From
Eastern Philosophy to Eastern Orthodoxy
Welcome to my new blog.
For the last 8 or 9 months, I’ve had a
blog entitled “Blue Jean Theosis.”
The purpose of that blog—or at least the attempt of it—was to bring Orthodoxy
into the minds of modern seekers, people who may not usually be interested in
the Orthodox faith. But the
problem is that it was “all over the place”—for lack of a better phrase. It didn’t have a coherent message—which
isn’t necessarily a bad thing—and was more or less various “thoughts” that I
had regarding the Eastern Christian view in light of modern philosophical
concepts and ways of thinking. It
was in many ways nothing more than a “personal” blog.
I realized that I could do better.
And I realized this because I have a
“story” to tell; one that will reach many more hearts, and many more “seekers”,
than Blue Jean Theosis could ever attempt to reach. And that is the story of my life, and the story of this
blog—a story that I hope will resonate with a great many people; a story of my conversion from Eastern philosophy and religion—specifically
that of Taoism, Buddhism, and Vedanta—to the very heart of Christianity: the
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, most commonly referred to as Eastern
Orthodoxy.
This blog is for those of you who are
interested in Christianity—specifically the ancient Christian spirituality found within the religion—but have been turned off
with the “trappings” of Western Christianity. It is for those of you who want Christ in your life, yet
have been more attracted to the philosophies and practical spirituality of the Asian East. And it is for those of you who want the
Truth—who desire it more than
anything else in the world, more than breathing and more than eating—and who
think that it is found in the Absolute Being so often talked about in Taoism,
Mahayana Buddhism, and the Vedanta of ancient India. The truth—and here’s the whole crux of what this blog will
be focused on—is that the Truth is
found in the Primordial, Pure Being of those ancient philosophies, but it is
not the Ultimate Truth. Because
the ultimate truth is this: Truth
is a Person, known and loved by the human heart.[1] It’s not that the philosophies of Asia
are wrong, it’s that they are incomplete.
Listen to the words of Saint John the
Theologian, and let it call out to you from Holy Scripture, let it call to your
heart:
In the beginning was Primordial Being,
And Primordial Being was with God,
And Primordial Being was God.
If these words from Scripture—and what I
have written so far—resonate with you, then the rest of this blog will
hopefully do the same. Here is a quote
from the book “Christ the Eternal Tao” that sums up in many ways who this blog
is written for, and what you can look for in upcoming posts[3]:
“In modern Western Society, many people
turn away from the Christianity of their formative years because they find its
truths smothered under an unreal kind of religiosity. They see that the people in the churches are not changing
and becoming better, but rather are comforting themselves and each other in
their unregenerate state. They
find that the spirit of Western churches is, at its core, little different from
that of the world around them.
Having removed Christianity from the Cross of inward purification, these
churches have replaced a direct, intuitive apprehension of Reality and a true
experience of God with intellectualism on one hand and emotionalism on the
other.
“In
the first case, Christianity becomes something that is acquired through rote
learning, based on the idea if you just get the words right—if you just
memorize the key Scripture verses, intellectually grasp the concepts and repeat
them, know how to act and speak in the religious dialect of your particular
sect—you will be saved.
Christianity then becomes a dry, word-based religion, a legalistic
system, a set of ideas and behaviors, and a political institution that operates
on the same principles as the institutions of the world.
“In the second case, Western churches add
the element of emotionalism and enthusiasm in order to add life to their
systems, but this becomes just as grossly material as religious legalism. People become hypnotized by their
self-induced emotional states, seeing a mirage of spiritual ascent while
remaining bound to the material world.
“This is not direct perception of Reality; it is
not the Ultimate. It is no wonder,
then, that the Western spiritual seekers, even if they have been raised in
Christian homes, begin to look elsewhere, into the Eastern religions. It is also not surprising that so many
are turning to the profound and enigmatic work of pre-Christian China, the Tao Te Ching. In reading Lao Tzu, they sense a similar spirit to that of
Jesus Christ. They see a
poetic glimpse of Christ in Lao Tzu—a reflection that is faint, but somehow
still pure. And to them, this faint
but pure image is better than the vivid but more tarnished image of Him that
they encounter in much of what now passes for Christianity.”[4]
If that resonates, then this blog is surely for you.
If you are attracted to the Tao, then may
you find even more comfort in the Tao that became flesh—the Tao that dwelt in
the world, and still dwells within the heart of every seeker.
If you are attracted to the Buddha, then
may you find even more comfort and solace from suffering in He who took on the
suffering of the world.
If you are attracted to the bhakti of Hinduism, may you find solace in the ultimate bhaktas, the ascetical hesychasts of the Orthodox Church,
who know Christ as the ultimate Beloved.
And if you seek unity with the One that is
beyond all duality, may these words of Saint Athanasius ever ring true: “God
become man in order that man might become god.”
This blog will contain many of my own
writings—including, but in no way limited, to posts from my previous blog—and
it will also contain all that I can find on the Web regarding the interface of
Asian philosophy and spirituality with the Orthodox Church.
I hope that this blog will be your
one-stop for everything you are searching for if you are searching for a real,
lived philosophy—a contemplative
philosophy—and if you wish to find it in the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ,
the Primordial Being made flesh.
[1] These are
not my words. Rather, they are the
words of that great bastion of Orthodoxy, Father Seraphim Rose. Father Seraphim—a Saint in my book—was
a seeker of Truth. He thought he
had found the truth in Taoism, but it wasn’t until he encountered the Orthodox
Church that he knew “Truth was a Person, known and loved by the human heart.”
[2] I “borrowed”
this translation of the Gospel of John from the book “Christ the Eternal Tao,”
but instead of “Tao”, I have substituted “Primordial Being.” In my view—and I believe in what would
have been the view of both Lao Tzu and the early Church Fathers—it constitutes
the same thing. The reason is
because the Greek word for “Word” is “Logos.” Logos and the Tao—and therefore Primordial Being—are
essentially the same thing. A Christian who doesn’t understand the
Logos simply doesn’t understand Christianity. (More on what this entails—and how the Logos made flesh is
also the Tao made flesh—in upcoming blog posts.)
[3] As far as
I’m concerned, “Christ the Eternal Tao” is the best book ever written that
brings together both Asian philosophy and the revelation of Jesus Christ. It does this without being a syncretism
(a common pitfall of most books that combine the two), while also bringing out
the full significance of Asian philosophy and the Church of Christ.
[4] Found in the
forward of Christ the Eternal Tao by
Hieromonk Damascene.
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