Spirituality (8)

- I'll only believe it when I see it, said the skeptic.
- Me too, and that's why I imagine it, replied the believer.

Count your blessings
Use it or lose it
What goes around comes around
Think global act local
Easy come easy go
Don't know what you got until it's gone

It appears to me that the Western mind has become afflicted with theophobia, or the fear of religion. This is apparent in the speech of the scientific community, which posits rationality (aka reason) on a high pedestal, and considers both emotionality and spirituality as inferior or even negative modes of knowing.

And this attitude trickles down to the Western social and personal level, where an individual who displays any spiritual tendency will be frowned upon by his peers - a supposedly tolerant and open-minded bunch, as opposed to the superstitious and fanatic Orientals. This happened to me today, when I innocently mentioned to a friend that I was attempting to cut down on my addictions during the month of Ramadan. The knee-jerk response I got was: "Oh, are you turning religious?" in a clearly derogatory tone.

"In the game of life, it is not about who's right. It is about who's left!"

That's brilliant. And it seems to be original too (I googled it)! The complete post is on leadership, check it out.

Our conception of freedom is self-indulgent. Look at your role model, and see what they've done with their freedom.

Here are some freedoms that are worth fighting for, imho:

Freedom from greed
Freedom from lust
Freedom from envy
Freedom from sloth
Freedom from vanity
Freedom from addictionsssssssssss
Freedom from depression, paranoia, schizophrenia
Freedom from boredom
Freedom from fear
Freedom from hate
Freedom from evil

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Freedom from the self

"I do what I think is proper, given the symbols I understand."

Faith is a powerful human force, always at work even without the awareness of its agents. Like reason or creativity, faith is a human quality that shapes the behaviour of individuals and of societies.

In the western world, faith is commonly regarded as irrational, and discarded altogether from social or psychological discourse. Canadian philosopher and humanist John Ralston Saul, in his social critique entitled On Equilibrium, argues that democratic society must progress by balancing the essential human qualities or forces, to reach global justice with individual freedom. The qualities that he cites are: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, and reason. He argues that reason has been the predominant quality in the West, leading to the tyranny of that trait at the expense of loss of balance with other qualities. A humanist message indeed.