Heard a guy

So I was listening to Pirate Cat Radio on the way into work this morning and they played a pretty cool little segment by a (modern) philosopher by the name of Alan Watts. He talks about religion for the most part with an emphasis on Eastern Religion. He said of christianity (and I'm paraphrasing here) "And the people pray to God, telling him what to do, as if he doesn't know. And the minister tells the people what to do, as if they have any inclination."

He continued to discuss the mystical process, that some of us seek out these Eastern Religions in order to change our consciousness and achieve nirvana or moksha or whatever in an attempt to improve ourselves in some way. Watts also mentioned that what is difficult about that process is that the self that is doing the improving is in need of that improvement (obviously) so how can that which needs to be improved do any improving? An interesting argument.

I had a ready reply, though. Every human has within them a grain of the divine, a grain of the perfect. Once that kernal has been nurtured and subsumes the entire being, moksha is acheived. For the sake of argument, let's say Jimmy the Meditator is .01% divine. He is going to use that tiny bit of divinity to improve himself. Granted, it may take him 10,000 attempts to finally use that bit of himself that is divine to successfully nurture his consciousness. However, then he is .02% divine. And then it will take him closer to 5,000 attempts to take another step along the road of the divine. So, while it is true that a very imperfect self is striving toward perfection, there is a seed crystal of success inherent in the process.

Watts did say that eliminating the ego is a very, very, very difficult and time-consuming process much of which is spent considering how sore one's legs are. To that, I say it indeed may take many lifetimes. Our buddy Jim up there might spend an entire lifetime without making an attemt to cultivate his divine origins, or he might devote his existence to making progress on the path to moksha.

Are these explanations that I come up with against Watts' arguments considered faith? That I have faith in the presence of a divine seed in any soul? That all universal apsects, and therefore consciousness, are circular in nature, and therefore life is just as continuous? Perhaps.