How to take a study break and find spiritual enlightenment all at the same time

In all the stress and craze over 9th week and the plethora of projects, papers, and other homework due, I decided to write this week about something we all can use to calm ourselves when on the edge of a nervous breakdown: meditation. I knew that meditation was common in Buddhism and I once participated in a Quaker service that consisted of mostly meditation, however it was not until doing some extended research that I realized what a trans-religious activity meditation is. Forms of meditation are used in Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Taoism, Baha’i, and others. The general purpose of meditation is to put a person into a deeper state of awareness and relaxation. It can be used for contemplation on a specific spiritual idea or a means of achieving a different state of consciousness.

My own experience meditating is usually in a non-religious setting, such as for relaxation after yoga. In religious context, I once attended a Quaker ceremony. My brother went to a Quaker boarding school, and as part of his graduation ceremony, there was an hour long meditation. At first I was very annoyed to see that on the program, because it seemed very stupid and boring to me to have to s it in silence for an hour. However, once it started, I really began to see the value in it. In Quaker meditation, when someone feels that God has sent them a meaningful message, they are encouraged to break the silence and share it with the other worshipers. In the case of my brother’s graduation, the comments people made were mostly not religious, but simply in praise of the graduates and what that day meant to all the families there. Traditionally Quaker meditation is about listening to God, but I really enjoyed the meditation just as a chance to sit and listen to myself. When given the time to sit and meditate on our thoughts, many enlightening feelings and ideas come up.
This may be a little off topic, but I often wonder when I hear about people of religion talk about listening to God and what God tells them to do if it’s just a matter of where one is looking for spiritual guidance. While I use self-reflection and look to myself for answers, some people look to God. I understand the value in looking to God for this kind of guidance—when one is unsure of himself it’s a lot easier to follow someone else’s advice and trust in someone else. I do a fair amount of meditating now. Not yoga meditating or Buddhist mediating where I’m looking for an new state of being or even Christian meditating where I listen for advice from God. Even without religion, I find that mediation can be a spiritual experience, by which I mean, there is something very good for the soul in self-reflection. Our society is very busy and it is important to stop and sit and think every now and then—to think about something or nothing. It’s a nice when, when feeling bogged down by homework, to reconnect to other people or to the earth. It’s a way to reconnect with what’s real.
Meditation--infoplease.com
Meditation--wikipedia

Baha'u'llah the charismatic leader

After reading about charismatic leaders in the Rastafarian religion, I could see many parallels in the forming of religion between Rastafari and Baha'i. For example, Baha'u'llah is widely considered the founder of Baha'i, but really he was expanding off of teachings from the Bab, which in turn was rebelling from Islam. This reminded me of how Haile Selassie is the prophet of the Rastafari, but most of their beliefs originated with Marcus Garvey and were a rebellion of English colonial culture. More similarly to other Muslim or Judeo-Christian prophets, Baha'u'llah proclaimed himself as "He whom God shall make manifest" and was an active leader of the Baha'i.
Also, I think the role of Islam was important for how the Baha'i faith was formed. First of all, from what I understand the Bab's teachings were a sort of radical offshoot from Islam, so they accepted the ideology of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with a few changes. Also, because conservative Muslims were against the Bab, the persecution of the Baha'i ended up being something to unite them. Baha'u'llah's influenced seemed to really grow during his exile, when the Baha'i faith was under a lot of criticism. This is true of many religions. When people feel threatened, it often activates their sense of self-defense, strengthening religions in times of adversity.
Baha'i is a relatively young religion, so in some respects you could argue that founding of Baha'i was a sudden change, especially when compared with Judaism that had already been in existence for over 2000 years by the time Baha'u'llah was born. However, when you look at it as an off-shoot of other religions, it is just a gradual change, like a new fork on a long river of religious beliefs throughout history. There were many belief systems that fed into the Baha'i faith, so it could also be argued that it's creation was as long as that of it's contributing faiths.

Just a spoonful of Nemenhah makes the chemotherapy go down...

A week or two ago I heard someone mention a case of a boy who was refusing to get medical treatment because of his religion, so for this weeks blog I decided to find out more. Daniel Hauser is a 13 year old who has Hodgkins lymphoma, but he refuses to get chemotherapy treatments, because according to his religion, chemotherapy and radiation therapy would be poisoning his body. Daniel and his parents belong to the Nemenhah Church, a Native American based group that believes in natural, holistic medicine. So I can sympathize with people having freedom of religion and not wanting to accept western medicine if they believe in something else, but there are a few very frustrating parts of this story that convince me that Daniel Hauser's faith is dangerous and probably just based on his parents' beliefs.
The Hausers are not Native American, so it is still confusing to me how they found the Nemenhah Band and why they would be so devout as to follow it's belief system when it contradicts Western medicine that would almost certainly cure their son. Part of this story that really bothered me is that several pediatric oncologists testified in court saying that Daniel's cancer has gotten worse since he refused the treatment. Furthermore, he has a 95% chance of dying without the treatment and a 90% chance of recovering if he starts the chemotherapy. However, Daniel and his mother have held strong in refusing chemotherapy and when the court ordered Daniel get treatment, he and his mother ran away. It just seems frustrating to me, especially on the mother's part, that she would put her son at risk to make a religious point. As one article I read states, the Nemenhah Band seems from this case more like a brainwashing cult that a religion. Daniel Hauser and his parents deny that his condition is getting worse, even though there are X-rays that show the cancer in his chest is metastasizing. Instead Hauser's parents have been treating him with herbs and vitamins.
Another point this case brings up, aside from people's ability to be blind to reason because of religion, is the influence Daniel's parents have had on him. One of the reasons Daniel said that he didn't want to have the treatment is because he is a medicine man and it would be a bad example for him to be receiving such treatments. However, when one asks this 13-year-old how he got a position in the church such a medicine man, he says, because his mom told him he was. In the Nemenhah Band anyone can be a Holy Man or Holy Woman by signing a simple contract and sending a check for $250 to the founder of the "Church" (does anyone else smell a scam?). Aside from this religion being money-making scam, it is sad, though not surprising, how Daniel goes along with his mother's beliefs. The judge ruled that Hauser must get the chemotherapy treatment because he believed Daniel is only being influenced by his parents' beliefs. His opposition to chemotherapy was also based on what his mother told his about the side effects. He is only 13 years old, and even if he was mature for his age this would be a big decision to let a 13 year old make for himself. But Daniel has been diagnosed with a learning disorder. He is educationally up to a 5th grade level and he is illiterate. Of course Daniel believes he is a medicine man and that his cancer isn't getting worse, he is going on the religious beliefs he was raised with and trusting what his parents tell him. This is one of those cases where people are using religion to hide from unpleasant reality, but the more they use their religion to deny their son's cancer, the more unpleasant their reality will get.
Nemenhah Band official website
"Teen who fled chemo may be heading to Mexico"
"Are parents using religion to hide from grim reality?"
"Boy with cancer refuses chemotherapy"

Symbols of the Bobo Shanti

We've already learned about some symbols that are common to Rastafari in general, but in watching the video about the Bobo Shanti, I could see some symbols that are specific to only their particular denomination of the Rastafari.

I noticed multiple religious symbols that are part of the Bobo Shantis' daily life. For starters, they pray three times a day every 6 hours: 3 in the morning, 9 in the morning, and 3 in the afternoon. One of the men explained why they start so early in the morning by saying that while half the world is sleeping, they are "rising up" spiritually. Praying so early in the morning symbolically puts them on African time. They can live in Jamaica exactly as they would if they lived in Ethiopia. Another symbolic part of their lifestyle is where they choose to live. The Bobo Shanti live in the mountains because it is the closest possible place to heaven. The Bobo Shanti try to make themselves spiritually closer to God through their "rising up" religious rituals reading psalms 3 times daily and they also make themselves physically closer to God by living high on the mountains to gain proximity. Another symbol is the turbans they wear over their dreadlocks. Dreadlocks themselves are symbolic of the Rastafarian rejection of European hairstyles and the embrace of "African styles" of hair seen pictured among some African tribes. The men also cover their heads with turbans, worn like a crown. It is to symbolize the principles and the teachings of Prince Emmanuel. They also see wrapping their heads in a turban as symbolic of ancient Ethiopian dressing. Much of the symbolism in their everyday lives relates to their relationship with God and their connection to African as their promised land.

Religion and Identity

I’m reading a book for my Ethnic Studies class called In the Name of Identity by Amin Maalouf. It’s pretty much a discussion of Maalouf’s thoughts on identity—what makes identity, the social consequences of identity, why identity is important, etc. In the reading I did for my next class there was a lot of discussion about the role of religion in a person’s identity, which relates to discussions we’ve had in class.

First, in a discussion about how the time period we live in influences our identity, he brought up how religions change over time. “We may call ourselves Christians—or Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Hindus—but our vision of both this world and the next no longer bears much resemblance to that of our “co-religionists” who lived 500 years ago”. Maalouf was making a point about how the time period we live in is more influential to our beliefs than our religion, but I think this is an important idea when considering how religions evolve over time. As we discussed in class after watching “Happy Feet”, there are many things that influence religion and bring about change: science, knowledge, social change, globalization, etc. It’s interesting to think about how many of our religious beliefs today are more a product of our current society than of the original beliefs of our ancestors. Maalouf goes on to say that if we lived among our co-religionists of the past keeping our contemporary beliefs and behaviors, “we would have been stoned in the street, thrown into prison or burned at the stake for impiety, debauchery, heresy or witchcraft”. I agree with Maalouf that the major religions of the world have come a long way from the beliefs and lifestyles that they were founded on. While some are still very traditional and maintain many of the original beliefs and customs of their predecessors, many other religions have evolved to become almost completely new religions compared to the religions practiced by their ancestors. Reform Judaism for example, while its follows call themselves Jewish, their beliefs and lifestyles are hardly Jewish at all compared to many Jews of the past millennium.
Maalouf also talks about two roles that religion plays in people's lives today. First, religion fills one's need for spirituality; religion provides people with an explanation and a meaning to attach to life, as the Geertz definition says, providing people with a general order of existence. The other purpose, Maalouf says, that religion fulfills is the role of community. Maalouf then makes the argument that those two roles should be separated and that there is no place for religion in defining a person's identity. He claims the ideal world is "a world in which a man, while remaining attached to his beliefs, to a faith, or to moral values that may or may not be inspired by scripture, will no longer feel the need to enroll himself among his co-religionists...what has to do with religion must be kept apart from what has to do with identity". This is where I disagree with Maalouf, although I understand where he's coming from. Maalouf's argument is based on the consideration of religious radicals and terrorists who join forces with religious organizations for the sake of community and belonging and cause destruction "in the name of religion". While I agree that religion as a whole may be safer if spirituality and identity were separate, I don't think you can deny the value of religious identity in peaceful circumstances. Religious community can be used for good just as much as for evil. Think about religious groups that go on mission trip to build houses or hospitals in under-developed countries. I think Maalouf is a little hasty in writing-off religious identity, perhaps because he is from a country where that identity is often abused. From a more balanced point of view, however, I think it must be recognized that religious identity is neither a good nor bad thing, it just depends on how it is used.

The Queen of Sheba and an Ethiopian Zion

The story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is most significant to Ethiopia's image as a nation in how it connects Ethiopia to the holy land of Israel. If one thinks of the two nations Israel and Ethiopia as being symbolized by their respective rulers, then this story documents the union of Israel and Ethiopia. You can see the religious transformation that Ethiopia went through, when the Queen talks about how her people worship the sun and idols and other material things. However, because she is open-minded to pursuing knowledge, she accepts Solomon's teachings of one God, the God of Israel. I think the love affair between Solomon and the Queen could be seen as symbolic of Israel passing it's religion on to another culture; instead of Solomon's seed being a child, it could be the religion of Israel. This religion probably branched off into the Falaxas and the Christians both of which have been very prominent parts of the religious make-up of Ethiopia.

Another aspect of Ethiopia that we discussed in class that I saw a connection to in the reading, is the belief in an Ethiopian based Zion, instead of Zion based in Israel. I think that the way that Solomon tricked the Queen into violating their promise not to take advantage of one another by making her drink the water from his bowl could be seen as provocation for God to punish Solomon and Israel. Because of the way Solomon manipulated the Queen, Solomon had a dream about a sun that rose over Ethiopia. Solomon said, "[God] paid no heed whatsoever to Israel", which shows God abandoning Israel and choosing Ethiopia as the new promised land. Also, thinking about the way that Solomon talks about the Queen as having strength, a beautiful form, and a pure body, when taken in the context of Ethiopia as a country it is easy to see why it would be thought of as a holy land. Plus, before the Queen returns to Ethiopia, Solomon tells the Queen that "[Ethiopia] shall be blessed through thee" --a sign of God favoring Ethiopia and the Queen.

Pilgrimage through Generic space

When I first read the description of conceptual blending, I had a hard time making any connections to religion, or to anything more than confusion for the most part. However, given some of the examples in the text, there are many ways that conceptual blending can apply to religious rituals. The example of conceptual blending from the reading that most illuminated my understanding is the boat race, which is a mirror network. In the boat race example, a boat sailing from San Francisco to Boston in 1993 tries to beat the record of a boat that sailed the same path in 1853. The two inputs are the boat from 1993 and the boat from 1853. The generic space that connects them is the path they both follow from San Francisco to Boston. This reminds me of ritual pilgrimages taken my followers of certain religions. Many Mormons travel across the Midwest to relive the journey that their predecessors made when they were forced out of their settlements in Illinois and Missouri. It is a way for them to connect to the history of their religion and get a better understand of how their religion got to where it is today. Such pilgrimages are what makes religion come alive instead of being something one merely reads about. Another example of pilgrimages is Muslim Hajj to Mecca or groups like Birthright that bring Jewish youth to Jerusalem. These two cases are not examples of mirror network because the path most people take to get to Mecca or Jerusalem is different than their ancestors took. However, in both cases the parallel two journeys, the one happening now and the one in the past, seems to me to fit the pattern of the other non-religious examples of conceptual blending.