Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Breaking the Wheel

A friend asked me if I thought it was good for people to believe in untruths. I believe that it is, and that prophets and messengers of God have specifically taught some of these untruths. But how can this be acceptable? The difficulty in understanding truth is that it owes so much to human interpretation, which is fallible and twists that truth. I also suspect that truth is not, in unalloyed form, susceptible to human reason. Our capacity is outstripped by the complexity of truth and that such truth is only explicable, in the limited forms of human language and experience, in parables (as Jesus argued) or allegory. Think of religious, metaphysical, and/or philosophical truth as the sun. You know it’s there and you can see it, but your eyes lack the ability to look directly upon it for more than a moment. To look too long upon the sun is to invite the possibility of pain and permanent blindness. However, you could reflect the sun’s image in a dark glass and stare upon it without danger. Is this the sun? It is a vision of the sun that we can look upon. But it is not the sun itself, but an image of it altered so that we may study and understand it. Truth rarely, if ever, comes to us in unalloyed form. So to believe in an untruth is not necessarily an evil, provided this untruth is a way of representing a deeper reality.

This philosophy requires believers to shun or at least approach with skepticism purely literal interpretations of, for example, the existence of God. Many truths are fairly incomprehensible and are easily misunderstood and misappropriated to justify terrible things. Hence, it's better for people to believe in untruths that may help illustrate deeper truths (again, like parables). These would be analogous untruths--untruths that point to truths (e.g., the literal vs. figurative understanding of Hell, or of samsara, for that matter).

Hence, untruths may not be absolutely bad, inasmuch as my notions of what is true or untrue may differ from yours. Some people believe in God, some do not. If I did not believe, I would insist on maintaining belief in God publicly. Of course I do believe, so this is not an untruth for me. However, it may be an untruth by your lights. Moreover, I do not believe in the literal existence of God in the "Semitic" sense (the concept of a personal God that looks a lot like Santa but is far angrier)--that is in the sense that Jews, Christians, and Muslims conceptualize God. However, I do not expect that historically Jews, Christians, and Muslims were emotionally or culturally equipped to understand God any differently. Therefore, while this concept of God is a form of untruth, it is better than not believing at all and it is an untruth that has much truth within it. Consider it as a road to a city. The road is not the city, but it will lead you there. Hence, untruth in this sense is not the same as a lie. A lie puts you on a road that claims to lead you somewhere, but in fact does not.

Anyway, I feel fairly confident now, having spent some time working on my next book, that I can reconcile the concept of God as conceived in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism (the latter's apparent agnosticism is no license to consider Buddhism without "Ishvara" or to discount the possibility, in fact the probability, that nirvana is better understood as brahma-nirvana rather than an empty spiritual suicide) with the Semitic religious beliefs already indicated. The particular genius of Eastern religion (Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Hinduism) is for creating a sweetly-subtle concept of God that goes very far but still falls short of denying His existence. This actually complements, rather than contradicts, the Semitic notion of Prophets and Messengers of God (in religions that have far simpler and frankly cruder concepts of God). Imagine the refinement of Mahavishnu combined with the potency of Moses. It makes sense that the war-like, tribal Semites should have intellectually powerful prophets (and yet a war-like tribal God concept), while the long-civilized Hindus should have a refined and civilized God concept (and yet have prophets of much less potency--like a Buddha whose primary claim to fame is to not exist any more).

In any case, I think this is a fertile area worth closer examination and I've only just begun to write my notes for the book. I've finished reading the Ramayana, which is heavy with religious symbolism and have already read the Bhagavad-Gita, and am starting on the Bhagavata Purana (stories of Krishna in Vrindavana). The question is whether these traditions, taken figuratively, complement or contradict the traditions of Semitic faith.

The book will take the form of a fictional narrative involving a conversation between an as-yet-unnamed Muslim conqueror and a vision of Ananda, the Buddha's cousin and closest disciple. This discussion will take place on the grounds of a temple erected for the worship of Hanuman, the monkey-god of Hindu tradition and a servant of Rama, a manifestation of God. The entire vocabulary of Hindu and Buddhist tradition will need to be viewed with a willingness to toss aside much that is cherished within those concepts. Is it even possible to dispense with the literal notion of reincarnation while holding onto such concepts as samsara, moksha, nirvana, and karma? Such an approach will necessarily be met with opposition from traditionalists and fundamentalists. But I must make that approach if I am to resolve the merely apparent contradictions between these disparate religious traditions. If I shrink at the attempt, then my belief that Rama, Krishna, and the Buddha were prophets of God as surely as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were will be untested and without merit.

No comments:

Post a Comment