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Tuesday, 22 August 2006 18:43 |
 | | Marc Mullinax |
"Mr. Sentient Being! ÇƒÓ Absolutely empty neti neti identity, Maya Nobodaddy, relative phantom nonentity." ÇƒÓ Allen Ginsberg
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MARS HILL ÇƒÓ The Hindu traditions contain a spiritual practice that might transfer to our own here in Southern Appalachia. Kin to the Christian practice of "Via Negativa," the Hindu practice of "Neti, Neti" helps eliminate idolatry.
Neti,
Neti means literally "Not this, not that." It is a useful phrase and
discipline when considering what/who is g-d, or oneës ultimate concern.
The related Christian practice of via negativa enables this same kind
of discipline, for it is indeed a discipline.
We are rather
undisciplined, are we not? We allow all kinds of things to pass
themselves off as "religious" or "Christian" or "spiritual," when we
might be better off just saying no. "Just say no" to certain kinds of
things that would call for our allegiance.
Neti neti is a
raid against ignorance. Out of ignorance we confuse things that we see,
and imagine (or imagine that we see) with the divine. These "things"
help us to maintain an "ignore-ance" about what is truly real.
What is truly
real? There can be no one-on-one divine knowledge from referents,
signals or inferences from this world. No language, no symbol system
... nothing can represent the divine.
Read that last sentence in two ways: (1) Nothing can represent the divine; and (2) Only nothing can represent the divine.
Why confuse the seed with the fruit? The log for the house? The picture of a fire for the fire itself? The name of G-d for G-d?
We cannot
capture G-d, either in language, or in church, or in concept. But we do
imprison G-d, domesticating the divine in nets of human discourse, in
buildings marked religious, and in thought systems that speak of the
certainty of certain theological things.
And then we live
in these self-made prisons, constructed entirely of habit, unaware that
the divine has never inhabited such, and never could.
Thus, the
discipline of Neti, neti is a holy diet, a slimming down of all that we
might imagine of the divine, until G-d becomes none of what we can
think, say or imagine. Neti, neti is the practice of achieving
nothingness. I speak of the English languageës longest non-scientific
word: floccinaucinihilipilification, which ironically means the act of
estimating something as worthless.
Neti, neti is
not merely denial. It asserts that whatever the Divine may be, when we
attempt to capture it in human words, we inevitably fall short, because
we are limited in understanding, and words are worthless coins to
purchase the transcendent.
But purchase we
do, and thus we live with small g-ds, ruling over small things. Here,
then, is a short list of some g-ds we can do without, a winnowing of
the tiny g-ds who need to die.
ï The g-d named fear, who says, "Believe in me, or thereëll be hell to pay."
ï The g-d of nation, who says, "Love me, or leave me. Fight for me, kill for me, I am your nation."
ï The g-d of my childhood, who said that if I hated myself enough, he would then love me.
ï The g-d whom we think we can influence to love us more.
ï The g-d in the heavens, for whom it is impossible to imagine living in me.
ï The g-d in me, for whom it is impossible to imagine living in the heavens.
ï The g-d called anesthesia, who deadens us from pain, vibrancy and potency.
ï The g-d called "me," who thinks that s/he has finally achieved a final understanding of what and who g-d is.
Pare g-d down; go on a deity-diet, so we can hang these tiny deities that hold us back.
ï
Dr. Marc S.
Mullinax, chairman of the philosophy and religion departments at Mars
Hill College, can be reached at mmullinax-at-mhc.edu.
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