©2001 Jon Youngblood Unity Through Understanding A Guidebook for the Recently Alive

Part One: Faith

Chapter Four: Faith, Fashion, & Folly

4.4 Life in Faith

THERE IS ONLY ONE SIN: GREED!

Sin defined as "error".  We make this error because we fail to see the larger picture.  If you look at all the 'bad' things (the cross cultural evils - the kind of universal ten commandments of all civilized cultures) that people do, it can in every situation be reduced to some form of GREED. Greed for power. Money. Land. Time. Wanting more of anything. This is a pretty strong pronouncement I realize, and I certainly would like to have not made it.  None the less a lifetime of comparing the basic commonalities of the world's major faiths and peering into the more arcane and less traveled beliefs - pagan and new age - has revealed a single message repeated over and over again.  In every language and every conceivable image, this message had been delivered to us time and time again: WANTING out of proportion to the division of shares is a universally repugnant human trait and the antithesis of a spiritual life.  A philosophy which bodes poorly for a capitalist society such as ours.  I am not advocating any kind of increased social cooperation since dog eat dog seems to work very well indeed.  It provide us (most of us anyway) with a level of personal wealth never achieved by non-royalty in the history of the world.  But I will leave the ethical details of reconciling faith with republican idealism to the political scientists.

Let's look for an example in the seven deadly sins:

• Pride - Greed for self-esteem. Wanting to feel MORE important than others.
• Envy - Greed defeated while craving for what others have materially, intellectually, or spiritually.
• Gluttony - Greed (pretty obvious) for food.
• Lust - Greed for sex.
• Anger - Greed for self-righteousness. They did something wrong not me!
• Covetousness - Greed in thought for what others have and you don’t (similar to Envy)
• Sloth - Greed for luxury.

Murder could be seen as greed for power. Power over someone else’s life. Theft is obvious. On and on. If you look hard enough, every ‘evil’ in the world can be traced to greed.  Conversely, a life lived in Faith is one where all needs are met above and beyond personal expectations.  How can I want more when I have so much!  When the world is your oyster, what need of a sales receipt or title or deed?  It's all yours.  Others care for other parts of it for you - I mean come on, you could possibly take care of everything yourself!  So all the other 'you's' out there take care of their bit, and you have your bits and it's all ours and we have been care for very well, both by our Creator - or creative force - and by our own good use of the intelligence that graces our species.

The one truth universal to every religion, every great teacher, every saint and sage, is that man is held down to his animal nature by greed. In order to attain a proper spiritual attitude, they appear to teach, we need to develop a kind of disinterest in the world in order to attain it. One of those lovely paradoxes. If you want it you can’t have it (or will never get enough of it). The moment that you don’t want it, or don’t care, its there in all its splendor. There is a hundred ways of saying this and I hope you can think of parables of your own that can validate this idea. I will work more on this section at a later time and more fully develop the idea, but for now just try to see this is your everyday life:

THERE IS ONLY ONE SIN: GREED

When you get angry, depressed, bored, whatever, try to find the Greed. What is it that you are thinking you should have and are not getting, or getting enough of. What is it you want MORE of? Peace and quiet. People to not be so stupid? (Give up that desire because it aint gonna happen!) MORE time if you hurry? Now try to remind yourself of what you have and should be thankful for and all the people in the world who don’t even have that! Greedy you are! (Sounding like my mother here, but it’s a good thing) If you think it through, you will feel less anxious, angry, scared, whatever Discomfort you may be feeling. Its all about GREED. So just stop it! Recognize the demon for what it is. Then it can’t hurt you. You know, in witchcraft and demonology adherents believed that by calling the name out loud of a demon they could control it. Same idea.  Naming the beast to subdue it.

Recognizing this Mother of all evils, lets look at the bad rap the scientific community is getting from the religious right. The scientists are not the bad guys. They are most often than not, nerdy intellectuals with their noses in books or lab bottles, and the only greed they are guilty of is a greed for knowledge or perhaps recognition. A thirst for knowledge is not such a bad thing. Of all the things one could be greedy for that doesn’t seem that awful to me! The real bad guy is the one who finds a way to make money off of what the scientist discovers. He is usually the one to be found guilty when it comes to social ills. Knowledge does not kill. It is the greedy bastard who uses that knowledge to kill that we should be focusing our attention on. But that is often hard to do. [INSERT AUDIO - MONTY PYTHON SALES MEETING]

Did I mention I was a democrat? See, I, from my ‘pinko-commie’ democratic way of thinking, have come to see the republicans as the apotheosis of greed. They promote big business. They seek to reward it with tax breaks and incentives.  They have somehow come to believe that a bunch of Joe Blows working for profit is somehow going to do a better job than those same Joe Blows working for ideological reasons. And in some ways profit appeals to a personal sense of greed and will, like carrots before the rabbit, inspire Joe Blow to put out a little more energy. Sad to think of us as the rabbit. Because right on his heels are the dogs… If production is our primary concern, regardless of the ultimate costs in pain, suffering, and destroying the God Damn planet, then sure, lets privatize everything. Make the world one giant GREEDY corporation.

To me the democrats are at least, pansies as they may be - tree huggers, the lot -, are providing the counterbalance to the rampant greed in the world. Lets take care of those that can’t take care of themselves. Lets make sure everyone has police and fire protection, food and medical care, a roof over their head. Even if it costs supporting a few “losers” that scramble in for the freebies along with the deserving. At least we are trying to show generosity and kindness. Business is dog eat dog. Without tax incentives corporations (or any of the rich and greedy bastards in the world) would not make the huge charitable donations that they are now showing in their advertisement on television. (This is a good example of what “goodie two shoes” really means - showing off with inappropriate pride.) I ran a computer store in San Francisco before I got AIDS and I know what the game is. You have to be a little bit ruthless in order to survive. Its just how business is.

So for me, living in faith, I find just the simple act of choosing to be democrat (and I don’t hug trees - yet) provides me with a feeling of loving life and wanting to nurture and give back to the wondrous system that has brought me forth. I don’t want to rape life. I don’t want more than anybody else (or I try not to - I do have a slight greed problem with computer components; faster and bigger is always better!). I don’t want to, pardon the expression, “shit where I eat”. Even if it means I have a little less ‘stuff’ than everybody else. Aligning myself with the Group Democrat is a way for me of worshiping existence and the Organizing Principal behind it. I am not saying you have to be democrat. Don’t be silly. But each of us can find ways to “connect” in a healthy and non-destructive way with Life. Break the chain of greed - fear - hate.

"And the survey said...!"

A recent in-depth survey on religion in politics (Public Agenda) revealed that a great majority feel both that religion should play a larger role in our way of life - that people would be more honest and helpful - and that at the same time religion should not play a role in the political system coinciding with the intent of the constitution. Even persons who had been raised in a religious setting, but no longer felt that religion was needed or recognized in there lives today, still held the opinion that they were better people for having had that training. I somewhat agreed. The part that religion plays in morality and human behavior through its administration of Law and instruction in empathy, is hard for people to give up - even if the actual practice of Faith in their hectic daily activities is no longer an important part of their lives. The socializing, or Group Instruction, that The Big Three has tended to provide is the vital component that makes it hard for many of us to give up on religion entirely.

As I have been attempting to maintain focus on throughout this discussion, is that Faith is in the hearts (i.e. Minds) of those who feel a part of life. A vital cog in a vast machine who's motion would stop without it. As a person who has suffered for years with clinical depression, this is a feeling that has not come readily to me. It is something I have had to struggle to obtain. I have always envied the good natured person to whom faith seems "built in". The world, it seems, is their oyster. They are free from greed because it’s already all theirs! While for me, I have felt the alienation in my relationship to my environment for as far back as I can remember. I have had to learn to remind myself over and over again that I do belong, I am an important part of the greater Universe.

Although faith is, as described earlier, a feeling of trust, I do not believe that faith should ever be blind trust. Any feelings of trust, felt without the possibility of confirmation, is blind. We trust because we feel that at some point, at some time, our feelings will somehow be validated. Our trust will be rewarded with the absolute assurance that we were right in our trust. But we can only be assured of that by the revelation of truth. And hopefully we won’t have to die to get it. (It’s a great time to find out the rules of the game when the game is already over!!)

It is instructive to note that our ancestors were somehow lead to believe that there was something greater in the earth and in the sky than was observable. Because in fact, we now know some thousands of years later, that there is indeed something greater in and about the earth. Quantum mechanics and the magical realms of atomic and subatomic particles reveal a place where ? and the laws of the very small take command. Just so in the sky. Countless generations lived and died so that we, in this age of enlightenment, can contemplate the unimaginable vastness of outer space. In that spaces resides objects that emit in one day more energy than the sun produces in it's lifetime. Some very great things are these!

“OK”, I hear you say, “what’s your point”. Well, The Point is, as I love so much to do, in the form of a question: What does religion, or our Faith, tell us about the world in which we live? How does it make us feel about this world. Friend or Foe. Because as I Pointed out earlier, religion is about answers. Spiritual answers. Governing answers. Answers that will determine how we interact with this world. Are we to love and nurture it? Or hold it in contempt in expectation of a better one to come? Or to rape it for personal pleaser and greed for aggrandizement? Or perhaps to simply be indifferent to it because it’s merely an illusion anyway and why get all worked up about it? The point is, as a unique and individual soul in this vast complex of interpersonal interactions, will you choose your Faith because you are made to feel “on the spot” to decide (and it had better be the right one!) by charismatic leaders, or because you feel, without pressure, to examine the possibilities (no harm in that is there?) and go with what feels meaningful TO YOU?

My point is that in order to decide for YOURSELF, you need to hear all sides of the story. See both sides of the coin. All the colors in the spectrum. To encourage Faith based on inner trust. By breaking the bonds “tribalist” religious thought and expanding your mind like The Creator expanded his creation. Take time in a day to read up on a religion or Faith that is not you own and give it, just for the moment, the same credibility that you give your current beliefs.

So what does religion tell us about The World. It tells us that there is:

1. More than meets the eye. In addition to the world around us there exists another world which we cannot see. Some say this world is populated by God or Gods, spirits and souls.

2. Eternity and infinity. God has existed for Eternity and His Power is Infinite, for example. The Cycles of birth and re-birth, or the circular eternity of Yin and Yang. Two powerful concepts that were arguably difficult for our simple farmer/herder forefathers, of say, the 10,000 BC to 8,000 BC clans.

Can it be said that Spirit is to Religion, what the atom is to Chemistry. Is it, in many fundamental ways, the building blocks of all the worlds religions. From Judaism to Taoism, spirit is the essence of Religion and for most synonymous with Faith. But is it? There are important distinction between spirit and soul. an in a similar way the role, or 'duties' of religion are much more varied than the beautiful simplicity of Faith. The same beauty, by the way, that many scientists - particularly the mathematicians - see in the beauty of the simplest forms and structures in the natural world. The Grand Unified Theory or the Theory Of Everything is held to be recognized by its simplicity - although it, as simple as it may be, has yet to be fully recognized.

If you're a talkin, you ain't a listenin!  - 70's poster>

If you aren't listening, you aren't learning. - My 8th Grade Science Teacher, Ms. Kerr

The ways in which the different religions around the world teach their fold to worship often seem at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Meditation opens up perception by limiting internal chatter that soaks up the minds attention.  Prayer on the other hand is primarily internal dialog directed towards deity.  I had a rather interesting perspective on prayer related to me from a most unusual source.  The spirit of a dead Native American Indian visits Dharma on a network sitcom the other night.  Dharma's mother was in the hospital possibly loosing her unborn child.  Dharma was seeking verification of prayer's power to rectify an imagined participation in her mother's condition, and her Indian spirit guide said something like "Hmm.  So you sit and talk with the creator of all things.  Its too bad you are doing all the talking." 

We need to listen more and talk less.  Doing that we can learn to trust our surroundings no matter how hostile they may at first appear to be.  It is no longer a stranger.

****

It is the act of total selfless generosity that separates us from all other creatures.  We will see some of the fascinating things we have learned about our animal friends in the next part of Faith and Physics.  They are "run" on self preservation and that means greedy.   Greed is animal nature.  Only from the human mind comes the Understanding that, because we are all ONE, one body if you will, selfishness is cancerous to the larger organism whereas devotion to "other" nurtures.  Because the "other" is also us.  It does not escape self-servitude in that it is still seeking to maintain survival of the individual and the species, but it does it far more effectively with the intervention of Mind, than on a strictly instinctual basis.  We ascend the animal kingdom because we can emote compassion and generosity way beyond the primal instinct for say a mother to protect and maintain the survival of an offspring.  When we give a down and out person in dirty rags on the downtown sidewalk a dollar, it's more than that.

This is where Faith comes into our lives.  We Know we are more than animal.  We have faith that it is "right" that we should have these feelings and ideas above and beyond our animal kin.

Further Reading:

http://www.deadlysins.com/index.html