I’ll take that to heart, thank you very much. There is nothing I can’t do. I’m just too lazy to give a damn.

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Bum bum bum. Blogger is the death of my academic motivation. As are certain people.

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This morning’s conversation was bizarre. When we woke up, David and I somehow started talking about religion. Ah, now I remember a bit. David asked what sort of books I read when I was a kid. After going through the list (fantasy, sci-fi, science), I started talking about C.S. Lewis, which led to Phillip Pullman and “His Dark Materials,” which then inevitably led us to religion, as Lewis was a Christian and Pullman an atheist. If you recall, there were some Christian groups calling for a boycott of “The Golden Compass” film last year.

I remarked on how agnosticism is something I’ll never understand. I do not consider it a religion or a philosophy per se, but more of a transitional phase between faith and atheism. I know that the general conception of an agnostic is “one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god.” Stole it from Webster, natch.

However, after a bit more research, it seems agnostics are more of the opinion that human perceptions are inherently fallible, and thus the true nature of things will forever be obscured. Now, to me, this sounds an awful lot like mysticism and the Christian medieval notion of divine transcendence. The difference being that agnostics seem to prefer not to maintain any allegiances to either side.

Query: Am I boring you yet?

Ah, I don’t know. Agnosticism just seems to be a convenient (and exceedingly lame) way of remaining noncommittal. Mystics and divine transcendence already figured out centuries ago that God or whatever it is cannot be perfectly comprehended by the human mind. They simply decided that our human limits should not be the end of our pursuit of spiritual knowledge.

Interjection: Oh, someone remind me to write about self-actualization one day.

Meh. I consider myself more of a mystic than anything else. Mystics strive to achieve communion with or develop a conscious understanding of spiritual truth, whatever that turns out to be. Through methods such as meditation, mystics seek a communion with the One, which is sometimes interpreted to be that which everything else stems from. It is the attempt to unify one’s individual soul with the divine soul, so to speak. If you’re interested, there is a mystical sect of all the major religions. They just have different names for the One and the methods by which they seek. Christians have the “union.” Buddhists have Nirvana, etc. Since this sort of feeling is prevalent all around the world, it seems to me that human beings have this all-encompassing need to feel as if they are a part of something larger. Because sometimes we feel so small and alone. Personally, I don’t care how we do it. If people need to personify a god, so be it. If people prefer not to, that’s fine by me too.

So, what was my point?

Ah. I rambled a lot but I wanted to communicate that an active approach to Life is a more fulfilling approach. There is nothing gained from letting certain limitations get the best of you. Meh. I’m reaching with that lame conclusion.

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Ah, crap. I wanted to eventually get to my favorite Hindu story. It’s about Vishnu‘s dream. Vishnu is the divine dreamer of the world dream. As he sleeps, he dreams up the world and everything in it. Therefore, we are all manifestations of Vishnu. I love this notion so much. My philosophy of religion professor at Santa Monica College told us a little fairytale based on Vishnu’s dream. She said that parents would tell the dream this way:

One day Vishnu fell asleep and dreamed up the world and all of its inhabitants. Every little thing in this world was created by this sleeping god. And while dreaming he put himself into this world, and the dream world was so good that he forgot he was Vishnu, and continued to live his life in the world dream.

I love this so much because in this way, you can tell a child that he or she potentially has nothing to fear. Whatever apprehensions you may have, you can grow up with the assurance that you have limitless potential. You could be Vishnu.

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Hell, I want to be Vishnu.

(via snip-snap-beep.blogspot.com)