Muttness

I did a Google on the term "spiritual mutt" and found very few hits. However, one of the pages was selling t-shirts with the term "spiritual mutt" on it. They trumpeted that a spiritual mutt is one who believes all religions are equally valid as the way to Truth. I balk at that notion.

A "spiritual mutt" is a matter of pedigree. It is one's DNA, if you will, not in one's current outlook or belief system. It is what it is; it is not what we wish it to be. Perhaps the t-shirt above should be read "spiritual wayfarer" or "spiritual voyeur" or "spiritual fondue" but certainly not "spiritual mutt".

My outlook is not what makes me a mutt. My DNA, all that which has come before me to make me as I am today, is what makes me a mutt. In that regard, perhaps, most of us are spiritual mutts. But my "muttness" is not that I believe all religions are the same. That is a discredit to these religions and takes something away from them; there is an undertone of hubris in that statement. There may be a "perennial philosophy" that we can extract but this is not the same thing as saying they are all the same.

To truly understand what it is that a particular religion unfolds, one must commit to it. One must take that one path deep. Taking the surface aspects of whatever religion looks good is of no benefit. It is safe but not transformative. The self (i.e. the ego) is still the Judge of Truth which is the antithesis of all religions. The Truth is independent of us, no matter how much we partake in it.

Take, for example, the poet Rumi. Everyone loves Rumi. About half of the Islam section of Barnes & Noble contains various works by him. But he has been removed from his context. He would have considered himself a Muslim, honoring the Five Pillars, bound by the Shari'ah. Most people who enjoy Rumi would not go that far. So he has been extracted from his context, recontextualized in the light of some vague definition of love and sold to a gullible public. But to understand his notion of love it is vital to understand the context in which he lived and moved and breathed. His notion of love, while bearing similarity to that of, say, the Christian idea of love, would be quite different in essence and this is lost in the desublimation of his works.

This happens all the time. Quotes are taken out of context, tossed into a book of quotes from the various world religions seeking to show their similarities and his quotes are attributed to him as a "Muslim" thus giving the appearance that the religions are the same. It's a nice gesture and it is certainly an improvement of trashing one another's religious beliefs but it is misleading, at best, dangerous, at worst.

I would compare it to what happens to many people who move in to my hometown. People who consider moving here from out of the area are shown our glorious Mill Creek Park. It is one of the finest parks I've ever seen. Then they are taken to the historical parts of town with big mansions from the steel mill heyday, well kept and well preserved. A spin through downtown and the city looks pretty good.

Until they move here. And get to know the area. And learn about the crime, the poverty, the difficult employment picture, the political infighting and the corruption. Had they known what was at the core, a different choice may have been made. No matter how much they wish it to be something else, no matter how much they make the most of it, at its core it is not what they were shown. Had they never moved here in the first place and had only the knowledge of what they had seen, they would probably have a pretty good image of it. And they might compare it to other cities in a positive light. They might even say it reminds them of another city that they have toured.

Such is the nature of the statement that all religions are the same.

Though I share the above views on my hometown and all its ugly (and all towns have ugly because all towns are made up of real people), I have actually found this to be advantageous. When the downtown are was delapidated and all but abandoned during the 90s, I had the complete freedom to roam at leisure through the abandoned buildings of downtown, walking leisurely through the abandoned lots of the former steel mills. It became my refuge, my sanctuary. I could pretty much go where I please unimpeded. The only people I would meet were the small community of homeless people utilizing these areas. Some of my fondest memories are from this period. I could go downtown and disappear and walk for hours on the train tracks without being bothered, take meditative shelter in buildings without hassle, or sit by the river for hours in some of the finest natural preserves in the area without trace of human habitation.

I have roughly 1,000 or so photos from this period. It wasn't until there was a resurgence of sorts in the downtown, the cheesification of it by tossing up a convention center (the architecture of which looks remarkably similar to the empty steel mill just across the bridge, pure function, its only character the lack or imitation of character) and looking to make an entertainment district. We do like to be entertained. It's another word of distracted. Distracted from dealing with reality as it is.

So even in the bleakness there was something positive to be found. But I sought it out, by accident originally, then willfully after a while. Rather than avoid it, I faced it. And was transformed because of it.

Perhaps religions are like that. All religions have a dark side. Perhaps in working through the dark side we find the traces of what was good before it and can learn from it. Perhaps in the darkness we can find light. And we can only work through this apparent darkness by facing it head on, alone.