Spiritual Exploration Group
James Rising
I'm starting a new online discussion group, to ask the great religious
questions and consider every religion's answers, and I want to invite
you to join me! We'll read excerpts (starting small and juxtaposed) from
all the great religious texts, including the Torah, Bible, Qur'an,
Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist texts, Baha'i texts, and Wiccan texts. We will
approach this study as philosophers who believe that there's hidden
wisdom in the depths of religion, with a mind open to any answer and
assumption and ramification, but accepting nothing without inspection.
Some of the questions I want to ask are:
* What happens when we die?
* Are we a part of God, the whole of God, or greater than the gods?
* Is escape through enlightenment possible or desirable?
* What is the relationship between the Good Life and the Moral Life?
* Which matters: the ends, means, or intents?
* How many layers of misperception lie between us and the gods?
* What role do prayer, worship, asceticism, and charity have in
spiritual growth?
I also want to grapple with the scientific community's answers to these
questions. While I've grown dissatisfied with the answers that science
is purported to give to spiritual questions, I do not want to reject any
of science. At the same time, science provides whole new opportunities
for spiritual quandary, such as the multiple universes of quantum
mechanics and the unknowabilities of Godel and Heisenberg. Concerning
science, I want to ask, "What are space, time, and causation?", "What is
free will?", and "How much personal delusion is involved in the universe
we perceive?"
The goal of this study group is to move beyond prescribed answers. I
want to join Jainism and Buddhism-- the no-action and no-thought sides
of the enlightenment coin. I want to resurrect gnosticism and Spinoza,
and apply the modern advances from drugs, psychology, and
multiculturalism. I want to combine the diametrically opposed western
and eastern understanding to self, growth, and spiritual discipline into
a new kind of schizophrenic whole.
The Hindu gurus say that you're ready to start understanding
spirituality at age 50, and it takes about 84 thousand lifetimes. But if
there's any western arrogance I share, it's that nothing needs to take
longer than a lifetime, and the time to start is always now.
- James