Are you out of touch with nature?

Yes, you are! I am! They are! We are! We’ve all been out of touch with nature for millennia so there’s nothing to feel guilty about, I reckon. Essentially, religion is merely a symptom of this out of touch with nature feeling, and of our wish to return to Eden.

Speaking of Eden, there is a curious side to Christianity. Genesis (old testament) parallels the Taoist view of this out of touch with nature state (albeit with some hyperbole): “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die“.

Yet later in the Gospels (new testament) we find “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God“. This is opposite to Genesis and the Taoist point of view. After all, isn’t “knowledge” composed of words, e.g., good, evil, God, etc? It feels like Christianity wants to have it both ways. Hmm… how human.

I’m sure this is why I ended up with the so called ‘taoist’ point of view. At least the Tao Te Ching puts a disclaimer right at the beginning: The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; The name that can be named is not the constant name. So far, I’ve found no other spiritual path so unabashedly straightforward and consistent as that portrayed in the Tao Te Ching. (Let me know if you have!)

All paths seem to engage in various degrees of hoodwinking. Now, that’s not bad mind you. It’s just that hoodwinking is not my cup of tea. Biology is the master hoodwinker, of course, and the one which I examine as closely as possible to see how it is playing out in me. Often now, I’m even able to see through nature’s hoodwink on me enough to rise above it(*). At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Whether or not I can doesn’t really matter though. Either way, I can always say ‘it happens to me naturally‘. And when I truly feel that it is ‘naturally happening’ right now, I feel in touch with nature; everything feels perfect… albeit chipped.

(*) It is likely that thinking I’m able to see through nature’s hoodwink enough to rise above it is also part of nature’s hoodwink on me. How curious, this house of mirrors.