Q: You came to Wilmette in the first place because of the Baha’i Temple there. They hold universal elements that apply to atheists, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists, Baha’i. Ancient faiths, wisdoms, traditions are often very relevant to all this. But you do need to understand certain spiritual pillars, I think. Q: But do we need organized religion for that? What’s wrong with just holding a set of personal beliefs and living up to them?Ī: You don’t need organized religion. Right now, morality has turned into contemporary ethics, yet there are universal spiritual laws underlining every person on this planet. Q: You also note the necessity of judgment - a sense of right and wrong.Ī: One of my universal tenants of all religions is morality, a higher sense of right and wrong. We need to tell this other story of humanity. We have those capabilities and if we only believe humanity is a bunch of apes seeking power and beating each other down, then we’ll never move forward. ![]() Because we have also had diverse groups come together to build beautiful societies. We need to envision a new mythology to move forward. ![]() Power dynamics underline our dominant mythology. The old mythology is that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, us-versus-them - that we’re warlike. Why is that necessary?Ī: Actually, what I write is the need to create a new mythology for humanity. One of which is the necessity of building a mythology. Q: For the religion constructed in the book, you suggest a firm set of principles. Meaning, a spiritual transformation of the systems propelling us. But if you want to have a conversation about world peace, you need a foundation upon which that is possible. Politicians and thinkers talked about it, and were not thought naive and idiotic. But let’s not forget that people actually talked then about world peace as possible. There was an active sense of deep curiosity about faiths.Ī: Exactly. People were creating and moving into communes and looking for truth. When I was growing up, people did still go on spiritual journeys. How much of how you think about spirituality now is informed by having grown up back then?Ī: You’ve hit on something important. Q: You grew up in the 1970s, as did I, when a lot of cultural touchstones were considered transcendent or spiritual - yoga, astrology, pyramids. Or dealing with our many broken systems, which seem to be breaking now to even greater degrees - systems in need a spiritual reinvigoration. This is dealing with, for one, the mental health epidemic going on among young people. This is not an airy, fairy, hippy-dippy thing. But foundational ideas underlying many faiths are crucial to what it means to be a human. With reason: So many, especially young people, have rejected anything to do with religion. ![]() These topics are crucial but we’re not talking about them. Then there are the higher qualities of the divine we seek to emulate: kindness, love, compassion. To me it is the nonmaterial stuff of what it means to be a human being: hearts, souls, feelings. It means different things to different people. Q: That name, though, Soul Boom - and the name of your website SoulPancake - seems to suggest a dissatisfaction with how people regard spirituality.Ī: Spirituality is a tricky word.
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