Promptly Poetry Challenge (2023-2024)

I've added a new entry to my book, "Weekly Poetry Challenge four" :
         " Title: My Spiritual Journey" 

In my 68 years on this earth,
I have learned a few things,
Because I have seen a few things.

I grew up n a very secular town
In a very secular era.

The late 60s in Berkeley
Was a time when everything was being challenged,
Questioned, debated

And the issue of God
Came up frequently.

Was Christianity
And God still relevant
In this modern era?

Most of my friends were agnostic at best
, don’t recall having any Christian friends,
Most were Jewish though
And one was a Mormon.

Most were white
But I had a few black
And hispanic friends

My mother was born a southern baptist
, she was kicked out of church

For asking the forbidden question,
“If God created the universe,
Who created God?”

The preacher was not amused
And kicked her out for being
A “free thinker”

Which to a Baptist
Was a very bad thing indeed,
Especially in the rural south
The so called Bible belt.

My father was a devote athiest,
Grew up in Yakima in a Methodist family,
But just did not see God anywhere.

An economist believing in economic laws
Was materialistic and deterministic,
God simply did not compute for him.

They told us it was up to us
To determine what to believe
Because they disagreed.

But in the end,
It came down to this,
“Do the right thing”
But it was up to us to
Determine what that might be.

I went to a few church services
But it just did not stick,
Did not get the whole shebang,

Did not believe in the Virgin Mary,
The crucifixion,
And other Christian dogma
Felt it was all just ancient irrelevant fairy tales.

I shared my father’s materialistic worldview
And my mother’s skepticism regarding Church teachings.
She was pleased though
When I told her I had started reading the bible.

For a while,
I became a militant athiest
, hung out at CAL
, debating with Holly Hubert
And the street preachers

I shocked the Christian fanatics
Shocking them with my athiest
Stand-up comedy routines.

One day Jehovah's witness
Came to my house.
I told them I would love to talk
With them but I was late for a Satanist meeting
And invited them to join me.
They fled in terror.

Later in college,
I had a roommate,
Who took too much ACID
And became convinced
He was God.

We spend many nights
Smoking weed and
Debating the existence
Or non-existence of God.

He had grown up as a Jehovah's witness
. His parents blamed us for their son’s descent
Into madness

And promised to pray for us
But said we would go to hell
For the sin of questioning God’s will.

In college, I took a course on modern religions.
As a sociology student,
I studied the Unification church’s recruitment practices
And went to their recruitment dinner,
But wisely did not go their weekend retreat,

Otherwise, perhaps I might have been converted
And become a Moonie.

I even went to a Scientology center
Took their free personality test
And concluded it was all a scam.

Liked to hang out with Hari Krishna dudes
Joining them for public chanting.

Started reading the bible
In my world religion class,
But took me almost 30 years
Before I finished reading the bible,
And all the other spiritual texts,
On the eve of my 50th year.

Started with the Book of Mormon
And ended with the Koran
After reading the Buddhist writings,
The Hindu scriptures,
The Confucian classics,
And the Tao De Ching.

Had to finally skip
Over the entire Genesis begat stories,
Saying to myself
What’s the point?

Concluding the Bible was badly edited.
Just a collection of fairy tales,
Not fit for the modern world,
But revelations fascinated me.

When I went to Korea
In the Peace Corps,
I became fascinated
By the subtle interplay

Between traditional Buddhism, shamanism,
Neo-Confucianism principles
And the resurgence of aggressive Christianity,

And the new religious fervor
of Reverend Moon, the unification church,
And other new religions.

Spend some time at Buddhist temples,
Even spend a few nights hanging out with the monks
Decades before the formal temple stay programs
Became popular among foreign tourists.

I had an encounter with shamanism
When my uncle-in-law died,
They did a shaman “kut” ritual.
The shaman a female channeled his spirit.

He came to the room berated us all,
Cursed us all from his perch in hell,
That was such a freaky experience
We had to flee the demented scene.

I had a few mystical experiences,
Once in college, I saw God in a lake,
But that was probably
Just the magic of the magic mushrooms,
Doing its mushroom thing.

Once while I was hanging out in Berkeley,
I encountered a cosmic cat,
I saw the divine spark In his eyes,
As he followed me everywhere

. I told my mother
Who was suffering from Alzheimer's
About the cosmic cat,
She concurred he was
Indeed a cosmic cat.

Later in Goa,
I encountered
A cosmic dog
Who followed me everywhere.
I asked the cosmic dog once

“Say, Cosmic dog, are you god?
Bark once if yes, two if no.”

He barked once.

“Are you Allah?
Bark once if yes, two if no.”

He barked once.

Are you your buddha?
Bark once if yes,
Two if no”

He barked once.

“Are you the great spirit
Of the American Indians?
Bark once if yes,
Two if no”

He barked once.

Are you Satan?
Bark once
If yes, two if no.”

He growled at me
And I knew
I had gone too far.

When I was in Thailand,
I continued my exploration
Of Buddhism visiting
Most of the famous Buddhist sites there,
Later in Taiwan, Vietnam, and India as well.

When I lived in India became immersed
In the spiritual energy all around me
I became a fan of the big Ganesh,
He removed spiritual obstacles

, allowing me to connect to the divine spiri
All around me.
I felt that cosmic vibe,
Just flowing through the world.

While in India,
I attended a few Catholic services,
Other Christian services,
Went to Hindu temples,
Jain temples,
Sikh temples,
And even a few Muslim pilmagame sites.

I also fasted during Ramadan
And went vegan to observe lent.

Now that I am an old man,
I think back
On what I have learned
From my spiritual journeys.
I think I can sum it up as follows:

I believe that the universe is alive,
And I am part of the divine mind,
The universe God if you would,
Flows through us all.
If only we have the eyes,
To see the divine all around us.

The Christian faith
, like all other faiths,
Is just an attempt to discover
The God of the universe.

It is all the same path
We are on, trying
To connect to the cosmic
Overmind of the universe.

Whether you are an atheist,
A Buddhist, a Christian, a Jain, a Jew,
A Harri Krishna, a humanist, a Hindu,
A Moonie, a Mormon, a Muslim, a Pagan or a Wiccan devote

, we are all cosmic fools, seekers of the truth.
The truth is out there for us
To discover it for ourselves.

But in the end,
It comes down to this simple principle,
We have to decide
To do the right thing,
But that is a decision,
Only we can make
Deep in our soul.

Whether heaven or hell is awaiting us
I do not know.

Whether Jesus
Is the son of God
I do not know.

Whether Mohammed was the last prophet
Of God I do not know.

Whether Allah is waiting for me,
I do not know.

Whether the grim reaper will be coming
For me I do not know.

But I am ready
For the final stage of my life.

In the end,
I also know this:
I knew my wife in a prior life,
And I will see her in my next life.

That is the operation of fate, karma, and reincarnation,
Which I do believe in.
The adage, what goes around
Comes around
Is a simple basic fact of the universe.

That is all that I know for sure.
That is what I believe.
In the end, always

“Do the right thing,”

and the rest will follow.