Category Archives: Religious Quest in the Modern Age

The Many religions of Pi

Fellow Feeing, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

The book I chose as the first one to look at on my spiritual quest  was a wonderful book, Life with Pi. Pi is what I would call a syncretist. That is a person who tries to combine different beliefs from different sources often by blending them, or merging them, into one. This word is often used in religion. Some people don’t see religions as opposing each other, but rather as different views of the same truth. Fundamentalists usually have great difficulty with this. They see their own religion as superior, and the rest as inferior others. Many cannot see anything worth noting in the religion of others. This was a very common assumption by representatives of western religions when they encountered indigenous religions around the world. They were blind to what was before them. Syncretism, on the other hand is inclusive, or what I have called expansive.

In the book, Pi said, “I am a practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim.” He had no reason to believe that only 1 religion could show the way. Why would he?  Why couldn’t he believe and practice all three? Pi was only 16 years old and he thought he had a lot to learn from all of them. Pi even said “Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith.”

On the other hand, Pi’s father saw himself as “part of the New India–rich, modern, and as secular as ice cream.”  He did not have a religious bone in his body. He was strictly business. “Spiritual worry was alien to him; it was financial worry that rocked his being.”

Pi’s mother on the other hand was neutral on the subject of religion. She had a Hindu upbringing and a Baptist education, and according to Pi this cancelled both out leaving her “serenely impious.” That is the impiety I prefer! Or perhaps that is the piety I prefer.

Pi is puzzled by those who think they have to defend God. “As if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless.” These are often the fanatics of fundamentalism. These people forget the Golden Rule. Their empathy has been shredded by false religion.

According to Pi,

 

“These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, ‘Business as usual.’  But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.  The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. “Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.”

 

Does this not sound a lot like the Old Testament prophets?   I posted a blog about them.

Pi also saw the same source for his ideas: “an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.”

I actually think the word “love” is a bit strong here. I prefer something easier–fellow feeling or empathy. Loving others can be very hard. Seeing oneself in the other should be easier.  It is harder to love the other, but it is enough to see oneself in the other. And that makes all the difference.

That is what religion is all about.

 

 

Life of Pi

Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

Moby Dick was the first book I chose and read in my new spiritual journey, but I have decided to talk first about a book I read just a few years ago, long after Professor Ridd was gone. I think it sets the stage well for what I want to do. I will get to Moby Dick soon. I promise.

 

The first book I want to talk about on this religious quest was written after Ridd died. The book is Life of Pi by Yann Martel and it won the Man Booker Prize. This was a book like no other. It is a marvellous book and a pretty good movie was made of it.

The books starts off in Canada where we meet a young writer Pi Patel. It is an odd name.  His real name was Piscine Molitor Patel. He was named after a swimming pool in France. In Canada he got in trouble with his name. As so often, kids tend to twist names to tease their peers. For example, when I was young my name, in German, was Hans Erich.  My mother had a rule. When she called me I had to come home. If I said I did not hear her, she refused to accept that excuse. If I did not hear her, I was too far away. If I heard her and did not come home, I was disobedient. Also bad. This was a lose/lose situation. Either way I was in trouble. But my mother had a very loud voice. I could hear her from a great distance away. Unfortunately, so could my friends.  They twisted my second name into Earache. I was called that for a few years and no doubt suffered extreme psychological damage. I hated that name. Mainly because my friends  teased me unmercifully.

 

It was the same with Piscine Molitor Patel. His friends twisted that into ‘Pissing Patel.’  That was not cool. So, one day, he told everyone to call him Pi for short. It was a name based on the symbol Pi. He adopted the symbol (the Greek letter, π) That was more like it. It was a very cool name.

 

In a way that was his start on a religious journey. A religious quest I would call it. The family lived in India the home where many important religions were born. India is probably the most religious country in the world. It is saturated with religion. No doubt more religious quests have begun or ended in India than any other country in the world.

Pi was raised as Hindu in his family. That was because his family was Hindu. Parents tend to do that. Just like I was raised a Christian. Inevitably, most children enter into a religion because they have been inculcated to do so by their parents. That happens in all religions

Yet at age 12, Pi was introduced to Christianity. Sort of like Christ as a young boy became a Christian (so to speak) at the age of 12.

Later Pi was also introduced to Islam. Now he knew 3 religions. What was he to do? He did something very interesting. He decided all he wanted to do was “love God.” That was when his real religious quest began in earnest. How could he do that with 3 different religions? Well, Pi found a way.

Pi’s  mother did not have strong religious views. She thought that was all right. His father was more interested in money than he was interested in religion. He tried to persuade Pi to become a secular humanist. A rationalist one might call it.

 

Pi’s family owned a private zoo. What an exotic family. The zoo had a Bengal tiger that was called Richard Parker. He became a major character in the book. When Pi was 16 years old his father decided to move his family to Canada together with his animals. They were a major asset. They booked passage on a Japanese freighter, but during a storm the ship foundered and sank. As the ship sank, Pi was tossed into a lifeboat. His family drowned. But he was joined by others. A zebra soon joined Pi in the boat and later an orangutan. A spotted hyena also was discovered on board and it killed the zebra.  Later it killed the orangutan. joined them.  Richard Parker the Bengal tiger emerges from under a tarpaulin and then things got really interesting. As you might imagine.

How could such a strange menagerie of critters together with 3 different religions manage of this strange quest to love God?

I hope your curiosity is piqued. I will tell you more on the next post.

The Religious Quest in the Modern Age

Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In 1972 or 1973 as a young man, going to University, I watched a very interesting television show. It was called “The Religious Quest in the Modern Age”.  It consisted of some lectures delivered by Dr. Carl Ridd a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Winnipeg. I was never a student of his. It was about a  a series of lectures on modern philosophy and literature all relating in some way, to religion. It did not have a lot to say about sacred texts—directly at least. It was not that kind of a religious quest. But Ridd was brilliant and riveting.

I was transfixed by the lectures and found them deeply interesting. The lectures I thought were sort of a summary of a course he taught for a number of years at the University of Winnipeg. He had fascinating things to say about the books. I was completely hooked.

Astonishingly, the shows were shown on Saturday mornings. I only saw a small number of them. Maybe 2. I heard about the series by accident. I think we only had 3 TV stations at the time on our small black and white television set I had “borrowed” from my sister Diane. But the ideas were exciting. I was mesmerized I wanted more. I was dumbfounded when the series ended. I was immeasurably jealous of the students from the U of W who got to participate in the entire series. I have been haunted by the memory of that course ever since.

Then during the time of Covid, in the winter of 2021, with little to do, for some reason the idea came into my head that I should teach myself the course. Carl Ridd was long since gone. I knew a couple of old friends who had attended the U of W during those years and had an interest in such topics, so I reached out to them to see if any of them had ever taken that course. Sure enough, 2 of them had. And they shared with me that they had loved the course and gave me their recollection of what books he taught. I had a vague idea from my recollection of the few shows I had seen on TV. Together with their recollections I decided to embark on this spiritual journey. I ventured out on my own personal religious quest in the modern age. Frankly, I was wildly excited by the project.

They used to say there are 9 million stories in the naked city (New York City). They could just as well say there are 8 million spiritual journeys in the naked city. I know we used to think there was just one. The holy book we were taught by our parents. Nothing else mattered, so we were taught.  I was brought up in such a home. But that really is a narrow point of view. There are as many quests as there are people, and some are very interesting. I want to share some of the more interesting quests.

Ridd taught some of the great books of the 19th and 20th centuries. He talked about books by Camus, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and many other great writers. To my surprise he left out some books that ought to have been included. I will include them. So, I have made my list of books inspired by Ridd but not chained to him.

To my surprise I found I had read a good number of the books Ridd taught. That is fine. Good books are worth re-reading. In fact, I have already started that project of re-reading classics and it will fit in just fine with this one.

I will also add books to the list that have been written since he taught the course. There have been some amazing religious quests since then.

I invite you to join me on this spiritual journey. I think it will be very interesting. I will, I promise, it will be a meandering journey.  There will be many stops to permit pondering and mulling things over. I also can’t entirely stop other topics I want to post about such as  politics and religion, social democracy, books, and films, and the like. There will be interruptions.

On this journey we will consider religion from many different points of view. Maybe even yours! Some will be sceptical. Some will be strange. All, I think, will be interesting. All will show a desire to explore the quest for religion in the modern age. Please join me on this quest. I think it will be worth the trip.