SKADO’Z IRREGULAR MYTHOLOGY BLOG (SIMB)
The age of one-size-fits-all mythology is fading. A new perspective is emerging which promises to give regular mythology a run for its money. Regular mythology is that which is regulated by, and regularized among, its many adherents.
Irregular mythology is that which is tailored to, and created by, the individual practitioner. Its truth is regulated only by an earnest exploration of reality. It is the solemn responsibility of the practitioner to discover reality’s true nature, and due to technological and cultural advancement, today each person can have a mythology tailored to that individual’s needs. This is to say that I am free build my own, unique worldview, because I am the person most knowledgeable of my own needs. Truth be known, it was probably never otherwise in essence, the only real change being that we are now free to acknowledge it.
The following is the story I built for myself. I offer it as an example for others to borrow as suits their needs, or just as inspiration to start afresh on their own. With your forbearance, I will state the elements of my mythology as if they are factual, even though in some cases they may not yet be fully supported by adequate evidence. This may seem contradictory to my core claim of seeking verifiable truth, but instant perfection is not as realistic a goal as constant improvement. For now it’s more important that I have a fully functioning mythological vehicle, than a flawless museum piece.
That said, I have used what amateur skills I have to stick as closely to scientifically viable ideas as I am currently able. Each hour of study refines the accuracy. Imperfections notwithstanding, this is the jalopy that carried me to my homemade nirvana.
Now my entire mythology is built on the rather arbitrary assumption that there is only one reality. I realize others hold different views, but this feels right to me and serves my mythology well. When I discover hard evidence to the contrary, I’ll make the necessary adjustment.
This concept of reality, the entirety of “what is,” serves as the God figure in my story. I envision it as just the impersonal forces of nature mostly, but it is the reality that created me, and gave me an environment perfectly suited to my needs, so how “impersonal” can it be? It’s the very substance I and everyone I know is made of.
Having been raised in a Christian religion I’m comfortable using some of that tradition’s imagery and terminology, but this is an area where there’s a lot of latitude for custom fitting. I’ve patched in some of my favorite bits from Taoism and Buddhism, for example.
It isn’t critical to my story whether the universe was created from absolutely nothing at an exact point in time, or has simply always existed in some form or other, but for ease of handling, I’m happy to refer to my God as its Creator, because, at minimum, He/It created me, and the universe probably did, I suspect, come to rest in its current state through some big-bangish event or other, which is undeniably creative in nature. If the implication of ‘everything’ being the creator of ‘everything’ here represents any kind of stumbling block for the reader, it is a good opportunity to remember that the map will never be the territory, and the mythology map doesn’t need to be as precise as the science map. Our worldview is only a useful travel-guide. Its continual realignment with reality will prove useful, but will always remain incomplete. It’s not a place for perfectionism.
So what about that science map? Whether contemplating nature personified as God, or God as a sentient being, our gods are all conspicuously reluctant to show their faces in any visible way. We may have strong intuitions and feelings, but the only tangible evidence we have to examine is the Creation itself, so that becomes a sacred duty. What we find, we must recognize as God’s own Truth, forged by His hand. Created materiality alone is no substitute for the Spirit of God, of course, but an intimate examination of His handiwork is rewarded with a revealing reflection of the Maker’s character.
For this most sacred duty we must use the most reliable method of inquiry we can devise. Its reliability must not be surmised but demonstrated if we are sincere in our investigation. And what we find will have to stand as the best we have until we find better, if knowledge is our goal. Belief is another matter. Knowledge is words about truth.
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?”
How, indeed? In spirit, of course, so what is spirit? My homemade mythology sees spirit as attitude, mood, or “relative emotional buoyancy”. We humans have large, complex brains that can get us into trouble. Forever we have been plagued with glitches and demons that torment us mercilessly if we are not prepared to bring them under our command. Commanding our demons is a skill that has been highly prized throughout history and has always risen to the top of our concerns in life; shall we say sacralized?
It’s the top concern in my myth – the reduction of suffering. I take the best knowledge available and apply it toward the relief of unnecessary suffering. So which suffering is that? Do I want to be relieved of my suffering over the recent loss of my best friend to a heart attack? No. This suffering that immediately surrounds the painful event is a part of the flow of life and meaning, and must not be rejected. I call this proximal suffering.
The suffering that is so corrosive to us is the distal suffering: the suffering that has become woven into our habit. The cumulative residual suffering from past events that degrades our emotional buoyancy in the background, with barely our conscious notice. Or it dominates inordinate periods of our waking thought, producing no constructive result. In worst cases it can wreck lives. It has rightly earned the highest concern of humankind. This is what religion was created to combat.
My method says religion is whatever discipline we use to maintain our spiritual buoyancy. The often heard expression, “I’m spiritual but not religious” looks like a confession that “I’m emotional but not disciplined.” I’d like to suggest a gentle discipline: Learning about the Creation. This is a suitable discipline that has unforeseeable rewards. It can walk us down the road to liberation… with the lights on. No “mystery” required. No hocus-pocus. Verifiable fact by verifiable fact, we can walk straight to the automatic release of ego identity via natural processes the human species was designed to perform. We may not have been specifically designed to perform ‘to this purpose’ but we clearly have the capacity, if we choose to borrow it.
When knowledge of reality is built upon knowledge of reality the unconscious mind builds a new worldview platform from which an even more accurate view of reality can be seen. A more accurate view reveals the truth that we are not our egoic concerns. When this becomes evident, we permanently lose our capacity for distal suffering. It cannot be regained. This could be rightly seen, I believe, as a fifth stage of cognitive development in the Piaget scheme. At any rate, it provides an experience of life free from distal suffering. Permanently. Eternal spiritual liberation.
What about meditation? It can be useful, no question. Any exercise that builds mental skill is to be revered, as we all need shelter from the occasional storm, but we no longer have to crawl in darkness all the way to freedom. We can stand up and walk with eyes open now. We can walk in the light of knowledge all the way across the border, and never look back.
So what border is this? From neonatal, proto-worldview identity to spiritual adulthood. When we are born, we come programmed with certain instincts for survival. We quickly add to that the experience-built, prototypical worldview that will propel us through the trials of infancy. This worldview was built to serve a mind that has not yet developed the capacity for abstract thought. It is directed by, and identified with, what we popularly refer to as ego: a mandate for survival.
As we grow to physical adulthood, usually this proto-worldview is incrementally modified to shed its dependent emotional attachment to the biological mother. Taking up our newfound skills at abstraction, we typically transfer this attachment to a socially acceptable surrogate. Gods are born. But they are still the gods of ego identity; a magnet for the suffering that makes us cry the alarms of infancy to our ever-present, saving parent, now once removed. This dance can span a lifetime.
To break this self-perpetuating cycle of suffering we must do the unthinkable; we must betray our god, and our god must betray us; we must hang on the cross.
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus volunteered for this torture, but most of us mortals will manage to avoid such supreme terror if not forced by life’s circumstances to confront it. Most of us need a good crisis to shove us over the precipice. Christ/cross/crisis/crucifix/crux/crossroad; a fork in the road, a decision of crucial significance to be made. This is a time of trouble.
From the Gospel of Thomas:
“Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he shall be troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be amazed, and shall come to transcend all things”.
What is this trouble? It is the paralyzing realization that the system we were depending on to protect us from total destruction was only an illusion. In reality we are naked, vulnerable, lost, and suffering. Excellent! Just the motivation we need to get serious about our search for truth; no more being satisfied by comforting platitudes and conventional explanations that privately ring hollow. Now is the time for earnest stalking of the prey we are most hungry for. It’s time for bedrock truth, no matter how hard or cold it may seem at first glance. It’s time to try on spiritual adulthood for size.
But how? If we are to be successful, by a massive escalation of the strictness of the criteria by which we accept or reject a piece of data for inclusion in the adult worldview. So what is worldview? It is a mental model of objective reality, complete with representations of the material substrate, its events, information, relationships, and meaning. To this we add our philosophy of being, by which we measure the acceptability to ourselves of our own behavior. The spiritually mature worldview is not a further modification of the instinctive/defensive proto-worldview; it is a complete abandonment of it in favor of a worldview based on objective reality. It takes time to build.
The first iterations are spare and shaky. Where mistakes are made, cognitive dissonance is generated. Corrections bring relief. As critical weaknesses are addressed, strength is gained. When the greater broadstrokes of the model begin to substantively align with reality (a.k.a. God) a tipping point is passed beyond which the seeker can no longer sustain a willful disbelief in his/her wholeness. Familiarity with reality leaves no room for this delusion. Identity with infantile inferiority and helplessness crumbles and evaporates. Darkness succumbs to light; bondage to freedom. Nirvana has come.