Moksha and Meaning

The sage leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted. Ordinary men strain and struggle; the sage is stupid and blockish. He takes part in ten thousand ages and achieves simplicity and oneness. For him , all the ten thousand things are what they are, and thus they enfold each other.

--Taoism: Chuang Tzu

The creation of craving leads successively to that of grasping, of becoming, of birth, of old age and death, of grief, lamentation, pain, sadness and despair--that is to say to the cessation of all this mass of ill. It is thus that cessation is Nirvana.

--Buddhism: Questions of King Malinda

These are they who are drawn nigh (to Allah), In the gardens of bliss. . . . On throne decorated, Reclining on them, facing one another. Round about them shall go youths never altering in age, With goblets and ewers and a cup of pure drink; . . . And fruits And Pure, beautiful ones, The like of the hidden pearls: A reward for what they used to do.

--Islam: Holy Koran 56:11-23

Good Thunder now took one of my arms, Kicking Bear the other, and we began to dance. The song we sang was like this: “Who do you think he is that comes? It s one who sees his mother!” It is what the dead would sing when entering the other world and looking for their relatives who had gone there before them.

--Native American Religion: Black Elk Speaks

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

--Christianity: Ephesians 2:8-9.

By the purified mind alone is the indivisible Brahman to be attained. Brahman alone is--nothing else is. He who sees the manifold universe, and not the one reality, goes evermore from death to death.

--Hinduism: Katha Upanishad

The Islamic depiction of heaven in the third quotation is rather sensual, even sexual. Does this seem ideal as the literal, ultimate goal of religious salvation?

How would you interpret such a depiction?

Contrast it with Black Elk meeting his ancestors.

The famous picture from the Sistine Chapel shows the “Final Judgment,” in which people are taken to heaven or to hell, based upon divine judgment. Do the ideas of heaven and hell seem fair to you? does it seem mean of a god to condemn, or is it merely “justice”?

How is Nirvana described in the Buddhist work?

Do you think this is another way to describe the kind of heaven we find in the Islamic or Christian stories?

How is it different? Is it attractive?

The Taoist idea described in the first quotation seems to be concerned with a free and easy life. Similarly, the depiction of the Chinese gods shows the ideal values of Prosperity, Longevity, and Posterity. Are such ideals “religious”? What do they suggest about “Western” conceptions of heaven or hell?

What do you think St. Paul means by “grace” in the fifth quotation? What is the point of his contrasting it with “works”?

Compare both concepts to the “purified mind” described in the Upanishads. What is achieved by these three things? How are they different?

One may find a kind of sensuality in the Islamic depiction of heaven, and the Taoist image of a free life may seem very worldly. Now look at the Wheel of Life. Note that for the Buddhist, all life, including the five realms of rebirth (depicted in the circle), are held in the claws of the demon of time. Generally, is the world something we should seek to escape from, or are its pleasures something religions should help us achieve?

In the “Final Judgment” picture, you get a sense that we all have one chance to make it into heaven or not. Yet the picture of reincarnation suggests lifetime after lifetime. Can you reconcile these views of life? How do they change one’ s view of the afterlife?

Salvation and the Meaning of Life

• Religions try to answer questions about the meaning of life.

• There is a logical connection between the meaning of life and Ultimate Reality.

• For religion, the meaning of life is rooted in being connected to the Sacred.

Soteriological Goals

• This-Worldly Salvation• Other-Worldly Salvation • Blended?

Soteriological Means

• Salvation by Works• Salvation by Grace• Salvation by Knowledge

How should we view religious conversion in the global age?