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welcome back to after skool I'm Brian Muraresku author of The immortality key and today we'll
be exploring the work of Karen Armstrong she is one of the world's best known living writers on
religion and also a heroine of mine and together we'll be talking about the mysticism of antiquity
and what that all means for us today so without further Ado let's Dive In foreign
if you think you've understood God that ain't God these words were penned by Saint Augustine roughly
1600 years ago now whether you're a person of Faith No Faith at all or somewhere in between it
matters how we Define God as a species strange as it sounds the fate of the planet could very well
depend on our definition of God again even if that word means nothing to you or it conjures vague
images of an elderly man with a beard sitting in the clouds or maybe it's synonymous with organized
religion institutions Traditions beliefs which for you might be the compass of your existence
or just utterly irrelevant for all of us the definition of God matters it says everything
about how we understand ourselves how we treat each other in the Earth with its abundance of life
and how we grapple with the mystery of the cosmos I always turn to Joseph Campbell to help explain
God is a thought God is an idea but its reference is to something that transcends
all thinking so there's a paradox and that's kind of the whole point
God whatever that means is not something to be understood by the rational mind no
institution can claim ownership in fact the words meaningless
following up on Augustine the Jesuit Carl Rahner one of the most influential theologians of the
20th century was no fan of God said we shouldn't use the word for 50 years it confused his notion
of God as the holy mystery incomprehensible and impenetrable above us around us but also within us
despite the Paradox there can be no defining god without us in the ancient world that Carl
Rahner definition could be found across the world's religions from east to west
in Confucianism Chi was the essence of being a force the Chinese regarded as unknowable recondite
for a Taoist this sacred force was at the heart of mundane existence and yet this vital energy flows
through Us in some mysterious way in Hinduism god isn't a dude in the clouds it's Brahman
the foundation of all reality the beingness on which all things depend on the other hand is our
individual soul in the advice School of Hinduism that Atman is identical to Brahman the Ultimate
Reality in other words Divinity resides in US in Buddhism there's no personal God but
that compassionate mystery could be called the essence of the entire Cosmos and eternal
permanent immutable pure and self-sufficient force that unites all beings draws them into a coherent
whole and universally illumines the human mind enabling us to cultivate a capacity for goodness
now these Eastern definitions of God come from the preeminent scholar Karen Armstrong the author of
a couple dozen books translated into 45 languages Armstrong has been described as the world's best
known living writer on religion before becoming a lover of comparative theology she was a Catholic
nun for about seven years until she realized she was bad at praying and wanted nothing to
do with God so Armstrong began looking to the sages Mystics and Prophets of antiquity
her Focus was the axial age that period between the 8th and 3rd centuries BC when many of our
religions came into being not just Confucianism and taoism in East Asia or Hinduism and Buddhism
in South Asia but the mysteries of the Greco-Roman world at the root of Western civilization and the
rise of the abrahamic faiths Judaism what would later become Christianity and eventually Islam
it's called axial because so much of our cultural history turns on this ancient age
in fact if you just add up the Christians Muslims Hindus and Buddhists of today and
big round numbers that's about six of the planet's eight billion people
at their core Armstrong sees more similarity than difference after years of devouring her
books I finally reached out for a conversation the incomprehensible god of the East that sacred Force
could also be found in the west she reminded me once upon a time before the Scientific Revolution
of the 16th and 17th centuries confined God to the sky the monotheistic face had the same idea
as the East don't forget about Thomas Aquinas said Armstrong perhaps the most influential Christian
thinker of the medieval period he had the right idea about God uh he said uh God is everywhere
and wherever God is God is there there holy so God is in every single leaf every single tree ever is
everywhere it's it's transfuses nature and that was exactly the way the peoples of the world uh
had always cultivated their sense of the natural world as sacred and divine as a full notice as a
god stuck up in the heavens but as a force a sacred force that imbues the whole of reality
that reality includes us God is Not separate from us agree the traditions of the axial Age We
participate in Divinity we carry a Divine Spark but it's tough to find that spark or experience
that incomprehensible God until we stand outside ourselves as Armstrong herself came to realize it
wasn't about praying to or worshiping the external God of her youth or engaging in cold research
merely thinking and writing about all things holy her encounter with the mystery occurred
when scholarship became ecstasy by dwelling on each text each idea each spirituality she
imagined herself actually feeling the Rapture of these ancient sages Mystics and Prophets
and there were moments in my uh study when I would occasionally feel touched by some
form of awe or wonder or Delight I realized my work was becoming a kind of meditation
the kind of meditation that I've been able unable to do in the convent there's that Paradox again
the rational discursive mind engaged in scholarship spontaneously interrupted by
an experience of awe that transcends thinking a mystery on paper becomes a mystery of the heart
the personal God that Armstrong could never find becomes the impersonal Brahman of the east or the
god of Thomas Aquinas that imbues the whole of reality interestingly it's this definition of God
that also captivated Albert Einstein referring to the 17th century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza
Einstein once wrote I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the lawful Harmony of the world
in a separate letter dated February 12 1950 Einstein went further a human being is a part of
the whole called by us Universe a part Limited in time and space he experiences himself his thoughts
and feelings as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness
the striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of True Religion
that freeing oneself from the confines of the ego that moment of ecstasy that experience of Eternity
right here and now which Joseph Campbell called the function of life seems to be the answer for
Scholars like Armstrong scientists like Einstein and the mystics in the footnotes of History
the esoteric traditions of each abrahamic Faith Embrace this paradoxical definition of God at the
root of our true self pass the optical delusion maybe we're all gods and goddesses in disguise
in the immortality key I included a few examples the sufis the mystics of Islam have been called
the impatient ones rather than wait until their actual physical death the spiritual Experts of
the world's second biggest religion seek the recovery of one's full identity in this lifetime
Rumi the 13th century Sufi Master put it this way if you could get rid of yourself just once
the secret of Secrets would open to you the face of the unknown hidden beyond the universe would
appear on the mirror of your perception likewise the kabbalists the mystics of Judaism pursue
self-annihilation to reach the world of the Divine nothingness ayin in Hebrew Rabbi Lawrence Kushner
a modern day scholar says just as the death of each creature is in turn a rehearsal for the
death of a species and a Galaxy and a cosmos the great rhythm of going out and returning now this
kind of death is not an end but only the beginning of a transformation that will generate a rebirth
you cannot be reborn until you are willing to die the German Theologian Meister Eckhart
lived a generation after Rumi he was the Mystic par Excellence of medieval Christianity like
the sufis and the kabbalists Meister Eckhart emphasized the practice of self nullification
if you could not yourself for an instant indeed I say less than an instant you would possess all
in her new book sacred nature Karen Armstrong highlights this self-emptying as the potential
answer to the survival of our species and the planet there's a word for it in Greek kenosis
without it there is no Transcendence of the self which means there's no real compassion
for others for plant and animal life for the Earth herself people are just annoying things
and everything else an object a resource a world devoid of meaning where no one and nothing carries
that Divine Spark While most of the world is focused on global emissions and carbon neutrality
Armstrong is asking us to seriously reconsider our definition of God as the dude in the clouds
and to practice the self-annihilation the self-nullification of kenosis to actually
experience that mystical God of Einstein and the contemplatives Gus Beth founder of the national
resource defense Council might tend to agree I used to think the top environmental problems
facing the world were global warming environmental degradation and ecosystem collapse and that we
scientists could fix those problems with enough science but I was wrong the real problem is not
those three items but greed selfishness and apathy and for that we need a spiritual and cultural
transformation and we scientists don't know how to do that but the Buddha did enter the science
of compassion before we turned yoga into sexy exercise and meditation into a great way to relax
this was the origin of contemplative practice but the whole point of getting Enlightenment is
to get rid of the self as it was to subdue the ego and the Buddha it it happened to him as a little
boy first the story is that one day he was taken out to watch the ceremony of the first plowing
of the fields and he looked and he saw that the plowing had uh killed a lot of little insects
and wild animals and plants which are all lying dying and dead and a great sorrow built his heart
and it took him it took him completely out of himself and it said that he sat immediately at
the yogic tradition and achieved a yogi for trance we often see him then we with a sort
of inward looking peaceful and almost looking down within himself not at all uh the texts
tell us that he spent his time sending his thoughts out to every corner of the world
and not leaving it until he had adopted a sense of equanimity respect and love what every single one
of these creatures whether they were pleasant or unpleasant whether they were beautiful or
ugly even if they seemed evil and that was how he achieved enlightenment that's pretty good
kenosis a high bar but we're not all called to be Buddhas instead Armstrong suggests a little
death every day hour by hour whether that's the Confucian practice of quiet sitting just getting
off social media and being present in nature for a few minutes or a simple act of kindness
what did Mother Teresa say not all of us can do great things but small things with great love
then there's the spiritual disciplines of the contemplatives they chant pray and fast their
way to kenosis sometimes seclude themselves in caves wander in labyrinths Whirl and ecstasy
in the pre-history of our species the more archaic techniques had the same
goal drumming scarification perhaps the ingestion of visionary plants or fungi
nowadays that kenosis has been reported and carefully controlled scientific experiments
where a growing body of literature is charting the relationship between psychedelic occasion
mystical experience and nature connectedness a potential antidote to Einstein's optical
delusion where Mother Earth is no longer just a metaphor but part of that same holy mystery we
once called God above us all around us and within us in The Eternity of the Here and Now where the
one and the many coexist where the past and the future Collide where to be empty is to be full
where death is Awakening where everything and nothing matters and as RAM Dawson said it's all
perfect and it's unbearable imperfection kind of a paradox then again Si comprehendis non est Deus
thanks for tuning in to this episode of after school if you enjoyed the information in this
video and want to dive deeper I would highly recommend Karen Armstrong's new book sacred
nature right now you can log on to audible.com after school or text after school to 500 500 to
listen to Sacred nature for free as a matter of fact you can start listening with a free 30-day
audible trial and get full access to thousands and thousands of all you can listen audiobooks
original entertainment and podcasts including the plus catalog and if for some reason we've
got an extra 15 hours and want to listen to this voice talk about the ritual use
of psychedelics among the ancient Greeks and Romans and potentially the earliest Christians
you can also listen to the immortality key the secret history of the religion with no
name just log on to audible.com after school or text after school to 500 500. thanks for watching
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