The greatest heretic of all

If you’ve ever been called a heretic, take heart. You’re in good company. Really good company.
------------------------------
“Prisoner at the bar, said the Grand Inquisitor, “you are charged with encouraging people to break the laws, traditions, and customs of our holy religion. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“And with frequenting the company of heretics, prostitutes, public sinners, the extortionist tax collectors, the colonial conquerors of our nation—in short, the excommunicated. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“Also with publicly criticizing and denouncing those who have been placed in authority within the Church of God. How do you plead?”

“Guilty, Your Honor.”

“What is your name, prisoner?”

“Jesus Christ, Your Honor.”

Some people are just as alarmed to see their religion practiced as they are to hear it doubted.
------------------------------
This is one of the stories in Anthony de Mello’s “Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations.” I’ve written before about de Mello, a Jesuit priest, being a spiritual rebel. He was excommunicated by the Catholic Church ten years after his death in 1987.

In 1998 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the present Pope, took the deceased de Mello to task in a “Notification Concerning The Writings of Father Anthony De Mello, SJ.”

It’s too bad that de Mello wasn’t alive to read this fundamentalist blather from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I’m sure he would have gotten a good laugh out of it. Ratzinger is bent out of shape because de Mello speaks the truth. He is accused of such heresies as saying:

Nothing can be said about God; the only knowing is unknowing…In other passages, the judgment on sacred religious texts, not excluding the Bible, becomes even more severe: they are said to prevent people from following their own common sense and cause them to become obtuse and cruel. Religions, including Christianity, are one of the major obstacles to the discovery of truth.

This truth, however, is never defined by the author in its precise contents. For him, to think that the God of one's own religion is the only one is simply fanaticism. "God" is considered as a cosmic reality, vague and omnipresent; the personal nature of God is ignored and in practice denied.

…He considers Jesus as a master alongside others. The only difference from other men is that Jesus is "awake" and fully free, while others are not. Jesus is not recognized as the Son of God, but simply as the one who teaches us that all people are children of God.

To me, all this makes great sense. I was baptized Catholic and had my first communion. I wonder if there’s some way I could get the Church to excommunicate me too. I’d be honored to share this fate with a distinguished heretic like Anthony de Mello.

[Note: de Mello’s story undoubtedly is inspired by Dostoevsky’s parable, “The Grand Inquisitor.” Here Christ comes back to earth and is told the Church no longer needs him.]

Comments

[tao]

An adaptation of Anthony De Mello:

Nothing meaningful can really be said about God; the only knowing...is unknowing. In other passages, the judgement on sacred spiritual texts, not excluding the Sant Mat doctrine, becomes even more severe: they are said to prevent people from following their own common sense and cause them to become narrow-minded and judgemental. Spiritual paths, including Sant Mat, are one of the major obstacles to the discovery of truth.
This truth, however, is never defined by the author in its precise contents. For him, to think that the God of one's own spiritual path is the only one, is simply fanaticism. "God" is considered as a cosmic reality, vague and omnipresent; the personal nature of God is ignored and in practice denied.

…He considers a Guru as one human alongside others. The only difference from other men is that the true Sat-Guru is "awake" and fully free, while others are not. The Guru is not recognized as the only "God In Human Form", but simply as the one who teaches us that all people are "God In Human Form".

[Nemesis]

Dear Tao correspondent
The application of all dogmas being a blinder to truth necessarilly includes all those posted by yourself, which you are still unwilling or unable to recognise as dogma. Instead of constantly advising other visitors to this blog to go elsewhere as they are satsangi's, you should take a long look at yourself. You are high priest and pope of your own self appointed sant mat bashing theology, and presumed posturing superior metaphystics. You should step down from your high horse and take the unknowing stance that logical step further, which is to candidly state that you do not know any better than sant mat or any other spiritual teaching/dogma.

[ET]

Ha! (Big Smile) – It appears that Pope Tao has indeed attracted his Nemesis! Nemesis is the Greek goddess of retribution, justice, and vengeance which certainly fits here.

ET is most happy to meet you Nemesis. Your points are very well taken indeed, especially when you said:

“..candidly state that you do not know any better than Sant Mat or any other spiritual teaching/dogma.”

We all need to adopt this humble paradigm. We need to continually examine ourselves to be sure that we are not preaching our own dogma rather than expanding our own awareness. Otherwise we paint ourselves into a corner, lose respect for others, become angry and attack others who do not agree with our particular view.

I would suggest that if we have arrived at a higher knowledge, or broader understanding then we should not be critical of those who are still on the lower steps that we also used to arrive at our elevated position.

[tao]

nemesis is obviously confused.

nemesis wrote: "dogmas....includes all those posted by yourself". There is no substance to this unless it is backed up with evidence in the form of quotations.

Until then, nemesis comments are not even worth reading.

[tao]

Oh and by the way...

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Sant-Mad Heretic, and damn proud of of it.

So all you Sant-titty boys and Guru-goons can just stick your Slow-hums up your Fat-Nams.

[GM]

"Nothing can be said about God; the only knowing is unknowing"

I was watching (again) "What the Bleep Do We Know" last night. I truly enjoy not knowing. I am thrilled with the quest for knowledge. I am fascinated by this existance that is "life on Earth". And the fact that we can share discourse on how we view the world is fabulous. So, thank you, Brian, for having a forum where you give your views; thank you, everyone else, for reacting and writing your views.

And I continue my personal quest to become more heretical in many areas of my life.
**Another definition of heretic: 2)a person who holds unorthodox opinions in any field (not merely religion)

[Octavian]

post something interesting...

[GM]

I actually found this post to be *very* interesting! But then, I have enjoyed reading them since I first came across this website!

Again, thanks for the interesting topics, Brian!

[ET]

Brian, I find that Anthony de Mello’s book is very interesting, please keep posting what you find interesting.

In fact I am thinking about ordering this book for my own library.

Thanks for the intersting and thought provoking topics!!

ET

[chris clay]

Brian,
Tonight I went to a revival, Pentacostal to be specific. It had started Wenesday, I did not feel inspired to go yesterday because my girlfriend was out of town, she and her parents are avid believers and members for over 15 years. Anyway, I had been going there for some time, about a year, usually going on Sunday, mainly just to be with her, you know, holding hands, beholding her beauty etc... the message is always you NEED Jesus, but what i don't get is, you are to love him, unconditionally mind you, and get 'saved' of your own free will, yet if you don't (go through some psychological transaction to save your own spiritual rump) you rot in hell forever and ever and ever.. Wow, how inspiring, so much for Jesus'unconditinal love... But anyway.. i wanted to go to the alter to rededicate to God, not Jesus, but it was all the same to them, they spoke in tounges, laid their hands on me, which i did not mind, i mean whatever gets your senses hightened... but at the end the person invited to preach for the revival told my girlfriend to the whole congregation that she had a WEAKNESS, i guess that she had gone astray and that we needed to each, get this, 'date jesus for 6 months.' Now it is a very small church, maybe 35 people there, the usuals and some new faces... but this guy too is a friend of the family and knows her well, i am the enterloper, unbeliever.... I'm thinking how inappropriate to broadcast that, i felt like saying 'Time out... this girl is an amazing human being and has been an incredible witness to me and is the epitome of Christ like essense' but he was exploiting her, under his presumed guidance of God. The whole thing turned me off and im composing a letter to him addressing this. You see, stupid unintelligent people like him reduce everything down to God/Satan... then he gave the pitch that if you are a good person, pay your taxes, give the shirt off your back... God will look at you and say, 'But you murdered my son because of your sin.' So i say, yes then i redeemed myself by admitting i murdered him and that im a sinful wretch and poof, all is well again OR if not, into hell you go. How psychotic a belief...? I did not murder Jesus, i never met the guy, nor did my sins murder him because i was born exactly how God intended me to be. If it is as neurotic and superficial as talking to yourself, that you now possess jesus and you KNOW your going to heaven, isn't there something tremendously phony about that? My girlfriend though amazing and tolerant just cannot get that point, nor Christians as a whole. Any ideas?

[GM]

Chris,

I know you asked Brian, but as it was on the public forum and not an email to him, I'm going to answer as well! (So, feel free to disregard if you so wish!)

First off, I posted thoughts that I've been having under the "Tell yourself your spiritual secrets" blog. They are similar to what you wrote here. If you get a chance, read it. If nothing else, it may give you a little insight into someone who was *raised* in a tent-revival type of religion!

Second, check out http://thisamericanlife.com (episode 304-Heretics) or http://www.higherd.org. Again, it might give you vocabulary to talk about what you posted here with your girlfriend. I had been reassessing what I'd been raised with and asking myself the very questions you wrote here. (For me, It was incredibly scary to even *THINK* that there wasn't a hell, etc!) It was completely foreign to me to contemplate; my brain could not comprehend it! My "breakthrough" into believing that there is no hell came when I heard someone who sounded very much like the type of preacher I was raised with (same cadance, vocabulary, etc.) say it. It made all the things I'd been thinking clarify and fall into place. It gave voice to the endless debates I had with myself!

Give her time! Keep talking with her. Old ways of thinking can be hard to change! Even for people who are amazing and tolerant!

:)

[Chris Gillibrand]

I guessed after three seconds of reading your blog that you were a lapsed Catholic. It took me five minutes to find the written evidence. The Pope is emphatically not a fundamentalist; if he is you are also but in a different way. Come back! Life is much simpler in that out and you don't need to be a great hunter after the channels of God's grace; they are the Sacraments.

[Brian]

Chris, thanks for the invite, but I can't go home again. Once a Catholic has busted open the barn door and smelled greener pastures, you can't get him back in the stall again.

Anyway, I've been baptized. So I'm saved, right? No need to go to church, follow the Pope's precepts, or whatever. I've got it made, if Catholicism is correct.

I'd have to disagree with your statement that the Pope isn't a fundamentalist. If someone puts forth a religious belief that has no proof behind it, and claims that this is the absolute truth, to my mind that is fundamentalism.