The New Human Condition

An Egyptian-born man renounced Islam and was baptised by the Pope during a high-profile mass on Easter Sunday. The man, Magdi Allam has spent years speaking out against “inherent” violence in Islam, and preaches coexistence between Islam and Western Culture.

This makes me wonder whether this action will encourage the coexistence Allam intended, or whether it will just incite more negative feelings from one group towards the other in the form of words or violence. I’m not that familiar with Islam, but it sounds like this was a great effort to tie different religious traditions together…regardless of which way he converted.

What do you think? Do actions like this high-profile conversion help bridge the gap between religious traditions? Or widen it even further?

Joe religion Catholicism, Islam

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about American culture and consumerism, particularly the pervasive idea that “more is better.” There are a lot of changes taking place around the world, as well as with our own economy here at home. I think that this “more is better” idea that has been driving us for many years is about to change.

This “more mentality” that we have here in the U.S. really does drive everything we do. We want bigger and better things, in the hope that these things will make us appear wealthier, more desirable, etc. to others. How else to explain the huge homes, expensive cars, and the millions of possessions that we collect every day?

By its very nature, this obsession with “more” is cyclical. Once you achieve or acquire that “more” that you thought would make everything perfect, something else will come along. You will never be satisfied if you operate under the assumption that having this one object, career, mate, etc. will make your life better.

Think of how much this idea has affected our daily lives. I think we are losing a lot of creative ability and ingenuity that we as a people used to possess. We no longer take the time to figure out how things work. If something of ours breaks, generally we just throw it away and buy a new one. How many of you could fix a sink, or work on your car, or build a piece of furniture? I know there are some people out there who can do these things, but I would consider them the minority. Personally I don’t know how to fix many of the things I own. I have become dependent on consumerism to live and function on a daily basis…and to me that’s scary.

For now, I’ll put aside the many environmental impacts of this “more is better” idea (that’s another topic entirely). I’ll focus instead on how material possessions are taking the place of the spiritual practice in our lives. Out of the 168 hours in a week, I only spend a few (if any) in personal reflection or prayer. Let’s say I spend two hours in quiet prayer or meditation, this works out to be just over 1% of my whole week. To put it another way, this is 1/100th of my week. Does that number seem incredibly small to you? It did for me when I worked it out.

Instead I use my time to work at my job, shop for possessions, or enjoy the material things that I already have. Once I get done with these things, I am usually too tired to do much but sleep. Prayer and spiritual practice should be a top priority for me each and every day, but it always seems to end up getting pushed to the bottom of my list.

How many hours of my life are going toward accumulating wealth and possessions that are largely superficial? I know it’s probably more than I would like…

Joe Culture, Spirituality Consumerism, Time Management

As I have mentioned, everyone has some piece of spiritual wisdom they can share. You may not be fully aware of that fact, or you might even doubt that it’s true. Well it is. Each and every person has had a life experience entirely unique of anyone else. It doesn’t matter how old you are, your background, or anything else about you. No matter who you are you have the ability to help someone else on their path in life, just as you stand to learn something in turn, from them.

Some time ago, one of my teachers told me the story of “the blind men and the elephant”. For those not familiar with the story, you can read a version of it here. In summary, six blind men are asked to describe a creature with which they are unfamiliar, in this case an elephant. As none of them can see the elephant in it’s entirely, each man touches a different part of the giant animal. The one who grabs the elephant’s tail describes the animal as a snake. A man who touched one of the elephant’s legs describes is as a thick tree. Another described the elephant to be like a spear, after touching one of its tusks. In a sense, they were all correct. But each man has also limited the description of the elephant to the parts of the body that they each experienced.

I like to use this story to illustrate my view on different spiritual traditions. Like each of the blind men, we have very limited senses to use when approaching the realms of spirituality and prayer. We rely on what we know, and what we learn through those senses. We use our own experiences to form our view of God (I use the word “God” in this sense to mean any supreme being or higher power). For some people, their experience through Christianity may lead them to God, for others it may be through practice in Buddhism or Islam, while still others may come up a sense of God through personal revelations and experiences outside of the realm of organized religion. Whatever path you choose, I believe that we are all essentially worshipping the same being.

We may choose to describe God differently (because we have had different experiences in our lives), and may call him by different names. But ultimately we are relying on our own limited senses and experiences to describe a being that is far beyond our reach. By being “blind” so to speak, how can we ever claim to know God in his entirety?

Joe Spirituality, religion Blind Men and the Elephant, religion, Spirituality

The path to spiritual truth is one that every human travels. How long and far a person travels on that path is dependent upon a lot of factors. As the world becomes faster and faster, people are spending less and less time searching for the path. I hope to help you find the way. I encourage others to help me with this goal. Please offer your insights and wisdom to help make this the deepest and clearest source for spiritual truth.

My name is Joe. I will write about all things spiritual: I will review spiritual books; talk about current events that affect spirituality; reflect on the views of great spiritual leaders; and debate the future of spirituality.

I have been studying and researching various spiritual traditions for years. I am particularly interested in the various forms of modern-day christianity, and the evolution of Native American religions in the U.S. I enjoys spiritual discussion, and am looking forward to interacting with many others through this forum. Remember, everyone has wisdom to share…

 Welcome to the “New Human Condition”. I look forward to hearing from you.

Joe Spirituality religion, Spirituality