A profession of faithlessness

“Do you believe in God?”

They walk among us

“Of course I do”, I would have said. “There’s Chrissy Amphlett and Iggy Pop and Lemmy Kilmister and Keith Moon. I know a force of fuckin’ nature when I hear one”.

But I probably wouldn’t have tried to talk about the real thing. That’s too hard. Calling it ‘God’ gives people the wrong idea. Calling it anything does. Throw a word at it and it’s gone.

So I called myself an atheist. Not as camouflage but as shorthand. It seemed the best fit. I knew I disbelieved in the God they taught in scripture classes and Sunday school so I couldn’t be agnostic.

As I got older I started reading more and experimenting with different practices. I sometimes went through spells of thinking I was kind of Buddhist or sort of Advaitist or a little Taoist. Some pseudo-Sufism and maybe a touch of Jainism and, hey, shamanism’s pretty cool too isn’t it? … Mostly I was just an atheist. I came across lots of attractive Gods and Goddesses in my reading and travels but none convinced me they actually existed. I was  beginning to feel uncomfortable about the fundamentalist cults among my fellow atheists though.  You know, Marxism and Scientism and Libertarianism and stuff.

Then one of the science writers I’d admired, Richard Dawkins, went completely feral and, gathering together a fanatical pack of atheist jihadis, declared holy war on all that’s holy. I don’t wanna be an atheist no more. They’re ignorant and bigoted and way too hubristic.

Agnosticism’s not so bad. I’ve learned enough to know I don’t know a thing and nowadays I’ve got a wide selection of deities to be uncertain about. There’s a whole universe out there for me to fail to comprehend.

Then suddenly there it was. That which had always been there. The thing that’s me and everything else besides. The thing that’s nothing at all. There’s just no words for it. So I still use ‘agnostic’.

A little later a Goddess shows up. How d’ya like that? There goes all my fuckin’ theories thank you very much.

I’m not sure who She is at first but I think I know where I found Her. India. So what’s She doing in a suburban Newcastle weatherboard? Oh. Everywhere. Even my body.

She’s a Dancing Goddess and I’ve never seen Her but She’s infinitely beautiful. She’s in everything and She is everything and She’s always creating and destroying everything, giving birth to the eternal now. She Dances it all, goddessdammit! Perceptual reality is Dance! And I’d been so sure disco was from Hell.

A bit after that there’s another Goddess! I recognise Her immediately, even though She’s like nothing I’d ever imagined. She’s Maya the Illusion. The spinner of the veil that is our sensoria and sense of self. But Maya Herself is (surprise!) an illusion. She too emanates from The Dancer. I’m engulfed in awe.

Do I sound like I know what I’m talking about? Of course not. I have no idea what experiences like these could possibly mean. I think I could find psychiatrists who’d explain them though.

I know there’s a Goddess with me. Not within me. I’m Her creation and manifestation but She is my Other. And now I know who She is. I studied a bit of Kashmir Shaivism, read a poem, then I knew.

But what does that make me? I never imagined ‘Goddess’ meant anything like that. What words could possibly mean Her? Love and Death and Time and Birth and Change and … fuck it. Trying to communicate is nonsensical of itself.

I just don’t know anything about how the universe works or what the fundamental nature of reality is. Do I sound like someone who’d know reality if it ran over him? Nothing I could believe or disbelieve would ever make  sense in the face of what is. If anything is.

So what am I supposed to call myself now? An ontological anti-realist? A solipsistic nihilist? A Devi worshiper? A lunatic?

Somehow I don’t think it matters.