My religious outlook today...

	Julian, Brian and Ben Coyne photographed when Ben had been awarded Vice Chancellor's Award for Academic Excellence at Murdoch University.

My religious outlook today is complex, multi-cultural, multi-dimensional and at the same time incredibly simple. It is a pluralism of thought and mixed up ideologies that embrace the essence and intrinsic contradiction of the mystical, the mystery and every macrocosm and microcosm of everyday life. While I have abandoned institutionalised forms of religion out of disillusionment, cynicism and a significant lack of fulfilment, I still consider myself a spiritual person and I feel that my sense of spirituality is intrinsically interwoven through my life and my sense of self. At the same time in no way do I believe my outlook is a conclusive or definitive paradigm. Much like the flux and flows of the ever-expanding cosmos I believe it will always remain malleable in relation to my future life experiences — spiritually, mentally and physically.

However, I do have, of course, a base belief system which has been moulded and influenced (inevitably) by my upbringing and my travels and experiences through the world in my 28 years on this planet. If I had to put a name to my belief system it would be something along the lines of "earth honouring quantum universalism". While this sounds pretentious it does encompass the core elements of my belief system being somewhat pagan-earth-honouring and gratitude which has come from and influenced my many years of environmental activism (and the simple logic of sustaining life through protecting ones only perceivable life source in the vast expanse of space).

Treking in Nepal

I am also strongly influenced by the key tenets of what I know of quantum physics and string theory (the reality of multi-dimensionality, interconnectedness of all beings and the power of thought manifestation to alter reality) which I also believe is a post modern academic/scientific "rediscovery" of ancient indigenous wisdoms and Buddhism. The core tenets of non-sectarian Buddhism have also influenced me a lot, more so than other religions because I have experienced the teachings and practitioners of Buddhism to be a lot more engaged in practice-what-you-preach methodologies and engaging in trying to heal the problems of the world (without colonising vested interests).

Catholicism seems to me to be a whole lot more selfish, self gratifying and full of vested interests. And while claims of helping the poor ring out, when the underlying strategy is uncovered it often involves feeding programs in exchange for going to church and aid money to fund seminary's — a.k.a Borg assimilation 101 (the Borg were the robotic vampire beings from Star Trek).

	Farnarkling with the Old Man at a Concert in Sydney Domain

I abandoned the catholic faith after I left school because of the blatant hypocrisy and corruption embodied by the institution while at the same time trying to propagate a pr face of arrogant, anthropocentric holier-than-thou piety which is a blatant crock of shit ( for want of no better words). And as I studied it further and looked into the history of the reasons for the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church — by the "pagan" Emperor Constantine who was a brilliant war strategist and mastered the tools of population control through manipulation of the Christian doctrine to suit his, and the Roman Empire's, need for controlling the hordes — my disillusion grew. What better way to totally control a people when you hold the power to fulfil all their basic needs including what they think spirituality?

From looking into this I was disgusted, and still am today, at the fact that the Roman Catholic Church even has the gall to exist and keep pretending it has some kind of stake in the redemption of human souls. It is a political structure built out of the cynical manipulation of political control — that is all. Of course I am not saying all Catholics are evil, in fact I know some very good people who are Catholics (and good people who are Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Atheists, etc) and I also know some very dodgy people who are Catholics (and Muslims etc etc).

On a high in the foothills of the Himalayas

I think a moral code is best learnt through trust and support and the fulfilling of the individual's potential in the early days of psychological development. Basically humans need love, support security and nurturing to grow up with a healthy outlook of the world and be balanced and morally abiding. We all learn through our suffering and mistakes and I will certainly be bringing up my children by taking the good bits out of all religions and trusting that they have the capacity for mastering goodness, rather than thrusting upon them fear in order to control them.

At the same time I understand religion is what people make of it, and well-educated critical human beings have the capacity to make the teachings of all the worlds' major religions into embodied goodness. But I think from the perspective of a cost-benefit analysis institutionalised religion does a huge amount more harm than good.

My concept of God (Godde)...

My concept of God — or the proper non-gender descript entity "Godde" as I like to call it — is multi-leveled and multi-dimensional too. I believe that every God/Godde/Goddess of every religion that was ever manifested exists on some level of reality for Godde has a certain history across all cultures of being created in or by the images/wants/needs of humans. And the core needs for humans (once all base instinctual animal needs are fulfilled) are a sense of identity, meaning and purpose in the world.

	Extreme sport in Thailand

From our first breath to our last what we need for healthy psychological development and stability is security and hence the creation of institutionalised religion. Unfortunately the fallibility of human nature translates — and perhaps multiplies like hormones through the food chain — into our creations and thus bureaucracies, democracies, autocracies, monarchies, feudal systems, family systems all micro- and macro-cosmic forms of human socio-political and spiritual engineering/collectives have been prey to the gluttonous hands of greed and corruption. The simplest truths ring truer everyday and pulsate like ripples through the turbulent waters of history, that is the famous adage; "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". And thus, simply stated, my view on religious institutions (even my most favoured one — Buddhism) is one of deep cynicism and disillusionment at all the double standards, contradictions and ego-driven hypocrisies.

I am attracted to religions whose leaders practice what they preach which is why I have been mostly attracted to Buddhism of all the major religions. I have a deep-seeded belief in the integrity of action. But Buddhism does not escape such charges of hypocrisy either. During my time at the Dalai Llamas teachings in northern India I found out just how dogmatic and patriarchal the institution of Tibetan Buddhism is. And my travels through Malaysia and Thailand took me through a battlefield of bombs and suicide bombers being waged between Muslims and Buddhists.

Bungy jumping in Nepal

I see all the world's religions reigns of control being maintained through fear ("you won't get into heaven/nirvana/Allah's Kingdom if you don't jump/bow down and obey without question when We say so") I believe that for the next phase in human evolution to occur — a.k.a. surviving this ecological suicidal catastrophe we've engineered … and of course our "Male-Father-God-of-the-sky", dualistic, human-centred religious ideologies, and how they have been moulded for more gains in power and control by capitalism, have made a huge contribution to this — humanity needs to let go of all fear-based ideologies. We need to exist in a true paradigm of faith, trust and deep-seeded belief in our light wielding power for wholesome goodness — as individuals, as couples, as collectives, as countries and as the earth as a whole.

If one good thing could be said to have come out of the near-death of our plant and life source, and the extinction of unprecedented numbers of species, it would have to be the connection of the peoples of the globe and the multi-culturalisation of the earth which has the capacity to breed more tolerance and perhaps lasting peace. I remain conscious however that this also has the potential to create a monoculture similar to the western military industrial capitalist thought culture of "consume-conform-obey-die".

Cynical but not doom and gloom...

	Meditating in Nepal

While I am cynical I am not of the pure doom and gloom mentality. While mass extinction, climate change and peak oil rage like apocalyptic fires on the enclosing horizon I also see the cup half full. I see a humanity of hope, goodness, togetherness and community unity. I see a humanity that does not appear in the nightly news or mainstream media, a humanity that does not sell more houses or security systems or stock shares or scarce resources, it is a humanity of sustainability and sanity. It is there in the downtrodden and oppressed and marginalised, the peoples of Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Indigenous Australia, that core ability to push through and survive. It is in the actions of all the people working for peace in the world, all the volunteers working to protect the planet and her species and in the love that all of us show for our fellow human beings at some point in our lives (even if it is just family or people of our own skin colour or language group).

It is also our amazing ability to utilise our incredible intellectual capacity for survival — that which has shown us the outer reaches of our solar system, built multi-million personed metropolises on the power of ancient sunlight stored beneath the ocean (oil) and created tiny pocket sized instruments that can hold more songs than our grandparents probably heard in a life time.

We might have "conquered" the macro-systems and the micro-systems but now we must urgently learn the ancient wisdom of the earth, of the cycles of birth, death and renewal. We must learn and practice patience and self-control if we want to survive in a comfortable way.

Meditation in Thailand

My thoughts on Jesus...

My thoughts on Jesus are that he was a great man, as have been all the prophets of history. From my historical studies I am aware his story has been manipulated by the minds of the powerful to control the many and also his story has incredibly similar archetypal themes running through it as the story of other deities from other cultures — e.g. Krishna (from Hinduism), Dionysius from ancient Greece and a few other deities from the ancient world.

I believe in the existence of Jesus as an Archetypal and spiritual power (and I do use him in my prayer) as much as I use spiritual archetypes from all cultures that mean something to me. Some examples are Kali the Hindu Goddess of Destruction, Ganesh the Hindu god of abundance, Mayu, the west African earth goddess, mother earth herself, Mother Mary, all the Angels and Archangels, all the protector earth sprites and spirits, Buddha, Quan Yin (Female Chinese deity), Tara (female Buddhist Deity) and some of the Christian Saints like Saint Anthony and St. Francis.

I also have a deep respect for the spiritual power embodied by the great compassionate peaceful people of the past and present like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, His Holiness the Dalai lama, Pemulwuy the Rainbow Warrior — leader of the first successful Indigenous resistance to the English invasion and theft of Australia.

Obviously, (for some strange reason) Jesus carries the most pronounced archetypal power in the world today or, should I write if you'll forgive my levity, actually he is running second to the golden arches — but we were talking spiritual weren't we? LOL.

I say this is "strange" because I believe there are great people and common people in the world today and through history who have suffered and survived much more challenging and barbaric circumstances than Jesus (warranted comparisons are often futile but please indulge me to make my point). They survived because of sheer faith and belief in justice, in spirit and in some divine purpose much bigger than themselves. David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay and all the refugees in Villawood and Baxter and previously Woomera come to mind as do the majority of Indigenous Australians living in poverty, and in fact all people living in poverty and suffering from starvation and preventable disease and political prisoners throughout the world).

Ben confronting the police lines at Woomera in one of his many activist endeavours on behalf of refugees.

The real Jesus is inspiring for me because he was a true rebel and a freedom fighter (the Murdoch-Packer controlled media would certainly call him a "terrorist" today). And he did not always speak of peace. He belonged to the underground political cell called the Nazarenes who planned to resist and overthrow the Roman invaders through violence if necessary — we all remember that infamous passage in Luke's gospel "I have come not to bring peace but a sword", and the raiding of the temple, and Simon Peter cutting off the ear of the Pharisee in Gethsemane.

	Ben beside a portrait taken as a three-year-old

Jesus was a rebel but not one without a cause. He fought for justice and for spiritual empowerment; he challenged the Dogma of the day and questioned everything. And I think such freedom must be made inherent to every healthy religion and political system for that matter. A democracy no longer remains a democracy when civil liberties are curtailed. Religion becomes fascism when the one man at the top dictates all the rules from the top to the flock of blind sheep. The thought of many years of Papal disallowal of condoms and contraception in the face of the AIDS epidemic — and the fact that people follow such outlandish bullshit and keep believing this imperfect human to be infallible staggers belief. But what has happened to the real Jesus who questioned and humiliated the Pharisees. If one humiliates the American-Christian-Military-Industrial-complex, or the Vatican, today you either get locked up, shot or excommunicated!

In a Christian context I would say I am attracted to the Gnostic school of thought. From the relatively small amount of research I have done it seems that Gnostic Christianity followed that same ancient earth-connected organic pluralistic cyclical interconnected theorem of most ancient indigenous earth- and ancestor-honouring cultures and not the linear progressionism of disconnected dualistic "sky father" theologies. They were also the persecuted underdogs, and my tall poppy cutting inner Ozzie definitely barracks for them the most. I am also attracted because the school of Gnostic thought embraces the mystical on a truly down-to-earth level. I recently attended an astral travel dreaming workshop put on by the Gnostic society in Perth.

I also recently did a 4 day vision fast in Death Valley California which Indigenous cultures have been conducting for thousands of years. It was a truly magical and mystical experience. It did slow me down to spirit time, into an extremely grounded sense of clarity, into that space-between-the-moments where personal revelation occurs — and which the rat race speed of our culture does not grace us the privilege of experiencing often enough. I had the same mystical sense of being sitting fasting on a platform 50 metres up a tree for one week in an ancient forest being hacked to bits by the greedy wants of wood chipping paper companies.

Always reading

There were similar experiences on the three 10-day silent Vipassana Buddhist mediation retreats I have attended over the past 10 years where I have had short but intensely meaningful connections with something massively other than myself, but of myself and in myself, that entity that defies the illusions of all boundaries of time and space. And I must say I have also had such experiences experimenting with psychoactive plant hallucinogens, sometimes in the care of South American shaman and sometimes not. Ancient cultures have used such rituals for millennia to become infused in connection with the mystical realm of "the Other."

Institutional religions — source of division, alienation, conflict and war...

My view of most institutional religions is that historically and presently they have created division, alienation, conflict and war. These days such ego battles are being engineered by vested interests (mainly multi-billion dollar arms dealers which ironically involve hugely profitable companies, and significant contributors to GDP, from all permanent members of the UN security council) but religion is often the fuel added to the fire by myopic media perception and corrupted, warped contemporary theological interpretation — like George Bush claiming that God instructed him to invade Afghanistan and that America represent the gates of heaven on earth (and the many other bizarre religio-political propaganda fictions he dribbles) and the fact that many Islamic countries have completely, and incorrectly, reinterpreted the Koran to fashion a fascist dogma to propagate dictatorial societies and patriarchal control.

On that note I have also wondered why the western world is never encouraged to analyse the true doctrines of Islam (and I suspect the reverse is true too?) to see that Islam speaks of the hopes of a peaceful world and human evolution into a rounded spiritual and morally wholesome paradigm as much as Christianity does? And as much as I am guilty of such ignorance I have done a little research and I do know that Mohammed wrote letters to the Christians embracing the diversity of thought and respecting difference of opinion on the spiritual level and respected Jesus as a prophet (in fact Jesus is also recognised as a prophet in Hinduism). Why does the Australian Catholic Church (and the Australian media for that matter) not run courses in Islamic theology to help propagate understanding, tolerance, respect and peace? Then again I guess tolerance among religions does not sell arms and oil and boost dwindling military industrial economies like America. And maybe it wouldn't sell newspapers either.

	Time for reflection in a sea-cave in Thailand

All that said, the basic form of spirituality I try to maintain in the world today is and attitude of gratitude and respect. Gratitude for all the privilege I have — and a desire to use that to propagate goodness in the world and respect for all beings. And these are the themes that run through the core tenets of the purified forms of all religious doctrines. They only become polluted through systemic and institutionalised corruption.

I don't believe humans need institutional structures any longer. I believe at the height of our potential we can co-exist in peace. But in order to evolve to this level we must have the courage, faith and belief to shake off the glue that adheres us to such needless draconian virtues that are systematically destroying our life source and morality.

In order to solve the world's problems I have an idealistic fantasy in my brain that we should establish a religion called "universalism" built on the simple premise that every individual is entitled to whatever belief they choose as long as that belief is not harming others. (The Wiccan Church of pagan belief has its core tenet as "Do what you will but harm none".)

People could hold onto religions they have today but there would be a greater encouragement for exploring and questioning the core tenets of all religious doctrine, more interfaith dialogues and much more identifying and fusing the similarities (rather than the differences) between the major religions. Perhaps borrowing from some forms of spirituality what others are lacking and vice versa. For example, I think the Catholics need a good dose of reality checking about basic science, quantum physics and the simple logic of environmental sustainability and protecting one's life source. They could get this from various forms of indigenous spirituality. It is indeed a shame that western society has become so culturally bland and lost so much ritual and ceremony in demarcating the important stages of life.

The power of manifestation or creative visualisation...

Meeting his new extended family in Sydney

I hold a strong belief in the power of manifestation — that which Shakti Gawain talks of in her book "creative visualisation" and that which quantum physicists have proven, and which indigenous cultures and Buddhists have known forever, that professional athletes use to win, and that we all use to some extent to create our realties whether consciously or unconsciously. The fact is the power-of-thought creates reality and for the ignorant non-believers it is now being empirically verified by Quantum Physics. This belief comes from successful personal experience.

I also hold a strong belief in karma (a.k.a Newtons Third Law of Thermodynamics) this also comes from personal experience and logic and science. And from all my Ghandian non-violence training and what I see in the world it is eternally true that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind".

Morality does not have to translate to dogma...

The learning of morality does not have to translate to dogma. I believe that humans are intrinsically compassionate, empathetic at the core, and that any "evil" that comes from humans is out of fear or as a reaction (rather than a "response) to the world. I believe people only engage in "evil" when they are triggered by past traumas and fear, or caught up in a cycle of abuse.

Dogma is the corrupter of spirituality, making people believe a doctrine they have not personally experienced is wrong. Forcing them into it through fear of being alienated, or going to Hell, is absurd! We have the power to be beacons of light and leaders of hope, OR followers of fear-running-from-darkness … the choice is ours and that choice will create the world we live in tomorrow.

	Sharing a joke with sister Phoebe. (Phoebe will be providing her perspectives on spirituality and religion later in this series.)

Our culture worships the God of technology more than any other, and dare ye question the infallible power of technology and science (or point out its fallibilities) and thou will be relegated to the darkroom of ridicule and anti-humanism. Technology is the God and advertising is his (yep in this patriarchal world ruled by animus virutes it's definitely a he) advertising and media are the prophets come to "spread the good news" of useless crap to consume to make your unwholesome, ugly, imperfect self whole (at least until the next ad break – LOL)!

I don't believe in guruism...

I don't believe in guruism, the worshipping of any one person above others which is why I have a problem with the dogmatic worship of individuals such as Jesus, Mohammed and even the Dalai Llama. Having said that, when I was in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai llama in India — and standing just a few metres from him — he certainly radiated some sort of amazing energy that caused a feeling of intense joy and tears to fall from my eyes despite my cynicism of guruism. I put this down to the energy invested in such people by millions of worshippers. It was the same with my experience with Amma, the hugging saint. from southern India who visited Perth recently on her world tour.

I have a fundamental belief that we are all sons and daughters of Godde and that we all have the potential to reach the same spiritual wholeness. I believe that when we engage in dogmatism and worship our leaders with no question, we give our own power away and settle for less than what we are. I believe Jesus, and all other saintly people, live their lives as examples to us and the knowledge that they are being worshipped with blind faith would have them all turning in their graves, for they were imperfect and fallible just like us, they did wrong sometimes and doubted themselves many times, as much as the rest of us. I believe the archetypal story of Jesus is a living example of what we can become, and simply being Sunday Catholics and living in the illusion that if we worship spiritual people we will reap some sort of spiritual rewards is just that — a farcical, all-too-convenient-lazy-human-illusion.

Despite what Ben writes, I do believe his keen interest in spirituality and way at looking at life is a significant product of the Ignatian ethos he was exposed to at John XXIII College ... Brian Coyne

My father has a strong (perhaps self serving) belief that I received my moral convictions from the virtues espoused by the patron saints of my Catholic secondary school, Ignatius Loyola, by some sort of osmosis. To be honest we were never even taught the story of the person in question. The main thing I got from my Catholic high school was a sense of exclusivity — That the western Catholic mentality is one of elitism, where the underlying belief (like nearly every other religion) is "I am better than you because I am a Catholic and you are not". Despite all the preaching on tolerance and humility I honestly found not much there amongst the children of the wealthy minority of Perth. There is certainly a lot more humility and down-to-earthness amongst my friends who attended State schools and had a healthy dose of personal responsibility and reality and not the silver-platter syndrome I was inculturated in. I also found out what a farce religion was as we were not taught to deeply engage and debate theological issues — instead bored teachers would come to religion class with a TV and video and we would watch videos to pass the time and perhaps spend a few minutes superficially discussing themes as some kind of justification for wasting the time. It was as if we had to jump through the hoops (like going to church on Sundays and not paying attention but doing it out of duty rather than spiritual engagement) to maintain our façade of being "good Catholics" which also maintained our egos and elitist identity and exclusivity in society (and more so made our parents feel like they were doing the right thing by their dogmatism and social status symbols - oh and help get them into the pearly gate heaven of their childhood).

I saw no practicing of the preaching at this school except when a group of nuns came to visit us from the devastation in Rwanda and I remember being truly inspired by their story. But I have been much more inspired by the stories of political activists and members of my activist community and the sacred wild places I have visited. And I remind the reader that the etymology of "inspired" is the Latin "in spirito" which obviously means the embodiment of spirit; that which causes us to write beautiful poetry and compose song and to dance with wild abandon. I love to write poetry and compose music and to dance and these practices will always remain a deeply spiritual part of my life.

Ben with his family: Brian, Julian, Phoebe, Benedict, Carmel, and late grandfather, Des

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