Quest Magazine

By Roderick Bradford

Originally printed in the MAY-JUNE 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Bradford, Roderick. "The Believers." Quest  93.3 (MAY-JUNE 2005):91-95, 105

They [Shakers] are industrious, frugal and honest people, and so far as religion is concerned they probably have an article that is as practical, as useful and as sincere as any in the world.

—D. M. Bennett

The Truth Seeker, November 18, 1882

"Mr. Bennett was a deeply religious man," a close friend declared at the dedication of the monument erected to honor the founder of The Truth Seeker. This sounds preposterous, considering that D. M. Bennett was nineteenth-century America's most outspoken, relentless, and notorious critic of Christianity and all organized religions. The woman went on to explain her provocative statement by quoting Thomas Paine's motto: "To do good is my religion." If that was Paine's highest work, she argued, this made it his religion. "It is in this sense that Mr. Bennett was a religious man; and if we measure his religion by the measure of his devotion to his work, he was a deeply religious man."

DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett (1818—1882) was the most revered and reviled publisher-editor of the Gilded Age. In 1873, at the beginning of the antireligion campaign in America, Bennett and his wife, Mary Wicks Bennett founded The Truth Seeker and devoted it to "Science, Morals, Free thought, and Human Happiness." The Bennetts, like many of their fellow freethinkers, were former devout Christians who retained a good deal of Christianity's moral spirit. Bennett opposed dogmatic religion and took great pride in debunking the Bible, exposing hypocritical clergymen, and reminding Americans that the government of the United States was "not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." He argued that Abraham Lincoln and many of the founding fathers were, like his hero Thomas Paine, deists or infidels, the most noteworthy of them being Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

The Bennetts were involved with controversial movements throughout their lives. As spiritualists and theosophists, the couple met while they were members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers. The Shakers were a celibate communitarian sect that originated in England as an offshoot of the Quakers. Due to the spiritualistic sect's ecstatic and often violent shaking contortions during their religious services, they were derided as Shaking Quakers. Eventually they were called Shakers, although some of the founders preferred the name Alethians, as they considered themselves "children of the truth."

The Shakers, who would become known more for their furniture craftsmanship than their religious beliefs, came to America in 1774. When Ann Lee (1736—1784), an English religious visionary, and her followers arrived from England. Although Ann Lee believed in celibacy, she had married in England at her parents' insistence and had four children; all died in infancy. Ann Lee joined the Wardleys, a group of former Quakers who encouraged their followers to attack sin and preach publicly of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was subsequently believed that in Ann Lee the promise of the Second Coming was fulfilled. She became the religious sect's charismatic leader and was imprisoned for dancing, shouting, and blasphemy of the Sabbath. She reportedly "miraculously" escaped death on several occasions and claimed to be able to speak in tongues. Her followers referred to her as "Mother in spiritual things," and she called herself "Ann, the Word." In 1774 Ann Lee received a "revelation" instructing her to take a select group of Shakers to America.

The Shakers first settled in an isolated area outside of Albany, New York. Their pacifism drew scorn and persecution during the American Revolution, and Ann Lee was imprisoned for a few months in 1780. She died on September 8, 1784, but her followers continued to grow in number and Shaker communities flourished. The Shakers erected a meetinghouse for worship at New Lebanon, New York, in 1785.

When fourteen year-old, DeRobigne Bennett arrived on September 12, 1833, the Society of Believers at New Lebanon numbered nearly five hundred men, women, and children. The New Lebanon community was the largest of the sixteen villages that were located in eight states and the "Jerusalem" of Shakerism.

A few years before Bennett arrived at New Lebanon, James Fenimore Cooper visited the community and wrote that he had never seen any "villages as neat, and so perfectly beautiful, as to order and arrangement, without, however, being picturesque or ornamented, as those of the Shakers." Cooper also declared the Believers "deluded fanatics," albeit clean and orderly. Another distinguished visitor was Charles Dickens, who was critical of the manner in which the Shakers gained members: "they take proselytes persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect." The four Shaker virtues were Christian communism, virgin purity, separation from the world, and confession of sin, which one had to perform to become a member. The teenage Bennett might well have been one of the proselytes that Dickens thought too young to know his own mind. Nevertheless, considering the young man's impoverished background, it is understandable that his first impression of New Lebanon was favorable: "I was most kindly received in a family of some 75 genial kindhearted Brethren and Sisters who lived happily on the community plan with plenty around them on every side."

Since the Shakers were celibate, they depended on converts (sometimes orphans) from "the world." The Society had something to offer almost everybody, at least temporarily. Newcomers joined for different reasons and were Believers of varying degrees of commitment. Some "bread and butter" or "winter Shakers" arrived only to take advantage of the food and shelter for brief periods. Some joined only to depart soon, while others stayed longer but did not participate wholeheartedly and eventually apostatized. Others arrived with their whole families. One such family was the Wickses from Reading, New York. Mary Wicks joined the Shakers when she was five years old and became a beloved caretaker and teacher.

After a visit of ten days, Bennett, who came from a poverty-stricken home, decided to join the Shakers. He fulfilled the first requirement and confessed his sins, which he later described as "not a very black list at the time." A Shaker journal entry recorded the event: "DeRobigne Bennett opened his mind and set out with Believers." Soon after joining, he wrote to his mother and sister to invite them to join him at New Lebanon. (Mrs. Bennett's commitment to the Society was not as firm as her children's, and she would periodically leave and return.) For the next thirteen years he would be a Shaker "acknowledging the correctness of their faith and believing they were living more acceptable to God than any others of the children of men."

Relationships and intimate contact with the opposite sex were forbidden, and male and female Believers nearly always remained separated. They never shook hands or touched, and they spent their days and nights in a communal social order. Some interaction and a few wholesome persions were permitted but always limited and closely monitored. Evenings were spent at worship meetings or family meetings where elders read aloud excerpts from periodicals, books, and even newspapers. Some evenings were spent learning new hymns and singing. The busy Shaker schedule left no time for contemplation or loneliness, and church elders strongly believed that an idle mind was the devil's workshop.

At least once a week "union meetings" were held in which both male and female members were afforded the opportunity to be together, in a group and under close scrutiny. Half a dozen or more sisters would enter the brethren's quarters and sit across the room, and engaging in light conversation mostly confined to Society matters. Any instances of a "special liking" or "sparking" between individual members of the opposite sex were monitored and likely reported to an elder.

Bennett spent his first winter at New Lebanon attending school and working in the seed gardens. "He was possessed of marked individuality and more than average intellectual ability," a journal entry noted. Bennett also worked as a furniture maker and herbalist. The Shakers were the first group in America to grow herbs for the burgeoning pharmaceutical market. From spending several years in the Shaker medical environment, he grew familiar with the sciences of botany and chemistry and became the community physician. Bennett was also a ministry-appointed journalist during the most intense spiritualistic period in Shaker history, the Era of Manifestations. "I have understood from those who knew him intimately," a prominent Shaker spokeswoman wrote, "that he was thoroughly upright, of apparently strong religious convictions and sensitive to spiritual influences."

In the late 1830s a revival of spiritualistic activity occurred among the Shakers. The Shakers were spiritualists before the modern spiritualism movement began in 1848. In a sense, the Shakers were the forerunners of the spiritualism movement that became popular in America and later Europe. Ann Lee and the other founding members believed in spirits apart from the human body and that they could and did communicate with them and receive "revelations."

The Era of Manifestations, or "Mother Ann's Work," as it was known, was a period filled with messages and visions from the spirit world. The spiritualistic outburst preoccupied the Shakers for nearly a decade and both revitalized and weakened the Society. With a declining membership and a growing number of apostasies, mostly young Shakers, the Society's elders welcomed the restoration of the charismatic spirit gifts. Although numerous accounts of spiritual manifestations occurred during the 1830s, including inspired dreams, prophetic visions, and speaking in tongues, it was not until 1837 that the church elders proclaimed a new Era of Manifestations. During a worship service, a group of ten- to fourteen-year-old girls exhibited unusual trancelike behavior. Some spoke in tongues, while others saw visions and communicated with angels in heavenly places. Others, as if possessed by spirits, shook, jerked, and twirled about. Some talked to Mother Ann and other first-generation leading Shakers and were given gift songs, dances, and rituals to share with their fellow Believers. Those individual Shakers who received these gifts were called "visionists" or "instruments" and because of their unique abilities became influential and slightly controversial. In some ways Mother Ann's work helped revitalize the Society; in other ways it widened the generation gap that already existed.

Shaker instruments played an important role during the Era of Manifestations and believed themselves called and chosen. The ministry designated as "official" some instruments whom they felt were divinely inspired. Because of their sacred calling and personal sacrifices, instruments were separated from the other Believers. The instruments were thought by the Shakers to be their connection to the "celestial sphere" where inhabitants like Ann Lee and other founding members existed. During this spiritualistic period, the inspired gifts included songs, drawings, and revelations carefully recorded by journal keepers or scribes. The same meticulous attention to detail that the Shakers had paid to their family, furniture making, and business records was given to these important documents. These manuscripts were of immense importance and were believed to be divinely inspired.

The first year of the Era of Manifestations was the same year that Bennett became an official journal keeper, recording, collecting and transcribing the Society's most important communications and revelations. Bennett was mindful of the importance of his status as a journalist. In a self-effacing statement made on January 1, 1840, he promised to be "more brief" in the journal that he had been keeping for three years, which he "kept considerable of a full & minute account of the work of God & the movings of the spirit among us." But, he added, "when there is particular inspiration or revelation or anything that will be considered most worthy to be recorded, I shall endeavor to give as comprehensive a description as my feeble abilities will allow."

During the Era of Manifestations, every year seemed to present new and more mysterious developments. In 1841, Holy Mother Wisdom spoke through a chosen instrument. Bennett recorded that the feminine deity's visit lasted over a week, examining members and speaking "love and blessing." The most delightful and discernible spiritualistic gifts were the drawings and paintings rendered by Shaker artists while under the inspiration of the spirits. These inspired instruments, or "image makers," as they were known, produced unworldly religious pictures that became important to the Believers, a community that in the past forbade any type of "superfluous" pictures, portraits, images, engravings, or likeness of any kind, especially "art." One of the revered image makers was Mary Wicks. The visionary art works were presents for older members for their devoted service to the Society.

In 1842, at the height of the Era of Manifestations, the lead ministry instructed each village to prepare a sacred site for an outdoor feast and ritual activity. These sites, chosen by instruments under inspiration, were believed by Shakers to be the holiest of places on earth. The sacred feast ground at New Lebanon was at the top of a mountain, within walking distance of the community. Beginning in May 1842, this "Holy Mount" would be the site of the Society's most sacred and important celebrations. Bennett, the twenty-three-year-old community scribe, chronicled the seminal first meeting on the mount. On May 1, 1842, at 5 A.M, he wrote, the members of the Church Order gathered together "in the meeting room to receive the blessing of the Ancients [oldest Shakers] who were not going upon the Mount." The day's historical significance was expressed by one of his fellow journalists, who wrote:

This is a memorable day & long to be remembered, being a day lately in instituted by pine authority to be observed a feast or Passover, to be kept yearly, sacred to Holy & Eternal Wisdom. The Church, (Except some of the aged & those unable to go), all marched up the mountain, to the Holy consecrated ground, & assembled there to perform religious devotion.

Bennett's written account of the esoteric religious rituals that May is a fascinating document filled with descriptions of peculiar phenomena and inspirational messages. The day began with the members singing the song "Feast of Lord," followed by the Believers kneeling and being blessed by the Ancients. Most of the activity that day consisted of elaborate mime and playful worship. One of the "messages," however, revealed a subconscious discontent among some instruments and would prove to be a presage. While under inspiration John Allen came forward and stated:

Who has doubts? What doubts? saith the Prophet (Isaiah) Many answered & said they had none. Well said the Prophet I have doubts.

The Instrument was then taken under violent operations, thrown on the ground & rolled over. he was then raised up, & the P' [Prophet] said I guess I shall get rid of them now.

Due to his responsibilities as a physician and herbalist, Bennett was occasionally required to leave the New Lebanon community for business. These local day trips afforded him an opportunity to interact with fellow Shakers, some of whom decided to leave the society. Journal entries for the period show an increased number of departures and the reproachful attitude of Shaker journalists. As the apostasy rate increased, the journal entries included more pointed remarks regarding the apostates. Bennett gave a ride to two departing Shakers who, a journalist wrote, "chose rather to live among the world than with us." One entry noted that two sisters made their choice "to go away into the wide world of sin." Another Shaker, "loving his own way much better than the gospel," was determined "to have a swing in the world of pleasure & sin. . ."

In the mid-1840s, Believers began to lose interest in spiritual gifts and communications. Messages from deceased Shaker founders or leaders were replaced by "revelations" from historical figures Washington, Jefferson, and Christopher Columbus. Some instruments claimed to have received spiritual communications from American Indians. Shaker leaders were finding it increasingly difficult to determine the authenticity of spiritual "gifts" that were beginning to border on the absurd. Other messages were scolding and admonished against the ways of the flesh. A sister brazenly informed elder Frederick Evans of her revelation from Ann Lee that the Society should discontinue celibacy! An atmosphere of cynicism bordering on anarchism developed among many of the younger members and several of the important official instruments. The relations between the sexes became troublesome for the church elders. The Shakers were after all human, and occasionally a "sparking" would occur within the community. These taboo relationships might begin during a union meeting or while brethren and sisters were working in close proximity.

The New Lebanon Society began losing members, including some instruments from the Church Family—the most devout Shakers in the community. In 1846, the rate of apostasy in the Church Family was nearly 15 percent. "In the summer of 1846 a spirit of dissatisfaction and discontent overspread the minds of many of the young folks in the society," Bennett recalled, "and the faith in the Shaker religion had lessened."

On September 12, 1846—thirteen years to the day of his arrival—Bennett and three other Shakers, including his sister, eloped. It was the most shocking apostasy in the history of the Shakers. A contemporary journal entry remarks on this terrible event:

An astonishing & awful event this day occurs, by the sudden & unsuspected absconding of four our members, viz —John Allen, Derobigne M. Bennett, Mary Wicks & Letsey Ann Bennett!!!!— They had very privately concerted the plan, agree with a man at the pool to come with a carriage & take them, which he did, coming up the round by the gristmill, as far as the house below and burying ground. The 4 walked off not far distant from each other pretending to be going on some common business, no one suspected them, tho they were seen, excepting in one or two cases, when too late. They all went to the pool where some of our Deacons afterward went to settle with them--

It is unknown when DeRobigne Bennett and Mary Wicks began their relationship. Shaker leaders suspected that the apostates planned their departure during a union meeting. A church elder announced that the marriages were the first to be contracted at the New Lebanon church family, home of the most devoted Believers. One month following their apostasy, the Elder declared, "the time had come for particular union to be abolished, and a general union to be substituted in its place... it went into effect last sabbath."

The Allen-Bennett apostasy was a traumatic event that had perse and lasting effects on the participants and the remaining members of the Society. All four of them had been Shakers since childhood, and later Bennett recalled: "The parting from the home and friends of so many years was a severe trial. It seemed almost like 'pulling the heartstrings.'" In spite of this, however, the Bennetts stayed on very friendly terms with the Shakers for the rest of their lives. At the time that Bennett began publishing The Truth Seeker, free speech came under attack by Anthony Comstock, America's self-appointed arbiter of morals. Comstock was a special agent of the U.S. Post Office and secretary and chief vice hunter for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an organization that was part of the social purity crusade. Comstock, self described "weeder in God's garden," who bragged of driving fifteen people to suicide, waged war on "obscene" books and freethinking writers and publishers. Bennett challenged the puritanical Comstock laws and was arrested three times and convicted in 1879 for mailing Cupid's Yokes, a free-love pamphlet critical of the marriage institution and Anthony Comstock. "The charge is ostensibly 'obscenity,'" Bennett wrote. "But the real offense is that I presume to utter sentiments and opinions in opposition to the views entertained by the Christian church." The elderly editor's conviction and imprisonment became a cause célèbre for freethinkers and free speech proponents. At this time, however, the Shakers came to his defense. Shaker elders visited him in jail, defended him in print, and petitioned President Rutherford B. Hayes to pardon the "illustrious martyr, suffering from acts of the most devilish bigotry of our day." (Although Hayes pardoned Ezra Heywood, the author of Cupid's Yokes, and admitted in his diary that the pamphlet was not "obscene," he refused to pardon D. M. Bennett.)

The Shakers were known for their simplicity, humility, order, peace, and simple goodness. And while their strict rules of celibacy, strange modes of worship, and separatism eventually caused their demise, they certainly attracted men and women with integrity, personality, and virtue. In studying their lives and reading their words, it is difficult to believe that such intelligent individuals were only "deluded fanatics." During an age of seeking, a Shaker historian wrote, "Shakerism was a clear answer to the question: What shall I do to be saved? It offered a discipline and a means of service. And in the end it bore fruit of abundance . . . And as the world slowly absorbs another dissident faith, much remains to record the seeking, and in some measures the finding, of truth, and beauty, and light."

References

Andrews, Edward Deming. The People Called Shakers: A Search for the Perfect Society. New York: Dover Publications, 1963.

Bennett, DeRobigne M. The Truth Seeker, 1873-1911. Microfilm. Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress.

———. A Statement of The First Meeting held on the Holy Mount when The Whole Church assembled there. May 1st 1842. Collected and Transcribed by Derobigne M. Bennett. Old Chatham, N.Y.: Shaker Museum and Library.

Brewer, Patricia J. Shaker Communities, Shaker Lives. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986.

Foster, Lawrence. Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Morse, Flo. The Shakers and the World's People. Hanover, N.H.: University of New England Press, 1987.

Nordhoff, Charles. Communist Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observations. New York: Hillary House, 1960.

Paterson, Daniel W. Gift Drawing and Gift Song: A Study of Two Forms of Shaker Inspiration. Sabbath day Lake, Maine: United Society of Shakers, 1983.

Promey, Salley M. Spiritual Spectacles: Vision and Image in Mid-Nineteenth Century Shakerism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Stein, Stephen J.The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

Roderick Bradford is the author of The Truth Seeker: D.M. Bennet, The Nineteenth Century's Most Controversial Publisher and American Free-Speech Martyr, from which this article is excerpted.

By William Elliott

Originally printed in the MAY-JUNE 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Elliott, William. "Longing: From Relationship to Religion and Beyond." Quest  93.3 (MAY-JUNE 2005):101-105

Judean Desert, June 2002

"There's blood on my hand."
I touched my fingers to my forehead and looked at them again—more blood.
"Oh my God—I'm bleeding."

I had walking near my tent on the third day of my forty days and nights in the Judean desert when I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and then dizziness and then . . .

The next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the ground. I had passed out and my face was lying in a pile of irregularly shaped and pointed rocks. I pressed against the ground with my hands and slowly raised myself up while spitting out pieces of stone and wiping away the last bits that still clung to my face.

Then I saw the blood.

"This is when the journey really starts," I whispered to myself.

I was bleeding—and it suddenly had all become so real and different. And yet the harassment by the flies and mosquitoes was nothing new. The intense heat at seven in the morning was expected. Even the deep need that I felt for someone to save me, to take care of me, wasn't a surprise. But still, it was all different—I was different.

Three days earlier, a small red car had dropped me off in the desert and I watched as it drove off into the distance and disappeared over a hill. The doorway through which I had entered the Judean desert had closed that day. Actually, it was more than closed—it was gone.

I'm really here, I told myself. I'm in the middle of the Judean desert where Jesus was tempted by the devil—and I'm alone for forty days, just as he was.

And it was on this third day in the Judean desert that I first began to bleed—and then die, over and over again.

In early June 2002, I left the United States and went to Israel to spend forty days alone in the Judean desert. I almost died in the desert.

Why would a human being do that?

In 1985, I began writing Tying Rocks to Clouds, and in 1996 I began writing A Place at the Table. While writing those books, I spent every penny I had traveling the world seeking out the people who are thought to have clues to a deeper relationship with the divine, people like Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Marianne Williamson, and Billy Graham.

Why would a human being do that?A one-word answer would be longing.

Religion was created in order to answer the question of longing. Religion was meant to foster the ultimate relationship, which is the relationship with God. Today, millions of people read relationship books in order to have a better relationship with their mate. But in order to have a real relationship with your mate, at some point you have to put the book down and be with your mate. The same holds true with religion: at some point you must put down the book—whether it's the Bible, the Vedas, the Koran, or the Talmud—and be with your beloved.

Marriage is in some ways a religion. It is meant to keep one connected to one's beloved by a belief or law. But the point of being married is not the marriage, and the point of being religious is not the religion. Both religion and marriage were created (spiritually speaking) so that eventually they could be left behind, so that a human being could experience union and unite with the object of his or her longing.

As far as I can tell, longing lies at the bottom of every human heart and it drives us to do what we do. Whether we long for money, power, sex, or love—it is ultimately the longing that drives us and not the object of the longing. Men and women may lead amazing or crazy or destructive or productive lives, and each of these lives may appear different, but actually they are very much alike because they are all driven by the same thing: longing. This empty feeling is experienced at the base of the human soul. I believe each human being develops this longing soon after birth. Longing is created because we have forgotten our Being, and thus we long for what we believe is lost. This longing will do one of two things: will either turn toward God or turn into the desire for the things of this world. The question then is, why do we have this longing? Where does it come from? And how do we deal with it?

As Joseph Campbell pointed out in his meetings with Bill Moyers, the word religion derives from the Latin religion, which means "linking back." This implies that there is something in the past to link back to, something that we've left behind, from which we have become disconnected. For the human who has awakened to the spiritual life, this "forgotten thing" is the most important thing there is—because it is what we are seeking to link to, and it is Being itself.

From my travels around the world I have found that the main problem of the human life is this: hardly anyone knows anything about the experience of Being. It is inherent in our name, "human being," and yet hardly anyone has the conscious experience of being. Being is our true nature, it is the spirit of God, it is and always has been a part of us—and it is the largest part of us. In Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that "being" is our vast nature and it is most like space.

I realize now that my book Tying Rocks to Clouds was an attempt at understanding, finding, and linking back to being. Somehow I had the sense that I was missing something, and yet I didn't know what it was. Like a detective who investigates a murder after finding a body, I too was investigating a crime—but I did not know what the crime was, nor was there any obvious evidence of a crime. All I had was the not-so-vague sense that something was wrong and that something was being kept hidden from me.

In Buddhist teachings it is said, "Nirvana is the goal and yet no one enters." Being itself is nirvana, and only being can experience itself. The ego or sense of "I" does not enter being; instead ego is surrendered, revealing the link to being that has always been. Saint Paul described it beautifully when he said this experience of being was "secret and hidden" and that it was given to us "for our benefit before the world began." Paul quoted Isaiah by saying,

No eye has seen,

no ear has heard,

no mind has conceived

what God has prepared for those who love him

Paul went on to say, "None of the rulers of this age understood it . . . but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit [or Being]"

In June 2002, I went to the Judean desert for forty days. Like many people, I had been a seeker of God and had sought a relationship with God. But I no longer sought to be a seeker through beliefs, thoughts, or rituals. Instead I wanted the experience of God. I sought a religion, or linking back, with God because the longing in my heart demanded it. This longing drove me to leave the United States and travel to the locus of my own soul. If one were to look at a map, one might say that my destination was Israel (specifically the Judean Desert) and that I had traveled 6,497 miles. But in actuality, I traveled much farther than that—upon a road whose traversing is not measured in miles but by the deepening of the human experience, love, and acceptance, and not by direction, for there is only one direction—inward. And whose perilous mountains, cliffs, and valleys were not composed of stone or sand but of one's own psyche: the most dangerous of the world's creations.

"You're making a mistake," Orel, the manager at the Metsokey-Deragot Hostel said. "You've got snakes and scorpions out in the desert, and it's very hot, and there are so many cliffs where you can fall. So many things can go wrong," he said, shaking his head, "and there will be no one to help you if you fall or get bitten by a snake and can't contact us . . "

Orel was right: I could easily die out in the desert. I knew almost nothing about being in nature. I had the outdoor knowledge and common sense of a man who ventured into nature only occasionally—and that was to play golf. The Metsokey-Deragot Hostel was in the middle of the Judean desert. It was miles away from any town, and once I ventured out into the desert, I would be miles from Metsokey-Deragot.

I looked over at Yael for some kind of assurance. She was the girlfriend of Tamir, the desert guide who had found this place for me to stay, but since he had punctured his eardrum the day before, it was she who would be dropping me off near my destination. But Yael wouldn't even look at me. Instead, she looked down at the floor and nodded in agreement with Orel.

I turned away from them and looked out the office window into the desert. At one time the Metsokey-Deragot Hostel had been a kibbutz, started by Jewish hippies. But eventually they realized that nothing would grow here, so they abandoned it, leaving four or five small adobe buildings. It was now a place where tourists occasionally came to spend time in the desert, but anyone who has ever been in the desert (in the way that the desert demanded) knew that this wasn't really the desert. Instead, the desert was still out there, beyond the broken barbed-wire fence lying unmended; beyond the several sets of small hills that distanced one from the safety of others; beyond the space that opened up just past those same hills, a space so hungry for disturbance or anomaly that it would swallow up any sound or call for help. In a science fiction novel, the Metsokey-Deragot Hostel would be the last space outpost, the place from which the hero or fool sets off as he ventures into the vast unknown.

What would drive a human being to risk his life by spending forty days alone in the desert?

The night before I left for the desert, my older brother, a Chicago cop for thirty-five years, phoned me and asked, "Why are you going to the desert?""I'll tell you when we meet at O'Hare Airport," I said.The next day, we shared an order of fries at an airport restaurant before my plane left. I stood up to go and said, "Well, brother Jim, if something happens to me—I love you a lot."

"Hey," he said abruptly, "I already told you I loved you back when I had my heart attack. So if something happens—I already said it."

His question remained unanswered: Why was I going to the desert?

The most obvious reason for going into the desert for forty days was because Jesus did and my connection to Jesus had become very strong during the past five years while I was writing a book about him. And like Jesus, when God says, "You are my son whom I love," the love shoots up from within your soul and affects everything you do. I went into the desert because I felt that love and I heard those words and now I longed to relax into them, to allow them to overcome and overtake me, to be felt all the way down into the grounded feet of the soul. Just as an engaged couple's next step is marriage, going to the desert was the next step in my relationship with God. And now this relationship demanded a consummation, a confrontation of both love and anger that could not be avoided any longer—and I didn't want any interruptions: no television, no friends, no lovers, nothing that had to be done other than eat, sleep, go to the toilet, and relate to God.

These days religion has a bad name. It has a bad name because the original aim of religion was union with divine being—experience of divine presence now. But this union with God and the death or seeing through of a separate self has been replaced by rules on how to act and beliefs about God rather than the experience of God. But this attitude is nothing new. Two thousand years ago, Jesus quoted Isaiah and said:

These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are but rules taught by men.

When I met with Ram Dass years ago, he said, "All religions are rooted in the same spirit. Some religions are very entrapping. If a religion works, it must self-destruct at the end. You have to go beyond religion into the spirit, and a lot of religions almost prevent you from doing that."

Judean Desert, Day 31

Water is scarce in the desert. So during these past 30 days, the desert has baptized me in stillness. The baptism of stillness brings silence and eventually the silence gives way to Being. It is this experience of Being or God that I've sought. At the beginning of my spiritual search, I sought this Being through my meetings with other people. A few of them were able to baptize me in Being, not because they had any control over Being (because Being can't be controlled), but because they had become transparent to Being.

Today, during my meditation, I felt my usual movement of energies, then I felt a physical tensing or resisting, then fear, then I cried some, then a release, then an awareness of the energy of Being. This progression in meditation had become a regular occurrence in the desert, with the cycle repeating itself often. But this time while I was crying and seeing it—the crying seemed to shift and then I realized that crying is also Being. And then I had the subtle realization that I previously "hid" in crying—but now that crying "saw," that crying was Being and I couldn't hide in it. Then I went to fear, and I realized fear was Being also. That every speck of fear "saw" truly. Then I went to my bodily tensions and contractions—but I couldn't hide there either. Everywhere I tried to hide was Being and had "eyes"—it saw. And this went faster and faster until there was nowhere I could hide from Being or from myself. Then I thought of calling my meditation teacher about this, but I couldn't even hide in that thought. Finally, it all became horrible, overwhelming and totally crazy because I couldn't hide anywhere, and everywhere was nakedly seen—and seeing. I cried at the horror of not being able to hide, the horrible seeing of it all. I thought I was going insane, as I felt the insanity of nowhere to hide, but I could not even hide in my insanity. Like a man yearning for a dark place to sleep, but even the dark is light to him! Then I laughed and even my laughter was seen through and was "seeing" itself.

I saw myself and every place I hid with a naked, diamond-clear and razor-sharp awareness that destroyed me and sliced me down to nothing—and yet the all-pervading love of God was indivisible and present throughout the experience. I found myself saying "I'm sorry" several times, but it was always pre-empted by God's love. There was not a flicker, a blank spot or a hesitation in the love of God's Being. There was no judgment at all, no comments at all—only love.

If you want what visible reality can give you,

you're an employee.

If you want the unseen world

you're not living your truth.

—Rumi

 

It would be much easier if linking back to Divine Being was the end of the path of being human. But it is not. This re-cognizing of being is only a first step on the road to being a full human. As the Tibetan lama Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, "Enlightenment is not the end of the spiritual journey—it is the beginning."

After the union of being has been realized, being returns and manifests consciously in the human life; it is only then that we humans take conscious ownership of our inheritance and name: human being. What had been unconscious before in the human (namely "being") is now conscious in the human being. This integration of humanity and being is what Jesus meant when he said, "I've come to bring you life in full" and is also represented in the story of Ho Tei, an enlightened sage of the first millennium, who after his enlightenment was walking down a mountain with a sack over his shoulder. The sack contained "the abundance of life." A man saw him, and recognizing Ho Tie's enlightenment, asked, "Ho Tei, what is enlightenment?" Ho Tei, without saying a word, dropped his sack. Then the man asked, "Ho Tei, how do we live in the world?" Ho Tei, still without speaking a word, simply picked up his sack and kept walking.

William Elliott is the author of Tying Rocks to Clouds (Quest Books, 1997) and A Place at the Table (2001). This is his first contribution to Quest magazine.

By Clare Goldsberry

Originally printed in the MAY-JUNE 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Goldsberry, Clare. "Religion and the Quest for Personal Truth." Quest  93.3 (MAY-JUNE 2005):96-99

Much has been written recently on the necessity of religion and of its place in the development of one's spiritual life. Huston Smith, probably one of the best-known and most ardent supporters of religion and the religious community, brought this topic to the fore with his best-selling book Why Religion Matters. Yet, in spite of this excellent treatise about the benefits of religion, humanity is often an example of all that is wrong with religion.

In Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, Andrew Newberg and coauthors Eugene D'Aquili and Vince Rause examine the neurobiological essence of what makes humans believe in something greater than themselves and why religion has become the underpinning of that belief:

What makes these beliefs more than hollow dreams is the fact that the God that stands behind them has been verified, through a direct mystical encounter, as literal absolute truth. Any challenge to the authenticity of that truth, therefore, is an attack not only upon ideas about God, but also upon the deeper, neurobiologically endorsed assurances that make God real. If God is not real, neither is our most powerful source of hope and redemption. There can only be one absolute truth; it is a matter of existential survival. All others are threats of the most fundamental kind, and they must be exposed as imposters.

In other words, the presumption of "exclusive" truth, upon which religious intolerance is based, may rise out of incomplete states of neurobiological transcendence.

If we are right, if religions and the literal Gods they define are in fact interpretations of transcendent experience, then all interpretations of God are rooted, ultimately, in the same experience of transcendent unity. . . . All religions, therefore, are kin. None of them can exclusively own the realist reality, but all of them, at their best, steer the heart and the mind in the right direction. (164—65)

This statement expresses that much of what is wrong with religion is the tendency among many religions to claim a monopoly on Truth. It is as if there is an exclusive ownership of the pine graces of God to which those outside the walls of the religion are denied access.

To hold to "exclusive" truth is to render invalid individuals' experiences that resulted in their own truth. I am therefore invalidated as a spiritual entity capable of both seeking and finding the pine within. My personal search led me through what I felt was a rigid, dogmatic, religious organization whose hold on truth created a judgmental atmosphere of exclusivity toward all who did not recognize its religious claims to this truth. The result for me was spiritual bankruptcy.

Newberg continues, "when the [Catholic] Church tried to silence Galileo by proclaiming him a heretic, it showed itself, in the eyes of many rational people, to be more concerned with dogma than with truth." Then, as now, many religious leaders try to maintain their power over people. And it is this and the money that keeps many organized religions thriving. Ultimately, the goal of some religions is less to help individuals discover their own true nature and personal truth and more to maintain its dogma—to keep one adhering to and believing in the doctrines it espouses.

The question arises: Can individual spirituality be uncovered, developed, and nurtured by an organized religion?

In his book Reclaiming Spirituality, Diarmuid O' Murchu states that when it comes to the differences between religion and spirituality, there exists a defining line between the rigid, dogmatic, "straight and narrow road" of religion and the flexible path of spirituality. "Spirituality, in every age of human and planetary unfolding, is far more versatile, embracing, dynamic and creative than religion has ever been."

O'Murchu also points out that "Religion is not, and never has been, the primary mediating force for spirituality. Religion is not, and was never intended to be, the sole or primary medium for God's revelation to humankind. Religion is much more a human rather than a pine invention." He also reminds us that "the ancient spiritual wisdom embraced our world in a holistic, organic way that mainstream religion does not seem capable of doing."

Wade Clark Roof, the renowned religious sociologist, in Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion, notes that "Greater modesty in truth-claims might make possible serious engagement of the quest culture" (312). Because of these "truth-claims" by rigid religious organizations, seekers such as myself have often been accused of believing in nothing. Those of us who have moved beyond the organized religion of our childhoods are seen as having rejected "truth" because it is believed that "truth" cannot exist outside the organized religious structure.

To accept the exclusive truth of a particular religious organization as the ultimate truth is to cut ourselves off from seeking our personal truth; it is blind faith—faith that refuses to look beyond the boundaries set up by the religious organization; faith that rejects personal inquiry and follows blindly dictated truth, which isn't truth after all. Sharon Salzberg, author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, was asked in an interview about blind faith. "In blind faith . . . we don't question anything for fear of losing the intensity of our infatuation," she said. "Blind faith . . . continues to depend on an external source for validation, not on developing our own experience."

When we cease seeking, we also cease growing spirituality. Seeking personal truth often involves learning to question all we have been told, and not being afraid of the answers we might find. The church organization can, however, provide a conduit for us to begin the search. We can learn from an intellectual vantage point the how and why of God and humankind's relationship to the pine. But this is only a beginning, a means to an end—enlightened spirituality—not the end in itself. Religious leaders, if they are sensitive to the spiritual nature, can encourage one to listen for the still, small voice of the spirit and become a seeker of personal truth.

Finding one's personal truth always has to do with a calling that is uniquely our own,one that comes from the inside out, not from a bishop, a rabbi, a guru, or any other person. It comes from within ourselves when we are called to travel a path in which we can best learn who we are and the purpose of our lives on this earth.

Unlike many structured belief systems that hold fast to tradition and avoid change, personal truth changes as one's experience unfold. As we move from childhood into adolescence and then into adulthood, we see the world differently, and our belief system changes. The apostle Paul notes: "When I was a child I spoke as a child, but now I have become an adult and have put away childish things." What is truth for us at one juncture fades into the background as we are called into new avenues of life.

Any path we take is not merely a means to an end but an opportunity to experience the journey. Problems arise when people see their religion as the end, the ultimate truth, rather than as a means to evolve spiritually and seek greater personal truth. Jesus encouraged seeking: "Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you."

Truth isn't confined to a specific religious organization or institution or individual. Truth,particularly personal truth (how you perceive the world through the lens of your experiences verses how I perceive the world through mine) takes on many individual angles. When I was twenty-one years old, I was introduced to Mormonism. At the time, my ability to incorporate that religious belief structure into my life was dependent upon my circumstances in life and what I had experienced. My experience matched my belief system and therefore became my personal truth. The same cannot be said now. My personal truth has changed.

Personal truth also has to do with personal revelation: learning to listen to that "still, small voice" within and allowing it to guide and direct one on one's personal journey even when it may not follow the path prescribed by one's family or religion. Personal revelation and living one's personal truth often gives us no other option but to push against religion's dogmatic enclosures. It causes us to step beyond those boundaries which can result in rejection and even formal excommunication from the religious organization.

Seeking personal truth is an ongoing adventure. It is less a straight and narrow roadthan a curved path filled with detours and switchbacks, hills and valleys. To think that one has found all truth in one doctrine or one set of rules or one's religion inhibits one's spiritual growth. Certainly we grow spiritually no matter where we are, but we should never be content that we have achieved all we need to know. As a Theosophist, I find two quotes particularly relevant with regard to finding personal truth.

The first is from J. Krishnamurti: "Truth is a pathless land." Contrary to what some might think, this statement doesn't mean that one wanders aimlessly in a spiritual desert. What it means to me is that my search is never confined to one path, to one preconceived notion of exactly which direction I should walk while ignoring some very enlightening side roads. My second favorite is by H. P. Blavatsky and is also the motto of the Theosophical Society: "There is no religion higher than truth." This is a beautiful statement to keep in mind as one seeks one's personal truth.

As we push toward the pinnacle of our lives, we need to remain open and practice discernment but never push something away just because it falls outside the realm of one way of thinking. Being a seeker or partaking in the quest for one's personal truth need not imply that religions or religious organizations have nothing to contribute. However, no religion should be the arbiter of truth, but instead, a guiding light for adherents to find their own personal truth.

To push beyond the boundaries is sometimes frightening, but the alternative is confinement behind walls of doctrine or dogma that contain only partial or limited truth—the truth of someone whose experiences have been very different from our own. Finding our personal truth, then following wherever that leads next in our spiritual development, is critical to discovering the kingdom of heaven that lies within each of us as pine beings.

References

Interview with Sharon Salzberg. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. (Fall 2002)

Newberg, Andrew, Eugene D'Aquili, and Vince Rause. Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

O' Murchu, Diamuid. Reclaiming Spirituality: A New Spiritual Framework for Today's World. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1998

Roof, Wade Clark. Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Clare Goldsberry is a freelance writer for industry and business trade publications and the author of seven books, including A Stranger in Zion: A Christian's Journey Through the Heart of Utah Mormonism. A lifelong student of religion, theology, and religious history, she resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

By Michael Hurd

Originally printed in the MAY-JUNE 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hurd, Michael. "Near Eternal." Quest  93.3 (MAY-JUNE 2005):108-109

As one dreams, the mind appears as a vast warehouse; alive with much that is both familiar and alien to the dreamer. In dreams one may participate, interact, or even lose one's self within this boundless storehouse of memory, fantasy, and unknown terror. Oh, to discover the secrets of this hidden world, to awaken to its strange and unusual acquaintances, and to command the limitless behaviors committed within this vast and elaborate scheme.

Seeking to bridge the waking and sleeping realities, I sit and watch through hours of disciplined meditation; steadily hoping to find an answer within the pattern of my own thoughts.

Reassuringly, teacher insists that my answers will come, but until that time I am blind and deaf to the truth of my existence as an eternal being. To those with ears that listen, please hear my call. Please come to me during these endless moments of watching and waiting. If you cannot offer me what I seek, then at least stay with me through these times; that your presence may offer me some comfort, in knowing that I am not alone in my search.

Dryness in my eyes, a knot in my brow, back muscles aching, legs and buttocks fast asleep; teetering on the edge of absolute boredom and despair, I hear a whisper.

"Stop!"

Fear and a very deep attraction grip me into place. She has my full attention.

"Tonight, as you dream; tonight, it begins."

The encounter passes quickly, leaving me deeply shaken and yet, strangely intrigued. This mixture of fear with fascination, this unique commingling of apparent opposites, has brought me to an intensity of awareness beyond compare. Never before have I felt so very much alive, and yet completely powerless to govern my own fate. The arrival of this night shall force the dreaded moment. Tonight, I surrender to the unknown.

Night surrounds me. Wanting the sandman's presence, I undertake the course of a measured entry into sleep. Slow, steady breathing welcomes me into this hidden world, until the battle is won, and all is lost.

"Open your eyes."

My eyes opened, disappointed at finding little more than a shifting haze.

"Do you know where you are?"

"I'm not sure. I can't see anything."

"You linger upon the threshold. Every evening you come to this very place, and each night your fear keeps you from entering in. This period of indecision must end. Tonight, you must choose. Shall I loosen the sleep from your eyes?"

"Yes, no, wait! What will I see?"

"It's different for everyone. One's truth is one's own. No one else will see it in quite the same way."

"I'm thankful you've come to help, but I'm still so very afraid."

"You would not have come this far, nor would I have been sent, if you were not entirely prepared for this moment. Matters will be much clearer once your eyes have been opened. Shall I release the light of your awakening?"

"No, wait! I have so many questions."

"The purpose of your life's work is known to you. If you are to complete your task, you must choose to accept the truth of what you seek. The two realities can and will be reunited, but only with your cooperation. Accepting this, your life cannot continue in the same way. Surrendering to the truth will bring a clarity of thought and purpose previously unknown to you. Acceptance of the truth will also invoke an endless state of wakefulness. The truth finds little rest, and so shall you. Never again, to know the "bliss" of ignorance, you will be forever in the service of the Eternal. Shall I commit you to the reality of your greatest aspiration?"

"Wait! I want to know more."

"Is it truth you desire, or desire itself? Your moment of decision has arrived. Are you now ready to begin?"

My moment of decision arrives suddenly, not out of any wanting for the truth, but within a final moment of complete surrender. Beyond the limit of fear there is an expanse of thought where purpose and will unite, where all seems inevitable, in order. In that moment I simply allow the truth, allowed all, without reservation, hope or expectation, without "ends and means" or identification. The Truth is finally welcome.

Michael Hurd is a religious education teacher and facilitates teenagers to become more spiritually and religiously aware. He lives in Ontario, Canada with his family.