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Dalton
Roberts |
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Two notes came to me
in one day and each made me think in a different way. One scolded me for
speaking well of Buddhism and feeling that I had a friend in Jesus. The
other said, “I don’t let my mind stunt my growth.” The writer of the
first note is a man I have long admired for his independent thinking and
courage to buck the tide when an issue mattered to him. He would knock
the juice out of a standard IQ test, I am certain. He wrote, “I would
never have thought you would have fallen for a bunch of myth and
mysticism. I had heard that you embraced Buddhism which I always found
somewhat confusing when you would use Christian references in your
essays.” While I have never
“embraced Buddhism” as my primary spiritual path, I have long
enjoyed and profited by reading great Buddhist writings. I started
meditating 20 years ago to lower my blood pressure and found Buddhist
and certain Catholic orders most helpful in those studies. I am neither
Buddhist nor Catholic but I am like a bee that loves nectar from all
kinds of flowers. I am grateful to those Buddhist and Catholic writers
who taught me the basics of meditation. It enriched my life
dramatically. He goes on to say,
“Intelligent men really should make themselves aware of what human
science is discovering about the origins and fallacies contained in
‘god’s word.’” The clear inference here is that those who gather
life nectar from the Bible are not very intelligent. After early
disenchantment with religion I read scores of books and magazines
critical of our old and new testaments as well as all the other
scriptures held sacred by other civilizations all over the world. After
a period of rejecting them all, I came to realize that portions of all
of them inspired me. I found that sufficient grounds to study and enjoy
them. I don’t think my IQ dropped a point when I came to that
realization. In the next paragraph
he became more explicit in his appraisal of a mystic’s intelligence.
He said some people don’t read biblical criticism “because they
don’t have the intellectual horsepower to deal with it.” A few minutes after
reading his mail, I received Cherie Harclerode’s note about not
letting her mind stunt her growth. That is exactly what people do who
believe rationality contains all reality. Even Sigmund Freud, the father
of psychiatry and an atheist, postulated a superego (higher value
center) along with an id (basic instincts) and an ego (mediator between
the id and superego). He didn’t call the superego the spiritual nature
of humankind but I do not think I am wrong to see it that way. One thing is certain:
we are much more than minds and bodies. We fall in love with people and
animals and melodies and trees and flowers and all kinds of things both
tangible and intangible. These things move us in ways that are not
rational. Often we do not have the slightest understanding of why we are
touched at the core of our being by the things we experience. Al Harvey, Bakewell
Mountain’s gift to the world of philosophy, speaks of “the swelling
of the inner being.” I cannot rationally explain that but I know
exactly what he is talking about. A line in one of my songs says it
well: “A rose can make me sigh, with a drop of dew in the corner of
its eye, and sometimes a sunset can make me laugh and cry.” It often
happens as I watch the birds, walk in the woods, listen to babies laugh,
or hug a 94-year-old lady in a nursing home. A soaring of some part of
my nature even occurred once as I held the hand and listened to the
visions of a dying friend. The mind is fine but
it functions best when it walks hand-in-hand with the swelling of the
inner being. Visit DRs website at www.DaltonRoberts.com or check out his other writings at www.ipsfeatures.com.
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