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Philosophies: what should I join myself to? 2002-07-01 - 5:45 p.m. 
When I first picked up a book on Freemasonry, I thought perhaps the author would have a conspiracy bent similar to anything I've read about the Bavarian Illuminati or the Ordo Templi Orientus. What I discovered is, to my eye, an organization that holds many of the same values that I do: betterment of oneself to service the community and individuals, trust, above all commitment to searching and thinking.I am not quite the type of person to join a fraternity, yet the thought of contacting a local Grand Lodge has crossed my mind every now and then. I genuinely miss learning about spirituality from the lips of other people, mixing them around like brandy snifters or a 40 with friends. As it is, I've neglected to pursue these kinds of studies out of boredom. Somehow it's a type of knowledge that is best exchanged in conversation...and for the sacredness people take in being just individuals, I think it's overrated and destructive. I admit to it: I want to be a part of a group of like minded people that has a real purpose. Yet, I had this same feeling for Islam when I first learned about it. I deeply respect and love the main tenents of being a Muslim, such as surrendering oneself to God. If I may bore you, my sense of individuality fades in and out, but its constant...I know it'll stay here...and it's just a degree of how willing I am to mix into others. I see God partly as a collective. Most religions say we're filled with divine breath. For Christians, the Holy Spirit...for Egyptians, the breath Ra or Osiris were given. Even in scientific terms, all of us come from the same collection of living cells that randomly came about billions of years ago. There is some collective purpose to life and that is what I hold sacred. Unfortunately, the more I've studied Islam the more I disagree with portions of its dogma, or certain verses in the Koran. I finally gave up the pursuit after learning about Islam in the modern world. Fundamentalism doesn't exactly exist in North Africa or Indonesia, the side portions of where Islam is the major religion...but Fundamentalism is the dominant form and it disregards Sufism, their form of connecting to God directly, as something that damages the people's faith, their power, and is to be abolished. If I cannot lead myself and help others find what they see as divine then I cannot live. In the end I wish I could just be a holy man of some kind, but I have no religion to speak of or people to pratice for...except my friends, and I've lost sight of that too. As I mentioned, though, science is the closest western equivalent to combining the imagination and logic...perhaps the arts as well. And still I wonder, would joining this fraternity or something of like mind help me? I will have to think more. |
