This is the normal human condition and nothing to be surprised by. We don’t understand anything at all when we have never seen it before and barely even heard about it. How could it be otherwise?

My many-named reader has a question to my previous entry. He asks: “How do you tell the difference between seeing another dimension, divine inspiration and a hallucination?” The short answer is, as I warned at the start of the entry, that you need experience. But as I was about to gently rebuke my reader for forgetting the beginning of the entry before getting to the end (for this could in no way be the fault of my communications skills, of course), I realized that there is more than one dimension even to practice. There is length, of course, but also breadth.

For instance, because I have watched hundreds of hours of anime, I can tell Japanese apart from other languages or from simple babbling, even if I only understand a little and cannot use it. Simply the act of observing means that you will be able to tell things apart eventually. But not without practice, and not after five minutes or even an hour or two. Or at least the ability would not stay long after only an hour or two.

But how can I know that Japanese language does in fact exist and is not an elaborate hoax? Perhaps the Japanese actually speak Chinese, but push this delusion of a separate language on foreigners for political reasons or just to laugh at us behind our backs. (Not that they would need something so elaborate for that – I am sure they do that quite a bit anyway, and with good reason.)

If I had seen only one animated movie in Japanese, then this would certainly be a possible scenario, if not plausible. But as it happens, I have watched a broad range of anime from different publishers, and read about even more that others have watched. This is what we may call a broader experience, in contrast to just longer. For instance if I had only seen The Laws of Eternity, even if I saw it every week, it would not be a very broad experience in Japanese culture. It might have left me a better person than if I had seen all those others, most of which are not very edifying, but I would not have much basis for an opinion about Japanese language, much less the rest of their culture.

This is the case with people who restrain their interests to a very narrow range. In the example of spiritual practices, which I wrote about in my previous entry, there are sects who teach that your only spiritual practice needs to be chanting a particular short phrase over and over for the rest of your life, as often as possible. While this certainly has some effect, it is a narrow approach in the sense that we cannot easily know whether the effect comes from the object of their worship, the particular sounds of the chant, or simply the practice of repeating something an extraordinary number of times.

To further complicate things, sects tend to strongly discourage experimenting with variations of the practice, much less experimenting with the practices of other sects. Sure, members of other sects claim to be happy too, but what do they know about true happiness? And besides, the demons may just be deluding them into thinking that they are happy. After all, if you were a professional demon, wouldn’t you be willing to make people happy for a few years if you could get them to Hell afterwards? (This does not apply to our sect, of course, since we know true happiness when we see it. Besides, it is written in our holy Scripture that we are right, and we know our holy Scripture is true because the Scripture says so.)

The behavior of the sect members is actually quite reasonable. Why risk a good thing for something uncertain? Better the god you know than the devil you don’t. Still, it makes for a narrow experience, not too unlike the fan who only watches the same movie over and over again.

On the other hand, the “butterfly”, “supermarket” or “salad bar” approach to spirituality has its own drawbacks. The most obvious is that people tend to pick only the parts they personally like. But if a child starts to eat only the food he likes best, do only the homework he likes and only show up for P.E. classes if they are fun, he is unlikely to be heading for a long and happy life. If he has parents, they will hopefully tell him to change his ways. Likewise if you use this approach in your spiritual life. If you have a spiritual “father”, he is sure to tell you in no uncertain terms to Eat Your Greens.

Each tradition has its own internal structure or consistency. This is certainly not to say that they are all equal, much less identical. What I mean is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and if you only keep picking parts, you will not get that “more”, that wholeness or totality. Just saying. I am not really the right person to go all out against this, since I have a double helping of curiosity at the very least.

On the bright side, the great religions have each quite a broad range of spiritual tools. For instance if you are a Christian, there is no need to Hare off to Krishna or canter over to El Cantare just to add the spice of variety to your life. (If you go for other reasons, it is not like I could stop you anyway.) You may never have run into all of these in Sunday School in the Church of Our Saints in Middle Littlewick, but actually there is both prayer, meditation, contemplation, Lectio Divina and even chanting (although mostly in liturgy). And of course if you are part of a congregation, there are probably various rituals also trying to drag Eternity into time (or time into Eternity).

On the other extreme, Buddhism has a heap of different meditation schools, many of which are not quite religious in the western sense of the word, although some are. The contrast between some of the techniques taught is staggering, certainly on the same scale as the difference between some branches of different religions.

This was very long, but the short of it is: There are a number of different spiritual practices, a few of which I am familiar with from experience, and many more from the experience of others. While the effects of them differ to some extent, there are also many striking similarities.

Then there is the whole thing about religious versus secular meditation / observation, but I am working on a different entry about that.

So how can we tell things apart? We cannot without practice. The practice can be long or broad or both. It can also differ in depth, so I guess we have 3 dimensions there as well. If you have mainly one of these dimensions, I suppose it may be hard to perceive the others clearly. If you have none of them, I don’t see why you would even try. Humans need years to even learn to dress themselves. There is no way we can become proficient with the mind without watching it firsthand for some time. But I believe it is worth it, for a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

“You are insane” states a llama (!!) in a comment to Saturday’s somewhat controversial entry. At least it is not yet a donkey rebuking me, although I guess a llama is pretty close.

Those are dangerous words to utter, at least in the context of religion, but I cannot be too harsh: I myself once hurled the same words thoughtlessly at a better man than me. (My brother, to be exact.) Words come easy to those who do not need to make account for them before the Light, so it is anybody’s guess how serious is the llama’s concern for my mental health. Is it just a fire-and-forget missile of indignation, or do they truly care about my wellbeing? It would probably help if one knew more about their identity than just the species. But why not take it seriously? I have a lot to say about sanity. Or at least the voices in my head have…

I don’t know many insane people. A couple of them only, although I know well what is called “everyday psychopathology”: Phobias, obsessions, compulsions, projections, quirks and so on. As my father used to tell me when I was just a boy: All are mad, and he who is most sane is just the least mad. But neurosis is one thing, psychosis another. To be insane, you have to pretty much be unable to take care of yourself or at least unable to contribute to society.

Now, I don’t contribute to society genetically, so I am already somewhat dubious in that regard. But I still hold my job, and as a matter of fact, lately I have started loving it and making an effort to become better at it, thanks to the crazy cult, or perhaps thanks to the brainwave entrainment. It is hard to say since both are fairly new in my life, but I think the work thing is largely inspired by Master Okawa’s books, because I remember reading some passages there and realizing that I had completely misunderstood the role of work in my life.

But back to the concept of “mere sanity”. By this I mean that what passes for sanity is hardly worthy of being my highest aspiration, even in this highly advanced corner of the world and at this time of education and plenty.

There is, as I said, the everyday psychopathology. There is rarely a man or woman without some quirk or some disturbance that irks themselves or those around them. Some are afraid of taking the elevator or closing the door to the toilet, for fear that they may be trapped in the small closed space. Some are on the contrary afraid of crossing open places. Some are afraid of other people looking at them, some are afraid of being alone. Some are afraid of silence, some of the sounds they hear in the dark. Human ingenuity in misery is astonishing. And yet, this is not all. It is rather the tip of the iceberg.

When I look at the behavior that is socially accepted, even encouraged, sometimes lauded, I myself hardly find it worthy of envy. There I see people whose joy or lack thereof depends on whether a football team has won or lost a match, and a team where neither they nor anyone in their family is a member at that. There I see people who worry loudly about global warming, but eat mounds of beef and drive large cars. There I see those who bemoan the imperfections of their available health care, but who eat large helpings of fat and synthetic fructose and then sit down in front of the television for the evening.

Does it end there? If only! We are just warming up. There are two enormous delusions that terrorize the current civilization, off the top of my head. One, the most tragic on a personal scale, is the belief that happiness is something others are obliged to give us. This takes many forms, but basically they all amount to this: “If the other person would do what I wanted, I would be happy, but now I cannot be happy because they don’t live up to my expectations.” Of course, this is usually mutual. This is the madness against which Master Okawa and I are allies, though there are precious few others I can call on. It is obvious once you have actually experienced it that happiness comes from within, and depends mostly on our own choices.

The second, which is most tragic for the whole planet, is the insane intertwining of wealth and reproductive success. In a not too distant past, this was actually meaningful, for starvation was never far off for the common man, not to mention the common woman and child. A man who could display his potential as a provider during the next famine was the natural center of female attention. There may also have been an element of the instinct that forces the male weaver bird to spend a long time building a highly elaborate nest to impress the female: If he can do all this and still have time to eat and not be eaten by predators, he must have healthy genes, let’s come get them. This is fine as long as you are a bird making nests from branches, leaves, and discarded plastic foil. But when a highly intelligent species sets out to compete for their bare life to display the most wealth, regardless of the price in natural resources, pollution, species extinction and future environmental collapse… “Love hurts.” It hurts the whole planet.

There are of course the lesser evils I rail against: The notion that you will make friends by chewing gums and drinking soft drinks (I suppose it could happen, but listening to people and remembering their preferences is far more effective). The belief that being born on the right side of some line on a map makes you inherently superior to those on the other side. The rapid exchange of sex partners instead of taking time to cultivate true intimacy. Hell, throw in the whole porn industry, as if people did not have enough imagination or everyday life was not exciting enough. The insanity goes on and on.

I won’t say sanity is overrated. Quite the opposite. There is way too little of it. And I will take any allies I can find to make people stop and think: What the hell am I doing? Even when the “people” in question is myself.