Boat Analogy in Pursuit of the Essence of Life and Reality

I am not a religious person in the traditional sense, meaning, in the sense that I don’t consider myself from any sect nor do I think one religion is IT.

It is my observation and feeling that the original intention of many religious and even philosophical frameworks — beyond their defined constitution, policy, and dogma — are tools to point us, or vehicles to get us to the essence of life and reality. Set aside what I think as “the essence of life and reality” for another day, let’s consider a boat analogy.

Various kinds of religions are different boats on a river. Let say we begin life on one side, and the other side is the land with the essence of life and reality.

My observation in present time is that…

Some people don’t see or simply ignore the boats.

Some people spend time just looking at the different boats and analyze the boats from the shore.

Some people got put on the boats.

Many people merely follow others onto the boats.

Many people feel the need to belong to a boat.

Majority of people think the boats are IT — the place to be.

Now, when people think their corresponding boat is IT, they just sit on the boat. They spend time remodeling, upgrading, making the boats more attractive for more people to hope on the boat because they believe the boat is the place to be, with well intention, I suppose.

But, there being so many boats (oh, so many ITs) that we are consciously or subconsciously all insecure and so then we get busy trying to convince each other that my boat is better than yours!

In worse case, we take the attitude that if you don’t agree and come on to our boat, we will F-in sink yours!

MEANWHILE, we forget that all boats share the same purpose and are truly useful in that they can carry you across the river… and only if you choose to use the boat for that intended purpose. (While I suppose we may lead an interesting discussion on how well each boat is made and whether they may sink… haha, anyways…)

As such, floating on this boat is never going to get us what we want when what we want is on the other side of the water. So we are eternally lost, forever dissatisfied, always feel like we are struggling and thus a need to fight. Doesn’t that describe how most people act and feel and how things are now?

Incidentally, unbeknownst to most, the meaning of “sin” from its Greek root is “to miss the point,” versus how we use it to mean violating some predefined moral conducts.

We seem to be missing the point of the boats.

Now, a great flaw lies within the boat analogy. The flaw in the analogy is the description of our life as a pursuit. The real pursuit when we finally get to the bottom of it, if one bothers to get to the bottom of it, is the opposite of pursuit.

To pursue is what we are taught and know and always do in life — which is an agenda mentality to move from point A to point B, whatever it takes.

The way I see is — peace, contentment, compassion, courage shall never bear fruits, except in pretense, in such pursuit.

Originally posted 2010-04-26 00:29:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter