My grandparents emigrated from Czechoslovakia about 1900. They identified themselves as "free thinkers" which is equivalent to the current term "atheist". I never knew them to ever attend a church or read a religious book or speak about any spiritual subject. However, I occasionally thought it curious that one lived kitty corner from a church, and the other two doors down from a church. My grandma Jennie would make insulting sexual remarks about the priest when she saw him, always behind his back, but to his face was always very polite and solicitous even though she never set foot inside his church. This was explained to me as being necessary just in case, which I took to mean ... just in case there was a god.
There an unverified family myth that Jennie secretly, had me baptized there as a baby. My mother would have have been furious if this had happened. My father never went to church or ever expressed any spiritual interest. My mother identified herself as an agnostic, and occasionally attended church when I was a teenager because she loved the choral music, the Bach and Handel.
I first set foot in a church at the age of 10. A tout from the church had come to the school yard performing magic tricks, which, of course, attracted a large group of children. This lead to my involvement with the church, a Presbyterian denomination, until the age of 13. I identified myself as a christian from 10 until 13 and was very active in church activities and various other social activities associated with the church, such as boy scouts. I will relate one of the curious customs of this church as I find it quite interesting. Each new year's eve at midnight a special service would be held. The church was dark except for candles lit along the aisles leading up to the alter. The church was packed with hundreds of people. When one entered the church one was given a small piece of paper and a short pencil. One was to write one's sins on the paper and then get into the line of people waiting to approach the altar. It was very serious, solemn, and greatly fear inspiring. On the altar was an urn. Under the urn was a fire. One was to approach the urn and drop in the paper. This presumably symbolized that god had heard and forgiven the sins. As a young boy this ritual always frightened me a lot. One knew, at that time, that god, presumably read our minds, so that this ritual was precisely an exercise in honesty before god, with all the attendant consequences if one lied. My fear, and I half believed at the time, was that the urn had a false bottom with a hole in it and that the pieces of paper would fall through and later be collected and read by the minister. He would know what our sins were. This was a horrifying thought to a 13 year old boy, considering what the usual habits of 13 year old boys are! At 13 I drifted away from the church. I cannot even remember the reasons anymore. I became an atheist or an agnostic and became active in high school activities and sports.
At the age of 16 I read the Bhagavad Gita and was immediately hooked. I thought and thought and thought about it. At 17, I was off to University. The month I arrived I started into psychotherapy which I was in for most of University and my one year of graduate school. My perspective at this point is that the development of my self understanding through therapy and later becoming a psychiatrist closely parallels my spiritual development. I would have to say that they are inseparable. In my second month at University I discovered alcohol which lead io a 25 year career as an alcoholic. In retrospect, alcohol was my career and practicing medicine was a hobby. However this this did eventually lead to getting into AA where my real spiritual development started 14 years ago.
During college years, my major and major interest was in Philosophy. My formal separation from philosophy came in 1963 after reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. I will summarize the book in one line; Philosophical problems exist only because there is confusion in language. There are no genuine philosophical problems, only confusion of meaning. However... Wittgenstein did not deal with the separation that took place in western philosophy in the middle ages between philosophy and religion.
In 1961 I discovered peyote and had some dozen trips over the next 2 years. I had several extremely profound mystical/spiritual experiences which I have never forgotten. In graduate school in Philosophy my major interest was comparative religions and the plan was to write a thesis comparing peyote experiences to the descriptions of mystical/enlightenment experiences described in Hindu literature. The thesis never got written. It was 1962. I was a conscientious objector to the Viet Nam war and worked for the American Friends Service Committee. I did not want to be made into a killer by joining the service.
Alcohol destroyed my marriage by 1965, and shortly thereafter I began medical school. I was inclined towards psychiatry but had a brief flirtation with neurosurgery. I remember a pivotal comment by an old professor... "you can cut into someone's brain with a knife or into someone's mind with a word." This made me think real hard. I moved to the bay area, did my residency, and added marijuana to my nightly habit of alcohol. There were some spiritual experiences on heavy doses of marijuana. I immersed myself into Jungian Psychology and had a second marriage which lasted 4 years.
Up until I joined AA in 1983 my conception of god or spirituality was getting into an altered mental state either by way of drugs or some technique such as meditation. It was something one did alone. It had nothing to do with other people, and ... As I look at that line, having just written it ... that was a pretty good description of my life in those days. Then came the crash and the boom. The inevitable destruction that always results from alcoholism. It began in 1978 and ended in 1983. My career was virtually destroyed as well as my financial prospects. My liver was severely damaged. I was grasped my the scruff of the neck and forced to look at reality. If I drank again I would die. As a result I decided to go to AA. I am uncertain as to whether it was the "I" that decided or whether the Higher Power was involved. When I began AA in 1983 I was sick both physically and mentally. I was self centered and secretive. I believed that people and the world had mistreated me. Gradually over the years as I attended meetings, worked the steps, worked with alcoholics in my practice, and especially when I got my 2 present sponsors, I began to grow. My sponsor Jim has 33 years sobriety and is one of the most spiritual people I have ever known. My sponsor Don has 22 years and is very wise and compassionate. I owe the program my life, but more important than even that is the beginning of the development of a true spiritual life.
On 1/15/97 I went to an AA meeting. I rambled on about how I owed so much to the program but nevertheless I was still an atheist. Someone after me spoke up and said something that was to change my world. They said that they had also been an atheist and someone had said to them ... why not act AS IF GOD EXISTS, for a while and see what happens. This person went on to say that they, indeed, had done this and some marvelous things began to happen. This eventually resulted in their coming to believe that god exists.
I thought about this and it seemed completely reasonable. I decided to do it and gave god a probationary contract for 3 months. From January 15 until April 15 I would act AND BELIEVE that god existed. Well I'm sure you can imagine what happened. MIRACULOUS things began to happen. My mind was getting blown. One of these things was that I contacted our Rabbi for conversion. At our first meeting I explained to her that I had been thinking of becoming Jewish for the last 30 years although I was not absolutely sure as to why I was now formally making that request . On April 15, 1997 I renewed god's s contract for one year. Over the last year we have lit candles on Friday night, attended Shul on Saturday, attended holidays, have read 75 Jewish books and met regularly with the rabbi. This culminated on February 23,1998 when I went to the Mikvah in San Francisco for conversion immersion.
It was a wonderfully marvelous experience. The mikvah water water had bromine in it, not chlorine and it was encouraged to open one's eyes under water. I did this and it was very comfortable. It was womblike. During the first immersion I was asked to think of what I was leaving behind. I left behind my biological family of origin. The immersion was followed by a blessing in Hebrew. During the second immersion I thought of the preciousness of this moment, and then chanted the Sh'ma. During the third immersion I was to think of the future. At the conclusion the rabbi wrapped his white shawl around all of us and said a blessing. I can only describe his face as radiant. I felt unreservedly welcomed into the Jewish Family.
On the way out the door the sun was shining after 41 days of rain. Was this any surprise? Driving through Marin County I counted 3 rainbows, my daughter counted 7. One end of the first rainbow touched San Quentin Prison, my Waterloo, where I had worked 20 years before. I asked myself if the rainbow was starting or ending there. I decided later that it was starting there. Where it will lead is not yet known.
At this point my conception of god is that, at least for me, it has to do with people. God is the white light inside of myself and inside of every other person. I do not think anything else. I am still inclined to think that god exists because the human brain has evolved to the point to make that possible. Before or without man there would be no god.
For me god has to do with people. This means striving to always be aware of others' humanity, trying to help and heal others. For me a spirituality practiced in seclusion, disregarding others is a thing of the past.
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Last updated 04/20/98 (rge)
Copyright MCJC 1998