Religious Practice and Immortality

In the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Karen Armstrong on religion and immortality:

Religion is about transformation; by ritual and ethical practice we become fundamentally different. Religion is not about preparing for the beatific vision in Heaven; it is also about living a fully human life in this world. By becoming one with these paradigmatic figures, losing our flawed, everyday selves in their perfection, we too can become perfect and inhabit an eternal dimension even in this world of pain and death.

Like any other religious truth, immortality must become a present reality. It is liberation from the constraints of time and space, and from the limitations of our narrow horizons. It involves a profound realization that the deepest core of our being is inseparable from what has been called God, nirvana, brahman, or the Dao. Like any myth, it is a program for action. The traditions teach us how to effect this radical internal transformation; they cannot tell us what this immortal state is, because it is so different from our normal consciousness that it is ineffable, but they provide us with a method that will help us to change. Unless we put that method into practice, we are in no position to say whether we have an immortal self or not. Immortality is not a matter of waiting for the next life, but in perfecting our humanity here and now.

Not many of the world religions are as preoccupied with Heaven, Hell, and judgment as Christianity and Islam; these faiths absorbed much of the apocalyptic vision of Zoroastrianism, which was unique in the ancient world. Many of the great sages were wary of speaking about the afterlife. The afterlife has never been a major preoccupation in Judaism. St. Paul told his converts, "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what things God has prepared for those that love him." When asked whether a Buddha who had achieved the enlightenment of nirvana continued to exist after his death, the Buddha replied that this was an improper question, because we have no words to describe this state. It was, therefore, pointless to discuss it.

Comments

[Norman Costa]

I read the entire lecture at http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag/articles/34-1_armstrong.html

It is very moving and inspiring. This is less the religious historian and writer in Karen Armstrong, and more the searching soul writing home to tell us about her journey and what she has learned so far.

[beajerry]

Armstrong, as always, hits the mark.

[Anon]

Then, uh, why do they call it immortality?

Ideally she's mostly right, but what fraction of religious people believe like this? How many would believe without nirvana, etc. What's really being effected by these rituals? How does the world change if not only inside one's head?

[Norman Costa]

Anon,

In my personal opinion, your questions are very close to some central points. Some of this is very difficult to discuss because we try to talk about things that are ineffable or for which words do not seem to do a good job. Of course, that doesn't stop some of us from trying, so here goes.

If we frame our questions in terms of 'belief' or 'believing', then it traps us in a mind set of creed and tenet. It's very, very hard to NOT talk about nirvana as if it were an end goal or place, even if we say it's just a concept. I like Karen Armstrong's talking more about a WAY or journey or behaving as if others are no less important than ourselves.

As to what is really being effected by these rituals (not well discussed in her brief lecture), well there is some research on biometric and neurologic correlates of some practices, but they only go so far. My background is somewhat similar to Armstrong's in that I spent two years in a monastery under conditions not unlike her own. Like her, I found meditation to be very difficult, but not without some small (maybe even tiny) glimps of what might be experienced. Years later I experienced some sense of Einstein's cosmic consciousness, but I can't tell you what was effected.

Your last question begs the issue of what's it all about. Are we supposed to change the world? Should we try to change the world? Why are we here? Where are we going? If any one can come up with some good answers, I'm all ears. I think Karen Armstrong's view, or at least of the sages she discusses, is that there is no underlying meaning or goal to be discovered. The meaning in our lives is what we give to it. She seems to be saying that the sages discovered that a life of compassion for others and ridding ourselves of ego, can give us and those around us an eternal moment of peace and bliss, even while we accept the pain and certain end that are parts of our existence.

Easier said that done, I know.

[Anon]

NC,

Thanks for your response - I had mostly meant my questions to be rhetorical...

I'm *something* of a fan of Karen Armstrong's, having read one or two of her books - "A short history of myth" is the next in line from her.

I guess part of what I meant to say (and in a low-bandwidth channel like this it's difficult to say more than one or two things) is that "religion" should clean up its act a bit, by not claiming immortality when what they're promising is some limited but expanded kind of enlightenment.

Much of what religion claims perhaps should be recategorized as philosophy or spirituality without loss of meaning, and would allow for more autonomy of thought.

If Ms. Armstrong is in fact saying that life only has the purpose we give to it I agree, but I didn't need a religious experience to conclude that.

[Norman Costa]

Anon,

You raise another good point, and it reminds me of one of the Bill Moyers interviews with Joseph Campbell. Campbell made a distinction between time everlasting, and the infinite duration of living in the moment. Armstrong and Campbell seem to be very close to one another on this. So why, you ask, does Armstrong appropriate the vernacular of the great religious traditions and redefine immortality? Why not dispose of it and really say what we mean?

Someone else has to give a good answer to your question, but I am going to hazard a guess. It appears that immortality is a subjective sense or non-intellectual realization by those who practice the 'way'. So maybe it's not so easy to dispense with the idea.

The interview with Joseph Goldstein on www.meaningoflife.tv touches on this to some extent.

[Anon]

Thanks again NC,

Yes, I suppose that this sense of immortality could also include the meaning: transcendent or oneness with the universe - perhaps the only immortality that we can hope for, but not consonant with the vernacular.

So you're saying that she uses the term the way that she does is because it's a term of art. Pity that it's so overloaded in that way, then.

Anon