Finding another way, maybe.

L. Ron Hubbard once said, sometime back in the 1950’s, that the best way to riches in these United States was to invent one’s own religion. So he did…and the world was made just a little darker. I would apologize to any Scientologists reading this, but that would be dishonest.

So, I’ve been considering my own worldview and whatever scraps of spirituality are left over from the final collapse of my early-life attempt to find God. I’ve assembled these bits of detritus, these memories and ideals and the bitter edges of my own wishes and I think I’ve got an idea. For the record, I’m not yet prepared to sell it as a brilliant idea, just an idea. A religion, I guess it could be called, except that it will not involve any idol or creator-god worship, nor will it present a wall of dogmatic ideology to oppress and limit the imaginations and voices of people. In fact, I’m getting carried away here. This is not a religion, fuck that title. It’s just an idea of what might be going on, in my opinion, as the only sane justification to believe in a higher force or conscience, the only palatable description of spirituality and “the Universe” as something more than just gases and dust, and lifeless matter.

The Universe, such as it is, is driven not merely by the immortal processes which create, develop and destroy in a mysterious cycle of expansion and contraction. The Universe, let’s imagine, has a purpose, but not one that can be fulfilled without us. There is the Big Bang sequence we’ve all heard of, and I have imagined that in addition to this, perhaps there was a single conscience, or an aggregate force, of love and justice that the universe began with, before the big bang. A universe that resembles our own not at all. A universe of singular purpose and, simultaneously, stunning diversity. A universe not of sad wheeling galaxies drifting apart across inconceivable distances, birthing stars in nebulae in a fruitless effort, but a universe of meaning and love. So what if this Universe exploded too, in a Big Bang of its own; meaningful matter spread out in a mist of atoms and protons, with an undying purpose to be assembled again, but this cannot happen without our help, since we are in fact an integral part of that.

What if, considering this, the only purpose in our lives greater than ourselves is to seek this love, this sense of justice, of assemblage? That we, if we live our lives only to help each other, and to find the justice that brings peace to the Universe, can be a part, tiny but essential, in achieving the unification of the ancient Universe. A Universe that makes sense, you might say. A Universe that needs no answers because there are no heartbreaking questions anymore. There may be mysteries that remain, and perhaps being all too human I recoil from the idea of a world where there is nothing left to learn, but perhaps if that unification were achieved then the longing in my heart would at last be requited. What if it were possible to regain a Universe with justice and purpose and love, instead of the coldness of our fears and hatreds that tear us apart and perpetuates the cycles of greed, slaughter and despair.

That might be a spirituality I could adhere to, because it’s not about fear or inane mysticism, or the oppression of the spirit in the name of social control. It’s only about finding the strength to resist the despair that assails us all at one time or another, to feel a sense of purpose without the attendant obligation and dread that is inalienable from most of the rest of this world’s “religions”. I like the sound of that.

Of course, I don’t see how that’s going to make me rich. Not in dollars, anyway, but perhaps there is something far more valuable. I hope so.

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