Fear v Faith, and Why I Am Taking a Hiatus From Blogging

If you've been reading this blog, you will be aware that spiritual practice is an essential part of my life as I observe the state of the world and comment on it.   I watched a powerful video recently in which Latoya Okela taught that the spiritual struggle comes down to fear v faith.   And that fear is stronger than faith.   Therefore, we must double down on our work to find absolute faith.   (To define what I mean by "faith" is to complicated for this post.   If you are interested go to my Buddhist website, noted below, and read some posts on faith. )

And we must find that faith within us, not just say to ourselves that we have faith.   The latter has some value, but I can guarantee based on my own experience, that if there is a shred of doubt within you about your faith, that the mind will assert itself and take control. 

Everything that we think, say, or do that causes us suffering is at its core a function of fear.   Even insecurity, which I have written is at the core, is based on fear.

I must face it.   You must face it.   Everyone must face it.   And the only way to finally overcome fear is through absolute faith.   Without that faith, all effort to free oneself of fear by embracing it, having compassion for it, saying "Not me!" or any of the other means I have suggested in my posts will not work.   Because some part of you, regardless how small, does not really believe in your faith and therefore your efforts lack the force of faith.   

I have learned to be dispassionate in my reaction to things that had previously caused anxiety, nothing pushes my buttons, and I thought that meant fear was no longer there, but I realized one recent morning in my meditation that it is; it just doesn't express itself in the obvious way. 

I have written several posts on faith in my Buddhist blog, www.thepracticalbuddhist.com, and they remain of value.   But I have realized that there is a hole in the dyke of my faith.   And it is because of that hole that I keep on experiencing situations in which my mind asserts itself and controls my actions, which I always am surprised at and share in my posts.   

Usually I have dug deeper into my trauma and found something I hadn't been aware of before.   But that's not the problem.   The problem is the hole in my faith.   Bach wrote a famous hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."  The same can be said of faith.   But if your faith has a weak point, it will crumble and not protect you, just like a fortress that is built on a weak foundation. 

So I need to work on making my faith absolute. 

For that reason, this will be my last post for some time.   Why?  I have discovered that this blog and other writing of mine has been my mind's way of showing that I am right, that I have knowledge, and gaining the acknowledgment and respect of others.   It is a craving of mine. 

This is an example of the weakness of my faith.   If it were absolute, I would not crave the acknowledgment of others.   It would not be a driving force in almost everything that I do. 

In one of my books, I said, after going through a list of suggested actions, "just do it."  And that is the case here as well.   And so I will stop feeding that craving until I find that my faith is absolute. 

How Faith in Consumerism/Technology Replaced Faith in God

A friend of mine said once that whenever anyone walked through the doors of our Buddhist temple, it was because they were suffering and they were seeking a path to end their suffering.  That is probably a statement that can be made of all religions.  

In the past, when true faith in God was high, most people looked to religion to ease their insecurity and if not end their suffering, at least give them faith that there was some larger reason for their suffering.  Belief in God trumped everything else. “The Lord works in mysterious ways”; if we mere mortals can’t understand why, it’s not in our place to ask.  Even when people were in dire circumstances or tragedy struck, their faith in God was not questioned, indeed could not be questioned because to question it would have left them bereft of spiritual support, alone and unprotected; instead their faith provided them with comfort.

Enter the modern age of capitalism and consumerism.  Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution was taking root in the public mind, creating fissures in the bedrock of faith in the Bible and in God (the Scopes Monkey trial was in 1925), and the scope of the terrors of WWI raised questions anew about God’s mysterious way, there rose in our midst a new preacher, the ad agencies who promised happiness and security through the acquisition of goods and wealth.  Shaken in their beliefs, people were open to a new way to end their suffering, a new faith, and thus were an easy target for the siren call of consumerism.

And so for most of the 20th century, although surveys in the U.S. consistently reported that the vast majority of people stated they believed in God, religious service attendance declined as did membership.  People were giving lip-service to a belief in God, most likely as a result of peer pressure, the desire to belong to the group.  Their actions spoke otherwise.

But although the masses bought in to consumerism and its promise of happiness, people found themselves still feeling insecure and alone.  Small wonder!  And so during the last decade or so, the siren call of the new technology and social media found an avid audience.  If you observe people on the street, in restaurants, in any public setting, it would appear that most people have been fully taken in by the illusion of connectedness, of multitudes of friends, that the new technology provides.  Their faith in this illusion is so strong because it seems directly to answer their deepest longing.  Indeed the only word to describe their constant attachment to their electronics is “addiction.”   How sad.

At about the same time, though, a slight change in this shift of allegiance away from God could be observed.  Some people, mainly among the young, were feeling the effects of having no spiritual support.  They had grown up in an era in which they were not exposed to true faith.  So, unlike their parents, their faith wasn’t shaken, it never existed; there was just emptiness.  While they didn’t reject consumerism and technology, they were looking for something deeper to end their suffering and insecurity.

On the Protestant stage, numerous mega-churches … orthodox in the sense of preaching the inviolability of the Bible as the word of God … began preaching that God wants you to be rich.  That together with their emotional enticements … being born again and having a “personal relationship with Christ” … and “relevant” formatting resulted in soaring membership and attendance.  An odd marriage of convenience.

On the Jewish front, there has also been a large increase in the Orthodox community, both the more liberal Modern Orthodox and the ultra-Orthodox.  Without, however, the accommodation to modern culture seen in the Protestant mega-churches. 

But these changes in the Protestant and Jewish communities are small blips in the overall decline in religiosity as measured by attendance and membership.  The false idols of Consumerism/Technology still hold the greatest sway in our modern culture.  And so the vast majority of people, bereft of any sense of their spirituality, are left feeling alone and insecure behind a facade of connectedness at the same time as their ability to find some security through consuming, illusory though it may be, is impacted by falling real wages.

One can only hope that another false idol doesn’t appear on the scene to lead a weakened people astray and that instead a true source of spirituality, accessible to modern man, makes its presence felt and awakens people to their true self … to the God, Buddha, Higher Power, or whatever one calls it within them. 

What Ails Us

The other night, I attended a wonderful chamber music concert at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.  On the program were various pieces stretching from Haydn to Webern, so from roughly 1780 - 1905, and one contemporary piece from 2014.  Listening to those pieces in juxtaposition revealed what ails the contemporary world.

The purpose of art, whether visual or musical, was for centuries (I can’t speak to early eras) about uplifting the spirit, about bringing beauty into the world.  The object was not to deny or cover up the suffering and nastiness in the world that was self-evident to all, but to show that even in the worst of situations, beauty could be found and the spirit uplifted.  Listening to classical music and viewing “classical” art remains a very deep spiritual experience.

That began to change with WWI.  In the face of such devastating inhumanity, art felt that it had to be more reflective of the angst in the world … and the Modernist movement was born.  In the beginning, some reflected this angst while still creating profoundly beautiful and spiritual works … the music of Alban Berg (“Wozzeck” and “Lulu”) for example.  Others like the artists George Grosz and Otto Dix had no use for such niceties.

But as modernism continued to develop, art more and more reflected the increasing cynicism of modern culture.  “Surrealists and Expressionists devised wobbly, chopped-up perspectives and nightmarish visions of fractured human bodies and splintered societies slouching toward moral chaos.”  Beauty was absent.  All was discord and violence.  The idiom became the message.

And so, for example, the piece “Parallels,” while being composed to commemorate the artist who advised the assemblage of art which became the Barnes Foundation … a collection of inexhaustible beauty and complexity … was nevertheless all about the contemporary idiom.  While it was powerful and intellectually stimulating, it was not a work of beauty that moved the spirit.

This is certainly not true for all contemporary artists.  There are still composers (like Philip Glass and John Adams) and painters (I’m not as familiar with names in this area, the deceased George Brown of the Chicago school comes to mind) who are held in high esteem while creating works of contemporary individuality and profound beauty.  But the trend, pardon my using that overused word, is in the opposite direction.

Cultural organizations, both art museums and orchestras/operas/ballet, are almost falling over themselves trying to attract a younger audience.  Certainly if one goes to classical music events, the audience is mostly older with some music students mixed in.  

But try though they may, their efforts are doomed because the art represented by museums and classical music organizations does not speak to young people.  Not because it is out of date and not relevant; beauty is always relevant even if the context is out of date.  But because they have no faith, no belief in something larger than themselves.  They are not spiritual.  They are cynical about the world and the concept of beauty is antithetical to their experience.  Especially in the current technology-obsessed age, the only things valued are what reflect the now or point to the technological future.

This is a sad state of affairs.   The United Negro College Fund’s motto is, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”  I would paraphrase that and say that the human spirit is a terrible thing to waste.

But what we need is not a religious revival; or at least not a country full of born again people who nevertheless chase the almighty dollar and have contempt for those who dare not share their perspective.

What we need is a spiritual revival, in the sense of feeling that there is something larger than ourselves (meaning our ego) to have faith in, whether it’s faith in God, in a Higher Power, or in your true Buddha nature.  And believing that our only purpose in life is to offer others joy … to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  To turn our will and our life over to the care of our Higher Power, thus returning home, and be at peace, accepting that things are the way they are at this moment because it’s just the way it is, be grateful and compassionate, and find happiness in each moment.  Then we will once again be open to the beauty that exists everywhere, in every moment.