“A dream is an answer to a question we haven’t learned how to ask.”
--Fox MulderFig. 1 My lifelong mantra
Aliens and monsters and science fiction don’t strike most people as religious subjects, which is unfortunate, since science fiction has provided human culture (especially American culture) with a modernized means of exploring the intangible, the improbable, and especially the spiritual. The essential foundation of all science fiction is a profound sense of the unknown, paired with an insatiable craving to explore it. Whether it’s
Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, or Doctor Who… the world of Sci-Fi has copious denominations to follow, and while I dabble in many,
The X-Files was my first and foremost.
When I started considering my new path, it had been years since
The X-Files had ended. David Duchovny left the show and I denounced seasons eight and nine as extra-canonical and ultimately apostate. Seeing people on the internet hail the Mulderless episodes as “way better than the old ones” was a sign of the "a-pop-calypse" (copyright Stephen Colbert). The few times I tuned in those last two years I was met with disappointment or depression. When they killed off the Lone Gunmen—those lovable conspiracy theorists—I felt the way I did when I accidentally killed Mulder in the
X-Files computer game: absolute horror. I held a funeral service for them in my heart. When I heard the last episode ever was going to air, I watched out of pure morbid curiosity, and my heart sank like never before. It was a death in the family.
In the darkness of all this, I missed the comfort I had from being an "X-Phile:" the knowledge that a bajillion other people were happy to be just as enthralled as I was. I wanted back that absolute knowledge of “we are not alone,” and that the Lone Gunmen weren’t truly dead and somehow lived on in spirit. I needed that same coziness again.
The Mega-Cons in Orlando gave me an annual rejuvenation. Thousands of people answering the call to share their love for all things sci-fi, mingling with followers of various fandoms, and getting a bit of trade done while they’re at it—it’s a classic Meccan Hajj-like experience. I’ve attended with my friends and my cousin over the years, and I cannot deny the warm fuzzy sense of brotherhood and sisterhood I feel each time. It is as thick as the stagnant aroma of the unbathed shoving and dodging through narrow aisles as they search and haggle for discontinued Dungeons & Dragons gear. Spiritual connection through the exchange of trading cards, movie props and action figures. After going there, the Jedis’ wish to be recognized as an official religion doesn’t strike you as all that crazy.
Fig. 2 Nerd HajjTurns out, because of
The X-Files, I had a lot more to go on than I thought.
In retrospect,
The X-Files informed my spiritual framework more than anything else. I was always most enamored with the heady intuitive philosophies Mulder would spout every week. Partnered with Scully’s wonderfully rational scientific perspective, the FBI agents schooled me on open-minded, multi-faceted exploration. Mulder’s belief in the paranormal and Scully’s Christian faith informed their investigations, along with Mulder’s search for proof and Scully’s scientific analysis. Superimposed, Mulder and Scully are not opposing forces, but the archetype of Seeker—one who searches for Wisdom and Truth wherever it is to be found.
I had that going for me, but no tried-and-true method of applying it to my life. I desired a salve that preferably lasted beyond the restrictions of studio contracts, Nielsen ratings, and myopic idiots who call themselves “fans.”
Luckily, I still had Comedy Central-style fake news. Through this trying period of my spiritual life, I could still depend on Jon and Stephen for insight.
Fig. 3 The God Machine
On February 22, 2006, the acclaimed American author and spiritual teacher Lama Surya Das visited
The Colbert Report. Stephen always conducts interviews while in his overzealous and stentorian right-wing character, and these encounters are infamously awkward, no matter whom he wrestles into the chair across from him. But not that day.
Lama Das so politely shilled his new book—
Awakening The Buddha Within—that I made up my mind right then that I had to read it. He also managed to match every one of Stephen’s verbal thrusts, as silly and reactionary as they were. Not once did the Lama drop his good-humored smile. I later learned that this was the smile of the Buddha.
Buying used books off of Amazon was my Olympic sport, so it wasn’t long before I was devouring these new pages. I loved Lama Das’ simple, genteel tone and how he didn’t proselytize anything but being happy. His little tips on meditations and everyday language had me entertained while I learned some basic Buddhist teachings.
Fig. 4 Life's alarm clock
The improbable happened: I was jazzed about a universally acknowledged religious subject, and it was no coincidence that it was Buddhism. The Buddha, before he was The Buddha, embarked on a historic and legendary path that challenged his perceptions, introduced him to the unfamiliar, which ultimately enlightened him. He took the classic path of Seeker.
Mulder and Scully were the first Buddhists in my life.
When I found out that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama believed it possible for there to be extraterrestrials in the universe, I was on board.
Fig. 5 Take me to your Buddha
Following the Buddha’s “come and see for yourself” attitude toward education, I soon wanted to know the holidays, the rituals, the cultural details and the thousands of years of human stories behind all religions. I had stepped in the path of the automatic sliding door at the Sam’s Club of World Theology and I suddenly had unlimited credit and countless aisles to peruse. I took the Buddha’s open-armed welcome into the stream of consciousness as an invitation to research everything and to understand—not just tolerate—all the religions on Earth. Or at least as many as people could post on the internet and put into TV and movies.
This mechanism for seeking put my feet upon a ginormous Möbius strip, a path that twists and exists in a constant state of interdependence. The further you go, the more it folds back on itself, revealing new connections along the way, without ever meeting an edge of separation. This is and always has been my path, but I finally recognized its origin as a legitimate one.
The light in my life had been shining on me always… from a screen.
Multimedia is the Brahma, the Vishnu, and the Shiva of my education. It birthed it, nurtures it, and will ultimately end it whenever my spirit merges into the Universe. The Universe, or "The Vibe" as a friend of mine likes to call it, is synonymous with "God" in my vocabulary now, as something so all-encompassing I could never imagine being outside of it. I want to spread my fingers towards the very perimeter of ignorance, and then reach past it.
Fig. 6 Hubble "saw" 10,000 galaxies in a portion of the sky 1/50th the size of the full moonIn that spirit, I invoke Ganesh's blessings, for he removes all obstacles. And I recall the words of Rumi, the Sufi poet, so I can begin this little forum with an open mind and heart:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing or rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
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