Encounter (Vol. 1, No. 1, 1984, 1986; Webpage issue 1)
Encounter (Vol. 1, No. 1, 1984, 1986; Webpage issue 1)The web journal of Godsearch, Inc. (journal formerly entitled Point/Counterpoint and, for some of the articles in this issue, The Boulder Fish).
The skeptic and seeker's guide for investigating religions and world-views through debate, interview, analysis, and discussion.
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Ultimate Encounter
Tibetan Buddhism
A Buddhist Critique of Theism, and Response
World View Dialogue
"The East, No Exit"
A God Seeker in Ethiopia
Ultimate Encounter
A Spiritual Journey of a Master of Mysticism and the Occult
In late 1968 I left my wife, job and school for what I thought would be a great carefree adventure. My first step of rebellion I covered by idealistic images of grandeur (that made the experience palatable to my conscience).
Discouraged after three years in the army and a marriage that I didn't understand, I headed out from Philadelphia toward Florida. Through psychic phenomena I hoped to attain true spiritual freedom. I spent a lot of time meditating and experimenting with my mind on the beaches of the east coast.
Thoroughly disillusioned by society and pressured by local police in the small towns on the east coast, I was forced to go north and found myself in a New Jersey coastal resort town. It was there, after sharing the last bit of money I had with a young man who was as cold and hungry as I, that I was exposed to my first hallucinogenic drug. After several hours of expansion and intense psychological alterations, I entered a place that seemed to be beyond fear, time, or space.
"Into self"--I entered within and saw out of seeing eyes. I passed through a sense of tangibility and coherency to simple, helpless awareness. I penetrated a realm I hadn't been to before. I passed through a view of myself, first as flaming blue and then up through a rainbow--violet, pink, yellow, white, gold, silver, inner-transparencies and a radiant God-form--then beyond, violently now, through whites untold. Then I saw a presence of a transparent sphere divided into quarters pulsating with motions of life. Thus climaxed my first STP trip.
After an uncanny sequence of events, I found myself in Haight-Ashbury being swallowed up by large doses of hallucinogenics that I had swallowed. I had taken them under the guise of spiritual investigation. Each trip brought me nearer to an end that I could not then see. A series of trips were serious freakouts; in the last one I thought I died. Grasped by fear and visions of holocaust in San Francisco, I headed toward Berkeley. At that time the people were blowing up Telegraph Avenue, looting and firing weapons. These were the 1968 riots.
Truly spaced out, I set out for Portland, Oregon, with no shoes on my feet, just a poncho on my back and a pair of blue jeans. I entered Portland with pupils dilated, hair frazzled and unable to speak. The memory of that time is very vague. I know I experienced another acid trip that I definitely did not like.
Desolate, I was taken into a Christian crash pad. The Christians there shared the Gospel with me, and my drug dulled mind remotely understood. I responded to what they told me about Jesus by being baptized in the Columbia River by the house elder, who had been miraculously delivered from heroin through Christ. It was very easy for me to be fooled into returning to Philadelphia to pick up the pieces that I had left behind, because I was unstable and still rebellious. However, most of the pieces of my broken life weren't even there. Compelled by fear, I began to strive to redeem my life by noble humanistic efforts. I immediately got involved in any religion that mentioned the name of Jesus. That opened the door for philosophies that did not mention his name, but seemed to be going the right direction.
I opened a macrobiotic health food store to support my efforts to attain physical purity. I read the Bible and the Chinese book of changes, called the I Ching. My practice of Hatha Yoga, supported a very legalistic outlook that I hoped was pleasing God. I tried alchemy, magic, hypnotism, and meditation--a rainbow of effective instruments for concentrating psychic energy. It didn't take long for me to get into astral experiences. Now I was seeing apparitions and leaving my body.
The contact I made with these various psychic organizations and religious groups of every kind inevitably brought me into deeper involvements that never seemed to fit although all was to be one. Strong inclinations to seek refuge in nature helped me to decide to embark on an expedition in the Rocky Mountains with some friends. Of course I had to have my directions confirmed by the I Ching (oriental divination) and my Tarot cards (occidental divination).
After many changes too extensive to mention, I found myself alone in a wilderness area of Colorado; a hermit in a hut, living on rice, roots, and herbs. While there, I had several "encouraging" psychic experiences. My mind and body were integrating themselves with nature. I found myself taking daily morning baths in a stream of melted snow; my yoga training allowed my body to adjust-to temperatures. Every day I recited affirmations and chanted mantras derived from Tibetan yoga. I-had several visions and dreams that made sense of the experiences I had had.
One morning I woke up from a dream that prompted me to leave. Divining the most creative matrix in the I Ching with some changing lines toward movement, I started walking out of the area. I didn't have any idea how to get out or even where I was. But less than a mile away I met a man sitting in a vehicle--just sitting there. That's the way life was in those days. It just so happened that he was going to pass through Colorado Springs and I took that as a directive to go to a monastery I had previously visited there. After arriving, I spent three to four weeks just orienting myself to the city again, which was difficult. The movement of cars, the noise of the city emanations were unseating to me. I spent time familiarizing myself with this group of people who were metaphysically minded and very much in contact with the psychic dimensions: they supposedly received telepathic messages from advanced masters such as Buddha, Jesus, etc. One of the main influences that caused me to affiliate with these people was the rainbow vision and other experiences of my drug trips and investigations which were encompassed in depth by the philosophy of this group, the members of which had never taken drugs. When I came to the monastery they had a chart of what they called "The Divine Self" or "The I Am Presence" surrounded by a rainbow, a Christ Self that mediates between the God Self and the soul, and a lower self or the vehicle of the soul.
My stay in the monastery was highlighted by the typical pattern of discipleship. I became a cook there for my term as novice. I discovered certain psychic capacities within myself which were in the process of being developed through my own system of exercise and stimulation. Over a period of four years they become an instrument that allowed me to integrate myself intimately with every facet of the organization and the personal lives of the people there, from the structure heads to the dishwasher. I became the "seer" of this organization through the ability of clairvoyance and I was initiated into its more esoteric activities which included psychic warfare, a predominant function of nearly every spiritual movement on the earth right now. Even the more passive organizations are known to be psychically aggressive in their outreach and in their attempt to absorb the lives of people (their life substance) into their structure. I became familiar with psychic healing and also with the ability to tap astrological and natural forces through meditation. As a result of concentrating during a period of approximately six months for twelve hours a day, subtle forces in my body were activated, psychic faculties sharpened, and the hidden force called Kundalini was awakened.
During my stay in the monastery we were decidedly aware of social, political and spiritual movements throughout the world. I spent a lot of time doing research on world religions and philosophy and also time traveling around the world (incorporating intuitive psychic activity in all of my travels.)
I meditated atop the great pyramid of Ghiza during the autumn equinox of 1972. I traveled to India, contacting the various organizations which seemed to be on the some path as I, visiting psychically developed individuals. I saw manifestations of the promised fruits of the "path." At this time I saw something very tangible in eastern philosophy that, in my opinion, the organization really had not fully grasped. Even after four years of association with this group, I could not reconcile their great tendency toward materialism. -
The science of talismans and omens is widely used by various psychic groups. While visiting the Dalai Lama in Dahrmsala, India, in 1970, one of the children of the "Bishop" of our group asked the Dalai Lama to bless his ring. He just looked at it, and through clairvoyance I could see a definite flow of energy that entered the ring. It was now a talisman. My stay at the monastery also gave me the opportunity to watch the hoarding of gold and silver for the forthcoming social-economic collapse. There was also a hoarding of great quantities of food for this reason. Each member was given up to $5000 worth of outdoor equipment for the purpose of escape and survival. There was a heavy orientation toward the use of weapons and the practice of martial arts. These preparatory actions on the physical plane were paralleled in the psychic realm by energy warfare. My experience with this group was continually accentuated by psychic phenomena and psychic expansion.
Due to a compromise of the extremely high moral and ethical standards of the monastery, (which almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown) I found myself outside the monastery, alone, yet with a fresh sense of emancipation. Shortly afterwards I became involved with a typical American family which was impressed with my psychic capabilities. They were very kind to me and this motivated me to indoctrinate them in the more salient points of "universal truth."
One day the mother of the family handed me a thousand dollar check which she felt led to give me. Later one evening while I was meditating in the living room in the presence of a member of the family, the room filled with a bright shimmering blue light, and from a central sphere of energy, a voice spoke saying, "Come and find me." The other person in the room had never had a psychic experience before and this occurrence stunned her. Intuitively, I knew the voice was from the Himalaya mountain range and I set my mind and heart on determining how to reach this "being" immediately. I was sure that my "guru" had contacted me. It was he who provided me with the money.
The amount of charisma and the uncanny timing involved in this new level of activity really seemed to indicate spiritual progress. Soon after this incident I received my visa and landed at the New Delhi airport. Immediately I headed toward Vrendaven and stayed for a short period of time at the Krishna "ISKON" Ashram. I felt warned of the inaccuracies in this organization and left instantly. I proceeded on toward the Himalayas and arrived at Katmandu, Nepal. Three days later with a visa extension, I began what was called "The Everest Trek" through-the Himalayan terrain.
I began my walk barefoot at the end of the monsoon season. With just a cloth wrapped around my waist and no hair on my head, I proceeded with my search for the master who had called me. I knew that the only way to find him was by divine direction. At that time I believed in the Father principle and opened myself to submission to him. I put myself in a psychic space which allowed me to be receptive to a direction and flow from a higher spiritual source unrelated to the symbols and patterns of the world.
The terrain was extremely rugged and took quite a toll on my physical body. There was still a considerable amount of monsoon rain and the leeches were unbearable. I had to continually pull them from my body. In spite of my original good physical condition, fevers and infection set in. Visiting several Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the man who had contacted me, I was directed to Tutenchilling monastery. There, the head lama sent me to Tangboche monastery located at 14,000 feet in a remote area near the Tibetan-Napalese border about 15 air miles from Sagarmatta (Mount Everest).
After walking approximately 200 miles through the regions of wilderness and the bristling psychic atmosphere that the Himalayas are noted for, a longing for truth and reality surfaced and took hold of my awareness. I found myself in a meditative prayer-like state continually, crying out in my spirit for the Father to reveal truth to me. All through this walk I was gaining knowledge, understanding, and tremendous insight into the experiences I had had in the past. They all seemed to come together, involuting on themselves and disappearing: somehow East and West were uniting and consuming themselves while I walked these mountains. At an altitude between 14 and 15 thousand feet among the Himalayas, above the timber line, within visual range of all the seasons--lush green forests below, at another level autumn leaves and autumn colors, and at the highest level of the mountains, pure white peaks towering thousands of feet above me--hunger for reality reached the point of desperation. At the highest peak of sensitivity and need, I fell on my knees and cried out to God to know the truth. I wept bitterly.
Suddenly, the presence of the Spirit of Jesus Christ came before me and within me. At that instant I received a revelation and vision of Jesus Christ as my master. I was thoroughly stunned to discover that the understanding that I had only vaguely perceived five years earlier in Portland, Oregon, was the true one.
I ingested this experience and proceeded on. Three days later I was in Tangboche monastery and spoke with the head lama there. He told me he thought he knew the man who had spiritually contacted me. While we were speaking there was an exchange of psychic energy between us. Something in or around me swallowed up the blue energy which surrounded this man. After waiting out a small snowstorm, and with heightened vision discerning the darkness behind Buddhism, I left.
After three days outside of the monastery I sought to affirm the vision of the exalted Messiah which I had been perceiving in my spirit. On my knees, in tears, I asked God for a confirmation. I lifted my head and over a valley of the Himalayas, I saw a giant rainbow that had not been there when I knelt. Greatly relieved, I headed toward America.
I returned to the people who had financed my journey with the information that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. (They have since received him as their Savior.) After a short stay there, I went to Mexico to fast and pray. It was there that God called me to Berkeley.
My arrival was highlighted by specific guidance to a group of Christians who counseled me and inspired me to fully commit my life to the Lord. They laid hands on me and prayed for me and immediately I felt a release from oppression which I later recognized as demonic activity. I went through a process of systematically renouncing every false religion that I had ever been involved in, in the name of Jesus Christ.
It was imperative that I should be able to distinguish between spirits, and the Holy Spirit began giving me truth and discernment. A deep appreciation for prayer and communion with God are a very vital part of a Christian's spiritual life. I found it very exciting to have the scriptures confirm spiritual truths revealed by the Holy Spirit. I also learned that God never contradicts His word and that the Bible is an all-encompassing revelation from Him.
Stan Petrowski
Note: This journal was called the Boulder Fish when this interview took place. In the following the interviewer will be designated "BF."
Interview
BF: What is the "Father Principle" you believed in before the Himalayan trek?
Petrowski: Ultimately, the Father Principle signified the abstract void of the eastern world view. The Summit [Summit Lighthouse or, more recently, Church Universal and Triumphant--the group Stan was involved in for four years] modified it somewhat--to the extent that a Christ figure or mediator was necessary to alter communication from God to man, or vice-versa.
I believe that my perception of God (intellectually) was that of the "mythological unknown God" [Acts 17:23]. I knew that there was an absolute state of being whom I considered to be God, and that I was inextricably bound to Him, since He was the underlying substrate of existence and the source of my consciousness. I believed I was one with Him.
The moment of desperation in which I cried out to God wasn't confined to a particular model of God built by my imagination. It was more like a spiritual groaning that transcended my prideful conceptualization of who God was.
Again, I reiterate that the dichotomy of spiritual thirsting and hunger for truth, coupled with a psyche well-trained in occult practices, created a stress that I've never experienced since. Somehow the Lord was able to filter through a distorted intellect to turn me toward Him.
BF: Before your conversion experience in the Himalayas, you say that you were reaching the state of annihilation or "thatness" and yet you would find yourself increasingly spiritually hungry following such experiences. Were these experiences satisfying to your spiritual hunger at the time you were experiencing them? Was your spiritual hunger for a final and total experience of "thatness?" Or were you spiritually hungry for God--whatever you conceived Him to be at that time?
Petrowski: The state of "thatness" or voidness is actually a state of a trance like nature, believed to be brought about by a passive interaction with the "universal consciousness." This state is brought about by a disciplined psychic posture and willful mergence with abstract principles connected with and/or indigenous to consciousness. Experientially it is perceived to be "blissful," but in all actuality it has a destructive effect on the soul. On one level of perception there is bliss. On another level, there is darkness and evil. Total mergence with the bliss-aspect is considered the goal. Intermittently, in my journey, this was experienced. The destructive aspect was interpreted as the annihilation of ego, and therefore benign.
I believe that my mind and imagination were yielded to the manipulations of another-entity (whether human or spiritual, I don't know). In merging with this other consciousness, I made its mental state my own. Definition in that abstract realm is very difficult. Mergence with the bliss-aspect somehow nullified sensitivity to pain or hunger. This is the way I had been trained.
Yet deep in my heart I knew that what I now know to be the salvation experience and grace did exist. Although I pursued the delusive experience of "bliss," I wanted grace. This subliminal desire and awareness of grace was very vivid to me and it attended all five years of occult involvement.
BF: What exactly was your view of Jesus before and after your vision of him in the Himalayas?
Petrowski: . . . in the Himalayas, . . . I was trying to produce a synthesis between Christ and Buddha. . . .
My experience of Jesus in the mountains was based on a very subtle spiritual or psychic perception of Him. Because He was perceivable to me, I accepted Him as my "master," "guru," "teacher," or whatever. I assumed a role of disciple to Him on the basis of my perception of Him as light. At the point of acceptance was also my greatest point of struggle and desperation. I sensed a distinct change of direction in my life relating to this acceptance of Him. After the fit of violent weeping, I surrendered to Him. At that point of spiritual awakening, I perceived myself turning from bitter darkness to light and peace. Upon trusting Him and turning, I was flooded with light and peace. A great soothing came over me as I felt what seemed to be a million pounds come off my shoulders. My surrender was based on intuition rather than on intellectual comprehension. The discernment was very clear, but the interpretation intellectually was not clear--hence the persistence in going on.
BF: Just before the vision, you said that you cried out for the destruction of the emptiness and bitterness in your heart. What was this bitterness?
Petrowski: The bitterness was the spiritual path I was taking. Again, we see the instance of discernment but wrong interpretation due to the altered state of consciousness I was in.
BF: Concerning the vision, you said that there was no doubt in your mind that it was of Jesus. Can you elaborate any more about how you knew it was Jesus? Was it that the vision was simply accompanied by a sense of certainty that this was Jesus?
Petrowski: The vision was accompanied by certainty.
BF: You say that you were aware of a distinct difference between the peace you received with the Himalayan vision and the voice that called you from Colorado Springs. Can you say more about what it was about these two experiences that caused you to discern one to contain truth and the other to lead to false belief?
Petrowski: The vision in Colorado Springs was distinctly accentuated by a brilliant blue light. It was something I psychically or spiritually perceived. The encounter with the Lord opaqued the blue light immediately. An analogy I often use goes something like this: while in a dark room with a blacklight on, wonderful sights of color and form can be seen. Someone comes in and turns a regular light on and what was once a display comparable to "fantasia" becomes the rickety old props, covered with paint, dust and cobwebs.
BF: You say that you were conscious of a battle or conflict between the sources of the two experiences. Would you say that this was more than merely an experience of their being different? You went on with your journey continuing your search for the source of the voice that called you from Colorado. So surely you did not perceive it as truly evil until your visit to the Tangboche monastery--is this true? So was it not until then that you were aware of a conflict between the two spiritual sources?
Petrowski: The conflict definitely took place immediately after the vision. In a less obvious sense, the battle was taking place even before the vision. The experience at Tangboche only accentuated the battle.
Note: The Boulder Fish has interviewed the lady in whose house Stan stayed while in Colorado Springs. She said that she witnessed the appearance of the sphere of blue light and the voice emanating from it. Also she said she could witness to Stan's other psychic powers. She said that her family eventually entrusted their lives to God through Jesus because of these events and Stan's account of the events in Tibet. We have this documentation on audio tape.
Tibetan Buddhism
An Interview with Robin Korman
This interview took place in the early 1980s. Robin Korman taught courses on Tibetan Buddhism at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He represents the views of Vajradatu, a major center of Tibetan Buddhism for this country with offices in Boulder. Vajradatu represents the Kargupa school of Tibetan Buddhism. The most important distinction of the Kargupa is its strong emphasis on meditation.
Our interview shows very graphically that there can be significant difference of opinion among Buddhists of even the same branch and school. Anagarika Govinda is a major spokesman for Tibetan Buddhism of the Kargupa school. Yet Korman, representing the same school, seems to reject much of the mystical and occult teaching Govinda accepts.
Tibetan Buddhism is usually considered the more occult branch of Buddhism, as Govinda's book, The Way of the White Clouds demonstrates. His account of spirit possession, knowledge of previous lives, and other demonstrations of greater than normal human powers and knowledge are extraordinary. Korman seems to emphasize the practical aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Both he and Govinda claim that spiritual realities exist within us as aspects of our psyches or as impersonal forces of nature; not as existent gods, spirits, Buddhas, etc. Korman and the Vajradatu would seem to want to avoid the occult and emphasize Buddhism as a practical self-improvement program. Even the question of whether reincarnation occurs or whether there is any conscious existence after death seem to be questions that are too metaphysical to be considered by a Buddhist of Korman's leanings. The denial of any spiritual realities outside of our own minds stems from a form of philosophical idealism that entered the religion long ago. Though it is now useful in Buddhist apologetics, the Yogacara doctrine has in the past produced some more scandalous practices.
Some introductory comments are needed for a very important topic covered in this interview. The question of the significance or meaning of life should not be considered on obscure intellectual question. This is one of the most crucial issues separating theistic and nontheistic religions. To believe that life is in the long run absurd, ending in nothingness as it began, can easily destroy the drives and joys of life. We believe our lives have significance but discover (we are told) that they really do not. Nontheistic religions often believe that this absurdity of life can be admitted; but even so, they claim, there are joys in the world that make it worth the trip. Buddhism even claims that in this void of absurdity is to be found fullness and fulfillment. Whether this is so or not is a question we hope to begin to investigate through this interview. Os Guinness points out that in Buddhist philosophy there is often an acceptance of absurdity in order to deal with and mitigate the force of pain.
Theistic religions commonly reject absurdity entirely, claiming that we have significance as persons because we were created by God. Some, such as Christianity, claim even further that we can have complete fulfillment only through a relationship with God.
Perhaps the most important issue separating the major religions is the question of whether we are here to know God or whether we are to become Gods or to realize that we are Gods. Also considered are the questions of how Buddhist claims are verified and what the prime human motivations are for accepting Buddhism. Some other topics include a Buddhist critique of belief in God, a Buddhist view of good and evil, and Shakti or Tantric sexual practices in Tibetan Buddhism.
Note: This journal was called the Boulder Fish when this interview took place. In the following the interviewer will be designated "BF."
Goals of Buddhism
BF: What is the spiritual goal of the people of Tibet, attainment of a kind of heaven, a western paradise?
Korman: The more sophisticated practitioners don't want to go to the western paradise, they want to attain enlightenment.
BF: So the ultimate goal of Tibetan Buddhism is a higher state of consciousness?
Korman: That's right.
BF: Would this higher state of consciousness be significantly different from the Buddhist concept of nirvana?
Korman: Yes. Few Buddhists nowadays seek nirvana; nirvana is extinction. Even Buddhists don't want to attain nirvana, because that would mean that they won't be around to help others. So, if you might be able at some time to reach nirvana, you won't want to, you'd want to stay around.
BF: That's the ideal of the Bodisattva, to stay around to help others; but isn't that a goal of helping others so they will attain nirvana?
Korman: No, a lot of people have that impression. The Mahayana and Vajrayana, the schools you are dealing with, would say that you should seek Buddhahood, not nirvana. A Bodisattva promises to bring all sentient beings to nirvana. That's just a convention from the early literature. More often you promise to establish them in Buddhahood. Buddhahood is beyond samsara-nirvana. Samsara is the world of chaos; nirvana is extinction. Nirvana is peace, as opposed to confusion The two are considered opposites. Buddhahood is beyond these opposites of good and bad. Now there is vast disagreement about this, but generally the goal is to become like the Buddha.
BF: In what way is there disagreement?
Korman: Well, the disagreement is between schools of Buddhism that believe that nirvana is the ultimate goal and those that believe that awakening, bodhi or Buddhahood, is the ultimate goal. You see, the disciples of the Buddha didn't necessarily try to become like the Buddha, they tried to gain nirvana. But nirvana means to be blown out, the way you blow out a candle. They achieved the ability to do that and many of them just (snap) fizzed away since that was there aim, extinction. But the Buddha had gained more than just the ability to fizz off, he gained Buddhahood.
BF: So there is vast disagreement among the schools of Buddhism?
Korman: Yes. The Theravada school believes you should work until you attain the ability to extinguish yourself. Mahayana Buddhists never seek this. That's why it's called the Mahayana, the big or great vehicle. It goes further, takes longer and has a broader vision. The vision is that you will attain the greater enlightenment of the Buddha. You'll be more useful to sentient beings that way. And so you give up your own benefit in exchange for the possibility of benefiting others. You change your motivation for going into the path.
Of course, you know these are just theories, because the fact is that the Buddhist seeks wisdom no matter what he does. So all Buddhists are rather alike that way--that is all meditating Buddhists--I'm not talking about popularistic Buddhism. There are schools of Buddhism that are sheerly popularistic. They're like Southern Baptists, they just want to get into heaven.
BF: Would such popularists constitute the largest number of Buddhists?
Korman: Yes. For example, the Nichiren groups do that. Their idea is that during the lifetime of the Buddha he had really skillful disciples who could attain whatever he taught. After all those guys attained, the people left were of inferior quality. We can't gain nirvana or enlightenment, so we risk the danger of being reborn in unhappy circumstances. Instead we pray to be reborn in a Buddha-field, a heaven built by the Buddha. Since, in their view, Buddhas have all knowledge, they have cosmic powers so that they could create a whole land where you would be free from pain. Therefore, people pray to be reborn into the Buddha-field, and they live there immensely long periods of time and slowly learn the dharma and slowly cut their ties.
Buddhahood
BF: What is Buddhahood?
Korman: The idea is that ordinary human intelligence is vastly underrated. At the most fundamental level, ordinary human intelligence is the mind of the Buddha. But it becomes clouded and confused by hang-ups, complexes, obsessions, seeing in a habitual, conventional way, not really looking. Thousands of things can clutter up this basic intelligence. But that basic intelligence cannot be killed. It is self-existing, it's completely vast, and it's pervasive. It's a kind of cosmic thing. The idea of Buddhahood is that you get rid of, one by one, these obstacles, these coverings; they're called veils, and they veil your native intelligence. As you get rid of the veils, as you get attenuated, gradually you become more intelligent. You reach the average or good intelligence that a human being can have as an average man. Your memory is good, you're clear and awake. It's not that difficult for you to be happy, you're not carried away by your emotions. Then you can go further than that to greater enlightenment as your intelligence is gradually uncovered. Think of a sane, kind ordinary man who is not carried away by aggression or passion, who is not obsessed by greed, who has a kind of sparkling sane intelligence. The quality of his intelligence is the quality of Buddhamind. And just that to the nth degree is Buddhahood.
Take the ordinary admirable thing that we call sane intelligence; it's good qualities can increase to a cosmic level and that's Buddhahood. These good qualities increase easily and naturally by getting rid of fixations, hang-ups, etc.; we untie knots little by little.
BF: It's not simply infinite intelligence?
Korman: Well, it's sort of infinite intelligence, although that's a very fancy way of describing it. But it's also infinite compassion, friendliness, humor. Intelligence is not merely the ability to solve problems. That's just one aspect of intelligence. Integral to intelligence is kindness, humor, inquisitiveness, cheerfulness. The ability to solve problems is just one facet of the jewel. You've always got a self-existing personality to the Buddha nature.
BF: It's not so much becoming like the Buddha in reaching the ability to be free from strife, confusion, desire, etc., such as we think of when we think of the Buddha when he reached nirvana during his life? If it's not that, is it similar?
Korman: It's hard to say. It is similar, except that the way people enter the Mahayana path, they tend to, for the benefit of others, make strong commitments to dealing with everyday life; and that's a kind of specialty. These people are heavily involved. So they could become free from the things the Buddha became free from, but they keep their involvement, because of compassion. They still have ambitions, in a sense, goals, desires. They can still be, in a sense, unhappy; they're involved in the world. It's a kind of confusing thing, but you see what I mean.
One thing--we rarely say this, but it's true, it sometimes gives a bad impression but it's still true--if you want to think of a Bodisattva, a person who is well on the Mahayana path, Christ would be like that. Christ was a man, a human being. You can think of the personality of Christ as a kind of average Bodisattva. He's humorous, intelligent, tricky--extremely tricky--he knows the ins and outs of your mind so he can reflect your mental behavior. He can be clever enough to imitate the Jewish trial process in order to keep a crowd from stoning a prostitute. He can play with legalism, if he must. He can do all these different things. He's kind of got infinite flexibility mixed with kindliness and humor. In the background, there's a threat of some divine quality, but you can never quite pin it down. It is as if you are dealing with something more than human, but every time you try to grasp it, it's just an ordinary human--just a very nice ordinary human. That's the kind of quality.
Worship and Honor in Buddhism
BF: Is the Buddha worthy of honor?
Korman: Yes.
BF: Why?
Korman: Because he has accomplished the most difficult task. He has destroyed aggression, he has committed himself to act as the Buddha, he has seen clearly the nature of consciousness, he has seen clearly the nature of the body--all of these things. These achievements of the Buddha and of any Buddhist disciple willing to work hard are worthy of honor.
BF: Would you say that he is worthy of worship?
Korman: Well, worship is a different thing. No. The idea of worship is so submissive. He's worthy of offerings. When you worship the Buddha, you worship something you will become. And that's not quite what western people mean by worship; they mean abasing ourselves. So we say worthy of offerings.
BF: Are you looking to something within yourself, a potential within yourself?
Korman: True, that's what the Buddha is.
BF: As distinct from any person that has ever lived?
Korman: Well, the original Buddha was a man who came to enlightenment. But there are many others who have done the same and all of them are worthy of offerings.
BF: So, as well as a potential within ourselves, you would say that distinct persons are worthy of honor?
Korman: Sure, and one who achieves that potential is worthy of honor. And people who haven't achieved or actualized that potential are worthy of honor. So everybody's worthy of honor.
BF: What about those who do not want to actualize that potential?
Korman: Anyone is worthy of honor if you see that person's Buddha nature or potential for Buddhahood. If you see that their intelligence is basically Buddha intelligence, then you have a tendency to respect them, even if they are doing the wrong thing. That's why we are so shocked when somebody kills a human being. It's because someone is killing a person we innately sense has divine intelligence. Anybody is at least "cute," if not worthy of honor.
BF: Normally I would think of everyone as possessing objective value or worth, by which I would say that they have certain rights that I "ought" not to transgress. Would you be saying something similar to this?
Korman: That would be similar. The significance of the point is that spiritual teachers who are "realized"--whatever that means--have a tendency to love their disciples. They find them almost seductive. This is for all traditions. The reason is because they practice meditation enough that they see very clearly. They see what they've been working for all their lives as a potential in all human beings. So that is a basis for loving. That's the idea.
God and Buddhahood
BF: Tomo Geshe, Anagarika Govinda's guru, spoke of the bodhicitta, the enlightenment consciousness that is present in each person as a potentiality. He says that this is a divine quality that each person has (p. 34). Would you say that there is a divinity within each person?
Korman: Yes.
BF: Would you say that the Buddha within us is our truest self much as those of the Hindu tradition would say that the divine within us is our true self?
Korman: No, it's not the same thing really. The atman is like God. [Atman is the Hindu term for the human spirit or soul, which some Hindu traditions identify as God.]
BF: Yet here we can speak of the Buddha within us in terms very similar to God.
Korman: Well, the Buddha didn't create heaven and earth like God. The Buddha doesn't care for the sparrows and flowers. He's not a cosmic administrator like God.
BF: If you call the Buddha within us a "divinity" within us, how is that different than saying that it is God?
Korman: Well, I'm a translator, and we use the word "divine" as a replacement for the word "God". . . . There are disadvantages to every concept, and we use Buddha instead of God. We wanted to avoid the disadvantages of Theism.
BF: In describing Buddhahood, you spoke of the mind of the Buddha as a basic intelligence that cannot be killed and that is cosmically pervasive and self-existing. You even stated that the Buddha nature has a self-existing personality. It is difficult to believe that you do not have a concept of God here, though admittedly not a creator God.
Korman: That kind of statement does sound wrong out of context. It's not a personality, it's a symbol in the world that's like a personality. It's like Haiku: you look at a flower, it seems to say something, however, you don't know what. It's nature talking. That's kind of like personality. It's not like the personality persons have, but the personality of the world.
Buddhahood and the Hindu Divine Self
BF: How, then, is 'divinity' distinct from a God who is an existent being?
Korman: It didn't create the world, it doesn't have a personality.
BF: But the Hindu atman doesn't either.
Korman: That's true.
BF: Yet we are told to think of the atman as being within us. Some even go so far as to worship themselves. How is the Buddha potential within us different from the atman?
Korman: If you look at the Hindu meditation practices, most of them are based on concentration and upon receding back into the atman. As they say in the Upanishads, the atman is an eternal spark. It's a little dot, a center; and there are practices based on the belief in atman that tend to be centering practices where you retreat to that spark, that dot of essence. You detach yourself from the multiplicity in order to identify with the One. Those are the kinds of practices that come of thinking of atman as God or thinking of people as having atman. They're moving inward. I'm drawing my hands toward my heart's center, that's the idea.
The Buddhist practice is based on relating toward space, toward the vastness and openness and unlimitedness. So, instead of receding inward, we seek Buddha intelligence in space, in the world, in a panorama. A Hindu concept of saintliness would be of one-pointedness, control and centering. A Buddhist concept would be panoramic vision. The Buddha is awakeness; it's a "ness," it's a space. The atman is a thing, it's a spot.
BF: Is this what is meant when it is said that nirvana is samsara, that enlightenment is to be found through the world, the universe?
Korman: Yes, you go "way out." That's why samples of Buddhist art are things like flower arranging. You find a stalk with a few leaves and a single flower twisting through space. You find it outside of yourself. It moves through space. It moves left, up, right, in, down, out. It defines three axes. You discover them before you. That's a Buddhist approach to art. Now, the Hindu approach also has great intelligence to it, but it represents a different set of principles.
We don't say the "Buddha within," we say "the Buddha nature." It avoids the Hindu focusing and centering. Buddha nature is a nature, it's a quality. We don't believe in God as a thing or anything as a thing.
Knowing God vs. Becoming God vs. Self Improvement
BF: You stated that Jesus possessed such abilities of mind and intelligence, kindliness, humor, compassion, etc., that he might be said to be well on the Bodisattva path toward Buddhahood. Would you say that he possessed Buddhahood?
Korman: That doesn't have to be the way we would put it, but you're on the right track. Being a Buddha, sure.
BF: Now Christians have from the beginning believed that they would be like Jesus someday and possess even additional superhuman powers (short of infinite intelligence) not the least of which is immortality. So they too are interested in self improvement, just as the Buddhist is. Yet, with all of this, the basic goal of the Christian has not been to attain this state, but to know God; to love the One whose most important characteristic is that he possesses infinite worth, that he deserves our ultimate commitment and love. This, at least, is the teaching of Jesus.
My question is, doesn't it seem as though the goal of Buddhahood is shallow and insignificant compared to the Christian goal?
Korman: Well, isn't that the basic conflict or difference between western theistic and eastern views? Which is more important, to know and love God or to be or become God? In Christianity, to know God is the highest goal, whereas we feel there is another step after that, namely, becoming one with God. The Christians don't believe in being one with God, because that would bring God down. That's why we do believe we can be one with God or become God, because God came way down to being a Buddha.
BF: Actually, the Christian does believe God came down to be a man and, indeed, even further. But the reason they are so unconcerned about becoming God is that they think they've found something incomparably better: a love relationship with One who is so unbelievably beautiful and deserving of our adoration. All goals of self-advancement pale in this totally fulfilling and consuming relationship. You feel like, "This is why I'm here, just to know God in this way, to be one with God." (Being one with God in the sense of a deep love relationship, not in any sense of being merged with or of becoming God.) You feel like, "Why should I want to become God when I can have this? My fulfillment is in being one with God, not in being or becoming God."
The Buddhist may reply that the question is "Who is right? Is our fulfillment to be found in having a relationship with God or in being/becoming God?"
It is not a question of whether it is more important or better to be/become God or to know God, the question is, which fits our true nature? And this is a factual question that must be determined by the evidence, If we are not Gods, but creatures made to have a relationship with God, then our fulfillment will come only with this relationship. Likewise, it is not inconceivable that our fulfillment could be found in God-realization (realization of ourselves as being God), if we truly are/may become Gods. But it is very difficult to conceive that we can have fulfillment through a mere progressive development of virtues.
Now that we have reached this point in the discussion, we can properly consider the question of who is correct. Are we fulfilled by being/ becoming Gods, or by finding God? (Remember, it is still in question whether attainment of Buddhahood is even close to becoming a God.) And here we would have to consider comparative testing procedures.
Let me throw out one testing procedure that would probably be the most obvious suggestion at this point. Very often disagreeing religious advocates hold to their respective positions because of their experience. Some believe that they are becoming God or are realizing their true divine nature or are merging with God. Others believe that they have found a deep relationship with God. The most likely suggestion may be to have each of the religious advocates seek the other's experience by following the respective method used by the other. Even if one of the parties has qualms about following this procedure, if at least one person were to carry it through, it seems as though we would have a good potential for testing religious claims.
I suspect that you would see potential in a testing procedure such as this, because of some of your positive comments concerning religious experience. But I wonder how other Buddhists would respond who are more traditional on this point?
Desire, Suffering and Individuality
BF: Govinda says that the root of our suffering is "egohood." My understanding is that the cause of suffering or dissatisfaction (duikah) is craving or grasping (tauha). Is "egohood" the same as grasping or craving?
Kormon: If Govinda meant anything else he was probably wrong. Egohood is the word for the systemics of grasping.
BF: Would you speak of egohood as the cause of suffering as Govinda does?
Korman: As long as you understand by egohood the systemics or matrix of grasping. I mean, it has nothing to do with your individuality. You could be free from ego, but you would still look the way you do. You would still be separate from me in time and fate.
BF: It's not simply self-centeredness we're speaking of?
Korman: Self-centeredness results from grasping. Even if you're not self-centered any more, you'd still be distinct from me. You could say that a flower is, in a sense, egoless, but it's still a very distinct discrete thing. Most people think that when we mean egoless, we mean that you've kind of dissolved into a mush and blended with all the other bananas in the blender. This is not blender talk; it's different from that.
Grounds for Buddhist Belief
Reason in Buddhism
BF: Govinda says that the direct experience of the foretaste of the higher state of consciousness makes this Buddhist goal no longer a vague ideal, but an experienced reality (p. 26). (Notice how similar this is to one of the Christian grounds for belief: 2 Corinthians 1:22.) He also says that this experience gives certainty of the reality and attainability of the Buddhist goal. Would you agree with this view that the Tibetan Buddhist's grounds for belief is experience, or would you say that it is based on something else?
Korman: My grounds for belief is experience. Buddhism is experientialism. You only believe what you experience.
BF: What would you say is the place of reason in religious belief?
Korman: It is tremendously important for a Buddhist. We use reason and logic a great deal. All the stages of the path have their logic that leads to the next stage. We make a map of the path by logic. It's almost pervasive. But hopefully it's not a limitation, because every second you're dealing with things that are beyond intellect as well. The trick is to overcame the limitations of intellect. Those limitations have to do with relying upon intellect in a certain way. They also have to do with the fact that intellect is clouded by emotions a great deal. Over reliance on intellect tends to come from a lot of emotionalism. So people try to become more dispassionate and try to clarify intellect. But that tends to result in a misuse of intellect. Emotion should not be removed from intellect. You don't use intellect to make love or to decide whether this cup of tea tastes good. You don't use reason to make certain bureaucratic decisions, because it would take you all day to try to figure things out when you could just look and see what's happening. Buddha intellect has loads of holes in it. Huge Swiss cheese gaps. You use those gaps; through those gaps you have direct experience.
BF: You speak of Buddhahood as infinite intellect, kindliness, compassion, etc. It is difficult to believe anyone could actually reach such a goal. What reasons would you give to persuade someone that Buddhahood is attainable?
Korman: Well, it's a question of perfection. The Buddhist argument is that if you see imperfection, you see it by virtue of the fact that you can contrast it with perfection. Therefore, you must be seeing perfection as well. Where is the perfection that offers such a contrast to imperfection? It's in us.
The fact that we see a problem, that we see neurosis, ego and things like that--it's only possible because we're innately perfect. When people see that they have a problem, that they're limited, it's because they're seeing it against the background of their own imperfection. And that's the first glimpse people get of Buddha nature. It's a potentiality that lies within them. When you see your hang-ups clearly, that implies immediately that you can transcend them. Only somebody who is fundamentally perfect could see such imperfection as useful.
This isn't abstract, this is actually what happens. Somebody starts to meditate and begins to see hang-ups, and then he or she begins to complain about that weakness and stupidity. And then you point out that the intelligent thing would be to see that the hang-ups can be overcome. For the person who is meditating, this is quite a vivid experience.
Motivations for Embracing Buddhism
BF: Why should a person seek Buddhahood?
Korman: There are two reasons. First, one can solve the problem of one's own suffering. Secondly, the best way to help resolve other peoples suffering is to become a Bodhisativa. It is pain that causes one to seek Buddhahood. If pain weren't so much of a problem as it is, it would probably be too much work to seek Buddhahood.
BF: The issue of pain seems to be at the basic core of Buddhism in most of its various forms and branches.
Korman: That's right. That's one of the things that makes Buddhism so distinctive. Now, I haven't yet told you that I think Buddhism is the one true religion. But it is the religion whose spiritual activity is motivated by a keen sense of how bad the situation, of how bad suffering is. People with other spiritual motivations will seek other paths. For instance, there are many people who have an ambition for gaining greater spiritual power. For them, there are other paths that would appeal to them more.
BF: Under the idea of suffering, would you include despair, such as the existentialist is concerned with: despair over the absurdity or pointlessness of life?
Korman: Yes, in fact the word for suffering in the Sanskrit is probably better translated "frustration." Another word, the word samsara at it's origin connotes pain. How do we get out of this wheel or whirlpool of pain? There may be other wheels, wheels that are beautiful and would hardly want to get rid of these. But the wheels that lead from suffering to suffering, those we would want to get off of.
Justification for Human Concern
Absurdity and the Fullness of Emptiness
BF: A couple of questions come up concerning the issue of responsibility. It's not only the more primitive forms of Buddhism that have been accused of avoiding ethical responsibility (in their case by seeking complete mental separation from the world). For example, I believe it was Govinda who spoke about several of the characteristics and virtues of the Buddha while examining certain statues and paintings. At one point, he looks at the smile of the Buddha and comments that the Buddha looks at the world ultimately with humor in his eyes. The point is that all of our human efforts accomplish nothing. Ultimately all is vanity, even our efforts to do good, to relieve pain, to benefit others, etc. With this viewpoint, isn't it far too tempting to a Buddhist to avoid one's responsibility, say to someone who is suffering or in need, when it is inconvenient to help? Remember, in the long run, nothing really matters. As Trungpa says, we need to get beyond even building good karma (doing good) and cease building karma at all. Isn't this an invitation to avoid our responsibility to those around us in need?
Korman: Well, the Buddha isn't laughing at the world, he is laughing with the world. It's not that it's a nasty joke on them, and he's okay.
BF: But the point would still be the same: nothing really matters as far as the world is concerned.
Korman: No, things are absurd; it's not the same as that nothing really matters. Now that's a problem existentialism has. They think that these two things are the same: that the world is absolutely ugly without residue. But you know there are a lot of very beautiful, very wonderful things in the world. They're absurd, but they're also wonderful. That's a different attitude, it's the attitude of one who's gone beyond it. The Buddha is one who has experienced emptiness and gone beyond it, so that he feels a sense of relationship with the world. If you just go up to emptiness, then you sense the world is meaningless. The Buddhist approach should be contrasted with the western approach to the absurd, which is always bitter. There is nothing bitter about this. This is a lighter, gayer world.
BF: So, by going beyond it, you see joy in it?
Korman: Yes, we call it the fullness of emptiness. And Mahayana is active socially and is humorous in a not unkind fashion. The smile becomes a smile of enjoyment. You enjoy the joke; with others. Some miss it, because they're asleep, but you can help to wake them.
BF: But is this really an awakening to reality or is it a self-anesthetization to reality? How can we know which it is? I don't see how you could give a rational argument that, by getting beyond emptiness, one could see that there is really anything worth smiling about.
Korman: Well, you can see it every day, and you do. For instance, anybody who has ever raised a family has had that experience proven. Look at Ecclesiastes in the Bible. It says that all is vanity. That's it, that's all? It says, "It's all meaningless, and I feel bad about the whole thing." Well, it is vanity, but it is lovely and it's worth the trip. Whitman is semi-transcendental. He would say that. You don't have to be a complete Buddhist to understand Whitman, Wordsworth, Emerson, or Thoreau. That's supposed to be a glimpse of the same experience, the fullness of emptiness. That is why Haiku spread rapidly when it reached the West. The Transcendentalists and Romantics prepared the West for understanding its message.
BF: But isn't there an immense gap between claiming on the one hand that we can enjoy some pleasures in this life and, on the other hand, that the void, the absurdity of our existence, can be a source of fullness or fulfillment for ourselves? I mean, it seems as though it stretches one's credulity to speak of a "fullness of emptiness," unless you can offer some other reason for believing it.
But even without this problem, I don't think that even the small pleasures of life can be held to in the face of the absurdity of existence, at least for someone who is intellectually honest with oneself. There may be pockets of beauty, wonder and enjoyment in a meaningless world, but an honest person can live in these pockets only so long before he or she faces reality and the ultimate anguish of absurdity. The early Buddhist, as well as the Hindu tradition, had recognized the real curse of samsara--the curse of the unending lives--and they sought various ways out of it. There is a real despair here, either in recognizing that death is absolute annihilation or that in the unending cycle of rebirth one must bear the curse of Sisyphus, living without reason or purpose. One must, as it were, eternally push the boulder to the top of the hill only to have it roll back down again.
One may be lucky enough to have a sufficient number of these pockets of enjoyment in one's life (or lives) that one may center one's life on these and ignore or repress the knowledge of its futility. But to do this, one must first be intellectually dishonest with oneself and, secondly, one must oppose one's own humanness. If life were not only occupied by occasional islands of enjoyment, but if it were even filled with them, one should be honest enough to admit that the enjoyment is only a mist that vaporizes upon examination.
Before beginning such an examination, let me clarify that I would not claim that life is actually meaningless, nor that persons do not have true absolute worth or value. Rather, if we presuppose absurdity, let us see what logical conclusions we must come to. To see how absurdity negates even the smallest human pleasures, we need to look at some of these common joys at their strongest and best.
Consider the aesthetic experience. One may experience a sense of wonder or awe at a work of art or a sunrise or the sighting of a vast galaxy or nebula through a telescope. What would an honest person think of when contemplating such an experience? If she is very searching in her thinking, she may say something like this: "It's strange I should feel this way, but it is quite enjoyable. I wonder if these same sensations could be produced by drugs or electrical stimulation to the brain? The feelings may be enjoyable, but that's all they are. One cannot be satisfied with mere feelings--with neural stimulation--not once they are recognized as only that."
What of romantic love? The lover, though completely enamored with the beloved, must yet recognize the tension of emotions in conflict with mind. A lover may think, "I value you, though I know that you are nothing other than a complicated bit of matter and consciousness. You value me and this I enjoy, yet I know I am nothing more than the same. Though I love you, I know that there is nothing in you worth valuing."
Think of a mother's joy in her baby's laughter. There are few joys as strong, instinctual, and irrepressible as this. But if reason is as unrelenting and uncompromising as we know it must be, then even this joy must die, however painfully. "Your laughter is contagious," thinks the mother to the child. "You are my joy. I exult in your simple happiness. But then my mind drives me back to reality and slowly erodes my pleasure. For I realize that my love for you does not reflect any absolute value or worth that you have, but rather only my own subjective feelings. You're a complicated piece of matter, nothing more; there is nothing in you to value. My instincts drive me to love you, but my instincts do not reflect reality, only certain feelings that have been programmed into me through a long evolution. In my imagination, I see your beautiful little face change into a cold hard piece of machinery, like the exposed workings of an open clock. In reality I know you are nothing more than a complicated piece of machinery. I can only rejoice in your joy when I repress this knowledge. Am I forced to intellectual schizophrenia, repressing my knowledge in order to cling to these joys?"
To the degree one allows one's knowledge (our assumption of absurdity) to apply consistently to all of life, to that degree one loses the force of its joys. To live with his philosophy, David Hume escaped by playing backgammon. But the point is still the same. Persons who take such escapes are being intellectually dishonest. They keep their knowledge from reaching its full logical conclusion of applying to all of life. They isolate areas they will not allow their knowledge to touch.
To attempt to live in and center one's life on those islands of enjoyment and, thereby, to ignore the force of the absurdity of life is also to oppose our own humanness. One of the most important and unique features of our humanness is our desire for meaning, for significance. Humans are, to our secular knowledge, the only creatures "kicked out of place" with the rest of the cosmos. All others are content with life as they find it. Some Taoists and Buddhists will suggest that the remedy is not to think about it, but to ignore it and to fit back into the flow of the world (the fish in the sea are not thirsty, are they?). But the human, the "thinking animal," will not readily fall to this appeal. It is part of our humanness that we desire that we and those around us, and even the universe itself, have significance and meaning in an absolute sense (that is, in a sense of being not relative to the value we place on such things and persons; their value or meaning must not depend on our ascription of value or meaning to them).
That beauty reflects reality, that compassion for the suffering or romantic love reflects and recognizes a true absolute worth of persons--these are beliefs that we cannot deny without extreme loss to our humanness.
Absorption into the Great Void
BF: Govinda relates the following experience he had had:
I had the sensation that somebody took possession of my consciousness, my will power and my body--that I had no more control over my thoughts but that somebody else was thinking them--and that, slowly but surely, I was losing my identity. . . . There was nothing aggressive in his presence--on the contrary, it gave me some satisfaction and a sense of wonder to yield to its irresistible magnetism and growing power.
I felt like a meteor, drawn into the orbit of a bigger celestial body--until it dawned upon me that once I allowed myself to 'fall' without reserve, the impact would be my inevitable end. And then, suddenly, a terror seized me, a terror that neither this body nor this mind would be mine anymore, the terror of losing my own identity for good, and of being pushed out of my own body, irrevocably: the indescribable, inexpressible fear of emptiness--to be blown out like a candle--to fall into a nameless Void, a void from which there could be no return! (pp. 101, 102.)
With all of his effort, he broke himself of this possession. The next day, meeting the person he believed had taken control of him, he felt ashamed that he had feared total abandonment to the "Great Void." He described the void as not merely the negation of our personality, but also its fulfillment. If we do have such an instinctual fear of self-destruction in the void, how can we take the chance that our instincts are wrong?
Korman: So you're not asking if such a wild thing ever happened?
BF: Well, maybe I should ask your impression of that first.
Korman: This sounds more like the twilight zone than the great void. That quote just sounds weird.
BF: But giving oneself to the great void is still a laudable goal in Tibetan Buddhism?
Korman: It is, but it's simply tricky. It may be right in words, but most people would take the words wrong because of wishful thinking and psychological hang-ups. It has enough of a self-destructive tone to it that it would tend to be misused even if it is right. So we always have the opposite of surrendering to the Void when we talk of it. We balance the equation. We talk about the twelve ways of erring in the void, of mistakenly using the concept of the void. Sunyata, emptiness, can't be a way of getting rid of personal responsibility. And usually when people talk about emptiness as he just did, there's a sense of nihilism about it, of killing yourself in a sense so that you no longer are responsible. There's a sense of dissolving into the greater whole. It is rather the fulfillment of responsibility, you become ultimately responsible.
BF: I think we will be getting back to this later--this question of what results when we see the emptiness of things--if this is the same or close to your notion of surrender to the Great Void. But let me return to my original question. If we do have such an instinctual fear of self-destruction in the Void, how can we take the chance that our instincts are wrong? Isn't it much more reasonable--aren't we much more honest with ourselves to trust our hesitancy rather than to trust the seemingly arbitrary teaching that we should embrace the Void?
Korman: You shouldn't abandon yourself to it unless it seems to make sense to yourself to do it.
BF: Wait until it makes sense to you to do it?
Korman: He obviously felt guilty for not giving in to some experience. Well, what's the sense of that? Guilt is a sense of hanging on too. The ways that people really give in to the Void aren't those mystical experiences. They're the moments when you identify with what you're seeing, when you live completely, when you're completely present. So there's a lot of emptiness in just doing what comes next in a completely present manner.
BF: I studied a little under James Boyd at Colorado State University. He once mentioned a conversation he had had with a Zen master in Japan. In a restaurant, he and the master happened to observe a Buddhist monk hurriedly drinking his tea while reading a newspaper. The master thoughtfully quipped about "that poor monk." To Dr. Boyd's understandable surprise, the master explained that the monk was missing the full experience of the tea. He could not truly and fully experience anything in this manner. The idea of being open to fully experience the world is one of the great insights Buddhism has taught us. (To what degree we should allow our experiences to go uninterpreted in any particular case may be subject to question.) When this is all that you mean by the Void, I have no trouble accepting it. I do have trouble when other claims are made.
Justification for Human Concern
BF: In my earlier question concerning responsibility, I asked whether some of the intrinsic features of Buddhism might not inevitably end in a failure of responsibility to those around us, to those who are suffering or in need. Isn't it tempting to avoid doing to others as they deserve when the Buddhist recognizes the absurdity of it all? Wouldn't that at least be a great temptation for a Buddhist?
Korman:. It would be, and that is why beginning about the second century A.D., Buddhists introduced the vow of compassion as a significant part of the Buddhist path. It's a vow to place the benefit of others before your own. Most Buddhists undergo a period in which they feel inspired to take that vow. Usually one starts out just to help oneself. You meditate in order to release the pressure of inner conflicts, to find peace, things like that. Usually after a person has developed a certain amount of peace, then one feels comfortable enough to look out and see beyond oneself. That's a certain stage in one's meditation practice where one begins to notice others again. We see that they are in pain, that they need help--we see them afresh. By taking the vow, one takes on the motivation for continuing to meditate. You are no longer practicing Buddhism in order to help yourself, but to help others. There is a real danger of practicing Buddhism selfishly, exactly the critical point you've made. So we do have a checks-and-balances system.
BF: So it would be considered a technique for one's own self advancement to recognize the needs of others?
Korman: Yeah, in practice you have to give up your own benefits in order to advance further.
Good and Evil
BF: Chogyam Trungpa says, "Meditation practice is based on dropping dualistic fixation, dropping the struggle of good against bad.... Even if you are building good karma, you are still sowing further seeds of karma. So the point is to transcend the karmic process altogether. Transcend both good and bad karma" (Myth of Freedom, pp. 44 45.) He also says that the desired technique is to produce a non-duality, an awareness that all is one. The absence of dualistic fixation is nirvana (p. 154). Is this to say that the distinction between good and evil is illusory?
Korman: Yes.
BF: Then good can be evil and evil good, ultimately?
Korman: No, good and evil are the same thing. They are not equal to each other, they're-just the same thing. It's like saying potatoes and rice are both starches.
BF: But to say that the distinction between good and evil is illusory seems to indicate something more than merely that they are distinct individuals within a single category. How can that statement mean anything other than that they are the same, that they are equal or identical to each other?
Korman: It does sound as though they are identical, and that's one of the traditional mistakes a practitioner could make. And that's why there are so many precepts in early stages of the Buddhist path. It's so that no one will make that mistake. To make good and evil absolute is what we try to avoid when we say that good and evil are aspects of the same thing. Yet we must be able to distinguish between good and evil. It's a practical, imperative kind of thing.
So in answer to your question, yes, what you said could be thought by a Buddhist and that would be a mistake. Buddhist teachings seem to imply that that is a problem a Buddhist could have and so a tremendous emphasis is put upon the practical aspects of morality.
Experiencing Compassion and Experiencing God
Korman: The Buddhist approach to ethics avoids the absolutist approach in which one first labels behavior as good and bad and then acts accordingly. If you recast those situations which are dilemmas in terms which do not involve that kind of mediating labeling process, you won't find the same dilemmas. For example, when a Buddhist says, "What will benefit others?" that's a question of causality, not of ethics, even though it stands in the place of ethics.
BF: You don't think that there is a prior ethical question here, namely, "Should we benefit others?"?
Korman: Yes, for us that is our absolute. There you begin to find the Buddhist absolute. The Buddha said that once you see the emptiness of things, then all that's left is compassion. Natural human behavior and natural emotion, having seen the absurdity of reality, are all based upon love. That one you can't argue you've got to see that it's true. That's an absolutist statement for us, just the way an orthodox priest might say, "God exists."
In fact I had that argument with a Byzantine priest once. He said, "If you see what is when you meditate, then why don't you see God?" I said, "How would I know that it was God? How would I know to call him God." He said, "What do you mean" I said, "Well look, I've been a Buddhist for twelve years now, if I did see God, I would probably say I'd seen the, Buddha." That's the problem with labels.
BF: It depends on how much is given in the experience.
Korman Well, experiences rarely give words. They give a lot of things but they rarely give words.
BF: How about an experience which involves an intuition or awareness that, say, a certain religious statement is true?
Korman: I think you're right there. Here a Buddhist would probably disagree. Now I happen to believe that there is propositional experience, but it's not in words.
BF: You stated that, "The Buddha said that once you see the emptiness of things, then all that's left is compassion. Natural human behavior and natural emotion, having seen the absurdity of reality, are all based upon love. That one you can't argue; you've got to see that it's true. That is an absolutist statement for us just the way an orthodox priest might say, 'God exists.'"
This doesn't seem to be a special religious experience according to what you've said, this seeing the emptiness of things. It's just seeing the absurdity of reality, recognizing that life has no ultimate purpose or value. But if this is so, how can you say that compassion is the inevitable result? I know of too many people, myself included, who have faced absurdity and have not found compassion as a result. Indeed, often it is just the opposite. (We have talked about attitudes that could result from seeing the emptiness of existence in an analysis of absurdity earlier.) You say that this is not something that may be argued; one has to see it or, I suppose, experience it. If this is so, then why isn't compassion the inevitable result for us as you claim it is for you? Is it possible that we are not talking about the same experience? I cannot imagine how an experience of absurdity can end with compassion. I doubt that you are looking at it seriously and completely enough.
Popular Tibetan Buddhism and the Existence of Gods and Buddhas
BF: Waddell cited some very critical comments by a Chinese emperor, Yung-Ching. He says,
If you neglect to burn paper in honor of Buddha or to lay offerings on his altars, he will be displeased with you and will let his judgments fall upon your heads. Your god, Buddha, then, is a mean fellow. Take for a pattern the magistrate of your district.... if you commit violence or trespass on the rights of others, it would be useless for you to try a thousand ways of flattering him; you will always be subject to his displeasure. (pp. 153-154).
Waddell further details much of the vast amount of time and expense--through offerings, ritual, chanting, etc.--meant to ward off, appease and even deceive the evil or wrathful spirits or deities. From such descriptions it appears that the more visible worship in Tibet involved appeasing and flattering the benign as well as the dangerous deities and spirits to gain fortune and avoid misfortune. Is this accurate?
Korman: Well, that Chinese emperor obviously didn't know what he was talking about. Because you don't seek to appease the Buddha and you don't regard the Buddha as punishing you; that's not an activity of the Buddha. But there are many ceremonies, and peasants do them with a false attitude. They do them thinking there are gods out there going to help them through these ceremonies. And that's probably silly. Sophisticated practitioners do the ceremonies with psychological goals in mind. The wrathful deities are your own aggressions and the results of your own aggression. Appeasing them ceremonially is an act of developing a relationship with your own aggression. Almost all those deities represent things inside you. There are a lot of Buddhists who don't believe in anything outside; no gods. Like I don't believe in gods. Yet I would do versions of those ceremonies. A lot of those gods represent patterns of energy in the world and they're anthropomorphized, made human, so you can relate to them. It's as if the ceremonies communicate in the language of the subconscious to your own subconscious.
BF: Has there been any significant change in the area of doctrine and practice as it is taught here in the West as compared with the popular beliefs Waddell describes? Or have there been sophisticated practitioners then as now?
Korman: The West tends to be more sophisticated. Because the best teachers came to the West, the quality of the teaching in the West is now pretty high. We haven't developed as much peasant Buddhism here yet, but everything degenerates. We would like everybody to meditate, to take full responsibility, but there are some people who regard Buddhism as a religion; that always happens. We don't claim that as a religion it's going to always work.
BF: I have a quote by Govinda which states almost exactly what you have been saying: "Prayer in the Buddhist sense is not requests to a power outside ourselves and for personal advantages, but a calling up of the forces that dwell within ourselves . . . " (p. 22). So the entire pantheon of gods, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, etc. are simply features of our own psyche.
Korman: Yes. When I was given instruction on how to regard these deities, I was told that they are transparent, like cartoon figures You don't think of them as actually real. You sort of do but not really.
BF: What about the Bodhisattva who promises to continue living after death in order to help others attain nirvana or Buddhahood; does he really live or not?
Korman I don't know. I don't know about that one. I mean, is there an independent entity called Avalokitesvara? What does he do for lunch? Does he come home from work, take off his robes and halo and say, "I'm home dear."?
BF: So if you question whether there is an afterlife, wouldn't you say that one must seek Buddhahood in this life only?
Korman: Well, for me, yes, that's how I feel. I wouldn't want to take the risk. Of course we have teachings on the afterlife. But the Buddhist concept is that whatever is going to happen, it could be bad (and probably will be), and so we should seek Buddhahood in this life.
BF: If you worship or deal with forces within yourself, what is the point of offerings?
Korman: Buddhism is so bold with language that you even dare to express things that way. You don't have to, you can be completely abstract about it. But this medium was available and we chose to use it.
BF: What does it mean to make offerings to these forces within ourselves?
Korman: It's a practice in giving, in generosity.
BF: But you are merely giving to yourself.
Korman: Actually, I am giving to myself. I could be giving to nobody but still I practice in taking something and giving it away. As a meditation technique, that is supposed to work.
Reincarnation
BF: Buddhists as well as other eastern, and for that matter, some western belief-systems accept belief in reincarnation. The most common evidence for it consists of remembrances of past lives in sometimes very extensive, exact and verified detail.
Now the important question would be whether reincarnation is the best explanation of such extraordinary knowledge. For example, one could present as an alternative explanation the claim that deceptive spirits have access to such knowledge and implant it into human minds. In fact, I know of one very deeply occultic group which claims this to be the explanation of such extraordinary knowledge.
My question is, How do we know that reincarnation is the best explanation?
Korman: Well, we don't, and it's not a claim of the Buddhist that this is the best explanation. The claim is that that is how you experience it. Those are the terms in which the problem is framed.
If they were right on top philosophically, they wouldn't attempt to present evidence for reincarnation. They would say, "Maybe there is some other explanation of what is happening but this is how you're going to experience it and you won t like it and so you should do something about it." We don't credit our own explanations. We believe there are problems in language, and we follow the Buddha's aphilosophical approach. A very important example he gave was of a man who is hit in the eye with an arrow. This person does not ask, "Have I really been hit in the eye with an arrow? What's the arrow made of and where did the wood come from and who shot it ?" No, you don't even ask, "Who shot it?" You try to get the arrow out as quickly as you can.
And reincarnation is like that. We're not, so much concerned with whether it's true or not. As an explanation, we know it has problems. And we have more sophisticated explanations that are useful in other circumstances. But that's the way you're going to experience it, is the Buddhist claim. And there will be a problem in that, and so we want to remove the problem. Maybe the arrow is illusory but the arrow is in your eye you want to get it out. You don't pause to debate its nature.
BF: You don't think that it may be experienced as an implantation rather than as a memory if the implantation interpretation were suggested to the person first?
Korman: Experienced "as," or that it actually "is"? There is a big difference between experiencing "as" and experiencing "is."
BF: There definitely is, but do you think the person would think it to be an implantation rather than a memory if the former suggestion occurs to them first?
Korman: I don't know.
BF: But you're pointing out the distinction between the interpretation and the experience. The interpretation is often something we bring to the experience.
Korman: Interpretation is always that, it's always wrong.
BF: Some new terms have turned up in our conversation which reflect Buddhist goals. You spoke of a realized teacher for one thing. You also spoke of realization of the Great Void. Some Buddhists speak of attaining an experience of "thatness" or "suchness." Are these the same goals as that of the attainment of Buddhahood? Has a realized teacher attained Buddhahood?
Korman: A realized teacher is a person who has realized "thatness, suchness, the Great Void." The Buddhist sees the world as it is; these are abstract terms for the world as it is. It's like, "the real thing." So a realized being would perceive thatness, suchness, emptiness.
In our interview with Robin Korman he presents a Buddhist critique of worship and belief in God. Because this has generated much more response than the rest of the interview, we will shift from our normal interview format and deal with these important questions in depth. We have not received replies to our responses from Korman. (We have not solicited his response to our reflections on worship.)
Worship and Rebellion
Worship is essentially love. Jesus spoke of loving God with all of our heart, soul, and might as the most important command given to us. We value a person as he or she seems to us to have worth; we see something of value in them. God, who has infinite worth, deserves our highest possible love.
Robin Korman complains that there is a notion of self-abasement in the idea of worship. It was this impression that led Bertrand Russell to call Christianity a "glorified masochism." But Russell was wrong. Christian Scripture nowhere asks a person to see oneself as less than he or she really is. We are to humble ourselves before God, standing before him as is appropriate to our nature and his nature. We are not to exalt ourselves in a way we do not deserve. We bow, humble ourselves, in admission of his right to control our lives because this is our proper position before God. It is not our proper position before any other person. Christian humility before God is not intended to make the one worshiped seem greater, it is simply an honest admission of how we stand in relation to him. We cannot have pride in ourselves for what we are since it is not we who have made ourselves. We have not given ourselves the ability to accomplish anything we have accomplished.
This is not a glorified masochism. The Christian admits only submission to God as God deserves. So there is a deep realism at work here if there is such a God as the Christian feels the evidence points to. It says that if this is a reality then we must respond accordingly.
Perhaps Russell would say that it is a glorified masochism to believe that anyone has the right to control your life. It is as if a person is giving up one's ability to choose. Christians maintain that they do not give up their ability to choose. We are responsible to choose the right, to do to others and ourselves as they and we deserve. God's choice for us is that all of our choices are to others, self and God as they deserve. Any choice which has no relevance to this criterion he leaves to us. So to give the control of one's life to God actually amounts to saying that one will make the choice of doing to others (and self) as they deserve. It does also involve a self-commitment, an admission of one's highest love to God; but again, this is only what God deserves.
Christian scripture does tell us to esteem each other more highly than ourselves. Indeed, we are to humble ourselves as servants to each other (a leader is to live this way particularly). This is an expression of love for others, an admission of a worth we need to recognize in each person without being concerned about our own equal worth. Though we should be aware of our own worth, yet our understanding of God's love for us can cause this to become something that is so secure and established within us that we are hardly conscious of it. So we esteem others more highly than ourselves and seek their welfare as we unselfconsciously recognize and admit their worth. And this does not diminish the recognition that all people are of equal value.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus was the Titan who gave fire to man in disobedience to Zeus' command. He was to be eternally tortured for his rebellion. Today, Prometheus is the cult hero of many atheists because he symbolizes rebellion against the authority of God and the religious establishment whatever the cost. (In this garb they should more accurately be called anti-theists since it is not the existence of God that is denied, but rather, his rights.)
But it is Christianity which should more properly be called a Promethean belief. Biblical Christianity represents rightful disobedience and rebellion against authority at any cost. The Christian rejects the arbitrary authority of a Zeus just as the anti-theist does. But a God who deserves our ultimate commitment, that is something else. Christianity would say that we must respond to another person as they deserve.
I should mention that there are other good reasons for responding to God as he deserves. To rebel against this God would be a glorified egoism which is the very self-destruction of the rebel. To spit into God's face is like spitting into the wind, not because God will inevitably bring punishment, but because we are by this act cursing our selves; we are spitting at ourselves. To rebel against God is wrong not only because it is something he does not deserve, but also it is something we do not deserve. To break our ties with the source of our worth and the ultimate meaning in our existence is to confine ourselves to a hell few have fully comprehended.
C. S. Lewis pointed out that if we should imagine Norse mythology to be true, if the evil giants will someday conquer the gods (who are good), then the Christian would be one who sides with the gods.. No matter what the cost, we resist the giants. And the cost would be death. It is this same Promethean tenacity which is expressed in the Christian's will to endure anything, even martyrdom, rather than to deny one's Lord.
Anti-theism cannot claim to be more Promethean than this. Here is the difference: Christianity admits to endure anything for the sake of that which is right, anti-theism does not. For anti-theism it is an arbitrary choice as to what or who should deserve their commitment.
If the anti-theist would be committed to that which is right at any cost, then it would agree with Christianity. If it should claim that the Christian God does not deserve our commitment and obedience, then the Christian would reply that the only God they as Christians are concerned about is one that does deserve commitment and obedience. This is the first qualification the God of Christianity must meet. The only way this kind of anti-theism can avoid denying its name would be for it to prove that there could not be a God who deserves our ultimate commitment and obedience. And I know of no argument that can come close to showing this.
The ability to determine one's own actions, feelings and, to some degree, even one's thoughts, is a Christian ideal. The Christian seeks from God a strengthened will, a self-determining power otherwise lacking. Now Christians are first and foremost committed to and obedient to God. But in seeking self-determination, they seek to be unmanipulated by feelings or any other force which is outside of their control other than God. And God does not force one's will; God rather gives the power of self-determination.
Consider the example of romantic love. One major reason the divorce rate is so high in the western world is because people believe that they need not stay married once a particular feeling (called "love") leaves them. They are controlled by a feeling which is outside of their control. Christians believe they have access to a power by which they can set their lives to feel love as they desire and choose. The process of attaining this self-control and maintaining it is not always quick or easy. And often one must endure strong emotions outside of one's control in order to withstand periods of spiritual testing. But ultimately one's decisions must have power over one's feelings, and eventually the feelings will fit one's choices.
A Buddhist Critique of God
Korman: Buddhism wants to avoid the concept of God because of disadvantages of theism. The idea that a single absolute entity is, for one thing, incredibly contradictory. Because if he is absolute, where are his limitations? And if he has no limitations where is the entity? So philosophically it's crazy.
And practically speaking it tends to mislead people because then you have the question of who is on God's side and who isn't. You have allegiance questions. And you develop religions who fight each other over what the nature of God is. You have Iran where they say that we're devils here. We don't worship God as far as they are concerned.
Also, the idea of God is perhaps too consoling. People tend to depend on somebody else when they depend on God. They think of God as another person, a gigantic super-person and they depend on that person. If that person loves you, if that person is on your side, then you may ____ things up but he will make things right. It's a lessening of personal responsibility. So your job is to get God on your side and then you can relax. If you undergo baptism or give yourself to Christ, then maybe you can relax because Christ can forgive your sins. Just keep your relationship with the Big Boss and he'll use his leverage--you know--if you get in trouble.
It lessens human responsibility. Now, it doesn't have to. Some people become much better because they believe in God. It becomes a source of power. But we want to avoid the sense of hope, superstition, the philosophical problems, the sense irresponsibility and the prejudice built into theism.
BF: You say you see a contradiction in the concept of God as an absolute entity?
Korman: If God is absolute then God is omnipotent; if God is omnipotent and omniscient, he's without limitations; if he had any limitations he wouldn't be God. Then there would be no limit to the size of his being. If this teapot is not God, then we have a contradiction since God must include everything.
BF: I think Spinoza made a similar argument for pantheism on those grounds.
Korman: That's right. That kind of argument a Buddhist would use. They say that your concept of God is suffering from inconsistencies.
BF: Unless you end with a pantheistic God?
Korman: Well yes; a pantheistic God would suffer from other contradictions. You know, you're still calling it God. Why call it God? It doesn't have a white beard; it doesn't create the world; it doesn't have a mind of it's own; it doesn't have a memory. The test of an individual entity is that it has memory. What is God doing right now? Where is God? To these things some Christians would say, "That's a naive concept of God, I don't mean that, I mean a much greater principle." And often I find that they mean what we mean by Buddha nature. But do you use the word God and secretly imagine it as an entity? I have found that Christians tend to believe they can have a personal, talking relationship with a deity. A Buddhist would say, "You're talking to yourself. . . ."
BF: A theist may look at the difficulties you have raised concerning belief in God and make replies like the following. I'm wondering how you would respond to these. Let me first quote some of your statements:
Korman: People tend to depend on somebody else when they depend on God. . . . It's a lessening of personal responsibility.
BF: Theists do depend on God, but they would also say that this is only seeing things realistically. Not all of the contingent events of the world are under our control. A person may feel quite self-sufficient and independent because of one's intelligence, physical abilities, wealth, etc. And yet these can very easily and seemingly capriciously, be taken from us. Something as unexpected as an automobile accident or a sickness can make a genius into a fool, an athlete into a paralytic. Isn't it disturbing to think that such things we've trusted in could have been so different or non-existent if something as arbitrary as our genetic makeup had been ever so slightly different.
So it is quite appropriate to depend on the One who controls all things--if he is there--and not to naively trust in ourselves.
Though we should be realistic enough to be cautious in trusting ourselves, yet we should develop a strong self-will and be controlled by our decisions and not by feelings and circumstances There is nothing intrinsic to theism which hinders this kind of self-trust and strong will, and the best theistic traditions promote it. In biblical Christianity, for instance, one is encouraged to take the power God gives in order to endure immense struggles. One is to develop control of one's thought-life and have freedom from the manipulation of one's environment. Indeed, the "trial of the faith" is the highest possible test of the strength of one's will. Here one makes a decision and acts according to this decision no matter what the circumstances and no matter how disastrous the outcome might be to oneself. A person is to believe something which is rationally justified; yet one has to believe it in the face of outward circumstances which draw us, on an emotional and feeling level, to disbelieve it. In the struggle of reason against emotion, the will must be strong to stand for reason. (A closely examined study of the nature of faith, as Christian Scripture uses the term, establishes that Christian faith is founded on reason and evidence.) So personal responsibility is not lessened by depending on God.
Korman. If that person[, God,] loves you, if that person is on your side, then you may ___ things up, but he will make things right. It's a lessening of personal responsibility. So your job is to get God on your side and then you can relax.
BF: Some minor clarifications should be made first. In none of the major theistic traditions can one speak of getting God on one's side. It is always a matter of the person being on God's side. The person must adjust to God, not vice versa. Secondly, in Christianity specifically, there is the belief that one's sins can be forgiven. Sin is the wrong we have done to others or ourselves, the pain we have caused, the usurpation of one's rights. Now the Christian teaching has it that an extreme price had to be paid to achieve this, the death of the Son of God. So forgiveness cannot be given by merely "being on God's side."
But to the main question, there is a sense in which one can "relax" once one is forgiven. One is free from the bondage of one's past. This bondage may be extremely devastating. The harm we have done to others is a part of our very selves. We have freely and responsibly chosen to do it; our choice has scarred us, has made us evil, because it was our choice. We cannot shake it any easier than Mengele could shake or "outlive" his guilt (whether he felt it or not). If forgiveness can be given, if the evil of one's past can be erased, the immense freedom of beginning again can be difficult to imagine.
This is not to say that a person may not have caused great pain in the past nor that this pain may not have a continuing affect. One who has been forgiven by God is required to make restitution, to relieve the pain as much as can possibly be done and to seek forgiveness from those harmed. Furthermore, one is not to continue in evil. Some evils may be so habitual and ingrained in one's life that they must be conscientiously dealt with and committed to God to be removed. This is not to say that the Christian is sinless, only that the Christian does continually seek to be rid of evil.
A life of willful and unforsaken evil would be disobedience to the One to whom the Christian has committed him or herself. For someone to so avoid their responsibility to others (sins of omission as well as commission in Christian terminology) one would at the least be subject to God's discipline. But even more disturbing, an obstinate refusal to respond in one's responsibility is either an admission that there never was a real initial trust in or allegiance given to God or it is a denial that that allegiance is any longer in effect. Though the New Testament denies that anything other than reliance upon the Messiah and his sacrifice can bring us reunion with God, yet it also maintains that this type of reliance is a sham if it does not result in action. At any rate it should be clear that one cannot avoid one's responsibility simply because one feels forgiven. Rather, by one's commitment to God, a person seeks to fully carry out one's responsibility to oneself, God, and others.
[My difficulty with the statement that forgiveness, getting on God's side, is a lessening of our responsibility is that this seems to end with a very harsh form of legalism. Buddhism, which Korman depicts as devoid of almost any truly absolute ethical standards, might at first seem to be the last system in the world to be accused of legalism. But think about what it might mean to talk about this "lessening of responsibility."
I have a friend who was a child molester. He served time in prison and tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide at least a couple of times. During his time of extreme depression he called upon God for forgiveness. Today he believes God has forgiven him and he is able to go on with a life that is free from the guilt and depression that once bound him.
Should he be free of his guilt? Would he maintain his "responsibility" by keeping his guilt? If he is able to start again, brand new, shouldn't he? If he has gotten "God on his side" and can "relax" as it were, and this is a lessening of responsibility, then it appears that Korman can only mean that it is preferable to maintain one's responsibility by not having this forgiveness. But how is this different from old fashioned one-strike-and-your-out legalism?]
Korman: . . . practically speaking, it [theism] tends to mislead people because then you have the question of who is on God's side and who isn't. You have allegiance questions. And you develop religions who fight each other over what the nature of God is.
BF: In this context, the question of "who is on God's side and who isn't" is ultimately a question of what God is like, of whether God is of one nature rather than another or has acted in one way rather than another in history. This question should be determined by the evidence rather than by our concern about harm or benefit to society. Do any of the conflicting religions have justification for their belief that God is as they describe God to be rather than as others say or that God acted in history in one way rather than in another way (e.g., giving the Koran to Mohammed or speaking to Arjuna as Krishna). The justified belief should be accepted as true.
What about the problem of intolerance? Notice first that this problem occurs in non-theistic religions too. Indeed, there is nothing intrinsically theistic or even religious about this difficulty. Such allegiance problems apply to anyone who believes differently than someone else whether it be religiously, politically, culturally or whatever. [Buddhists have fought each other over allegiance questions as well, and sometime more than just verbally. Each side may ask, Who is following the true Buddhist path?] For those religions which emphasize love, tolerance, or similar virtues, the problem would be solved if only these believers would take their beliefs more seriously, not less. How much different would history have been had all our Grand Inquisitors and Crusaders directed their fanaticism toward following Jesus' teaching of loving one's enemies rather than toward their own teachings of intolerance and hatred.
You said that for God to be "absolute" implies being without limitation, which implies not being an entity at all, but being everything. You say that God must be infinite in all ways. If God is not everything, then he is limited in some ways.
But theists only claim God to be infinite, without limitation, in certain attributes (e.g., power, presence, goodness, knowledge) not in all possible attributes. For God to be absolute does not imply that he must be without limitation in all possible attributes. If God has unlimited power it doesn't follow that he has unlimited extension. . . .
References
For those desiring a better background understanding of Buddhism, we recommend J. Yamamoto's Beyond Buddhism ( Inter Varsity Press, 1982). This book is valuable because it is not only an excellent introduction but also a very sensitive and empathetic critique. For a shorter introduction, see Ninian Smart's article on "Buddhism" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For Tibetan Buddhism, Anagorika Govinda's The Way of the White Clouds, (Shambhala 1970) is a fascinating introduction and apologetic following the author's journey in Tibet, as well as following his own spiritual journey. The late Chogyam Trungpa was the leader of Vajradatu at the time of this interview. For just one book to understand his teaching, Vajradatu recommends his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Shambhala, 1973). Also cited in this interview is L. A. Waddell's Tibetan Buddhism (Dover, 1972) originally published in 1895 as The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism.
In our interview with Robin Korman of Naropa Institute we touched on some of the fundamental differences in goals of the major religious world views. To pursue this line of questioning further we will follow our discussion through a dialogue between two fictitious representatives of these differing views.
Our participants are Theophilus, whose name means a lover of God, and Porphyry, whom we will identify with those who seek to become Gods. Porphyry was a student of Plotinus, the originator of Neoplatonism. Porphyry was also an outspoken opponent of Christianity.
Porphyry: Our goal is to become God. My own mentor, Plotinus, showed that the final goal of man is the soul's union with the One, the transcendent Source from which all existence has emanated and which is itself beyond all being. This "flight of the alone to the alone," is the soul becoming God again.
Both before and after my time have come many variations of this same belief. Vedantic Hinduism seeks union with the God within, the true Soul, the Atman which is Brahman. But it is a process to come to this full realization of self-Godhood and to merge with the Absolute. So the Hindu is also a God becomer.
Look at the Buddhists. In the major Mahayana school of Buddhism this is called seeking Buddhahood. This means that one may attain such characteristics as virtually infinite intelligence, compassion, humor, etc. From the way some of its advocates speak it sounds as though this is not merely a claim that one may improve or advance oneself as to become virtually godlike, but one may actually become a God, one who has infinite worth, one who deserves the highest love and worship of all others. You may notice similarities with the human potential movement of the late 20th century.
From this same period, I can point to Mormonism which is so culturally Western and "Christian" that it is, on the surface, indistinguishable in its beliefs and traditions from those of most any other typical Christian church. Yet these people believe that the God of the Bible was originally a man and that we can become a god just like he did. Their God is far too materialistic for my liking but they are at least on the right track.
Or look at the Sufi. It is likely that the reason these mystics were rejected by the Orthodox Moslems was because of their tendency to occasionally claim to have discovered in their ecstatic state that they are God or that they have been joined to God. The list can go on.
Theophilus: Sure you can find that in the West as well as in the East. It does seem to be a greater trend in the East though. God is seen as either someone we can become or as someone we already are. But the tendency to see God as distinct from ourselves, as one to be sought, is also present in the East.
But is all of this historical and categorical information really to the point? It really doesn't matter what people believe or tend to believe; what matters is what they have reason to believe and what choices they would make if they thought certain beliefs were true.
Seeking infinite intelligence, compassion, kindness and all the rest is all very good and well and I would have no hesitancy in seeking these things myself, but that's not a matter of any real importance. The issue of greatest importance is to find God. Everything else pales in significance to this. Can any goal be worth considering once the prospect of finding and knowing God is entertained?
Even if you are doing more than just improving yourself--even to the degree the Buddhists claim--even if you are actually seeking to become a God, it cannot compare to the goal of finding and knowing God.
Porphyry: Well, which is better, to find God or to become God? People go through a search-for-God phase only to come to see this to be only an early childish step in their spiritual growth. We come to see that much greater things await us. Our final goal is the highest goal, to become God. You think there could be nothing better than finding God. I think there could be nothing better than being God. You think you are attaining your highest fulfillment your way and I think we are attaining it when we seek to become God.
Look, you want to find God and give him your life, but why do you look beyond yourself? You can become a God and that can be verified by the experiences of countless individuals who have sought to do so.
Theophilus: Let's postpone talking about whether you or I can verify our claims or not. You know that I can point to experiences which verify my claim as much as you can. I can point to people who have gone through a God realization or God becoming phase only to find this to be not (as you may expect me to say) an "early childish step in their spiritual growth" but in fact an abhorrent exaltation of self above God. We have to get to this issue of verification sooner or later, but some more important issues have to be covered first.
At one time I would have said that this--the issue of verification--is the issue we should consider first. Since to know which of two views is better evidenced is to know which is more likely to fit our true nature. And this in turn would cause us to know which would be the better or more important goal.
Your question, "Which is the more important goal?" should be directly considered before anything else. To do this, let's think about how we would or should respond if we believed either your position or mine was true.
Let's assume that you are right and that it is our nature to become Gods. How would I respond if I thought that was true? I can't imagine that my response would be very easy. I would probably say that if that is the way things are, then so be it. But I wouldn't have much reason or motivation or desire to seek this "spiritual" goal.
Porphyry: Can you honestly tell me that the prospect of becoming God would not even interest you? I find that unbelievable. You have no desire for power or knowledge, indeed, infinite power and knowledge?
Theophilus: Well, sure I can see the appeal of it. But there's something else that makes me uninterested. I feel that God is just something I'm not meant to be; that somehow, even if I could become God, it is something that would not be right to do. And because it's not my proper place, I could never be happy seeking to be God. So it doesn't interest me.
Porphyry: Well, my response would be the same if I believed your position were true. If I believed there to be a God who is distinct from ourselves and who deserves our love and commitment, I'd just say "so what."
Theophilus: Ah, but there I think l can show you that you're wrong. Though you may feel little motivation to seek God, it's still true that you ought to seek God. (Don't forget that our starting point for defining this God is that God is one who deserves our highest commitment and love.) This should give a person the motivation to at least will to seek God. Any further motivation to seek God may have to come from God if it isn't there already. And from my own experience I can assure you that God will give it if asked.
Porphyry: So just because I "ought" to seek God you think I'm going to? All my life I've been told things I ought to do. If I had tried to do them all, I'd have lost my sanity long ago. Nobody can do everything they ought to do. You should be the first to claim that nobody can be morally perfect.
Theophilus: Oh I do admit it. But that is no reason to take moral obligations lightly. If you really have good reason to believe you ought or ought not to do something, then failing that obligation results in harm to someone. One of the basic reasons as to why there is pain in this world is because we fail to treat others or ourselves as we deserve (and that's basically what the word "ought" means). This is the kind of pain we can do something about; it can be diminished to some degree. Our obligations, our oughts, do have to be taken seriously.
I think you know very well that it's a red herring to talk about all the things you've been told throughout your life that you ought to do. Just because someone tells you that you ought to do something doesn't mean that it's so. You have to judge for yourself whether failure in such an obligation usurps someone's rights or if it causes harm to someone. We don't always realize that to usurp someone's rights is to harm them. A person deserves to have the truth told to them because we are creatures who have worth, value; we are not nothing, we are not worthless. The same can be said about a person deserving not to be killed or stolen from by another person. Do you see how it is that those maligned notions of ought and morality are really matters of human worth and social justice.
If you can understand the righteous indignation of those who seek social justice, those who protest a judge who frees a rapist or child molester, then you should understand what I am talking about. I'm talking about the same kind of obligation.
It's an ought that is bound up with the worth of persons. And when we talk about God, it's an ought that is bound up in the worth of God. God does deserve our attention. People deserve our love because they have real worth. God deserves our highest love because God has infinite worth.
Porphyry: Okay, maybe I have neglected the power and place of moral obligations. It is easy to forget that the core of our anger at social injustice is a plain and simple notion of ought. I won't put it down again.
Now I believe your argument was that because we ought to seek God, this should give us at least a will to do so, and once we admit that, God will provide us with whatever further desire we need.
All right, if I have an obligation to seek God, then you're going to have admit an obligation to seek to become God. Doesn't one have an obligation to become the best one can be? If you could become God, how much better could you get?
Theophilus: I would have an obligation to become a God but only if there is no God whose place I would be usurping. If there is one who alone deserves to be God, then it would be an unspeakable evil to seek to become a God. And until I know for certain that there is no God, one possibility would still be staring me in the face: I may be trying to become something that I do not deserve to become and I would be doing something to God which God does not deserve. We do have an obligation to seek to become the best we can be, but not to the point of becoming God.
So a person has an obligation to seek God on nothing more than the sheer possibility that God is there and deserves our search, our commitment, our adoration. Likewise, I might have a right to seek to become God if (and only if) I know that none other exists who alone deserves Godhood. So we cannot really begin at that same point, you and I. We both have an obligation to seek God but we haven't a right to seek to become Gods until we know that God doesn't already exist.
[Ed: The Dust of Death, written in 1973, was a powerful cultural critique of the time. As outdated as that may seem to us now, much of this work looked at issues as virtually timeless as eastern religions and the occult. Thus we here reprint a now very old but very relevent review of one chapter from that book, "The East, No Exit."]
THERE IS...A TENSION... BETWEEN WHAT A MAN SAYS HE IS AND WHO HE IS. THE MOST POIGNANT EXAMPLE OF THIS COMES FROM THE JAPANESE POET, ISSA (1762-1826), PERHAPS THE BEST LOVED OF ALL HAIKU POETS BECAUSE OF THE HUMANNESS OF HIS WRITINGS, HIS OWN LIFE WAS VERY SAD. ALL FIVE OF HIS CHILDREN DIED BEFORE HE WAS THIRTY, AND THEN HIS YOUNG WIFE DIED. AFTER ONE OF THOSE DEATHS HE WENT TO A ZEN MASTER AND ASKED HIM FOR AN EXPLANATION FOR SUCH SUFFERING. THE MASTER REMINDED HIM THAT THE WORLD WAS DEW. JUST AS THE SUN RISES AND THE DEW EVAPORATES, SO ON THE WHEEL OF SUFFERING SORROW IS TRANSIENT, LIFE IS TRANSIENT, MAN IS TRANSIENT. INVOLVEMENT IN THE PASSION OF GRIEF AND MOURNING SPEAKS OF A FAILURE TO TRANSCEND THE MOMENTUM OF SELFISH EGOISM. HERE WAS HIS RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL ANSWER, BUT ON RETURNING HOME ISSA WROTE A POEM WHICH TRANSLATED LITERALLY RUNS:
This dewdrop world
a dewdrop world it is,
and still
although it is. . .
OR MORE SIMPLY,
The world is dew-
The world is dew-
and yet,
and yet. . .
ISSA THE ORTHODOX ZEN BELIEVER MUST SAY, "THE WORLD IS DEW, THE WORLD IS DEW," BUT ISSA THE FATHER, THE HUSBAND, THE HUMAN BEING, WITH HIS AGONIZED GRIEF AND TORTURED LOVE CAN ONLY CRY INTO THE UNFULFILLED DARKNESS WHERE ZEN SHEDS NO LIGHT, "AND YET, AND YET." HE FEELS THE INESCAPABLE TENSION BETWEEN THE LOGIC OF WHAT HE BELIEVES AND THE LOGIC OF WHO HE IS.
OS GUINNESS
THE DUST OF DEATH
In this insightful analysis of the counter culture of the sixties, Os Guinness reflects on the "turning East" of many spiritual seekers in the West. As one who journeyed through the maze of Eastern mysticism in that decade, I find "The East, No Exit" thought-provoking. The turn toward many forms of Eastern mysticism by members of my generation embodied a rejection of Western materialism and deep spiritual hunger. Unfortunately, due to the compromise of the church with Western culture, Christianity was rejected as unworthy of investigation. In the sixties, the "new spirituality" appeared in the experimentation with psychedelic drugs, mass interest in popular forms of meditation, fascination with Hinduism and Buddhism.
The important question in our reflection on this continuing trend concerns truth. Did the Eastern gurus and spiritual masters from the East give us truth or illusion concerning the nature of God, the universe and man? Is it possible that the seeker after truth may be sincerely deceived? Could it be that the spiritual vision of the East directs our consciousness into an endless mirror-world of delusion?
Guinness proceeds to answer these questions in his analysis of the Eastern Monistic worldview, but first he deals with the seduction of our Western culture by "the deeper spirituality" of the East. The current fascination with the East has its roots in the 19th century. With the birth of the Theosophical Society, the popularization of Hinduism by Vivekenanda in American 1893, and the publication of major classics on Buddhism and Zen, the bridge was built between the East and the West. In our time, "the second wave" introduced Westerners to the teachings of Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Meher Baba, Yogananda, and Bagwan Shree Rajneesh.
It is no accident that the invasion of the West by the East was preceded by significant developments in Western philosophy and theology. Emmanuel Kant created a radical distinction between the "noumenal" and "phenomenal" worlds (things as they are and things as they appear). Modern liberal theologians such as John Robinson and Paul Tillich continued this distinction in their definition of theological language. In their view, theology can only attempt to illuminate man's effort to comprehend the Silence of God. Paul Tillich was asked at the end of his life by a student, "Sir, do you pray?." "No," answered Tillich, "I meditate."
Thus, in liberal Christianity, words about God are only symbols or shadow images of the unknowable "Ground of being." The way is now open to cross into the world of Hindu monism or the "sheer silence" of Buddhism.
This definition of ultimate reality is further confused by the declarations of the various Hindu philosophers and gurus. Some schools point us to personal devotion to Lord Krishna or other incarnations of Brahman. Yet, other gurus inform us that the true nature of Brahman is nameless and formless.
Buddhism echoes Western atheism and existentialism and proposes a different approach to the world. The story is told that when the Lord Buddha was about to enter final Nirvana he met one final time with his disciples. When the disciples inquired about the true nature of reality, the Buddha sat in silence holding a flower. Finally the disciple Mahakasyapa smiled as he comprehended the silent gesture of Buddha. Truth is pure being and true knowledge is opened to non-verbal experience. Hence, the popularity of Zen in the West, with its emphasis on Satori--the flash realization of the no-world.
Thus in various forms, the East seduces us to abandon the notions of individual worth and absolute truth clearly defined in the Word of God. Ironically, much of Western Christianity has enacted its own demise by de-emphasizing belief in the supernatural. Christianity in the West often is heavy on dogma and ritual, but seriously lacking in focusing on a personal experience with God. Christian worship often fragments the sense of community people hunger for; spirituality is divorced from the total human experience. The Gospel of Christ is not so. It is radical in its power to truly transform men and the world. Few voices, however, are willing to fearlessly preach the true words of Christ in the midst of the Church. How many who name the name of Christ are truly aware of the spiritual battle around them?
There is a hunger for the Word, but those entrusted with the revelation are silent. Many hunger for something beyond religious formalism. The gurus and spiritual masters from the East understand the spiritual hunger in the West. They appeal to our desires for inner peace, self-actualization, and God-consciousness. The spirituality of the East appears to be the antidote to the crass materialism and impersonality of our culture. Yet within the teachings of the spiritual masters there lies a hidden agenda. The unwary spiritual pilgrim is asked to accept a new worldview that presupposes that "all is one" and that normal reality is maya--a dream within a dream.
While the East has rightly rejected materialism for spirituality, isolated individualism for personal integration, and sterile religion for mystical experience, its monistic worldview contains fatal flaws. Diversity in the world is seen as a manifestation of the one underlying unity. The Bhagavad Gita states: "Beyond the power of the sword and fire, beyond the power of water and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, ever one." On the surface, such a view seems very attractive, but its interpreted deeper meaning presents problems in its view of reality, personality, and morality.
Early Vedantism explains the enigma of diversity versus unity in terms of a spider spinning its web or a fire throwing out sparks. Later Hinduism described the relationship of God to the world as that of a Dreamer (who alone is real) to His Dream (which is unreal). The concept is maya: the world of objective phenomena is really an illusion of the senses. Alan Watts describes this view as one where God becomes so involved in the Dream or the Cosmic Dance, that God "freaks out" and forgets who He or It really is. When we correctly understand the world as the result of maya, we are liberated from our false perceptions of good and evil and the "dream" of human suffering. Acceptance of this concept allows for amorality, indifference to the suffering of others and blurs the distinction between reality and fantasy. As the Chinese Taoist sage Chuang Tzu says (paraphrased) "If when I was asleep I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, how do I know when I am awake I am not a butterfly dreaming I am a man?" [Sorry Os, it wasn't Lao Tsu.] How, for that matter, can one be sure that the truth of oneness with God or Atman is not just another "dream within a dream?"
Man in the Eastern view, is simply God playing in the world. In the words of Radakrishnan, "Man is God's temporary self-forgetfulness." The true self is God; the "I" or ego is really the "not I" trapped in the world of illusion, ignorance, and bondage. All forms of yoga (from the Sanskrit, union or yoke) aim at liberation of the "not-self" and its reunion with the "true self" or atman. This view of retreat from the illusion of individuality is expressed in Hindu culture when man, in later life, leaves the life of society and marriage in pursuit of spiritual experience. D. T. Suzuki has restated this view when he says that the goal of Zen is not incarnation but "excarnation." In orthodox Buddhism, man is a stream of consciousness, unified as personality by selfish desire. "The man who perceives his true self," Buddhagosa says, "grasps the emptiness disclosed in the words,: 'I am nowhere a somewhatness for anyone.' "In short, Monism sees man's basic problem as metaphysical (who he is and how he perceives himself) rather than moral (involving concepts of right and wrong and a space-time Fall into sin before a personal God). At person must he helped from individuality to merge with the absolute. This in turn leads to a sort of Cosmic pessimism, that life is an endless wheel of suffering (samsara). In the Upanishads, samsara is depicted as a well without water where man struggles hopelessly in the mud. Another parable describes man hanging head down in a pit; snakes threaten him from below, elephants from above. He is kept alive by a creeper on which he hangs, and that is being slowly gnawed by a black rat and a white rat, symbolic of the shortening of life in cycles of night and day. Is this depersonalization of man the answer to man's search for meaning or merely a blind escape? Is all of life a trap to be avoided or escaped from through "mystical annihilation" into the void?
If we are simply a wave that rises or falls, or a bubble that forms and bursts on the immortal sea's surface, what of our hearts' desire for significance? If our individual existence is just illusion or a casual accident in the eternal now, why do we still hunger for personal relationships?
If man's basic dilemma is metaphysical and not moral, what of morality? Moral values become relative and ethics are only "game rules" in a cosmic play. Alan Watts suggests that the "game of good and evil" is the result of an original cosmic conspiracy which began when God and Satan agreed to pretend to be enemies. In the monist universe all is God and God is all. God ultimately contains both good and evil. The Zen master Yun-Men teaches: "If you want to get the plain truth, be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong is sickness of the mind."
Such an attitude leads toward an inversion of morality which opens the door to nihilism. Dostoevsky illumines the consequences of this worldview in The Possessed:
"Everything is good."
"Everything?"
"Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. That's the only reason. The man who discovers that will become happy that very minute. The step-daughter will die, the little girl will remain--and everything is good. I suddenly discovered that."
"So it's good, too, that people die of hunger and also that someone may abuse or rape that little girl?"
"It's good. And if someone breaks that man's skull for the girl, that's good too. And if someone doesn't break his skull, it's equally good."
If all is good, all is equally permissible under the guise of innate godhood. Man is free to do as he desires. Charles Manson declared that he was both Christ and Satan, and the family was not guilty of murder because they were liberating their victims from "the illusion of self." All suffering is the result of Karma, therefore it is wrong to interfere in any with individual suffering. In "spiritual" India millions are starving in the streets of Calcutta. One is reminded of the comments of Mahrishi Mahesh Yogi when asked how TM would alleviate world hunger. He replied, "Meditation will not eliminate hunger, but those who meditate will be happier hungry people." But hunger and disease are also illusion, and we can take comfort that all is but a cosmic game, the dance of Shiva. All is God: the murderer and the victim; the Jews who died in the ovens and Hitler. What moral sense that is left within must cry out in revulsion against such a God. He is worse than the devil.
Ultimately, I became disillusioned with the God of the East because I could not continue to ignore the reality of evil and suffering in this world. Guinness points this out with an example of the tension that occurs between what we say and what we are. His account of Issa's life is quoted in full on the first page so the reader can catch a hint not only of the power of Guinness' writing but also of the power of this event.
The irony is that Issa, the orthodox Zen believer, senses that there must be more than the Void. In our own grief or sorrow, or when we feel a sense of aloneness in the universe, we cry out against the darkness. We sense that fulfillment cannot be achieved by denying our own significance and by becoming absorbed into a vast impersonal ocean or "god." The East seems to offer an answer, but perhaps we must now look elsewhere for the Truth. We come to a fork in the road where we read a sign posted, "The East, No Exit." But where else are we to turn?
My own exit from the East took place when I was confronted with the unique claims of Jesus Christ. While the Eastern gurus praise Jesus as a great spiritual teacher or avatar, they ignore his unique claim to be the only way to God. When I was confronted with the person of Christ, I realized that he alone could fill my broken life with meaning. As Augustine said, ". . .you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
The impersonal god of the East cannot satisfy our cry for meaning and self-worth. But the God revealed to us in Scripture and through Jesus Christ promises us hope in this present evil world. We have hope because God is not impersonal, beyond good and evil. Morality has concrete meaning because God's character is holy and good and is in opposition to sin and evil. Likewise, those who profess faith in Christ are called to face the reality of suffering in the world with Christ's love and service to humanity.
Neither is there reason for despair, for our unique personality is a gift from a personal God. We are created for personal relationships with others and to experience personal fellowship with a just and loving God. True freedom is not a result of transcending our individualism, but discovering the joy of our individuality and humanity in Christ.
The greatest difficulty for myself and many others in coming to Christ concerns his exclusive claim to Truth. The Gospel of Christ is opposed to the spirit of our age which denies the existence of absolute truth. I once believed that truth is subjective, that "all roads lead to God," and that it didn't matter what you believed as long as you were sincere. But as I read the Gospel of John I had to face the radical claims of Jesus Christ to be the only way to salvation. In reading the New Testament, I also had to face the offense of the cross. The cross offended me because it showed me my problem was not metaphysical but moral in nature. Man is guilty of sin and spiritual pride when he worships "the god within" and rejects even the possibility that God has already provided one way of Salvation in Jesus Christ. It is difficult to face the fact that Satan can appear as an angel of light and provide spiritual counterfeits to lead us away from the truth. But Jesus Christ calls all men to turn from false gods to accept him as the only Savior and Lord.
This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. ( I Timothy 2: 3-5, RSV)
Michael Kerns
Because some of the issues Os Guinness has raised are so important, this reviewer will [add and] enter into more commentary and reflection than would normally be the case. I must begin by confessing that I've found Guinness to be one of the most captivating writers I've ever come across. The material he deals with is fascinating, his insights are profound, his analysis is precise, and his style is intriguing. He does not hesitate to criticize his own religious tradition, Christianity, just as he criticizes conflicting systems. Likewise, he admits the good in those systems he critiques. You feel as though you can put down your defenses a little when you read him. Here we can look at some important questions honestly.
One example is most telling. In far too many cases, Os points out, the church has failed to become a place of mutual caring and encouragement, a place where we, "weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh," as the New Testament writer puts it. This failure to follow the scriptural command surely has repulsed people more than any other single factor. But there are some churches, some believers, who are seriously carrying out this mandate. When you find this among Jesus' followers, you find something very drawing, something enchantingly beautiful. It is little wonder that Jesus said that people will know his disciples by their love for one another. The most reasonable and compelling arguments and evidence for the Christian faith have little force of attraction compared to this. Scripture portrays the image of Jesus being seen through his body, the Church, as a person is seen via their physical body. A body is not a person, but a person is seen through their body.
This point was once driven home very graphically through this reviewer's own experience. Facing a very devastating loss in my own life, I found myself in a church weeping as others went on with their own worship and prayer. A virtual stranger came to me, wept with me and showed me I was loved. Though my own anguish was great, this love was greater. It was as if Jesus was saying, "I won't show myself physically any more in the world; I leave my followers to show myself to the world. When they live before the world as I tell them to and draw them to, then I will be seen." Many atheists I've known are such only because of bad experiences they have had with the church or with particular Christians. If only they would take the time to look at these different churches, these different gatherings of believers.
I cannot resist adding a comment to Guinness' account of Issa's life. Issa shows us all too graphically that there is something of inestimable value that is lost when we see persons as worthless "dust in the wind." His poignant, "And yet, and yet. . " draws from us something at the very core of our being, of our humanness. Love for another person is not an illusion. Others do have a worth that deserves to be valued. Religions like Christianity give us reason to affirm these deeply human longings in a way Zen and similar existential beliefs cannot. Peter Marin, a secular Jew, in a critique of Buddhism expresses the same longing for a return to our humanness:
"I sit here wondering how to put all these concerns--not into a piece that makes sense, but into a life that makes sense. . . . The only answer will come from what it is we do, in how we learn to act as moral creatures, making a future that does justice to the heart. Seen in that light, Buddhism is not a sufficient answer. . . . Of what use is any future or enlightenment that does not restore a just and fully human world? Now as I work I can hear its insistent calling, not unlike the wind in the trees." (Harper's Magazine, February 1979, 58.)
One final point needs to be addressed before closing this review. This issue cannot be avoided in any serious comparison of Christianity and other religions and it will likely be the first question to occur to any critical reader of Guinness or the previous review. "Is it bigoted to claim that Jesus is the only way to God'
The first thing that needs to be said is that we are not talking about whether one who has never had the opportunity to respond to the Christian message can find peace with God or not. That is a different question. What we are asking is whether or not Jesus' death is the only basis for a relationship with God. The two questions are so closely tied that many will find my claimed distinction unconvincing without some statement of a Christian view of "those who have not heard."
It is this writer's conclusion that Christian scripture allows that God would only require of such people that they seek God and will to do God's will, live as closely to their innate knowledge of the moral law as they can (doing good and avoiding harm to others and self), and have regret at their failure to do so [John 7:17, Jeremiah 29:13, Joel 2:32//Romans 10:13; 2:15, 1:19-20, Ezekiel 18:30]. In this view it would still be Jesus' atonement that provides for their acceptance by God, not the power of anything they would do. They would be displaying an attitude of acceptance of whatever God would give them--an attitude which would accept the Christian message if it were given and known to be true. [God sees the confession to do God's will as an admission to believe in Jesus since it will later be disclosed to be God's will to do so.]
We need to return to our original question now, "Is Jesus' sacrifice the only basis for our finding a relationship with God?" The claim that there is one way to God says that the human race is out of contact with God and that God has provided a way for reunion to occur. The chasm was too great for us to traverse but God was able to bridge it. Our human efforts to be morally good enough do not work because we cannot be good enough. All human efforts fail. Only reliance upon his means of reunion can work. So to claim that Jesus provides the only way to God bespeaks the nature of spiritual reality; it speaks of there being one means--whether known or not--not many, by which God can be known. It says that it is necessary that there be only one way because we are incapable of constructing our own way; only God can do that.
Should it be considered inappropriate for God to cause and use historic events which involve particularly chosen peoples and persons (e.g. the death and resurrection of Jesus) to bring about this reunion with God? Those who reject the possibility of there being one way to God would say, yes. But no good reason can be given for this claim. Should it be considered inappropriate of God to provide for us his own way of reconciliation? Most certainly not. If it cannot be shown to be inappropriate and if no other difficulty can be maintained, it would only remain for one to determine whether it can be shown to be true. Here one would need to consider the evidence the Christian presents.
Note: the opinion expressed here concerning "those who have not heard" may not be a majority Christian opinion but it is one that this reviewer would willingly argue follows from the most normal and natural reading of the Bible, as well as one that can be shown to have a following among some top Evangelical scholars. At a recent conference of such scholars, Clark Pinnock expressed very much the above opinion. Kenneth Kantzer critiqued this view with reference to John 3:18, which, ironically, makes sense only when applied to those who have heard of Jesus. Another favorite Scriptural passage used to support the view that those who have not heard of Jesus will be lost is found in Romans 10:13-14. Norm Geisler commented to one of his classes (in which this writer was present) that he has yet to hear these advocates cite this passage in context. In verse 18 it is clear that all people have heard enough to find acceptance by God. As we have mentioned already, this does not mean that it is not through Jesus alone that one can find acceptance by God; see John 14:6.
Dennis Jensen
References
Guinness quote: The Dust of Death (InterVarsity Press, 1973), pp. 222-3. Issa's poem is from Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku (Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958), 124.
We have maintained throughout this paper that any who seek God and spiritual truth from God will find what they seek. The evidence of the truth of this we will present in various ways. The following is one of them.
In the hill country of south central Ethiopia live a people who believe in an all powerful creator. However, these several million people have had little concern for Magano, as he is called. Of the half million Gedeo or Darassa tribe, concern has been more focused upon appeasing an evil being called Sheit'an. When asked, "How is it that you regard Magano with profound awe, yet sacrifice to Shei'tan?" the reply was, "We sacrifice to Sheit'an, not because we love him, but because we simply do not enjoy close enough ties with Magano to allow us to be done with Sheit'an."
One man, Warrasa Wange, a relative of the Gedeo royal family, began to seek Magano. This simple pursuit of spiritual truth from his believed creator had very startling results. He had a vision of two unknown white men erecting a tent near Warrasa's home town of Dilla. Then he saw sturdier shiny-roofed buildings being built until they covered the entire hillside. Warrasa had never seen aluminum buildings, only the tin roofed houses of the village and grass roofed huts of his home.
Then he heard a voice saying, "These men will bring you a message from Magano, the God you seek. Wait for them."
Finally he saw himself taking the center pole of his own hut and laying it next to one of the strange shiny-roofed buildings. For the Gedeo, the central pole of a man's hut represents his life. Warrasa understood that Magano wanted his complete self-commitment and his identification with the message of the strangers.
For eight years he waited as other Gedeo sages prophesied that Magano would send a message through strangers. Then in 1948 an Australian and a Canadian missionary came to Dilla. They set up their tent under a large sycamore exactly as Warrasa had seen in his vision years before.
The missionaries had hoped to begin their work deeper into the center of the Gedeo land but failed to do so because of political resistance. Ethiopian officials who opposed their work felt they would have little impact on the tribe if they had to work from such a peripheral town as Dilla. They were wrong. The entire tribe was influenced. Many thousands embraced Christianity because of the work of those like Warrasa who had been literally waiting for the messengers to come.
This account is taken from Don Richardson's book, Eternity in Their Hearts (Regal, 1981) with some additions via correspondence with one of the missionaries, Albert Brant. There are many accounts we could have selected from. We would recommend Richardson's book for additional examples. We hope it is clear that we are presenting the evidence as we find it. We simply have not yet found evidence of God-seekers who have discovered conflicting or contrary spiritual truth.
- Editorial and Material Contributors:
- Albert Brant, Os Guinness, Dennis Jensen, Michael Kerns, Robin Korman, Nancy Opdahl, R.K. McGregor Wright, Stan Petrowski, Don Richardson, Nancy Wilson,
- Some of the writers in this issue wish to remain anonymous.