into the belly of the beast: Great Britain. Reading the speeches he gave there, one cannot help admiring his courage in rebuking the British nation for preying on weaker nations in violation of the Christian values they professed, and for thinking themselves superior to “heathen” peoples who in actuality exemplified Christian values better than they did. But despite his boldness, Vivekananda won admirers in Britain and formed Vedanta Societies there. He then spent two more years lecturing and forming Vedanta Societies in the U.S. and Britain.
For four years the Indian newspapers reported on Vivekananda’s warm reception in the West, and when Vivekananda returned to India in 1897, he received a hero’s welcome. He was lauded for rehabilitating India’s image by introducing the West to India’s great spiritual heritage, and for doing so in a way that emphasized the rationalistic and universalistic aspects of Hinduism that would appeal to Western audiences. But Vivekananda felt the honor was undeserved. When a group of admirers put Vivekananda in a carriage and started pulling it through the streets, he immediately jumped out of the carriage and pulled it with them.
Using donations he’d received while in the West, Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission for social service in May of 1897. The Mission’s first project was famine relief in the Murshibadad district. Over the next two years, he founded two more monasteries and two journals.
In 1899, Vivekananda returned to the United States and formed more Vedanta Societies. In 1900, he attended the World Parliament of Religions in Paris, where he formed a Vedanta Society as well. He returned to Calcutta in December of that year, and spent the next two years coordinating the activities of the monasteries, Vedanta Societies, journals, and social service mission he had founded.
Vivekananda in mediation
On July 4, 1902, Vivekananda awoke at the monastery and meditated for three hours. He then taught Sanskrit grammar and yoga philosophy to his students. At 7:00 p.m. he went back to his room and asked not to be disturbed, and was found dead at 9:10 p.m. His body was cremated on a sandalwood pyre on the bank of the Ganges, right across from where Ramakrishna was cremated sixteen years earlier. At the time of his death, he was thirty-nine years old.
As one might expect, Vivekananda has had a greater legacy in India than in the West. Today, the Ramakrishna Mission owns dozens of hospitals, charitable dispensaries, maternity clinics, tuberculosis clinics, mobile medication dispensaries, orphanages, and schools for the needy throughout India. In the West, the Vedanta Societies that Vivekananda formed still exist and continue to carry out their spiritual and charitable missions, but they are relatively unknown because they neither proselytize nor solicit donations.
I discovered the Vedanta Society in 2013 when an ex-Mormon friend invited me to attend the Sunday service at the Ramakrishna Monastery located just fifteen miles from my home. The monastery was built in 1942 by Aldous Huxley and other British authors who were members of the Vedanta Society, but somehow I had never heard of it in the twenty-five years I had lived in the area.
Ramakrishna Monastery in Trabuco Canyon, CA
I appreciated the non-dogmatic Unitarian message presented at the service, but I still had a bad taste in my mouth for anything religious or quasi-religious, so I had no interest in learning anything more about them at that time. I did notice, however, that there was a meditation sanctuary at the monastery, and I made a mental note to come back sometime to mediate. Over the next year I visited the monastery occasionally to meditate, and I enjoyed the natural beauty and peaceful solitude of the sparsely-developed hills where it is located.
In 2014, I finally decided to buy a book at the monastery bookstore to learn what the Vedanta Society was all about. The book was “Vivekananda: Voice of Freedom”, a compilation of excerpts taken from the speeches Vivekananda delivered in the U.S. and Britain, arranged by topic. And his outlook really resonated with me.
Vivekananda showed me how to have a scientific mind and a religious heart. He taught me that I needn’t reject science and buy into some supernatural idea of God to be a spiritual person, and convinced me that the “magic of reality”, as Richard Dawkins called it, is every bit deserving of my reverence, gratitude, and devotion. He showed me how the highest ethical values flow from the naturalistic concept of Brahman: unity, the brotherhood of humankind, love, charity, kindness, gentleness, patience, tolerance, acceptance, inclusion, humility, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, non-violence, and honesty.
I realized after leaving Mormonism that regardless of how much my thinking had changed, I still had a religious heart. I loved Mormonism when I believed in it. It gave me a purpose, a focus, and a motivation. It was my cause. And leaving Mormonism caused me to discover that I’m the type of person who needs a cause–a commitment to a greater good that I feel benefits others as well as myself. Without a cause, I feel like a fish out of water.
Promoting the idea that we can have a scientific mind and a religious heart is my new cause. But not in the same sense as Mormonism was my cause. As a Mormon, I felt a need and desire to convert others to my way of thinking. I feel no such obligation now as a Vedantist, because Vedantists are to refrain from proselytizing.
The rationale behind that rule is simple: the possibilities and facets of Brahman–that cosmic energy field from which everything has evolved–are infinite. So the fact that anyone has discovered a paradigm that seems right to him proves only that he subjectively views his paradigm as the “right” one. Maybe what I’ve said here resonates with you, and maybe it doesn’t. And it’s okay either way, because neither of us can say one is right and the other is wrong; we can say only that our own perspective seems right to us. Moreover, being convinced that our own paradigm is the only objectively “right” one and trying to convert everyone to our own way of thinking is precisely what causes religious conflict. And considering our shared parentage, such conflict should be avoided like the plague because it can only lead to disunity and fratricide.
Statue of Vivekananda at the Ramakrishna Monastery in Trabuco Canyon, CA
To me, Vivekananda was a man who was far ahead of his time. He had a scientific mind and a religious heart. He was a pioneer of Religious Humanism and humanitarian service. He accomplished so much in his thirty-nine years, and I can’t help wonder what more he could have accomplished if he’d had a few more decades on this planet.
But despite my admiration for Vivekananda, I think he would tell you that he really isn’t as special as I’ve made him out to be. He’d say that if you think anything good about him, you should realize there are and have been billions of Vivekanandas–people who summoned their innate strength to do what they believed was right and good.
And he would ask: What does that tell us about Brahman?
More reading: Excellent NYT article about Vivekananda
If you’re reading this, then you and I likely have this in common: when we were growing up we were taught that we were among God’s “elect” children because we were born to parents who were members of the only true and living church on Earth. That idea made us feel good because it made us feel special and important.
And if you’re like me, the more you read your scriptures, the more you found statements that seemed at odds with the idea that God plays favorites with his children like that. Scriptures like: “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), and “all are alike unto God” (2 Ne. 26:33), and “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). These scriptures were difficult to square with the idea that God blesses 0.2% of his children (i.e., the percentage of the world population counted as members of the LDS church) more than the other 99.8% of his children.
In other words, it was difficult for me to reconcile the egalitarian God who “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” with the elitist God who blesses 0.2% of his children more than everyone else.
But when I was seventeen years old, I found a passage in the Book of Mormon that comforted me because it portrayed God as a loving father who “speaks the same words” to “all nations of the earth”. It was a big idea that blew out of the water the idea that God has historically spoken only to one tiny “chosen” group of his children:
“. . . Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. . . .
“For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them . . . .
“For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.”
(2 Ne. 29:8, 11-12)
This expansive and inclusive idea that God speaks the “same words” to “all nations on earth” and that all nations “write the words” God speaks to them presented me with a new question: Where are the books that contain the “same words” that God has spoken to “all nations”? I was familiar with the Bible and the Book of Mormon, but I wondered: where are the books containing the words God has spoken to his children in China? Or in India? Or on the islands of the sea? Etc.
This question sparked in me an intense curiosity to read all the books of scripture I could get my hands on. I wanted to figure out whether there were any common messages found in all the scriptures of the world. Such common messages would be evidence that God has in fact spoken the same words to all nations (or so I reasoned).
While on my mission I read portions of the Koran, and when I returned home I enrolled in a World Religions class at BYU. For the first time, I learned about Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Shinto, Zoroastrianism, and Sikhism. Since then, I’ve read every book of scripture that I’ve been able to get my hands on. Some have become personal favorites that I’ve read over and over again: the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, the Tao Te Ching of Taoism, and the Dhammapada of Buddhism.
As I’ve read the scriptures of the world’s religions, I’ve come to the same conclusion that many others reached long before me: there is a striking overlap–what you might call a common core of spiritual ideas–in the scriptures of the world. C.S. Lewis called this common core of spiritual concepts “the Tao” (borrowing that term from the Taoists), Aldous Huxley called it the “Perennial Philosophy”, and others have simply called it “universal truth” or something along those lines.
If you’re a theist, you might see the overlapping messages found in the world’s scriptures as evidence that God has spoken the same words to all nations. Personally, I view the common messages found in the world’s scriptures as evidence that we’re all one human species grappling with the same human condition and learning the same lessons about life on planet Earth.
The common core of ideas found in all the world’s religions has become an anchor to me since losing my faith in Mormonism’s peculiar claims. When I discovered that people living on opposite sides of the globe came to some of the same conclusions about reality, life, and morality, that global consensus was impossible for me to disregard. It seemed wise to take those common ideas to heart, and to use them as guide posts for navigating life.
Below is a summary of the common concepts I’ve drawn from the world’s scriptures over the years:
There is an eternal aspect of reality. (Science agrees: energy cannot be created or destroyed.)
There is more to reality than what we can directly perceive. (Science agrees: as just one example, there are parts of the light spectrum our eyes cannot see.)
Life is precious; life is a wonder; life is a gift. (Whether you think God made man from dust or the human species evolved from life that spontaneously arose from the Earth, either way it’s incredible that life exists at all.)
Our bodies and the bodies of other living things are animated by some unseen power. (Science agrees: we all run on electricity.)
At the deepest, unseen level, everything and everyone is interconnected; we only appear to be separate and independent. (Science agrees: we’re all made of star dust, running on energy that cannot be created or destroyed.)
You are not your body; the real “you” is the consciousness within you.
Nature is both generous and cruel: it sustains our lives but also sickens, hurts, and kills us.
Our circumstances are constantly changing. Therefore, whether our circumstances are fortunate or unfortunate, it is wise not to assume they will always be so.
Nature is full of cycles and patterns (e.g., seasons); if we understand the cycles and patterns we can understand and navigate life better.
In this natural world, death creates and sustains life: we and other animals must eat plants and animals to survive. We should be grateful, respectful, and moderate in our consumption of living things and beings.
Each generation sacrifices itself (i.e., gives its time, energy, resources, and sometimes even life) so that the next generation may live. We owe a debt of gratitude to our ancestors and elders because we would not exist without them.
There is cause and effect; we should choose actions most likely to bring favorable consequences.
Unity and balance lead to peace and stability, disunity and imbalance lead to conflict and instability. Therefore, we should seek unity and balance.
In life, moderation is key.
We have animal instincts that we need to moderate in order to create stable, healthy, peaceful societies. (Human history agrees.)
We should treat others as we would like others to treat us.
Love, charity, compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, humility, gratitude, generosity, non-violence, and honesty are virtues we should cultivate as individuals and societies because they maximize individual and collective happiness and well-being. Their opposites should be avoided because they bring misery.
Ego-centrism is a barrier to seeing, thinking, speaking, and acting virtuously, and it leads to misery for ourselves and others. We should strive to let go of (sacrifice) our egos.
Life inevitably involves suffering, much of which is self-inflicted because we set our hearts on things we will never obtain or will inevitably lose. The cessation of suffering comes from identifying with that which transcends the temporary.
Material wealth is insufficient to produce lasting happiness.
Striving to fulfill our greatest potential is a worthy endeavor.
Creating and maintaining loving relationships is a worthy endeavor.
Getting married and having children is a worthy endeavor.
Perseverance can keep us alive and enable us to overcome our challenges.
Do what you sincerely believe is right; don’t violate your conscience.
For me, the only thing worse than realizing that this life may be the only life I get, would be to find out that I squandered my only life living for a future that didn’t…really…. exist….all based on some other human’s (admittedly appealing) hopes, imaginations, or worse….fabrications.
The funny thing is….this realization doesn’t make me want to “eat, drink, and be merry” and live irresponsibly (though admittedly, I’ve always loved food).
Instead, this realization makes me want to live the most moral, authentic, and meaningful life I can with whatever time remains.
Call me crazy, but I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. Warts, scrapes, stumbles and all. Better yet – as hard as it is to let that appealing dream fade….I feel like my feet are more firmly planted on the ground than ever before. Right here. Right now.
I prefer to walk on solid ground than to fly in the clouds. I sleep better down here. And there are so many worthy people to love, and to be loved by….right in front of me. How can I waste a moment of this time pining for someone else’s speculation?
Has it been hard to make this transition? Excruciating at times. Have I hurt and disappointed people? Far too often.
Would I trade my current life for my pre-faith-crisis life?
Not for all the money in the world.
Give me the choice of a beautiful fantasy or a rugged reality….I’ll go with reality. Every. Time.
That’s what faith means to me now. It means living in the now…..as if this moment matters most. Heaven is now.
And yet….this philosophy ultimately seems like the best bet….because we KNOW we have this moment. Tomorrow…..who can really say for sure…other than those who are actually just trying to sell you something?
If it turns out that there really is a life after this one…….BONUS!!!!! But this way, I will not have wasted my one guaranteed life…. ignoring my own inner-voice and wants/needs…squandering my time living someone’ else’s vision for me….and most importantly….I will (hopefully) not not have squandered my time with my loved ones all around me.
(Musings after seeing “The Big Short” with my friend Roger. Go see it immediately…..along with “Spotlight“)
This year, I made three resolutions for a happier and healthier 2016: (1) Don’t take yourself too seriously; (2) Don’t step on a scale immediately after the holidays; and (3) Don’t get mad at 90-year-old men. The first two resolutions need no explanation. As for the third, to be clear, I will not get mad at a 90-year-old-man for saying something insensitive, crude or just plain wrong, even if that man purports to be a prophet of God. Because, guess what? That’s what 90-year-old men do.
In fact, I believe it’s one of the perks of living that long. In fact, it might be the only perk of outliving just about everyone (and most redwood trees). After nine decades on the planet, you have earned the right to be wrong … demonstrably and ridiculously wrong … Republican-ly wrong. And in acknowledgment of that entitlement, the rest of us are obligated to simply shrug and say, “Oh, Grandpa!”
That is certainly what we said when my grandfather would say something racist, sexist and/or homophobic; most often, all three and, even more often, in public … loudly. We would say, “Oh, Grandpa!” We would then turn to the offended party, shrug and say, “He’s 90.” If that person had a grandfather of their own, she would invariably say, “I totally understand. That’s why we left our granddad at home today.”
But seriously, what else could we do? Take a switch to Grandpa’s not-so-tender backside? Or perhaps post memes about him that he would never even see on social media in hopes of shaming him into seeing the error of his ways? Or did it make more sense to simply let it go and to try to enjoy the time we had left with Grandpa?
Well, I’m going to take the same approach with the LDS apostles. When one of them suggests that women “put on a little lipstick now and then,” I’m not going to get upset in 2016. I’m just going to say, “Oh, Grandpa!” I’ll say the same thing when this man tells women not to talk too much in meetings. “Oh, Grandpa!” Or when one complains that his Christmas cards aren’t “Christ-y” enough. “Oh, Grandpa!” I will even take this tact when their pronouncements aren’t as innocuous, such as when one claims that God has forbidden the children of gay parents to become members of the Church, or that God commands that all gay members in loving same-sex relationships be banished from the fold.
As I see it, the other perk of getting old is that you get to be delusional. For example, as my beloved grandfather neared the end of his life, he began to think that he was a professional prizefighter (and no, I’m not making this up). He would loudly proclaim:
“Watch out there, I’m Shelby Boy,
130 pounds of floating joy!”
And then, he would make strange movements with his arms that were either shadow boxing or a seizure (we were never quite sure which). Either way, he was entitled to his delusion. He had earned it. He spent his life providing for his family, working long hours for low pay and if, at the end, he was able to keep alive his dreams of being a professional boxer, then good for him! You go, Shelby Boy!
We would have been cruel to prove him wrong by showing that he was quite a bit out of his weight class at that point or by challenging him to a sparring session. And just as I would have not created a meme to ridicule Grandpa Shelby for his delusions, I will refrain from doing so with Grandpas Ballard, Nelson, Oaks, et al. I will simply shrug it off with a hearty, “Oh, Grandpa!”
And yes, I realize that our apostolic grandpa delusions have a lot more power to cause suffering than my paternal grandpa’s delusions, but that is only to the extent that we take their delusions seriously. And in that case, the fault is our own.
For example, if one of my uncles took Grandpa Shelby claims of being a boxer seriously and entered him into a title fight with Floyd Mayweather, who would be to blame? Old and feeble Grandpa Shelby? Or my foolish Uncle I-Want-My-15%-Cut? Obviously, the latter would be to blame. And this uncle would get his own match – a no-holds barred 30-against-1 in the backyard match – for his troubles.
The same should be true for prophetic announcements from Grandpa Nelson. If a bishop refuses baptism, ordination or missionary service for the child of gay parents, then he is to blame for the injustice; not the delusional old man who thinks that the un-Christ-like policy comes from Jesus Christ Himself. The same is true for the bishop or stake president who holds a “court of love” to excommunicate a member in a committed same-sex relationship. At 90 years old, an apostle is entitled to his delusion. However, at 40 years old, the bishop or stake president is not entitled to act on that delusion. He hasn’t earned that right.
So, in 2016, I will not get mad at old men. They have put in their time and have earned the grace of “Oh, Grandpa!” Instead, I will reserve my righteous indignation for men of sound mind and sound body who unquestionably follow delusional directives. And for those who do violence to gays and lesbians and their families, I will extend no grace. They will be subject to biting criticism, both in person and online. And I hope others will join with me in proclaiming, to paraphrase Grandpa Shelby:
“Watch out there, we’re people of conscience en mass,
And if you blindly follow orders and harm our LGBTQ families, that’s your a–!”