The eternal search for Truth...

Back in the ‘80’s there was a TV Programme created by J. Michael Straczynski which attempted to be both SciFi entertainment, and a profound exploration of the deepest questions about politics, religion, and what it means to be Human. That epic was called Babylon 5, and we spent most of Lockdown rewatching it with our millennial housemate - and blowing his mind.

If you’ve not seen it - watch it. Really. Sure, it’s space opera, but the writing and the characterisations and the sweep of science and spirituality is just superb.

As an example, I give you this - from when G’Kar becomes an unwilling spiritual leader:

‘What is truth?’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N_oQkSh2lq8

An acolyte askes G'Kar, "What is truth, and what is God"

G'Kar replies:

"If I take a lamp, and shine it towards the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search. It is the result of the search. 

The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revalation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing.

"What we perceive as God, is mearly the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, put and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume we are the centre of the universe - God looks asstonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow - and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose. Which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all it's beauty and in all its flaws, and in so doing better understand the world around us"


The acolyte looks confused for a moment, and then asks again: “But what is Truth? What is God?”

G’kar looks pained and frustrated - then sighs and replies:

“Truth is a river, and God is the source” 

And all the gathered acolytes sigh and nod wisely - thinking that now they understand...



BE the light - dedicate yourself to the SEARCH - because in our searching, we illuminate the Universe itself. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No birth, no death

No birth, no death The Buddha taught that Nirvana comes when we awaken to the Truth that our essential selves have never been born, and so can never die.  But this is not just a spiritual’ belief, it’s literal and physical too. E=MC2 enshrines the Truth that neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, only transformed, each into the other. NOTHING ever ‘dies’, nor is it truly ‘born’ - all things material are simply recycled, reused and repurposed. EVERYTHING that makes up what you think of a ‘me’ is actually ‘borrowed’: the minerals in your bones and cells that used to be part of the Earth, the carbon and oxygen that fuels your body that comes from the plants and animals you consume to live, the DNA that tells your body how and ‘who’ to be that come from your parents and ancestors - even the ideas and beliefs in your head that you learnt from Wise Ones and Teachers of the past - EVERYTHING that makes up ‘you’ has all previously been parts of something else Greater and more continuous t
Read more

Where have the young witches gone…? #paganpride

We celebrated Beltain this weekend at a beautiful Grand Sabbat - a coming together of eight different covens and lines to call up the Oak and the May, and give our love and energy to the land. It was a truly beautiful and heart opening evening - but for the thoughtful comment from one of our young Third Degrees, after being introduced to all the familiar old faces Geoff and I have known for decades :  “Where are the witches of my generation? Where is the New Blood that will keep the Craft alive and thriving…?”  And it’s true: we used to get regular emails and requests from people all over the U.K. in response to  The Wellhead ’s pages - most of them young pagans desperate to find a Traditional Coven to work and learn with, yet unable to find anyone else online or ‘open’; that utter lack of accessible and open signposting to the Initiatory Craft was the reason we first established our online presence - and it’s how many of the Witches we’ve initiated and trained came to find the Craft a
Read more

Yogi, Buddhist, or Occultist…?

I was asked a really good question at this months Frampton Moot :  “How does your Yoga inform your Witchcraft?” - which threw me because I don't see them as separate things, but tools for living and Enlightenment. Many Westerners think of Yoga as either a form of exercise and stretching, or as some kind of esoteric ‘spiritual gymnastics’ - rarely do they understand that it is an embodiment practice of “coming home” to the miracle of incarnation.  Yoga is only one small part of a bigger philosophy and way of being in the world, rooted in thousands of years of teachings and practices that evolved from the peoples of the Indus Valley: one of the oldest civilisations, with roots and connections right back to the Cradle of Civilisation itself, in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Egypt - where humanity first moved from itinerant hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, and birthed a flowering of human arts, culture and religious understanding that still form the roots of most
Read more