This meeting was held in the days after the deathly attacks
in Manchester and London that killed many, and injured and traumatised many
more, by people claiming a link between their actions and the faith of Islam.
During our gathering we sang, we carried out our usual
ritual, we held our period of silent contemplation, and lit candles marking our
joys and concerns. But overarching all
this, the theme was “Death as Teacher – holding to our truth in time of
division and falsity”.
We humans struggle to handle death. Somehow, at a very deep level, we long that
there be no more death. Despite knowing
that to be impossible.
And we do not know how – or what practical actions can be
taken – to combat the ideology causing this 21st century violence. One thing is sure: ignorance and stereotyping
will not help. Perhaps our role, meeting
under the Unitarian umbrella, is to do some exploring and learning as a counter
to ignorance and stereotyping. Even if
we don’t find any answers.
Building on last month’s gathering, in which the scripture
reading came from Sikhism, our two readings today were from Hinduism and a
contemporary study of Islam by a Westerner.
We heard last month that Sikhism rejects the idea that
strict rules on conduct are needed to bring the soul to salvation, insisting instead
that a clear and intentional focus on God throughout all daily activity is all
that is required.
The first reading we had today might have been one of the
rulings that Sikhism had rejected. It
was a section of the Katha Upanishad that can be boiled down to just these words:
“Perennial joy or
passing pleasure?
This is the choice
one is to make always.
... The wise welcome what leads
To abiding joy,
though painful at the time.
The ignorant run,
goaded by their senses,
After what seems
immediate pleasure.”
We considered that such a passage from Hinduism can be
interpreted as meaning “forego pleasure in this life for the sake of a better
life after death”. We compared this with
the Medieval western Christian view which was (among other things) a means of
keeping order in society, and which was backed up by dreadful physical
punishments on anyone who broke the rules.
We also noted that it is exactly this kind of perspective that seems to
drive today’s angry young men and women who claim for themselves a disputed
alignment with Islam. Careless of their
own lives and others’, they commit heinous crimes of violence in the hope of rewards
associated with martyrdom – or so we are told.
But a more careful look at this Hindu scripture reveals
something else. It comes from a
tradition that suggests that death occurs only to that part of ourselves which
was born; born and launched into separate existence. And more precisely, the Katha Upanishad
portrays a hero who takes the demands of religion very seriously indeed –
demands such as
- obedience to an ideal even in the face of hypocrisy,
- an emphasis on reconciliation,
- the need for spiritual practice,
- and the recognition of the transcendent.
And this hero is wise
enough to comprehend in conversation with Lord Death that
- it is really only Self, Oneness, pure consciousness, that is the enjoyer – of itself.
- so that when one realizes the Self there is nothing else to be known and all the knots that strangle the heart are loosened.
Such knowings are more sophisticated and do not seem to be
true to a harsh, simplistic view that there is a life after death that is
better than this and which is worth killing for
The second reading was an interpretation of the writing of
an Islamic philosopher, Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), by Karen Armstrong. Ibn al-Arabi provides a gentle, complex view of the
relationship between humans and God. He
saw God, the Unknown God, as sighing with longing to be known, with each of his
sighs bringing forth another, unique human being, in the form of logoi, words that express God to himself. Then the Revealed God in each human being
longs to returns to its source in the Unknown God, and we humans experience
this as a longing for something to fulfil our deepest desires and explain the tragedy
and pain of life. As Karen says, “Divinity
and humanity were thus two aspects of the divine life that animates the entire
cosmos.”
This is another sophisticated, rather gentle model for how
it all works. Philosophers like Ibn
al-Arabi seem unlikely to boil life down to a simple formula that would incite violence
for the sake of a different life hereafter.
In these musings we learned that it is not only the scriptures
of Islam that can be used as an excuse for violence. Moreover, that Islamic philosophers from long
ago have been developing complex and gentle ideas that do not seem to have been
encompassed by terrorists.
We concluded with this thought: this group meets in the name
of the Unitarian community, and we say that people are to find what meaning
they can in their lives. So when people
struggle in the face of today’s pain and tragedy, what are we to say to
them? It was suggested that, in the
words of our last hymn, if we feel able,
we can say this:
We all must say to
them
What we all know for
sure
That there’s a
goodness in the world
Which ever shall
endure
We may not give up
hope;
We will not give up
love.
Our lives are
grounded in the faith that
In one God we all
move.
(words by Peter
Sampson)
