Why Karen Armstrong rules
I have a book author crush (kind of like a movie star crush, only you can be smug about it) on religious scholar/former nun/best-selling author Karen Armstrong. Every time I read something she's written or her hear her interviewed, my head gets tired from nodding in agreement. And now, because I'm sure she knew I have a growing interest in the Axial Age, she's written a whole book on it. I'm going to buy it ASAP, but in the meantime, there's this terrific interview with her in today's SF GATE.
In your latest book you write about the Axial Age, a time when four different religious traditions grew up in four different parts of the world. What does this period have to teach us about our world today?
Well, I never meant the book to just be an exercise in spiritual archaeology. I wanted it be a critique of the way we're religious today, because in our various institutions we often seem to be producing exactly the kind of religiosity that people like the Buddha wanted to get rid of.
What do you mean?
For example, none of these four religious traditions were interested in belief or metaphysics or questions about who created the world. If they entered into these speculations, they were for spiritual, mystical reasons rather than factual reasons. As a matter of fact, when sages start to propound orthodoxy and declare that their way is the only way, that's a sign that the Axial Age is ending.
The Chinese sages, for example, said that to expect the kind of certainty that people want from religion is immature and unrealistic.
[Certainty] also goes against the notion of the religious quest, because to get in touch with the ultimate -- with God, Brahma or the Tao or Nirvana -- you have to divest yourself of ego, and very often we identify with our opinions too closely.
We seem to be going in the opposite direction. All you have to do is turn on cable news at any hour of the day to see we're very focused on people's opinions.
Exactly, and it's all about ego. It's unskillful, as the Buddha would say. It will separate you from God. You've got to divest yourself of that kind of egotism.
[LINK]
In your latest book you write about the Axial Age, a time when four different religious traditions grew up in four different parts of the world. What does this period have to teach us about our world today?
Well, I never meant the book to just be an exercise in spiritual archaeology. I wanted it be a critique of the way we're religious today, because in our various institutions we often seem to be producing exactly the kind of religiosity that people like the Buddha wanted to get rid of.
What do you mean?
For example, none of these four religious traditions were interested in belief or metaphysics or questions about who created the world. If they entered into these speculations, they were for spiritual, mystical reasons rather than factual reasons. As a matter of fact, when sages start to propound orthodoxy and declare that their way is the only way, that's a sign that the Axial Age is ending.
The Chinese sages, for example, said that to expect the kind of certainty that people want from religion is immature and unrealistic.
[Certainty] also goes against the notion of the religious quest, because to get in touch with the ultimate -- with God, Brahma or the Tao or Nirvana -- you have to divest yourself of ego, and very often we identify with our opinions too closely.
We seem to be going in the opposite direction. All you have to do is turn on cable news at any hour of the day to see we're very focused on people's opinions.
Exactly, and it's all about ego. It's unskillful, as the Buddha would say. It will separate you from God. You've got to divest yourself of that kind of egotism.
[LINK]
1 Comments:
Thanks, I didn't know that Karen Armstrong had a new book out. I love her. Like, I may have to go to the bookstore right now and get this book.
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