(Note to others: am about to engage in mystic-speak with Tailor ... he'll probably understand what I mean, but I suspect nobody else will. Please overlook this. I hope to set up a website specifically addressing atheist/skeptic/deist concerns at some point ... will link you all to that when it's done.)
Regarding eastern religions, perhaps Ned is over-romanticising somewhat, or at least viewing the world through Neo-Vedantic glasses (which, as I warned before, has the danger of becoming Yanni, or at least straying way too far from the King). Surely Rudra in the Vedas is something worthy of a freakout? No?
A good point, Tailor ... however, even there, at least in Vedanta, one is asked to
adore the "Kali" or destructive aspects of God, to befriend even those aspects of God, not be afraid of them. I'll give you two quotes from two of my favorite spiritual teachers on this topic.
Look at this beautiful description of the relationship between Krishna (who symbolizes the Personal Divine) and Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita:
"God chose Arjuna because he embodied in himself both devotee and friend. There are many kinds of devotees. Normally, a devotee brings to mind a teacher-disciple relationship. Love is no doubt there behind such devotion, but ordinarily obedience, respect and a blind devotedness are its special characteristics. But friend does not show respect to friend. They joke and play and have fun together, use endearing terms; for the sake of the play they may taunt and even show disrespect, use abusive language, make undue demands on each other. Friend is not always obedient to friend; and even though one may act according to a friend's advice out of admiration for his deep wisdom and sincere goodwill, that is not done blindly.
One argues with him, expresses doubts, at times even protests against his views. The first lesson in the relation of friends is the giving up of all fear; to give up all outward show of respect is its second lesson; love is its first and last word. He is the fit recipient of the knowledge given in the Gita who understands this world-movement as a sweet and mysterious game full of love and bliss, elects God as his playmate and can bind Him to himself in a tie of friendship. He is the fit recipient of the knowledge given in the Gita who realises the greatness and the power of God, the depth of His wisdom and even His awfulness, and yet is not overwhelmed and plays with Him without fear and with a smiling face."
And here is another quote on the selfishness of fear and the need to rid oneself of fear in order to be able to experience and face God in his fullness:
"...the first duty of those who really want to do yoga is to eliminate from their consciousness, with all the might, all the sincerity, all the endurance of which they are capable, even the shadow of a fear.
To walk on the path, one must be dauntless, and never indulge in that petty, small, feeble, nasty shrinking back upon oneself, which is fear."Fear, in my understanding, is a movement of the lower biologically-conditioned nature -- it is an aspect of the ego. There is no fear in the higher nature whatsoever. A major goal of yoga is to liberate one from fear altogether and live in a constant state of peace, unmoved by anything. As I said the Quran also mentions that "friends of God", which I take to mean people who have become aware of the Divine presence, are free of fear or are protected from fear (I'm getting this from Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh's interpretations), but the Quran is not as clear about these things as other traditions are. And of course later Sufi teachers like Hazrat Inayat Khan, etc., are much clearer than the Quran itself.
All that Muslims (and religionists in general) have to admit is that every scripture is a "watering down" of the real thing -- the direct spiritual experience and inner awareness of the Divine, which is the only way of understanding who we are and why we are here. No external book, no priest, no system of beliefs, no external authority,
in and of themselves, can answer the big questions for us. I adore the Bhagavad-Gita but I would never claim it is eternal or infallible. It clearly reflects the culture of the era in which it was written, although there are also timeless truths embedded in it (same with the Quran, though in my experience you have to work much harder to find them ... this could just be because I'm not an initiate into that tradition though
). If religionists began to admit this, then the whole conversation about God and reality would move to a whole other level, a far more productive and constructive level, and we would stop getting bogged down with literalism and with silly verses and sayings that reflect nothing but a premodern ethos or the anxieties of a premodern era.
On Ibn Arabi: why couldn't he just use a term like "awe" instead of "fear"? I assume that's what you mean by the "freak-out". Of course awe and wonder are a major part of the spiritual journey. But fear is just a horrible, nasty, shrinking movement that holds us back from self-exploration and self-discovery.
Hey Ned, what about my musicological metaphysics? I won't bug you about it any more if you have no comments. But if you have any thoughts, I'd be very interested. (I've just had a kind of Sufi-fatwa thrown against me for propounding that metaphysics to a bunch of transcendentalist Universal Sufis. They say I commit the cardinal sin by being all about the self, which is patently untrue because I too burn with fear, but I tell them that they aren't at all sexy and need to pick up few more wives ... )
lol. I may have missed on your musicological posts btw. I don't get as much time to hang out at this forum these days.
Don't worry ... I'll be getting in touch with you via your blog. I've got an MA thesis to write but right after that I'll be in touch.
Topic: Fear & Islam