Eknath Easwaran and C.S. Lewis
There’s a new minister at our local church. She’s comparatively young, and, as far as I can tell, politically progressive and a vegetarian. It kind of makes me want to give the United Church of Christ another shot. I imagine most of the people there will still be multiple decades older than me, but it would be nice to make some community connections.
That said, Sundays are pretty busy for us. There’s so much to do to get the family ready for the week. I’d feel badly about leaving my wife at home with the kids. I also don’t know if I could manage to continue meditating and go to church. That might be a little much.
When I was growing up, the spiritual writers I remember my mother reading most were Eknath Easwaran and C.S. Lewis. Easwaran, of course, was Hindu and Lewis was Christian. I’m not sure how she would describe her religious perspective, but I think it might be a mix of those two, sort of a Hindu-informed Christianity.
So far, as an animal activist, I’ve found Hinduism a lot more interesting, primarily because it has a more compassionate view of nonhumans. I’m curious to know whether there is a materialist explanation for this. For instance, was the society that produced the Hindu scriptures less animal-dependent than the one that produced the Christian scriptures? I’m not even sure what kind of academic I’d pose that question to.
I think a Hindu-informed Christianity or a Christian-informed Hinduism would be my ideal religion too. With Christianity, my biggest obstacle is I don’t believe Jesus is God. With Hinduism, the biggest obstacle to me is reincarnation. Although, it’s starting to feel less foreign to me, since I began to make the comparison to purgatory.
Both reincarnation and purgatory are attempts to solve the theological problem of people not completing their spiritual journey in a single lifetime. It’s sort of like you fail the class, but then the teacher gives you a chance to take extra credit afterwards to make up the grade.
Obviously, reincarnation can be understood in a regressive way, as it was with the caste system. In this view, your low station in life is a result of your past deeds and therefore shouldn’t be challenged. But it could also be understood in a progressive way. It’s kind of like John Rawls’ veil of ignorance.
My understanding is Rawls puts forward an intellectual exercise in which you imagine how you would like society to be constructed if you had no idea what kind of human you would be born. The theory of reincarnation could be read similarly, except you’re putting species membership behind the veil of ignorance as well.
Anyway, I’m rambling. I might give church another try, depending on how busy things feel. Then again, I may not. Either way, my religious friends from college would think this was hilarious. I spent spent many hours arguing late into the night with them during my years of aggressive atheism.