In search of the sacred

What is sacred to me?

The first thing that comes to mind is the gaze of animals and babies. There's something inexpressible about the purity of nature and natural wisdom that shines through the eyes of wild creatures and infant children too young to speak. Imagination is also sacred to me. In fact, it may be the closest connection to sacredness I have. I want to cultivate the sacred in my life; the images, the ideas, the experiences, and all that emanates from them.

I feel a spiritual dearth, a potential that requires great discipline and care in order for it to come into fruition. I am a seed that has been germinating, and my roots have grown wild and tangled beneath the surface but my bud waits to flower. I find great fascination in the beliefs and teachings of Native American shamans, Tibetan monks, and Hinduism. In fact, I'm finding myself drawn to all kinds of spiritual disciplines and religions.

As a boy, I used to scoff at religion and was blind to the possibilities of the unknown, but as I've matured, that view has gradually turned and shifted toward the acceptance of religion as a metaphor for the inner journey. All my life I've felt the desire to dive deep into myself to unlock sacred truths about myself and life, but there's always been a great chasm keeping me from finding firm spiritual footing. My lack of religious teaching as a child and the distaste for religion that grew out of my own scientific curiosity planted the germ of fear in my heart.

I see now that the chasm was never an obstacle-- my own fear of the chasm is the obstacle. To truly discover myself, I must abandon fear and leap into the heart of my soul. But the question then becomes, how do I abandon my fears? This is the kind of inner alchemy that my soul so desperately desires-- the ability to transform and refine the primal substance into higher and higher states of purity-- a purity not unlike that which radiates through the tired eyes of an old dog, or a particularly colorful finch that flitters out of the sky to land nearby and cocks her head curiously in my direction. The magnificence and serendipity of being in the presence of such a creature moves me to awe and wonder and warms my heart with the beauty of existence--and then the finch flies away with the sharp flapping of wings, and the dog lowers his head and droops his eyes until sleep overtakes him. It's funny to think that animals could have more spiritual wisdom than humans, but I think in most cases it's true. If anything, our fascination with plants and animals is a reflection of their natural purity, which we as humans have forgotten in search of material desires.

I should note that I am particularly sensitive and aware of that conflict between man and nature, as if my excellent eyesight and acute empathy were gifted for that purpose alone. Yet despite my empathic nature, I have not reconciled my patience with the terribly selfish and heinous things that people do to each other, and especially to the Earth and its creatures. I am always greatly pained by man's carelessness for the consequences of his actions, but I am reminded that it is part of my nature as well. Along side of my empathy and desire for reconciliation lies a deep cynicism and apathy for humankind, and I cannot deny my occasional hypocritical choices. But I am not so vain as to ignore such glaring contradictions, which is an honest quality that I take pride in (and one that I greatly admire in Barack Obama), and I put myself through a lot of mental anguish in trying to assimilate the inherent flaws in my personality.

With knowledge of my personal flaws and conflicts, I think that perfection is a word best left out of the dictionary. One cannot judge "right" without the concept of "wrong", and one cannot change from an assumed state of perfection except for deconstruction. The old standard that "Man is the measure of all things" falls terribly short of reality. One could certainly say that man is the measurer of all things, and that man's bias falls squarely upon himself. But the idea that humans are the pinnacle of perfection is the kind of arrogant ideology that has led to the rejection of nature and separation from our animal roots in lieu of a man-made institution known as science.

Don't get me wrong--I love science, and I wouldn't be typing this rant without serious admiration for it (not to mention computers or internets). But science is no different than any other creation of man. It is an ideal expressed through our imperfect nature and held up as a perfect faith for man to follow. Now, I would say that if science were widely accepted as a "faith" or religion, it would still be the most rigorously tested, provable, and formidable faith known. I don't take issue with the fact that science is but a faith, like any other religion. I take issue with the fact that most people--scientists included--believe that science trumps religion in all aspects, to the point where faith cannot compare to the absolute nature of empiricism. Well where does science stand on deja vu, lucid dreams, extra-temporal visions, UFO sightings, psychedelic experiences, paranormal activities, or the existence of a soul? For the most part, it rejects them as "pseudo-science", or condemns them to the realm of speculation, conspiracy, or madness. And yet millions of individuals cannot seriously be lying about such claims, for they have nothing to gain but the awkward glare of "normal society."

These extreme examples represent the individual experience that you and I live through every day, the type of intuitive, fleeting moments that pass through our lives as vividly as the chill of a deep winter gust. When I think about it, my life is influenced considerably more by the unobservable and immeasurable experiences than the empirical facts of life itself. It's wonderful to know that over 70% of the Earth is water, and that's certainly useful to biologists, geologists, and cartographers, but what do I care? Having a mythic dream and being late for work because of its effect on me is far more imperative to my understanding of the world and my place in it than any statistic or discovery that scientists might proclaim.

And so, I reach a conclusion that many great minds before me have: science and religion are two aspects of our reality, one explainable and the other inexplainable. They seem mutually exclusive in the way they've battled it out for centuries. But it's easy to forget that both are founded on our fundamental conscious understanding of the world. One puts faith in Reason and the other puts faith in God. I suppose what I seek in this life is a mutually inclusive view of faith and reason, one that shrewdly observes physical phenomena and metaphysical phenomena as two sides of the same coin.

Thankfully, there are more and more scientists these days who feel the same as I do, like Michael Behe (author of Edge of Evolution and Darwin's Black Box), Stuart A. Kaufman (Reinventing the Sacred), and Jeremy Narby (Intelligence in Nature and The Cosmic Serpent), to name a few. Through science they have found the inexpressible nature within, and instead of branding those conclusions as potholes to steer around or patch over, they attempt to assimilate them into the greater awareness of the individual experience, because what is more consequential or vital than the personal journey?

I don't know my purpose in the world, but I strive to find it every day (give or take). I can't understand my life's meaning because it's incomplete. As Jung wrote (paraphrased), a man does not intuit the meaning of his life until shortly before death, if at all. More likely, those who knew and loved him will decide the meaning of his life after the fact. All I can do is try to find something within--a sacred path that can guide me along the way to the ultimate truth. Searching for and cataloguing the sacred as it passes by or bubbles up through the imagination to build a sort of retreat within myself. Drawing and expressing this inner space helps ground me in a more spiritually aware reality.

I can't claim success in this regard, for I am just as confused about myself as you are, perhaps even more so because of my incessant thinking, but I have also found much solace in letting "that which does not matter truly slide," as Tyler Durden finds out in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. In my own way, I hope that by externalizing the internal sacredness, and vice versa, a feedback loop may be generated that lets spiritual energy flow in and out, in and out, inhaling and exhaling the beauty and darkness of life, and perhaps then may the grace of purity be felt.

(if you read all of this, I love you.)