Squirrel is looking for a laff riot. We could always discuss Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

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Now there is one mystic i would be, and am, happy to mysticate with.

Yeah, me too.
Gibran had his moments too.

Actually almost all of them have their moments, even the Christian ones who had to be very careful not to trigger the “heresy” response from the usual suspects, especially back in the day when the firewood was permanently stacked, just in case.
One wonders what the likes of Pat Robertson would make of something like this;

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” — Teresa of Ávila

I’ll note that the likes of Robertson, over the years, have so contaminated even the very words inherent to Christianity that sensible people everywhere have great difficulty in overcoming the cringe factor when reading stuff like this.
It’s possible that phenomenon has contributed to the rise in interest in mystications from other traditions — not having to hold one’s nose past the stench of sanctimony surely must have something to do with it. At least it does for me, and I can’t think I’m unique in that regard.

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(I thought I’d come across some odd delusions when I was a psychiatric nurse, but there’s nothing like a Tory to surprise you.)

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Zen . . .oh, dear, it does indeed. That ‘climbing signposts’ is a good metaphor; I think I might pinch it.

I’ve seen rather a lot of that over the years. I keep quiet about it now; so many people have lectured me about it, but they’ve all been using it as an escape, just another way of off-loading the problems of the world (and theirs) from their shoulders. Just another form of lighting candles to saints, really.

(They are also, or have been, pretty much without exception, people who’ve used drugs of one kind or another for pretty much the same purpose.)

I’ve never been able to see that Zen Buddhism is supposed to be used to absolve yourself of responsibilities or pretend they don’t exist. But then, I’ve never had any inclination to go to one of their ‘teachers’ either.

(Anybody ever read, or, more to the point, actually tried to do any of those Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola? Not, btw, something I would recommend you trying at home . . .There are some surprising similarities with what some of those ‘teachers’ get people to do; and I’ve never been too surprised at some of the odd results. I’ve long wondered if westerners particularly are particularly prone to fall into a kind of mental self-flagelllation.

An aspect of that ‘climbing the signpost’ while forgetting you’re supposed to be looking for the road it points to? Or, on the way, misreading the one that says ‘self-abnegation’ for ‘self-absorption’? A danger a Jesuit priest once told me, when I mentioned my curiosity about them, is the least of the traps Jesuit novices regularly fall into with them very early on, even under ‘instruction’.)

I keep thinking, especially these days, when you seem to hear Christians (especially Protestants, and I suppose even more especially Evangelicals) go on much more than I’m sure they used to about Christ ‘suffering for us all’ and ‘taking on our sins’ and so on, that that’s only really a kind of transfer of responsibility and ‘blame’, if you like, for an awful lot of people.

Does that account for why Evangelical Christianity seems to be getting (to my mind) peculiarly popular in parts of the world that have had a Buddhist influence since long before it was ever imagined?

Aren’t we being serious? I was trying to think of something a bit comic to post, but somehow this week, with one thing and another (not least the revival of the ‘Thatcher-Fascist’ beasts again—much as I’m enjoying Cameron and the Coalition’s utter confusion and headless-chicken behaviour, I’m horrified by the cause of it) I don’t seem to be able to . . .

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I noticed with great pleasure your quote from Rumi up top. Now there is one mystic i would be, and am, happy to mysticate with. If his poems were the only holy book on this earth us humans would be a damn sight easier with each other, and with ourselves.

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I really don’t want to quibble about this.

Good grief, me either.
And for sure most adherents to religion are not on the same page as their mystical progenitors. A few “early adopters” perhaps were, or somewhere close to it, but that’s about it, which is all I meant by “initially”. Still, it’s interesting to ponder what they found so compelling. Turning water into wine is quite a trick, and would sure work, but not all of them were such show-offs.

Once a few diarists some good while later start writing what they heard tell of, and once the whole show starts attracting big numbers, it’s a pretty short hop to dogmatic bible (whatever) idolatry anyway, which is where churchiness seems to lead. Perhaps inevitably.

Even Zen, which at least on paper is supposed to be about the direct experience, has its factions and nitpickers. Something about humankind’s tendency to climb signposts instead of following roads? Beats me.

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For Second Careers, A Leap of Faith

Growing numbers of people see retirement as a chance to “do good” and are turning to divinity schools and a more spiritual life

After decades of pursuing money, titles and ever more stuff, baby boomers are coming to a big realization: Success and security just aren’t enough anymore. They want something more fulfilling out of life, something that feeds their spiritual side and connects them to a bigger purpose.

For many, the answer is embracing faith—and devoting their lives to serving others.

Flocks of people in their 50s and 60s are putting aside thoughts of a comfortable retirement and heading to theological school, where they’ve become the fastest-growing age group in recent years. They’re putting in years of study and field work to become chaplains, spiritual counselors, missionaries, and educators and social workers for nonprofits with religious ties. And they’re taking that training everywhere from disaster zones to impoverished villages to hospital bedsides.

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Because the people in charge are absolutely fucked, and everybody needs a little reassurance that if you could just get past the assholes running things, there’s somebody fundamentally honest and decent overseeing the whole mess.

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I really don’t want to quibble about this. I had thought that question b) was about “why so many people are attracted to that belief set initially” and that “that belief set” was what “a mystic… believes.” Now I don’t happen to think that what most adherents of religion are and ever have been very much attracted to is someone else’s mystically derived beliefs, especially “initially” — but that’s just my opinion, and I’m not going to be greatly offended if you tell me you think it’s nonsense.

I agree that mysticism itself is far more interesting. And I agree far, far more that the kind of religious inclinations that made religion possible thousands of generations ago never had anything to do with any kind of church.

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