Fool's Gold & Other Shiny Things vs Depth & Substance

     "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".     Karl Marx     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people

      The human propensity to try a quick easy fix for the most complex of all matters - the meaning of life - is astounding. Gobbling down a chocolate bar when one's hungry, gives a sugar-high, quickly followed by a crash, and so it goes for all of our impatient attempts to feel good fast, without addressing the fundamental issues appropriately.
     Some of today's promoters of meditation gain popularity by promising quick routes to bliss, happiness, wealth, success etc - ie an alternative route to "the American dream".
     Sitting meditation - taught by a competent teacher - is a solid, intelligent, well-traveled path to profound wholeness, depth & meaning. It's a lifetime journey of discovery & deepening, learning to embrace all of life: the horror, the mundane & the awe-inspiring beauty - the "full catastrophe." It's NOT a quick fix, and "bliss" is an occasional tap on the head ("spiritual consolation"), NOT the goal. Choose your teacher well.

Mentoring: Nurturing the Maturity to Embrace Life - both Suffering & Wonder!

      "The paradox is that as integral to life as suffering is, it is matched by wonder. By wonder I mean the awe and gratitude invoked in those moments when we come alive to the intricate luminosity, beauty, power, and vast grandeur of the universe (or some tiny part of it) and the amazement we feel that we are in any measure privileged to behold it. By wonder I mean also the sense of Mystery that cannot be exhausted even by our most magnificent forms of knowing, including the awe-ful ambiguity that arises from any reasonable assessment of the complex, dynamic, and confounding character of life. (By the time we reach young adulthood, we) have a readiness for soaking up such wonder, especially if it is distinguished from the various forms of artificial high that exploit this readiness. This dimension of wonder, too, is a fact that any worthy faith must be able to enfold.
     Ironically, contemporary life also offers a good many ways to be insulated from truth – both the scope of suffering and the opportunities for wonder. A good mentoring environment, however, provides an initiation into both. When ... invited into both suffering and wonder, then contradiction and dissonance proliferate, raising big questions and activating the imagination in its search for meaning and faith**. I recall how Joan Baez once said, ‘I do not know whether it is worse to bring a child into this world and submit him or her to the disease we call society, or to refuse to bring a child into this world and thus rob him or her of one glorious red sunset.’ If young adults are steeped in images that grasp both the suffering and wonder of their time, they may gain faith that can be sustained because it cannot be in a certain sense surprised. A great mentoring environment skirts neither suffering nor wonder; rather, it holds them in a dynamic paradox.”
       ** Multiculturalism and “… religious pluralism … is a fact of our common life. It has become all the more essential to honor these realities by understanding faith in its broadest, most inclusive form as the activity of making meaning that all human beings share.”

       Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/11/cracks-in-armour-great-gift.html

Udayan Sankar Pal   www.facebook.com/UdayanSankarPal

Concepts & Ideas versus Real Life

          “You cannot explain me with ‘isms.’
        They are very bad for an artist.
        What one must believe in is color.”              Marc Chagall

     We compulsively distance ourselves from reality by quickly putting things into categories, concepts, theories. How often do we cut patients, colleagues, friends & family members off with "yeh, yeh, I know"? Don't bother me with facts, I already have cherished opinions. We love the illusion of knowing & the illusion of having control over our rapidly changing, incomprehensibly complex universe. Pure delusion!
     And even the things we do know something about intellectually, we often lack the critical element: direct EXPERIENCE! Most of us need to learn to intentionally connect with, fully embrace & flow with the "full catastrophe" of life - see: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     And no, opening up isn't at all easy for us who've lived much of our lives hidden away, Howard Hughes-like, in the castle between our ears!

Gretel contemplating a nap