IDK if the Atheists would want to claim me as their own. For an Agnostic leaning strongly toward Atheism, I have accumulated quite a bit of religious icons from around the world during my more spiritual journeys. As a remnant of that I have a Puja table in my home that has been there since the '70s. I just made a pic of my Puja Table and labeled most of the items on it. My Spiritual Master of the time was (is?) Meher Baba and I made two trips to his Samadhi (tomb or resting place) in Ahmednagar India. I guess there is an occult nature to me, doing sympathetic majik like putting a Shalom emblem inside a Muslim prayer beads, or putting Hindu prayer beads on my Buddha Statue. The beads on the Rosarie hanging on St. Francis once belonged to a nun that died in DePaul Hospital in New Orleans. There was a drawer full of Rosaries in the nurses station, lots of nuns & priests exited there. The crucifix on that is actually a representation of the one where Jesus spoke to St. Francis in the Church of San Damien. And my wife was into Butterflies so at some point I bought her that ceramic canister. After her cremation I kept a few ashes in it. They will accompany me in my own cremation. I'm such a romantic, eh?
Mybe Id better elaborate on that a bit. Myself I do tend to the notion of some kind of higher being. consciousness, intelligence, whatever term. In the past, Ive been influenced by Indian philosophy, even Christianity to some degree as well as many other things. But I dont like to keep "religious objects" on display very much. In fact I have collected very few of them over the years. I have a Buddha my daughter got me when she was a litle kid, and little else. I keep that more because she gave it to me than any religious trip. I many ways, I would rather just look at plants or trees these days. Animals too. For me they can be almost like ikons at times. I dont even like very much to look at books on the shelf about stuff I feel Ive integrated and moved beyond, or away from in some instances. So maybe Shale, you keep your stuff for reasons other than puja.....
That's probably the case. All of those objects have a history, even to the ceramic Buddha that I made myself. They are curios from traveling thru Italy, Turkey, Afghanistan and India. Speaking of plants, one of my meditations while in India and working at a free clinic was to draw the common weeds that I found there. I say meditation because I would get lost in the drawing. Some would take a half hour or more - I would even notice the plant movement following the sun while I drew it. http://home.earthlink.net/~artistfriends/id15.html
Amaranthaceae looks a bit like the plant horsetail that grows over here. I could never quite get there with drawing myself, more of a musician, and nowadays writer. I had a nice feeling looking at your drawings. Its good that you share your own history. :sunny: And the objects show a much travelled man. I can understand why you keep them. I too have my little objects from the past, but they are mostly of a mundane character. Anyway, myself I am agnostic about systems but as I said tend to accept some higher intelligence may well exist.
I think that you can still pursue spiritual practice without any faith. Doing good things and not doing bad things is a more essential element to a spiritual practice, imho. Meditation is also a common element to eastern spirituality, but you don't have to have a religion in order to meditate. If your teacher gave you a mantra and taught you a meditation practice, you might want to resume practice.
i think you should make your own religion. invent your own pantheon of gods and revel in how fictional they are. abandon claims to truth, your own rituals, your own prayers. why join someone else's lot? variety being the spice of life and all that, i'd really like it if everyone had their own invented religion, it would make the world so much more interesting, and there would never be enough people involved in any one religion to opress any other group.
call it an alter, call it a tokanoma, call it a happy peaceful place. humans put words to spirit that requires no words.
It is the Summer Solstice, perhaps a mystical day to think of things universal. I have been planning to write about my metaphysical history for some time recently and I think I started that today on facebook. I have a bunch of Atheist friends on FB including some like Dave McAfee who is a published author on the subject. Here is my response to one of his questions - and I plan to elaborate on this even more. In my spiritual explorations I have accumulated trappings that sit on my Puja (prayer) table - mostly inert, just the detritus that clings to me from my journey that has still not been discarded. Like the several fotos of Meher Baba that still adorn my walls I derive comfort from the familiar. I am reposting my Puja Table pic, which got deleted with all my other pix when I thot I was leaving Hip Forums (due to a mod who may delete this post just because I said "mod" in a critical way on a "Free Speech" forum)
