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Entreating Eternity

8 years ago2,381 words

Those who have faith make requests of their god(s) or the conscious universe in order to get what they want from the world... While I've always thought the idea rather ludicrous, I've recently been wondering whether they're onto something.

I've spent the last few days mostly just wallowing in misery alone in my room here in the abandoned university halls of residence, dwelling on how there's no place for me in this world, probably no partner for me, no sense of meaning or purpose in my life. It's been quite an ordeal. But obviously nothing would change by retreating further within myself.

I saw one of my two friends the other day; my first human contact since the Summer began. She's suffering with similar feelings of loss and longing, though we're trying to cope with our issues in different ways. She's taking a path I wouldn't, but I'm trying to see it from a point of understanding and support rather than one of judgement, as I might have in the past. Perhaps I'd make her decisions if I'd had her upbringing, her conditioning, her experiences. I want to help her, even if it's just by being there for her, but I was reminded of how wallowing in misery together with someone who's going through the same things - which has been a fantasy of mine for a long time - is more about mutual frustration and awkwardness than some wonderful feeling of rapport...

I'd love to direct her towards meditation, but people are so resistant. I can understand; I hate suggestions and advice myself, and I know that we're much more likely to follow paths we discover by ourselves. I wondered though whether we could do yoga together, as we'd talked about it in the past, but I wasn't able to find any local classes.

We went for a walk, but she had to pop into her house for a few minutes at one point, and I waited outside. As I did, I watched strangers passing by, as I always do... Wondering about their lives, their stories, feeling like I'd never actually interact with any of them. The familiar feeling of disconnection. I saw two young women walking together, and thought they looked happy. I envied them.

But! To my surprise, they actually came up and started talking to me! Which startled me. They were apparently Mormon missionaries, evangelising (why else would someone talk to me??). I imagine most people politely reject missionaries, consider them pests... I'd be surprised if they got many conversions. I was genuinely interested to hear their stories, though, and we had what I felt was quite an intriguing conversation.

The exploration of religion has pervaded my whole life in some way or another. Though my parents weren't religious, and I wasn't indoctrinated, I always went to Christian schools. Being intelligent and a critical thinker, however, from an early age I was posing sceptical (though at the time naive) questions to teachers and classmates ("if God made us, who made God?"). I just couldn't understand how people could take seriously something I saw as no less of a fantasy than Father Christmas.

As a teenager, I devoured the works of Richard Dawkins, followed atheist bloggers and YouTubers, read sceptic/'freethinker' wikis and articles and so on. Argued with people online a lot. Became one of those obnoxious Internet Atheists. While I imagine many of such people 'debate' about religion for ego reasons - "I'm right and you're wrong, therefore I'm better than you morons" - I always saw myself as some kind of saviour, hoping to help people. I felt that they were trapped by restrictive delusions, and that by shedding them, they'd have more freedom to get from life what they wanted. It seemed wrong to me to for example deny yourself sex before marriage just because some mouldy old tome written by misogynistic Bronze Age peasants said so.

I always wanted to understand it from all angles though... I felt that the atheistic worldview was hollow, and in its own ways just as restrictive and dogmatic as that of the religious. I despised such accusations while deep in that identity myself, of course. I felt that while religion started with an answer and tried to mould reality around that, the more scientific, sceptical approach found the evidence first, then came to conclusions.

Human minds don't really work that way, though, it seems. We're all resistant to ideas that contradict those we already hold dear, that challenge our worldview. There's a concept in the progress of science called the 'paradigm shift', which says that our scientific understanding doesn't progress through gradual small steps from each new discovery, but rather discoveries that conflict with existing understanding are largely ignored or denied until they build up to the point where they have to be reluctantly accepted all at once. This famous quote by Max Planck comes to mind:



Modern science and scepticism, for all its claims of being fair, open-minded, and relentlessly evidence-based, is firmly rooted in materialism. If we can't measure it with physical instruments, then it doesn't exist. And that's that.

It seems so narrow-minded to me, though. I could write essays about why - and I feel I probably will at some point - but it seems beyond the scope of this post.

I feel though that in order to best understand the universe, we should explore everything available to us, no matter how daft it might seem on the surface. Sticking with just hard-hearted materialist science that scoffs at anything metaphysical and tries to cram it into our existing understanding of jostling molecules seems so limited. Devoting yourself to the holy book you grew up with and believing despite evidence seems even more limited.

While I got frustrated by the stories of religious believers in the past, now I eagerly listen to them in order to add more pieces to the bigger puzzle. There's a surprising amount of overlap, once you get past the superficial rituals and rules and such, and it's interesting to contrast and compare.

If there is some 'God', and it surpasses human understanding... then each person who genuinely makes contact with it will probably try to explain it as best they can, but the limitations of language get in the way. Could you describe chocolate to someone who's never tasted it? Do you think the words you'd choose would be the same as other people's? Or that they'd give the person a good idea of what your experience was like?

Anyway. Mormons! Both of them said they'd grown up in the Mormon church, left as young adults, then came back. I suppose that's how it often works. Early indoctrination loses its grip on the developing mind, but then the harsh meaningless of the real world encourages a return to what was once comfortable. While I think they're silly because I think Mormonism is silly, I can certainly understand their reasons - even if those reasons aren't conscious as such - and rather envy the strong sense of meaning and purpose in their life.

They gave me their contact details; I imagine they were probably just glad to have hooked someone, and hoped for a convert. Honestly, I'd be interested to go and talk with them, just in the hope of developing a greater understanding of the forms that spiritual experiences can take. They briefly described their own 'responses from Jesus', and they sounded similar to the kind of vague 'feelings' of drive and purpose and an answer that people from other spiritual traditions also report.

While talking with them about such things, I felt like I was in my element. Engaged. Like I knew what I was talking about, and enjoyed it deeply. Like perhaps I could devote my life to better understanding spirituality in some way. It seems to me the most satisfying approach, though I can't see myself benefitting from the sense of belonging and community that those who are members of organised religions do.

Though the hint of meaning and purpose left me feeling relatively uplifted, the depression returned as soon as I got home, and I spent last night lying awake dwelling on the usual despair. I remembered the Mormons, though, and how they'd spoken of how they prayed for answers and received them. I also remembered how spiritual teachers I'd respected in the past had spoken of 'asking the universe' to give them an answer, some direction to head in.

So I tried. I entreated the universe and its consciousness to give me a sign about what I should do with my life.

Nothing happened at the time, of course... I didn't expect it to.

Today, I had to go and have an eye test. I didn't want to; the depression and anxiety told me it'd be easier to cancel, to stay inside. But I pushed on regardless. And I'm glad I did, because several things happened that were worthy of note.

On the way, I picked up my mail from the student village's mail room... knowing that I was expecting a letter from the neurosurgery hospital about the brain issue I only touched on vaguely a few weeks ago. I'd put it off for a while because I suppose I didn't want it to become more real... Turns out I did have a letter, though, and I have to make an appointment tomorrow to determine when it's best to go and get my head cut open. Surreal. Not as scary as it perhaps should be.

Another confirmation of the reality of my situation came during the eye test. The optician spent quite a while looking at my retinas, my optic nerves, and said they looked... different to how they should. That they should be sharply defined, but mine were 'feathered', whatever that means. I mentioned the brain thing, and he said that the increased cranial pressure of this condition is probably the cause. And I have been having odd vision distortions recently... Hmm.

Though that was worrying, my mind was mostly elsewhere. In the waiting room, I saw a young woman who looked like 'my sort of person'. It's rare that I see these; most people I pass by on the streets trigger feelings of alienation, of the impossibility of a connection, as they seem so different to me in every way my mind thinks matters. This girl seemed like someone I could possibly have related to... Possibly. It bothered me that though we were sitting just a couple of seats apart, I'd never actually talk to her. Girls must get pestered by random guys all the time, and I wouldn't want to inflict that on her. Though I might have a reason to want to form a connection with her, what reason would she have to form one with me? And of course it's just socially unacceptable to strike up conversations in situations like that.

Not that that stopped another stranger from starting one with me! There was this old woman - she said she was 70 this year, though she was lively and extroverted and seemed much younger - who was talking cheerily to everyone as if she were their old friend. Most people (including the girl I had my eye on) were reacting with awkward politeness, obviously uncomfortable that she was breaking the unspoken social rules. When she talked to me, though, I was curious, and engaged her.

She commented on a poster on the wall showing someone doing a handstand, and said it was good to see yoga in places like this. She's a yoga teacher, she said.

Hmm.

She had to go and have an eye test thing done, but told me about it after she was done. Something about cataracts. The effects of getting old, she said, cheerily. She asked what I was there for. I ended up mentioning the brain thing because I overshare! I said it felt weird having something wrong with your brain, because it's all you are... She said it probably isn't, though, and I agreed. We ended up talking about spiritual experiences, about a profound one that she'd had, which resonated deeply with my own discoveries.

Hmm!

She spoke of doing yoga when she was about 30, quite intensely, and entering into a mystical experience where she met three 'angels', the descriptions of which fit with what those who have Near Death Experiences often report. She said most people just laughed at her when she said this, and it's true; it's so easy to give that knee-jerk reaction rather than to entertain the idea that reality works differently to how we thought. She told me how she'd never been raised in any organised religion, and that this experience made her aware that everything is God - her, me, the sky, the chairs - and that this really surprised her because she'd never thought about it that way before.

Maybe she was just some crazy old lady who believes in fairies at the bottom of her garden. Or maybe she was exposed to the same kind of transcendent knowledge that many spiritual practitioners are as a result of prolonged meditation or prayer. I'd like to keep an open mind.

It just seemed so strange that this happened the day after I'd asked the universe for a sign. I know that there's a psychological concept called 'confirmation bias' that states that we fall into the trap of seeing patterns where there are none, of seeing what we expect to see, but I feel that to hand-wave coincidences away as 'just' that is to deny ourselves meaningful and potentially life-changing experiences.

Maybe the world is just a story, with a plot and a purpose and foreshadowing and such. I don't know. All I know is that little things like being reminded that there are people in the world I'd be interested in, and that I'm strongly engaged when the topic of spirituality comes up, give me a stronger sense of purpose and motivation than I've had in a long time.