WRITING YOUR OWN SCRIPTURE? Journal in hand, I sit on the Rishikish Ashram steps, while the remaining Ganges
bathers pause to watch the evening sun. A smiling guru puts his hand on my shoulder and says: "You American
professors are all alike------you write books and more books, but all you do is rearrange each other's footnotes."
His remark led me to a significant realization------that to prevent this introductory text from becoming just another
compilation of footnotes to various faiths, I should focus upon primary sources, upon the sacred scriptures themselves.
Two assumptions guide the structure and content of this text: that scriptures are a paradigm (a pattern by which
the whole can be understood) for understanding sacred traditions, and that the fabric of sacred stories is a paradigm
for understanding sacred texts. In the last fifteen years of teaching courses in comparative religions, I have
found this double paradigm to be the simplest way to present what might be viewed as complex material. This approach
leads inevitably to an important question: What deliberate and practical means can be offered to help readers bridge
the initial gap in understanding between themselves and the texts? Clearly a teacher is needed if one is to understand
the language and meaning of the sacred heirlooms. yet an external teacher is not enough, for in some sense we each
have to teach ourselves. What I remember most from my university education are papers I wrote, class presentations
I made and answers I gave to class questions. As students, we understand, integrate and remember material more
completely when we re-present that material especially when we add a bit of ourselves to that representation. My
premise here is that through thought-provoking journal writing exercises, the content and language of the sacred
texts will become more accessible, and their stories more telling. I am aware that the idea of experimenting with
a journal will not appeal to some readers. If you are one of these, you may be interested in proceeding directly
to the first chapter. I would encourage you however at least to read the following discussion of the mechanics
of journal-keeping and to consider its merits. I The purpose of keeping a journalis to offer readers an integral
method for understanding the sacred texts themselves, and for discovering a quality of growth within the journalist's
own humanity. Students report that the journal represents two things to them, a companion and a teacher. It provides
an opportunity for abstract and profoundly intangible ideas to rise to the surface. Of equal importance, it assists
the student to put his or her thought process into an organized format. In this sense, the journal records a double
dialogue-----intra-reli-gious as well as inter-relgious. That is, the journal provides an opportunity for students
to express inner world views and attitudes, by they religious, anti-religous or irreligious, as well as to express
the reader's relationship to the material, be it critical, sympathetic or disinterested. In either case, opportunity
for a deeper understanding and a better integration of the materials is afforded. At the beginning of each semester,
I provide my classes with the following religious studies journal guidelines, which may be helpful to the reader:
1. Keep your journal in a separate notebook or in a separate section of your class notebook. 2. Let your journal
be a "Thou," a friend, and allow your writing in it to be an enjoyable experience. For instance, you
may write letters to your journal as entries. 3. Let your entries be regular-----perhaps at a special time, such
as after reading the sacred texts or other class materials. 4. Find a pen that makes writing flow, that offers
the least resistance, and find a "spot" where you can write without interruption, a spot of beauty and
solitude where the atmosphere supports your writing. 5. Date each entry (you may also wish to title each), and
leave room for marginal notes, cross-referencing, and for adding, later, supportive materials, It is helpful to
highlight the most important idea or image in each entry to facilitate a later rereading of your work. 6. The first
entry in the journal should include your course goals, what being and feeling religious means to you, and your
picture of religious experience. 7. make at least two entries a week-------completed thoughts of any size in response
to the readings or to anything in culture (e.g., media, art, literature, and personal events) which relates to
class motifs. 8. At times, reflect upon previously expressed positions and presuppositions through which you have
been viewing the materials. Record a new point of view. For example, you may wish to record mistaken ideas you've
held and what you have learned from these misunderstandings. 9. Focus upon questions like; Can religion be defined
or understood or actualized in this lifetime? Is it possible to study religions without being religious or to study
so-called eastern religions as a westerner? What does this text say about being religious? 10. You may wish to
record dreams that are appropriate and especially any rhapsodic vision, personal mythology, or meditative dialogues
you have with your own inner-wisdom voice. 11. At least twice during the course of the semester reread your journal
and then record your response to the process up to that point. 12. The last entry in the journal/workbook will
be a critical evaluation of the journal process itself, in which you evaluate your own self-discoveries as a result
of keeping the journal. As should be apparent, the journal is an open forum, a portable laboratory meant to encourage
each writer's own inventiveness. While journal writings are multidimensional and may include dialogues, dreams
comparisons, associations, disagreements, and new insights, I will focus here upon the possibility of writing or
rewriting sacred texts. In 1827 Joseph Smith found a stone box in a New York hillside in which was an ancient record
engraved on gold plates. They were a record of the Nephi people and the Lanamites, a remnant of the house of Israel,
who lived in North America from ancient times. By God's power Joseph Smith translated what is today called the
Book of Mormon and which is accepted along with the Bible as holy scripture by The Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter-day Saints. Seven years later (1834) in Iran, Mizra ali Muhammad, the Bab-ud-Din (Gate of Faith), and his
follower Baha'u'llah declared their writings equal to the holy Qur'an. From this declaration, the Baha'i faith
arose whose sacred Book of Ceritude teachers the unity of all faiths. Psychologist Ira Progoff, creator of the
"Intensive Journal," remarks that experiences like these suggest that it is possible to "draw new
spiritual scriptures from the same great source out of which the old ones come." After studying the journals
of creative artists, and having been inspired by the work of Carl Jung, Progoff concluded that the scriptures of
humankind remain stored as images and symbols in the collective unconscious. In dreams, while influenced by certain
drugs, in visions, trances, and in meditative, twilight awareness, we have access to what Progoff calls "the
Bible within." Following Jung's notion of individuation in which the psyche is elevated to become the creator
of what is know, and in which psychic wholeness and creativity coincide with God's image, Progoff indicates that
journal explorations of peak and depth experiences can be viewed as biblical. Further, Progoff believes that renewing
Bibles may become necessary tot the extent that ancient sacred texts "no longer speak with their original
power" for "they have been atrosphying spiritually from within. We have become so accustomed to associating
hypocrisy with the use of certain terms that they have lost their significance. The ecstatic Vedic hymns and Mahayana
sutras, the simple wisdom of Confucius and the spontaneous verses of the Chan masters, the salvation history of
the Bible and the recitation of the Qur'an, all need to be rephrased and restored. My difficulty with his approach
is simple, and I suspect it reveals the western faith of this author. How can a "twilight image" or other
psychic experience, which originates in my own inner-subjective consciousness, replace the God of Judaism, Christianity
and Islam (to say nothing of the Buddhist and Taoist Void), who is wholly other, wholly beyond? If we for a moment
shift our attention to comparative understanding of the classical sacred scriptures of the world, we discover each
to be characterized by at least two realities, both of which are incompatible with writing one's won scripture-----event
and group. First, sacred scriptures are not comprised just of visions, dreams and inner-awareness, but of objective
historic events----of prophets and prophecy, of sages and avatars, of wars and imprisonment's, of solitary searchers
and corporate rituals----events which cannot be reduced to the human unconscious. And, second, sacred texts are
ethically practiced and liturgically ritualized in groups or faith communities. Just as sacred rituals were classically
practiced and celebrated only within a community structure, for a text to be sacred it must be initiated, shared,
written and canonized through the collaborative efforts of that community. While uneasy with Progoff's suggestion
that we can create Bibles anew, I am convinced on the other hand that writing scripture-styled passages is a valuable
way to study classical texts. In addition to stimulating student writing, itself a badly needed enterprise, creating
scripture-like passages demonstrates the relationship between writing (to produce meaning) and rewriting (to communicate
meaning), the relationship between something old (traditional teachings.) and something new (rephrased teachings).
In this way educational dialogues between reader and text, and within the reader, are facilitated. To stimulate
a deeper appreciation for, and understanding of, the sacred texts studied, I encourage students to create their
own scripture-like passages. these can be written in several ways: by imitating the style and genre of existing
texts (e.g., parable, maxim, drama, myth, philosophical discourse, or koan), by recreating the message of a past
master in a contemporary language, by imagining what a past master teacher would say today about a contemporary
issue (e.g., abortion, taxation, nuclear arms, or capital punishment), and, most significantly, by creating a dialogue
between yourself and a sacred teacher or teachings. Since not all will want to keep a journal as they read this
text (nor is it necessary to do so) readers may wish instead to ruminate upon and discuss some of the exercises
which are placed at the conclusion of each chapter. In some cases, the suggested questions would make provocative
writing topics. The main point is to reflect upon the images and symbols within the scriptures, and to understand
and appreciate the idiosyncratic practices and universal teachings of each sacred tradition. NOTES 1. Interestingly,
I find that when I explain the difference between primary source materials and secondary sources in my classes,
students overwhelmingly prefer the former, especially since the religious east stresses the study of one's own
direct experience of truth, not the study of words about the truth. 2. Ira Progoff, The Practice of Process Meditation,
(New York: Dialogue House Library, 1980), 10. In At A Journal Workshop (New York: Dialogue House, 1975), Ira Progoff
describes the structure of the Intensive Journal. While I have Learned a great deal from this text, from attending
Progoff's workshops, and especially from his book, The Practice of Process Meditation (New York: Dialogue House,
1980), my use of the journal is thematic, is functionally limited to the study of religious stories and sacred
texts, and encourages imaginative writings. The creative exercises are neither objective rehearsals of data nor
subjective confessions, but an integral dialogue with the texts. 3. Ibid., 13,14.
Summary
Description A guidebook to the primary sacred source materials of the classical living religions of the world.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction Writing Your Own Scripture?
A. Being Religious
B. Studying Religions
C. Characterizing Sacred Texts.
D. Understanding Sacred Texts
Chapter 2 The Hindu True Self
(The Vegas and Upanishads)
Chapter 3 The Divine Lord Krishna
(The Bhagavad Gita)
Chapter 4 The Traceless Buddha.
(The Dhammapada)
Chapter 5 The Confucian Way
(The Analects of Confucius)
Chapter 6 The Taoist Way
(The Toa Te Ching and Chaung Tzu)
Chapter 7 Zen's Original Face
(The Diamond and The Platform Sutra)
Chapter 8 The Covenant of Israel
(The Torah)
Chapter 9 The Jesus Story
(The Gospels and Paul's Letters)
Chapter 10 The Muslim Witness
(The Holy Qur'an)
Conclusion Encounter of Sacred Scriptures
A. Cross-Reanimation of Sacred Texts
B. The Aum of Jesus
C. The Tao of Jesus
D. The Zen of Jesus
