Tuesday

enter the Master

It is easy enough in this self help world to think that since there is only one Divine Center and each of us is aware of it, that any of us should democratically speaking be able to have union with God as we wish with no intermediaries.

The paradigm is: I pray to God, God comes to me.

Spiritually speaking, there are those of us who feel this way and traditionalists who believe that you only get to the source through a Master. In a sense you could look at the whole Catholic Church as a Cult for Christ, with Jesus as the Master and all the trailing souls coming to God through Him.

In the West the idea of individuals being divine is a Pagan idea. It predates Christianity. And if you think about it for a minute: here were all these Pagans, no longer worshiping Jupiter, now worshiping Jehovah. I wonder sometimes if there is really any difference.

When I walk into a Catholic Church, and sense the age of the architecture I wallow in it's Romanness. Because the Church was a creature of Rome, Imperial Rome and the Emperor. Did he think it was a new face on a Pagan world?

No self respecting modern Christian would for a moment think that anyone but Christ or a saint is able to be anything other than an ordinary human being. With all the faults and supposed faults that that entails.

We are uniquely Christian with a European Pagan heritage and only certain very ancient people are of God. And we have believed this from what seems to us the beginning of time.

So it is rather difficult for someone (like me) from a more or less Christian background to walk right into Hindu mysticism without balking just a bit.

Like most people I grew up in the stew of Scientific Rationalism and a local Church that was contemporary with my time.

Thus although some of the practices of Yoga, and Hindu mysticism are interesting and useful, that panoply of Gods, and Goddesses is largely ignored. I shall have the hors d'oeuvres and leave the main meal go. Which might be unsatisfying to the Hindu Teacher.

Well, I suspect that religion does not translate well.

But the key thing about the Yoga & the Hinduism that I became involved with was that in order to progress on the path you had to in some sense latch your soul onto the Master's. As a concept this did not translate well with me.

I find it perverse to call someone a Master. But then perhaps I will be chained to the wheel of life forever for the simple benefit of faith.

Mountain Village Cobblestone Streets

Imagine a village in the mountains somewhere.  Cobblestone streets, so I'm thinking Europe. It's hilly, and the street is narrow. ...