The Guppy Responds

As you see from the pieces my friend Tim Klay has contributed to this blog (we also have a perchance for aliases) why I enjoy him so much. He loves abreactions as much as I do and speaks well and clearly. All of this said obviously to butter him up before I attack.

Actually I love his metaphor about the fish and the stream. It reminds me of Zen koans that I am very fond of, which are like fairy tales, myths and legends, that teach great truths. (teaching point: myth and legends may or may not be factually true, but that is not the point, their point is to teach.) I also agreed that many folk have deep religious beliefs but don’t talk about them much. Even though I am a preacher one of my colleagues onces said to me, “Hugh, you are so comfortable with your religion you often sound like a heretic when you talk.” By which, I believe he meant I had an almost entire lack of piety. Religion is just a part of life as jobs, babies, hobbies, etc., just more important but talked about less.

I have also told my friend Tim that he would make a good Hindu, who are the most accepting in practice of all the major religions I know. You may be Hindu and a Christian among other belief systems and just accept their differences and celebrate their similarities. [There is a great little book I read recently about a boy who practiced Christianity, Islam and others, but I forget its name. Anybody recall its name?] And yet, there is a major departure point between the Judeo-Christian tradition and the other mid-eastern and eastern religions; that being the relationship between God and human beings. In the Judeo-Christian traditions God is distinct from people; God’s ways are not our ways. The Jewish theologian, Martin Buber talked about it so well in his book, I, Thou. In the eastern religions God and humans are not so distinct.

In Hinduism there is the concept of the Atman described by Wikipedia as “Ātman (IAST: Ātman, Sanskrit: आत्मन्) is a Sanskrit word that means 'self'. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism it refers to one's trueself beyond identification with phenomena. In order to attain salvation (liberation) a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana) which is to say realise experientially that one's true self is identical with the transcendent self (paramatman) that is called Brahman.”

In my understanding the Atman is the collection of all our souls into one being, the Atman or God. Together we are the deity. Thus in the excellent argument of Mr. Klay, there will be a day when “Oops, there he goes. No more Hugh.” Then I and he and all others will be part of the water.

In my view there will be water and fishes and other such things until this finite dimension ends and then we all will be in a new dimension where our individualities still exist but the conflicts between our individualities cease. At present, I cannot possibly understand how this can be, but I believe it will be so.

~Hugh Drennan  (a.k.a. Minute Thornton, Tiny O’Drennan, Gnarly Blackthorn, Wee O’Draighneain)