Original_To:  BITNET%"xcult-l@psuvm"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.xcult-l
Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 16:26:00 EDT
From:         "ISTA ISTA ISHATARRO MUNDI" <RAFTER@UTKVX.BITNET>
Subject:      Glorious Freedom from the Will to Truth

Chelagoi,

        To clear up some misconceptions about what I am advocating:

        First of all, I have studied religions, in some depth. I confess, I
have not yet studied African traditional religions, or many other pre-literate
belief systems... however, I have delved into Buddhims, Islam, Christianity,
and Taoism, as well as Shinto, Vedantism, and Zoroastrianism in some depth.
Yes, these religions have varying degrees of "freedom." However, I have never
-- NEVER -- encountered a religion that did not prescribe a specific and
exclusive world view. Either implicitly or (more commmonly) explicitly all
religions are just that: exclusive world views.
        I am not quarrelling about the truth of religions. All I object to is
their claim to exclusive truth. Rather than embracing one world view as
ultimate Truth, why not discover the rich beauty of them all? I claim not that
their content is false -- just their method. That is, their claim to perfection
or ultimate knowledge. Buddhism is no more valid than Christianity is no more
valid than Islam is no more valid than Marxism is no more valid than
Epicureanism is no more valid than Shamanism is no more valid than Atheism...
all are limited manifestations of our all-too-human perspective. None are
ultimately "True" in the eternal sense; all are changing, dynamic
interpretations imposed on the natural world by human beings.
        As far as not having anything to study... rather than being
restrictive, this "intellectual nomadism" opens up infinite worlds of
potential. There are limitless numbers of perspectives; why confine yourself to
one. I don't mean just studying other views -- anyone can do that. I mean
having the intellectual courage to admit the limited nature of them all -- to
admit that truth is a human construct -- and to roam far and wide among all the
possibilities that man and woman's minds offer. Thus you can free yourself from
the ball and chain of Truth and dance into the many-colored realm of free
thought and truths (plural. infinitely plural). Every painter paints existence
with fewer than all the available colors... only by diving into as many
paintings as possible can you get the sense of the diversity... and even when
you've seen them all, you know there are more.
        You said it all: religion is a journey to the Truth. At least I think
that's what you said (it may have been someone else). That is exactly why I
reject it -- it is a journey to the Truth. My friend, I do not believe that
there is a "Truth." Only an infinite richness of truths; there is no Ultimate
but that we make it so... why not view life with a hundred eyes instead of one?
Why not look at something from as many angles and in as many different lights
as possible? This is not shallow -- I mean view things from all the depths of
as many perspectives (humanly created perspectives) as possible. Then life will
become a wonderfully noisy race to see as much as you can. Don't latch onto one
perspective and spend your life hidden deep within it, missing out on
everything else there is. Don't ride just one bus; ride as many as possible and
see as much as possible. Intellectual nomadism: the courage to reject one
univocal Truth (dogma) and the will to see existence from a hundred eyes. If
beliefs are legs -- why stand still on one spot with one leg? Get as many as
you can and stride the length and breadth of earth, quenching your mind with as
many perspectives as it can hold. Toss out that dusty bin of convictions and go
fishing for violently alive beliefs, recognizing that nothing is ultimate,
nothing is eternal, nothing is immutable...
        And that is the beauty of life. The certainty of death and the
knowledge of our own finitude can either tie us to a despairing sadness (a
"sickness unto death") or free our minds to spontaneously and actively LIVE
life, borrowing and creating (the grand inventiveness of it) perspectives as we
go. Live -- don't hang yourself with the illusive rope of one Truth!

Brian
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