Duh Arm Uhh

So the other day (12JUL11) an old army buddy of mine posted to his facebook; a query on the meaning of life. Mind you it's about 10 a.m. in the morning, and I am just getting up and have barley been dressed for 2 minutes before I see this. So 'off the cuff' I answer with the best response that i have, which was no answer at all. And after I put my shoes on I went back to my laptop and responded with " to live out our dharma the best way possible." Our exchanges went back and forth at least til mid afternoon; with him responding in tune with his usual strain of military type sarcasm, dousing my 'theological intellect' with his sharp tone and coarse wit that he wielded during our service days. But he told me that if he was hindu that would have made sense, then asked what do you say to someone who isn't hindu or who refuted the entire argument in general. Which I can only surmise that he was alluding to atheiest, but an these arent the kind of questions atheist routinely ask, and besides I known that my friend wasn't an atheist already. But I could empathize with his concern for the otherside of the equation.

But my response to him at the time was that I was not a hindu, and I was telling him about the concept of dharma. Which he then retorted-by defining religion as taking another person's (minister/pastor) word for it when it comes to big cosmic questions or lofty theological issues. Which for me is a point that I can understand, having come from a Baptist background, or at least I think I know where he is coming from. But I also told him that even the Buddha told his followers on his death bed not to take his teachings strictly on face value, but to take the voyage for them selves, and to keep seeking.

 It has always been my understanding that even though written words take on a life of their own; and the words written in holy books give lives to some people-people like me. Some of my people (religous and atheist alike) take the words all too seriously, when really I think that the ancients who wrote those words so long ago, had totally diffrent intentions when they etched those words on scrolls and lambskin so long ago. Imagine if you could, you were asked to write a story or leave a note behind for future generations, and all you had as a point of reference were the culture and the people of the time; and had no way to account for how the future would pan out. Well this is what the writers of all our ancient text were doing. I do not think if Moses knew that millions of people called 'gays' would be ostraizied in a place thousands of miles away called America he would have etched what he did in Leviticus (18:22). Or the Apostle Paul would've written about the relaltions between slaves and masters in his society, where slavery was a common practice in the society inwhich he lived, for a number of generations. I am almost positive that he had no clue a bunch of anglo human traficers would've used this verse to justify the rape and murder of countless generations of African slaves. Living in a dualistic universe only lends itself to the carnal will of humanity; and one must come to terms with the fact that man has the capacity for utter evil. Now I cannot be sure about this but I think that the divine counts on the inheritnt bravery and goodness that is native to the human spirit, which sets us all free eventually; even if that means waiting on the democracy of death.

So in the end I am not sure how to respond to questions that rock the foundation of what can be a mundane existence. Prayer is a good way for me to do this, I try to stay in contact with the divine in all that I do, even when I am doing things that I am not supposed to be doing. I won't confuse you with red herrings like 'does god allow evil' cause to me that implies that we don't possses  any of teh divine qaualities of our creator. Which is what I was tryiny to convey to my old army buddy. And I do not subscribe to the school of thought that proports that 'father god' is all mighty and we are all teh helpless children waiting to be rescued. No -no Psams 82:6 tells us that: we are 'gods' we are all sons of the Most High. So you see free will is more than freedom, and the will to be ignorant; but let us use all the tools at our disposal. Let us practic our duh arm uh!

So in closing I leave you with a piecce from the late great comdeian Bill Hicks.