There is a Biblical myth of a Day of
Judgement. I used to believe that it was literally true. In 1962, when I was
thirteen, two Catholic priests met over dinner at my parents' house. When they
parted, one said, "Well, we will meet at the Day of Judgement if not before!"
Did they believe that? I mean, did they just take it for granted that they were
really going to meet? Even when I was a few years older, I still thought that
petty wrongs and injustices would be righted on that Day because everyone would
then see what had really occurred during the most trivial of conflicts and
misunderstandings at a secondary school. I now hope that, if consciousness does
survive into an indefinite future, it will then build a better reality.
Meanwhile, I now judge the absurdity of my belief then.
Does the concept of a Day of Judgement
correspond to anything in our experience so far? Someone who meditates might
find that he sees and assesses his whole life to date at a profound level - his
basic motivations and their limitations. The conditions that generate
consciousness also impede its development. I am a self-conscious individual
capable of meditation only because I am a member of a society and this
particular society has done its best to discourage meditative self-awareness,
not least with its myth of our accountability to a divine Judge. In our
tradition, we were encouraged to confess our sins, receive absolution and not to
look any deeper, unless we wanted to become priests. And did the priests look
any deeper? Some at least just made it their job to perpetuate the tradition.
Apart from social conditions, a lot of us have had merely personal limitations
to our insight and understanding from an early age. You can only be
self-conscious if you are a particular individual and particular
individuals can have every kind of fault, failing, blind spot, obsession,
idiosyncrasy etc.
CS Lewis' fictitious demon Screwtape
gloats that one of the damned has realised that he spent his whole life doing
neither what he should have done nor what he wanted to do. It seems that this
man has had at least a partial realisation or understanding about the course of
his life/karma/action. Lewis imagines an absurd situation in which the man was
blind to this realisation while he could have acted accordingly and has the
realisation only when it is impossible for him to act. A more efficiently
managed universe would allow for continued spiritual/moral development after
death, as Lewis implies in The Great Divorce. In that work, each ultimate
choice, or "judgement", is individual. There is no universal Day.
Recently, an Evangelical said that she
would like to see my face on the Day of Judgement. I am damned because I do not
share her belief. Her salvation is assured so she need not concern herself about
the morality of gloating at the fate of the damned. Is God a bigot? Bigots think
so. We make our gods in our own image.
If faced with immediate death, we might
review our whole life there and then. With meditation, it can happen at other
times and well in advance of death. I heard of an elderly man in a Hospice
who, presumably because his documentation described him as Catholic, was asked
whether he wanted to receive the Last Rites. There are two correct answers to
this question, either "Yes, please" or "No, thank you." Apparently, however, he
was incapable of articulating either because, despite his condition and
situation, he was just too freaked by the suggestion that he was that close to
death. A Buddhist acquaintance who had worked in an operating theatre commented
that he could tell the difference between those who were in some way prepared
for death and those who were not, even if the way in question was not "our way".
Meanwhile, every day is our Day of
Judgement if we can see it that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment