Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality


In my collection of essays under the above title, I tried to suggest the time has come to transcend religious myth and ritual. The myths of all religions have led to wars, large and small, across the planet, some to genocide, especially in the modern era. Religious myth and rituals have spread the most abysmal ignorance across the planet, even led to the killing of scientists who debunked certain myths upheld by the religious leaders. At the present hour we see Jews oppressing Arabs based on Jewish mythology. We see Christians occupying Muslim lands and attempting to destroy them because of Christian belief in white supremacy. The Christians have such a superiority complex they think they can possess nuclear weapons but Muslims and Communists should not, depending on who the Christians determine is friend or foe. Such ignorance and arrogance cannot stand in the present world or the new world coming, the world of high spiritual consciousness. Sectarianism based on myth has turned Iraq into a cauldron of hatred and revenge, inspired by Christian white supremacy, divide and conquer tactics.

Iran, a nation of people with thousands of years of culture and civilization, appears to be on the road to destruction, from within and without, again, based on religious myth, internal and external, whether Shia, Sunni, Christian and/or Jewish. We may be only minutes away from nuclear war in this region, and again, such a war is urged on from those with various mythologies, especially Christian and Shia Muslim. Such a war must happen to bring about the return of saviors, messiahs and Mahdi's. The leaders in Iran claim the 12th Imam will return only if there is war in the Middle East, hence they make pronouncements to bring it about. The Christians are no different in their support of the Jewish state only because they think the final battle or Armageddon will take place to usher in the return of Jesus. The Christians thus fake support of Israel while secretly desiring war and destruction so Jesus can return.

The only way to obtain peace and harmony on this planet is by transcending religious mythology, no matter how painful and unsettling to human psychology, for each religious person will need to give up the essence of his beliefs in order to cross the "river Jordan." As long as persons are determined to remain in their comfort zones, global politics will disintegrate into warfare and the final destruction.

You may ask if one gives up mythology, what remains? The Sufi answered this long ago by proclaiming the religion of the heart. This attitude is not apolitical because Sufis have been involved in decolonialism from Africa to Asia to the Americas--Elijah Muhammad's liberation theology is essential Sufism. Of course you will say Elijah was the master mythologist, especially with his story of Yacoub. But this myth was functional only to restore consciousness to the deaf, dumb and blind so-called Negro or North American African. He told you the black man was supreme as an anti-toxin to the white supremacy of the master race or those who claimed such poppycock.

We see three levels of consciousness: animal, human and divine. There are human beings stuck on the animal plane, such as murderers and rapists, child molesters, the greedy blood sucking capitalists who will kill their mothers for a dollar. And there are those who exist on the human plane, who cling to secularism, though we can see clearly the human plane is not sufficient to satisfy man who is a spiritual being in human form, thus he is beyond human, if he will only go there and stay in his essence. He continues developing technology but none of it is superior to the divine mind. We can read minds if we think we can. We can heal the sick, once we think we can. One is on the animal plane only because he thinks as an animal. Once he thinks divine thoughts, it is a done deal, the world becomes a many splendid thing. He can transcend chaos with simple silence. Don't feed into madness and there will be none, or resist the devil and he will flee from thee.
--Marvin X

Marvin X's next public appearance will be Saturday, August 1, 3-5pm, at the Joyce Gordon Gallery,406 14th Street at Franklin, downtown Oakland. James W. Sweeney will engage the poet in conversation. The event is a memorial tribute to slain journalist Chauncey Bailey. It is sponsored by the Oakland Post Newspaper Group and Black Bird Press. Light refreshments served. Marvin X will sign copies of his latest book, a memoir of Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil. Admission with purchase of book, $19.95. Call 510-355-6339.