Calling myself “religious” really doesn’t do it either, it’s all on the other end of the spectrum, someone who reads their holy book every day but doesn’t read New Scientist, who lives a life regimented by a text several centuries out of date when it comes to social laws.  It’s all church groups and inward thinking, and while I’ve experienced a lot of that and it’s often quite pleasant, that isn’t who I am either.

But all that is just an aside about what I really want to talk about.  Today I picked up one of the free papers we have circulating around the city, and what caught my eye was a section on ‘Spirituality.’  Amidst all the advertisements were two articles: a short piece by a local psychotherapist and an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s book “A New Earth.”

The first is, well… I’m not sure what that has to do with spirituality.  It’s about racism and how we are all so much better than that.  Pretty much nothing is said about the difficulty of the subject, about it’s history and how it takes it’s form today.  Just, “aw shucks, shouldn’t we all just get along.” Fluff.  But with Eckhart Tolle there was some meat there.

I have avoided this guy’s books and teachings because it sounded like every other self-help, new age, “spiritual” title that comes along every few years.  After reading this small portion, entitled “The Ego is not Personal” I feel safe saying that that is exactly what it is.

All I could see in his words was the stuff he probably cribbed it from- Buddhism, Taoism, a little bit of basic psychology, maybe even a little Dianetics.  At one point he even rips off Nietzsche:

“In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to “eradicate evil,” as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against.  Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. ”

“Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” has a much better ring to it.  Granted it may just be a coincidence, but coming from a couple hundred words which sound like Buddhism for dummies makes it all the more suspect.

When I see stuff like this I get agitated, and I can’t really tell whether or not that is deserved.  It could very well be that all Mr. Tolle is doing is re-contextualizing the stuff he studied in college, packaging it for a broader audience.  Buddhists have a word for this- upaya, meaning skillful means.  It means that Buddhist practicioners should recalibrate their message to fit their audience.  Talking to a Muslim about Buddhism can be a lot different than talking to a Christian or an atheist, and so Buddhists can be free to use their own means and skills to introduce different people to the dharma.

Eckhart Tolle’s message is essentially that thoughts and the mind get in the way of our own happiness, that we spend so much time thinking about other things rather than being present, therefore real contentedness eludes us. Instead we should, through various means like meditation, do our best to ignore those thoughts and centre ourselves in the now, in the present moment, and we will discover that that moment can be just as fulfilling and enthralling as that distant goal we are always hoping to achieve.

This isn’t news to anyone who has taken a basic introductory course on eastern religion and philosophies.  This is Buddhism, this is Hinduism, this is Jainism, it is Taoism, heck it could even be Confucianism.

Tolle and I both seem to agree that the point of religion should be the cesation of suffering.  If his books has managed to do that for even a few people then fine.  But people keep calling this guy a spiritual master as if he invented something new, and I haven’t seen any evidence of that.  Further investigation is required, I think.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m getting sore about this because I saw two pieces in a paper dedicated to “spirituality” that could have been written by someone in highschool, and damnit I could rock that job.

Time to write a proposal.

Today a lot of Qur’ans are supposed to be burning.  Today a man named Terry Jones, the leader of a small Christian congregation in Gainesville Florida called the Dove World Outreach Center was supposed to be lighting hundreds if not thousands of copies of the Qur’an on fire today.  His goal was to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by destroying a book that he thought was full of lies, that proved that Islam was a dangerous and brutal religion, and was responsible for all Islamic fundamentalism.

He says that it is Islam’s mission to dominate the world and to replace the constitution of the US with sharia law.

Where do you even start with something like that?

Well, they didn’t burn any Qur’ans today.  That didn’t actually happen, but quite a lot has since his announcement on July 12th.  Mostly, there has been an outpouring of condemnation from pretty much every corner of the planet.  In response to the group he created on facebook, which became about 16,000 people strong before it was pulled down, hundreds of thousands have joined opposing groups.  The Vatican, the National Association of Evangelicals, the World Evangelical Alliance, the UN Secretary General, the US Secretary of Defense, the US Secretary of State, General David Petraeus, the chancellor of Germany, the President of the United States, and our own Prime Minister have all condemned the act.

So, seeing as absolutely no one is taking his side on this, Jones begins to talk back his original stance, saying the he is open and “still praying” over the issue.  On September 9th he claims that he will cancel the event and says that he has reached an agreement with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the “Ground Zero Mosque” (more on this later), to move the proposed site away from Ground Zero.  This comes as a surprise to the Imam, who claims to have agreed to a meeting with Jones, but that there was no agreement to move the site.  Jones then expresses his displeasure, claiming several times that he was duped and that the Imam was lying.  But this doesn’t work either, so eventually Jones cancels the event, saying the he will not burn any Qur’ans now or in the future.

Now, here is what I think really happened.  Terry Jones quickly figures out that this whole ‘Burn a Qur’an Day’ only makes sense in his very small corner of Florida, and so he tries to use the massive amount of attention given to him by the media to his advantage.  Since he has Islam hate on the brain lately he has probably been thinking a lot about the “Ground Zero Mosque” and what better way to save the day than claim that he has agreed not to burn the Qur’ans if they move the mosque.  Brilliant.  A few problems though.

One- the guy in charge, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, called his rather obvious bluff.

Two- the “Ground Zero Mosque” is not a mosque, and is not at Ground Zero.  Like, not even a little bit.  For starters, it was planned as a community center, a place for all faiths to come and worship, and also to play basketball and use the swimming pool.  It is going to be thirteen stories high, two floors of which can serve as a prayer space.  It is two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, and you can’t even see the WTC.  Go ahead, check.  Go to google maps and type in 51 Park Place New York City, NY.  Go to the street view, it’s the closed shuttered brick building with the “Burlington Coat Factory” sign.  It’s been closed since 2001, when a piece of one of the planes fell through the ceiling.

So, technically, the Imam could have said, “Yes Terry, we will move the community cen- er, mosque right away.  See, it’s two blocks away now, those going to the WTC memorial won’t even know it is there.”  But that would be giving in to an idiot, and this Imam has shown that he is made of stronger stuff than that.

The whole thing sparked a conversation about free speech, which is the only leg Jones has to stand on.  Lots of people remarked that it was perhaps unfortunate that Jones wasn’t going to be breaking any laws, except maybe some public burning ordinances.  To be frank, this made me really, really happy.  I am overjoyed that people like Terry Jones have the legally protected right to have these kinds of protests.  It’s awesome.  This whole thing has thrown into sharp relief that old adage about yelling fire in a crowded theatre.  As we have seen, Terry Jones has that right, but the point of that story is that just because you have the right doesn’t make you right, it doesn’t make in a good idea.  Terry Jones, by way of this ridiculous stunt, could have further endangered thousands of men and women overseas and would have surely upset the already tumultuous relationship the States has with Islam.

Just because you have the right to do these kinds of things doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, and it doesn’t mean everyone gets a voice.  Especially when the voice in question is informed by nothing but hate and that charming mix of arrogance and ignorance.  Spend five minutes listening to Pastor Terry Jones and you’ll know that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or anything about Islam, other that they read the Qur’an, and that he doesn’t.  The media should have taken one look at this guy and run the other direction.  But they didn’t and so here we are.

At the end of it all, the Pastor just kept on lying, saying that he did all this to, “expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical.”  He then added that, “We have definitely accomplished that.”  But what I am sure he didn’t realize was that he did the same thing for Christianity.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop near my new place right now, trying to download some TV shows, and catching up on all those pieces of internet that are not easily accessible via my iPhone. Across from me two gentlemen are sitting at a table and going through what look like reiki movements. Waving and shaping the air, one of them folding, molding and gently passing something to the other, who receives it in kind and breathes it in. It’s called energy healing, touching without touching, convincing the mind and the body to to settle, concentrate, think about light, think about compassion, and breathe. It wouldn’t matter if there were something passing between them, the physical and mental components of the act would be enough to have some effect. The is something the Buddha understood, you give the mind half a chance and it will unjumble itself, defrag, untangle, relax. No one’s going to get tense if you give them your undivided attention and engage in an act of kindness. Well, mostly no one.

His friend has left now, and he is giving a demo to the man sitting next to me. He does this all the time, an otherwise unremarkable looking young Caucasian man, carrying on the technique of his teacher. Once that guy has left he moves on to me, and trying to be an ambassador to this strange unknown country, of course I say yes. He waves his hands, and I keep one eye open to watch the movements and try to correlate that with what I feel in my cupped palms.

While this is happening I am reminded of a girl in my high school biology class. She had sensitive hands. She could detect the residual heat of objects with her fingertips- pens, loose change, things like that. When my teacher heard about this he wanted to see her in action, so we set up a line of quarters, and while her back was turned one of us would touch a coin, and she would touch each in turn and point out the correct coin every time. She could even do it when her fingers were floating above the coins, and even when we didn’t quite touch them ourselves. And when, at the teacher’s insistance, we didn’t touch any of them, hoping perhaps to catch her bluff, she would pass her fingers over the coins and then look at us in consternation, catching us instead.

His name is Davin, and as he asks me to imagine golden light collecting in my hands as he finishes waving into them, I wonder if something like that is happening now. Is some ancient, prehistoric part of my brain waking up, like a rickety old trap in a temple full of relics, activated by a presure plate of mystery and myth, forcing me to become receptive? I ask the question beause I don’t believe that anything out of the ordinary is happening in these exercises. I have come to understand that no matter how much I immerse myself in this, no matter how much I give in to all of this, I will only ever see a man waving his hands at me.

But despite that, my hands get warm and begin to tingle, and I imagine a golden light, pouring from me and into every other living thing.

I’m on month four now.  Bet you can’t guess how I’m doing.  Bet you can’t figure out that I feel burnt out, that I can’t focus, that I every time I try to bring something to the blog or realign myself with this new religion that things  are just frickin’ dandy…

I’m choking on Sikhism.  It isn’t anything about the religion.  It has a rich and interesting history and philosophy.  There are plenty of helpful people and many gurdwaras and communities to visit, but I’ve dropped the ball.  I’m twenty days into the month and I’m nowhere.  In light of this pattern I may have to reevaluate my schedule, or try to make more of an effort to plan ahead.  Having a more fixed schedule helps, so maybe I should be looking further into the future before the month is up.

I’ve decided to stop my month of Sikhism. I’m going to take some time to work on other things, and set up the schedule for May.

People always say that in order to succeed you need to get used to failure.  I have always assumed that this meant external obstacles- things that I have no control over.  What it really means, for me, is to get used to falling short of my own expectations.

It’s okay.

This week Kotaku is covering religion in video games and I could not be more excited. Their first treatment of the subject isn’t terribly awe-inspiring, but I think it hints at ideas which have the potential to be delicious, much like a pie with a filling that you have not yet encountered.  I know that pie, as a constant, is sublime in its blissful effect, and yet I see this new combination of fruit and pastry and am given pause.  Will it be all that is true and dear to me of past pies?  Of fruit, sugar, pastry and whipped cream?  Will these things come together into something that is worth my time?

I hope that the answer is a resounding, “Oh God, yes.”

I am so excited by the prospect of discussing this topic that I’m having trouble finding the right words.  And this is saying something above and beyond my usual lethargy when it comes to bringing content here, because I have been trying to put these ideas into writing for a few months now.  Suffice it to say, I think that video games are a great medium for story-telling, art, and entertainment, and that while it is often difficult to convince people that religion is an important force in the world which merits our attention, I think it would require less rhetoric to convince people that it has an incredible canvass for myth, a rich context in which many entertaining and valuable stories can be told.

And if there is one thing I would like to see more of in video games, it’s better stories.

I’ve never had what I would call a ‘religious experience.’ I have felt indescribable feelings of itense awe and emotion when confronted with amazing pieces of art or inspirational words and performances, but never anything that other people have called religious. I have never had that feeling of the unseen Other that most people describe when they fall to the floor and begin speaking in tongues, or however people get through these sorts of things.

After my post last night I couldn’t sleep. This isn’t anything new these days. For the better part of the week I haven’t been sleeping properly. I was worried about the next month, thinking about God, nothing new. I don’t know what happened next, whether or not I managed to fall asleep, but I remember becoming aware of something terrible, something horrifying. I couldn’t move.

My jaw was clenched shut, and I think I may have been shaking, but I definitely remember everything getting rather… ugly. It was like the colour and life was suddenly being sucked out of everything, and even though it was dark I felt assualted on all sides by this distortion, this perversion of eveything around me. I must have been shaking by that point, shaking despite my repeated attempts to move, to turn my head away, to close my eyes.

Looking back now, I’m reminded of Karen Armstrong, about her autobiography where she described what it was like to suffer from seizures before anyone had diagnosed them as anything other than manifestations of deep psychological issues. She wrote about how everything went dark, how everything turned into sickly, ghostly forms that terrified her just before she would black out. On hindsight his may have been what I was experiencing, but I can’t say that I’m entirely sold. Karen Armstrong never said anything about hallucinating voices.

I couldn’t understand what it or they were saying. It wasn’t quite English, wasn’t quite human, and wasn’t really one voice. It was… difficult to describe, and even more of a trial to experience. To be frank I have never been so scared. Whatever this voice was, it was all around me, making me claustrophobic, pushing me down into my bed. It was so strong I thought I was going to die, that I was being crushed to death by each indecipherable utterance.

Waking was an experience in itself. I went from a state of sheer and utter panic to that of waking from a pleasant nap in a single moment. The last thing I remember was thinking that I could almost understand what was happening, that I could almost make sense of my pain and of what was verbally assualting me, and then I was waking up. It was like the whole thing had happened to someone else.

I almost leaped out of bed, my mind completely out of sync with my body, convincing it to flee, to run, to hide, to fight, to do anything but lay still and pretend it was all a dream. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convince myself of that. But really, does it matter? I don’t know if I would be any more at ease knowing that this was some trick or misfiring in my mind than it was some… thing else. The only reason I’m equating this with something spiritual is because it happened in the context of the Year of Faith, and I cannot help but make that connection.

Whatever it was, I’m certain that I never want to experience anything like that ever again. Ever.

Sam Harris Talk at Authors@Google- If you enjoyed the TED talk I posted, this is a slightly longer version followed by a fairly intelligent Q&A.

Sam Harris Responds to His Critics- An essay by Harris addressing major concerns with his thesis that science can help us answer moral questions.  If you hadn’t guessed by now, I think the point he’s making is kind of important and worth some attention.

10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On- An amusing article that I think nails a lot of the miscommunication and presumption that occurs between believers and the faithfully challenged.  Found via my friend Angus on Facebook.

Paint Your Faith- An interesting art project where a small group of artists takes over an unused wall to create a mural depicting their interpretation of what faith means.  And it’s coming to Vancouver!  Squee.

Baha’i Rants- A really good blog covering all things Baha’i. I discovered it late in the month, but I will be following it in the months to come.

Enjoy.