Each religion is alone true, that is to say, that at the moment we are thinking of it we must bring as much attention to bear on it as if there were nothing else...A 'synthesis' of religion implies a lower quality of attention.
Simone Weil
C'J: In a long lifetime of studying, and learning from religions, it is necessary to suspend disbelief to this extent to get anything from them. When I am singing a Mass it it impossible to do it right or learn from the experience if there are any reservations about God or the belief set you are singing about.
One of the reasons I do not attempt to build a coherent whole from what I learn is that not only are they alone true, they are also alone false. I suspect that if any had been true in the sense of having a true connection to God, I would have by now found God. Unlike Simone, the fact that all religions are alone false led me not to God but to a cosmopolitan understanding of morality, meaning and purpose in life.
3 comments:
C'J
It is a mistake to equate bringing attention with belief. The attention Simone is referring to is conscious experiencing with conscious detachment which is the opposite of closed belief.
Have you heard of the book "The Transcend Unity of Religions?"
http://www.integralscience.org/unity.html
We are at the exoteric or outer level. The esoteric level is what connects the exoteric with the Transcendent. At the exoteric level disagreements between paths are a meaningless collection of partial truths and fiction.
Christianity has outer forms of exoteric Christendom which includes all forms of sects. When one enters the esoteric level a genuine teaching allows us to see the human condition which we do not want to do. Often people either twist it or try to find something more egoistically acceptable. However this just makes the esoteric or inner path towards transcendence impotent. We become dominated by a lie that doesn't allow us to experience what we must.
Simone in her usual laconic fashion is just explaining that we cannot shrink from inner experience. Of course the problem is that people like Simone are very rare. Albert Camas said, and he was right, that she had a "lucid madness for truth." We don't have her need for truth nor her courage to witness it. But we still can sense possibilites beyond our usual daily life.
But for those with the need to move beyond the exoteric level, it requires being open to the esoteric level which means allowing ones path to be a teaching and not pick and choose what appears comfortable.
Suspension of disbelief is exactly experiencing with conscious detachment. It is quite different from belief which as you note is closed. It is being open to whatever there is that is being taught by the God, ritual, prayer, or creed that is being presented. It is not saying "No" to anything. Or "Yes" for that matter. Sort of "I'll consider it."
The transcendent with or without the Capitol T is within each and every human. It is natural and available to all without exo- eso- or neo-anything. I will admit that it is well masked by the smoke and mirrors of religion, and those so blinded must first remove the blinders, and then through Grace or just hard work find the transcendence within.
Thanks for the reference but I will probably pass. Anyone using the smoke and mirror words, loses my attention quickly.
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