Riding Ruminations... When I set out on a bicycle ride designed to loosen and energize my three-quarter-century-old body, I try to unhook my mind from consideration of the events and problems of the day... an extension of Yoga practice.THE GOD PROBLEM
Stating the problem is the first and perhaps the biggest hurdle. Actually, my problem is not with God but with talking about God. (...and, wouldn't you know, I'm beginning this journal entry by talking about God.) Of course, there is always a lot of God talk, most of it inane and pointless. The woman ahead of me in the coffee shop line yesterday said to someone on the other end of a cell phone conversation, “I hope to God she gets smart and doesn’t let that jerk give her a baby.” I can’t guess how many “god damns” I’ve heard in the past year. People talk about the god damn roads, god damn taxes, god damn Redskins, god damn Padres, god damn republicans and god damn democrats. Richard Dawkins, the now notorious biologist, wrote a thick book about why he knows there is no God; and Karen Armstrong, a former nun who had almost renounced belief in God, came back with another brilliantly written book that makes A Case for God. Nominal Christians, nominal Muslims, and nominal Jews, which is the majority of those who say they “belong to those religious group,” aren’t much bothered by the fact that the world is full of people with a practice of religion different from their own.
Of course, there are Christians who believe themselves to be at war with non-believers and Muslims jihadists who have declared “holy” war with the goal of killing infidels. Most of the Jews who believe they are God’s chosen people are willing to “live with and let live” the people who don’t believe as they do. Radicals are found in virtually all religions. They are the people who know who God is and where God is and what God wants. The rest of us go on living our lives without knowing for sure very much about any of it. I confess to being bothered when a preacher says in the sermon that “God wants” something or other; but my being bothered doesn’t amount to much, not even much frustration. I am mildly annoyed at his or her presumption, but that's about as far as it goes.
So, back to the question: What might it be like to let go of God? Oh, I’m not proposing that it would be a good thing to actively work at being an unbeliever, an atheist... an anything other than a person just trying to do the right thing, especially the right think in regards to others, without crediting my behaviors to God. Whatever concepts I have ever had of God have left me with the belief that whoever or whatever God is, He/She doesn’t need my devotion in order to be good to the people around me or even to people who live a world away from where I live; and I certainly can’t imagine a loving and kind God who would let pain and despair come to other people because I don’t pronounce the right prayers. I have let go completely of any concepts of a wrathful, jealous, spiteful, or vengeful god. As the high school kids I once taught often said to each other and to their parents and to administrators and teachers with whom they had lost patience, “Give me a break!” You can't seriously believe, can you, that there is a god out there somewhere waiting for my behavior or my prayers before making a decision about what to do with Haitians or Chinese or, for that matter, anybody on this planet. Anyway, I’m letting go of God as the reason for doing whatever “good” I do for others; and I’m letting go of God as the excuse for not doing whatever it is that I decide not to do when I have a choice. I don't want to stop being "good" to others, to treating them as Jesus said... "the way I want them to treat me." And I'm not going to become profligate in my living what remains of my life. I'm going to continue to work at the task of living my life as responsibly as I can.
Perhaps I’ll report back on the result of my decision. If anybody is interested in knowing more about what I mean and why I mean it, he/she can leave a comment at the bottom of this journal entry. You don’t have to have an account or be a member of Google’s Blogger program... just choose anonymous when you finish your comment.
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From Gerald Naus:
The Buddha entered a village. A man asked him as he was entering the village, "Does God exist?" He said, "No, absolutely no."
In the afternoon another man came and he asked, "Does God exist?" And he said, "Yes, absolutely yes."
In the evening a third man came and he asked, "Does God exist?" Buddha closed his eyes and remained utterly silent. The man also closed his eyes. Something transpired in that silence. After a few minutes the man touched Buddha's feet, bowed down, paid his respects and said, "You are the first man who has answered my question."
Now, Buddha's attendant, Ananda, was very much puzzled: "In the morning he said no, in the afternoon he said yes, in the evening he did not answer at all. What is the matter? What is really the truth?"
So when Buddha was going to sleep, Ananda said, "First you answer me; otherwise I will not be able to sleep. You have to be a little more compassionate towards me too. I have been with you the whole day. Those three people don't know about the other answers, but I have heard all the three answers. What about me? I am troubled."
Buddha said, "I was not talking to you at all! You had not asked, I had not answered YOU. The first man who came was a theist, the second man who came was an atheist, the third man who came was an agnostic. My answer had nothing to do with God, my answer had something to do with the questioner. I was answering the questioner; it was absolutely unconcerned with God.
"The person who believes in God, I will say no to him because I want him to drop his idea of God, I want him to be free of his idea of God -- which is borrowed. He has not experienced. If he had experienced he would not have asked me; there would have been no need.
"The person who believed in God, he was trying to find confirmation for his belief from me. I was not going to say yes to him -- I am not going to confirm anybody's belief. I had to say no, I had to deny, just to destroy his belief, because all beliefs are barriers to knowing the truth.
"And the person with whom I remained silent was the right inquirer. He had no belief, hence there was no question of destroying anything. I kept silent. That was my message to him: Be silent and know. Don't ask, there is no need to ask. It is not a question which can be answered. It is not an inquiry but a quest, a thirst. Be silent and know.
I had answered him also; through my silence I gave him the message and he immediately followed it -- he also became silent. I closed my eyes, he closed his eyes; I looked in, he looked in, and then something transpired. That's why he was so much overwhelmed, he felt so much gratitude, for the simple reason that I did not give him any intellectual answer. He had not come for any intellectual answer; intellectual answers are available very cheap. He needed something existential -- he needed a taste. I gave him a taste."
Source: Osho Books
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