The Buddha you shouldn’t kill
YouTube, the video sharing website where users upload and share videos, has had its share of sudden sensations. The latest is Jonathan Doherty who regularly posts videos on spirituality. In a recent post he asks “Where do you think spirit is locat...
By Mukul Sharma, |
YouTube, the video sharing website where users upload and share videos, has had its share of sudden sensations. The latest is Jonathan Doherty who regularly posts videos on spirituality. In a recent post he asks ���Where do you think spirit is located��� and then proposes a thought experiment.
Let us ask ourselves, he says, who among the following list of people we would consider the most spiritual and who the least. 1) Someone wearing an Armani suit; 2) Someone driving a red Ferrari; 3) Someone pitching a baseball in the major leagues; 4) A professional comic; 5) A mathematician 6) Someone wearing a tank top and lifting weights; 7) An Olympic swimmer; 8) A college professor; 9) A model; 10) A sexual surrogate.
He then observes that, conditioned as we are by stereotypes, we would probably not find any of them particularly spiritual even though there���s no real reason for this. And why not? Because beauty, physical excellence and sex are all manifestations of Spirit, and ���you can enjoy the avatar that you were given by your Self at the deepest level��� instead of ���being dead from the neck down��� and constricting your so-called spirituality by ���wasting away spending one���s days and nights lost in prayer.��� So go ahead and get that tan, that boob job, those hairplugs or that hyper-muscular body.
���They���re all still expressions of Spirit or Source. They���re all just avatars. But that doesn���t mean you don���t have fun with them.���
Does this work? The philosopher Alan Watts who was best known as an interpreter and populariser of eastern philosophies, apparently thought so too when he wrote: ���Not to cherish both the angel and the animal, both the spirit and the flesh, is to renounce the whole interest and greatness of being human...��� But his solution was to express both the animal and spiritual sides of one���s nature with equal devotion lest one become a mediocrity or a fanatic.
This is nothing but the Middle Way ��� the path of moderation, away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. But getting a boob job or owning a Ferrari, which Doherty effortlessly advocates, is just about as over the top as ���wasting��� the whole time lost in prayer, which he conveniently doesn���t. Why the double standards? What he should have said instead is, if you meet the Buddha on the road wearing an obscenely expensive three-piece or extremely emaciated and half-dead, you should venerate him.
Let us ask ourselves, he says, who among the following list of people we would consider the most spiritual and who the least. 1) Someone wearing an Armani suit; 2) Someone driving a red Ferrari; 3) Someone pitching a baseball in the major leagues; 4) A professional comic; 5) A mathematician 6) Someone wearing a tank top and lifting weights; 7) An Olympic swimmer; 8) A college professor; 9) A model; 10) A sexual surrogate.
He then observes that, conditioned as we are by stereotypes, we would probably not find any of them particularly spiritual even though there���s no real reason for this. And why not? Because beauty, physical excellence and sex are all manifestations of Spirit, and ���you can enjoy the avatar that you were given by your Self at the deepest level��� instead of ���being dead from the neck down��� and constricting your so-called spirituality by ���wasting away spending one���s days and nights lost in prayer.��� So go ahead and get that tan, that boob job, those hairplugs or that hyper-muscular body.
���They���re all still expressions of Spirit or Source. They���re all just avatars. But that doesn���t mean you don���t have fun with them.���
Does this work? The philosopher Alan Watts who was best known as an interpreter and populariser of eastern philosophies, apparently thought so too when he wrote: ���Not to cherish both the angel and the animal, both the spirit and the flesh, is to renounce the whole interest and greatness of being human...��� But his solution was to express both the animal and spiritual sides of one���s nature with equal devotion lest one become a mediocrity or a fanatic.
This is nothing but the Middle Way ��� the path of moderation, away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. But getting a boob job or owning a Ferrari, which Doherty effortlessly advocates, is just about as over the top as ���wasting��� the whole time lost in prayer, which he conveniently doesn���t. Why the double standards? What he should have said instead is, if you meet the Buddha on the road wearing an obscenely expensive three-piece or extremely emaciated and half-dead, you should venerate him.
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