spirits

Skepticism is not my middle name and neither is blind faith. I won't dare to say that there is no God or that God is man-made. Not in the sense that He is an almighty creator. There is something uncanny about this theory.

I believe that there is God and he lives in each of us in the image of Christ, Buddha, Allah, Moses and all the Prophets. I hope in the final analysis all religious views will lead to one conclusion that God is not for us to fight and die for. God is there if we don't judge another person based on his color, culture, status and belief systems.

At this point of time the materialists judge another in accordance to the clothes they wear, the type of house they live in, the brand of car they drive and which university they graduated from. The idealisits expect others to favour what they like and think as good quality stuff. "You love what I love." The spiritualists condemn those who seek pleasures from bodily pursuits such as food, sex, wine and entertainment. Going to a football game is an obsession.

Nonetheless there are those who preach the middle path. Everything in moderation. This seems to be a palatable idea since nothing is taken to the extreme. But is the principle of middle path understood correctly? I don't think it means if one desires a BMW one should purchase a Toyota. It seems rational because a Toyota is a better car than the Malaysian made Kancil but it is not a luxurious collection. What weird thinking!

Perhaps the middle path refers to the state of mind, what it conotes rather than denotes. The meaning behind the middle principle is that we shouldn't let desires corrupt our mind. A BMW 7 series is only a type of car and if we like this car it doesn't make us any greedier or more humble. It is the value that we attached to driving a certain type of car that turns our attitude to being arrogant. It has no effect on us if we drive the car the same way we ride a three-wheel bicycle. This is not a naive proposition. It is just merely not applicable in a status conscious world. Not with the flashy advertisements and Hollywood blitz hammering into our heads what is the cool way to live.

It is definitely not the car. It is the mind. Take away the car and replace the subject with a religious book, a house, a degree, a shirt, a laptop and whatever else. We are little kids lost in civilisation who are sick of the sickness. The sickness is ignorance and the cure is knowledge.