The foundation of my approach to faith, to spiritual truth, to “that which is beyond,” is to say there is no foundation. There is no foundation to faith, spiritual truth, or to “that which is beyond.” There is no basis of “belief.” No authoritative “ground” upon which the edifice is built. The edifice is built right out of the air, on the air! Which is true of every religious/spiritual edifice that was ever built, but this is one of the few places where it is declared to be so.
Where does the line lie between opinion and faith? Or, for that matter, between opinion and fact? It is only a matter of time before facts are seen to be the opinions that they are, no? Taking medicine as an example, how many facts are there today in the field of medicine that were facts a century ago? A thousand years ago? Facts are nothing more than opinions awaiting realization. Awaiting enlightenment.
And the time lapse is much shorter in the field of religion than in the field of medicine.
Theology is nothing more than a bucket of opinions about hearsay. And faith is nothing more than a collection of opinions that take themselves seriously. Exposing the “foundation” of faith to be nothing more substantial than the way we see things today. Here, now.
There is no reliable system of beliefs—no dependable set of doctrines—no authoritative formulation regarding the unknowable who, what, when, where, why, and how. There is no objectively verifiable way of determining what the deal really is, or if there is a deal at all. We don’t know what it’s all about. We make it up, right out of our imagination. We decide what makes sense to us, and we live on the basis of it, even as we revise it in light of evolving, emerging, experience, information, reflection and realization. We live toward that which makes sense, that which works, even as we re-frame it, reformulate it, rework it.
It all goes back to the psychological mechanism of projection and our propensity as a species for making up explanations for our experience based on our previous experience to the point where our perceived reality is little more than what we have talked ourselves intro believing up to this point, elaborated, expanded and explained to take new information/experience into account. So that, to repeat the old formulation, “There is no way of proving that creation did not happen twenty minutes ago complete with artifacts and memories.” We could have just made the whole thing up! And we have just made the whole thing up, in a manner of speaking, by the simple process of expanding, elaborating, evolving our capacity to explain our experience to ourselves and one another to make sense of our joint experiences over time.
It comes down to, and flows from, this: We are the absolute authority determining what is actual, valid, real and true. Whatever we say/conclude/determine is so becomes so the moment we decide/say/realize it is so. And so, indoctrination, propaganda, and all varieties of hokum including theology, doctrine, dogma, ideology, creeds, etc. are grounded upon, based upon, the collective agreement that it is actual, valid, real and true. Which is also called “self-hypnosis.” Repeat anything long enough, loudly enough, consistently/persistently enough over time and it becomes true because “everybody knows” it is true.
This makes each of us responsible for knowingly determining for ourselves what the grounding, orienting, guiding, directing truth for ourselves and our life will be. Here is what I have discovered/declared to be so for me:
The primary value of emptiness, stillness, silence in gaining clarity and attaining realization regarding what’s what and what is called for here, now, so that I/we know the right thing to do and when, where, and how to do it in responding to what is happening in each situation as it arises all our life long. So that we drop into the emptiness, stillness, silence and wait for clarity regarding what is called for and what to do about it, in response to it, rise up and enter the field of action to do what needs to be done, and then drop back into emptiness, stillness, silence and wait…
So that we are living/doing out of the emptiness/stillness/silence in light of what is called for and what needs to be done about it here, now over the full course of our life.
With the question being: WHAT MEETS US IN THE SILENCE??? And the answer being: Our intuitive realization. In light of D.T. Suzuki’s statement that “The equivalent of enlightenment is habitual intuition.” We are living out of our own internal sense of direction, propriety, appropriateness, and good form in each situation as it arises all our life long. The Buddha and Jesus couldn’t do better than that.
When we live in a community in which the best interest of the individual is served, we all have a better chance of having our best interest served than when we live in a community in which individuals disappear in a collective that does not care about them, or in one where individuals are pitted against individuals in an eternal fight for the “biggest piece of the pie,” and more for me means less for you (and vice versa).
In a community that lives to answer the question, “What is in our best interest as individuals, and as a community?” the size of our piece of the pie is irrelevant. We are not out to have more than the next person. Our value does not depend upon the amount of stuff we have, or upon the size of our income, or upon any of the ways that society currently ranks its members.
In the right kind of community, our worth does not flow from our net worth. In the right kind of community, we live to help one another in light of what is helpful to the community as a whole, and we live to serve what is helpful to the community as a whole in light of what is helpful to each individual within the community. Our work is that of imagining, and becoming, the right kind of community—the right kind of place for everyone to be.
The path is living together in ways that are good for—in ways that are helpful to—the individual and the community. There will likely be aspects of that path that sound like something the Quakers are doing, or like something Gandhi did. Jesus walked a path that was labeled blasphemous, heretical, and satanic by his detractors. Some paths are like that. We cannot worry about the labels. Our focus is how to live together in ways that are good, in ways that serve the interest of the individual and the community.
What is good for the individual may, or may not, be good for the community, and what is good for the community may, or may not, be good for the individual. Our focus is how to live together in ways that make sense to us, and work in terms of serving the good of each person, and of the whole, and exhibiting the best that can be imagined. Our focus is on how to be helpful, on how to live with one another in ways that are good for one another and for the whole.
What is good is good in the eyes of the people over time. The good, like truth, will shine through, will stand out, will become obvious in time. The good, like wisdom, is vindicated, justified, by her children, and sometimes by her grandchildren. In the moment of our living, we live toward the best we can imagine, toward the good we perceive to be good, and see where it goes. Perhaps we are wrong. If it becomes evident that we are, the task is still the same task, to live toward what we perceive to be good in that moment, and see where it goes.
We have to be true to ourselves, to our vision of what counts, matters, makes a difference—to our idea of what is truly important—an idea that is continually being revisited and revised in light of experience. The foundation is our vision, our sense of what is worth our life, and our willingness to reexamine it in light of our experience over time. The most important thing is the formulation—and reformulation—of our vision, our sense, of what is important.
Who is to say what is important? We are! We say what is important! No matter who tells us what is important, we accept what they say, or reject it, or say something else instead. We determine for ourselves what is important. It only remains for us to recognize our role and consciously embrace it—and examine it regularly to see if it remains valid over time.
Jesus’ questions to his disciples and to the Pharisees are not emphasized as focusing us on the central matter of what we say when it comes to determining what we will believe and do: “Who do you say that I am?” and “Why don’t you decide for yourselves what is right?”
We are the ones who declare what is worthy of us, and live in light of it. We make it up, right out of out imagination, and revise our estimation in light of our experience. We live toward the best we can imagine, and re-envision the vision in light of what happens. This makes us the foundation of our own lives. We decide what is, and is not, valuable, what is, and is not, worthy of us. We decide where to draw the line.
In order to do what is ours to do, we must talk frankly with one another about what makes sense to us, about what we think is important, about what we think is worth believing, about what we think is good, about what we think is helpful, and how that is all working out in our life. Our perspective is enlarged, expanded, deepened by the conversation, by the shared perspectives of others. In this way, we help one another live in ways that serve the good of all.
Jim Dollar's Published Works 