Songsoptok
SONGSOPTOK: «Belief is simple acceptance that a proposition is true,
without regard to reason(s) while faith is the acceptance of a proposition
rather than an epistemological (evidence-based) reason.” Does this reflect your
understanding of the two words? If so, why? If not, then how would you
distinguish between the two?
CLIFF GOGH: Love is important to consider when beliefs and faith are
considered. Because beliefs and faith tend to divide people, often pitting them
against one another. More important than beliefs and faith, to my mind, is to
care about human beings, to make sure they're safe, to practice compassion and
feel empathy for anyone suffering.
Certainty in anything is a kind of error, because human beings
are using faulty equipment to begin with. The brain incorporating reality based
on sensual perceptions is limited to what it can perceive, whereas the truth of
things might be quite different than anything imaginable by a human being.
Beliefs are based on what the brain can assume about reality, but what the
brain can assume is hardly the whole extent of reality. Faiths are likewise: to
have faith in something without proof is not very different than having a
belief. Because the brain is limited by what it can perceive and then imagine
based on those perceptions.
The way I would like to philosophize is with uncertainty; that
is, to be uncertain that anything I think is true, that it is possible that
nothing I think has any truth in it. I view that as being something very useful
in this world in which humanity is continually struggling against itself,
people fighting people, over philosophies and ideologies that they are
convinced are accurate and truths worth killing over.
Again, it is more important to love one another than to divide
into factions according to beliefs and faiths. This requires only one belief:
that human beings are worth loving.
SONGSOPTOK: Each person can inherit, adopt or construct her own set of
beliefs and faiths, or it is a combination of the two. How would you qualify
your own personal set? Were your faiths and beliefs handed down to you by
someone? Who? Or were they acquired? If so, how?
CLIFF GOGH: Sometimes I am drawn to
an idea or an ideology, but ultimately I return to a place in which I believe
only that they are all more than likely errors. For instance, it was once
believed the world was flat, but that never made it true. It was once believed
that gods lived in volcanoes, but that never made it true. Our current modes of
thought, all of our certainties, are like that: modern beliefs that in time
might just be considered ridiculous.
My view is that it is extremely important to take care of
humanity, to care for each other, and that that is very difficult, but
necessary and of the highest good. In order to gather together, instead of
separate, nations and people must let go of the ideas and ideologies that
divide them into opposing groups.
It is very important that we come together, and nothing else is
more needed; whatever is true, it doesn't matter so much as that people view
the whole of humanity as a united kinship, take care of each other, and work
together instead of against others. Much more could be accomplished by modern
society to provide a better life for the future of humanity if fighting and
bickering came to an end.
SONGSOPTOK: In your own personal sphere, do you consider worship as a
religious act involving rites, rituals or other types of practices? Or is it
related to something that transcends religion? Can you explain your position
with some examples?
CLIFF GOGH: I view human beings as
miraculous wonders and tend to see them as embodiments of a greater whole. To
worship life would be a wonderful way to live life, and I don't feel the need
to look any further than humanity for a reason to be spiritual. People are
wonders. Life is incredibly miraculous. Each person might as well glow under
the surface. Things exist that are impossible to witness, but that suggest
something unimaginably vast and great of which we are all a part. As for me, I don't practice rituals, but rather look and see and
wonder about life. I try to look into people. deeper inside than the surface
troubles, the grimaces, the pain, the suffering. Because inside them is a being
more beautiful than everything up on the surface. It requires no rituals. It
only requires that I look for something in people that is underneath, and that
thing is underneath all things, requiring nothing to see it but a mind able to
see it in oneself.
SONGSOPTOK: “Faith takes over where
reason leaves off” – do you agree? Can you explain your point of view?
CLIFF GOGH: I don't concern myself
with either of these. In my view, reason is flawed, and so is faith, because
both are based on a limited perception of what actually exists. It doesn't
matter to me if one or the other is being argued, because both are equal in
their absurdity. Faith is still based on the same organ that cannot see truly,
and reason is likewise. Both come from the same place: limited perception. To
abandon certainty in faith and certainty in reason might leave us with a better
world in which ideas don't compete against other ideas, a more peaceful world,
a world in which the human brain is viewed not with self-importance but with a
casual disregard. Take care of health. Take care of life. Take care to continue
living. But disregard anything that comes from the mind if it doesn't support
all life, if it fights against some life and attempts to establish itself as
the better over other people.
SONGSOPTOK: Did you ever face a conflict between your beliefs, reason and
knowledge? How do you react to such situations?
CLIFF GOGH: Each seem to me to be
part of a material world. Material things are essential for life, and what will
come from beings existing and evolving in a material world is a grasp of the
material. However, none of them are more valuable than the others, they're all
the same sort of illusory perception, and thus I can't find them in conflict:
rather, I see my beliefs, reasoning, and knowledge as all the same; they're
material realities built from material reality; nothing to hold onto and nothing
to pay much attention to unless they're required for a healthy life.
SONGSOPTOK: Are you a believer? What do you believe in?
CLIFF GOGH: I have a lot of faith in
humanity. I believe that we'll improve the conditions of the world, sooner than
later, and that the future is very bright and filled with wonderful
unification.
I don't see the way things currently are in politics and
national struggles as carrying on forever, but rather that the people will
unite and live in much more harmony than they currently do.
This due to education, exposure to different ways of life and
ways of thinking, and the general goodness of the human spirit, which has a
strong tendency to desire a loving world above a hostile world, because it
feels better: a healthy world feels better to us, and when we can achieve one,
we'll choose to.
SONGSOPTOK: Do you think that it is essential to convince and convert others
to your own system of beliefs and faiths? Why? Can you please describe the
reasons for your answer?
CLIFF GOGH: When people believe they
are right and others are wrong, there is error. When people believe they know
what's best for others, they are likewise in error. No person is a better
teacher for another than one's own self. To listen to the self leads to
magnificent things; there is an interior in people that is vastly more useful
to a person than any external teaching can be. People need to listen to
themselves. They need to pay attention to their own inner landscape, because
that inner world tends to make things right on its own. It has an intuitive
understanding of what needs to be done to arrive at a happier state. It's when
others tell people what to do or what to think or how to act that people begin
to doubt their own strength, validity, and needs. Listening to themselves
instead, people find what they need to be healthy, happy, and especially at
peace with themselves and others.
SONGSOPTOK: Do you think that each individual has some form of faith or
belief, whether related to religion or not? If yes, then what do you think are
the main reasons?
CLIFF GOGH: A mind believes all
sorts of things that the interior might disregard. On the surface of life,
where the mind is, we need to do certain things to preserve ourselves. What the
main reasons are in that regard is likely a drive to secure one's own values
and propagate them into the future. It's a strong drive in humans, and part of
how we control our own evolution, to spread our values, to seek to make what we
care about more prominent in the world.
SONGSOPTOK: “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship
Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on
the walls of his cell.” said C.S. Lewis. Do you agree with this view? Or do you
think that some form of worship is indispensable for humans? Why?
CLIFF GOGH: Deities and worship seem
to me to be part of our evolutionary heritage. I don't find them necessary for
myself, and I don't believe they're essential for life. In fact, religions and
faiths have separated people and caused wars enough to make me wonder if they
do more harm than good. I'd worship the soul of a person, because I'd want that
soul to be loved. However, religion and the divisions it has caused in the
world have done a great deal of harm, made people hate each other, and made
people fight. That is dispensable, not indispensable. I'd love to see a world
in which humanity stopped the fighting and came together with love, regardless
of beliefs.
SONGSOPTOK: You may or may not choose to answer this – but nevertheless we
would like to know who do you worship? Why do you worship? How do you worship?
And above all, in what way does it help you in your everyday life?
CLIFF GOGH: If I were to worship
anything, it would be peace on earth, loving-kindness, and the being that rests
inside people beneath the surface troubles. I'd worship that because it's
glorious; human beings are glorious, and life is beautiful and gorgeous and
lovable. Viewing the world like this, viewing people with love no matter their
beliefs or spiritual practices, viewing the deeper essence in them that is pure
and blissful – that helps me a great deal, because in the presence of that
being, love rises up and makes living quite pleasant. To love is a state of
bliss, and to feel love for everyone encountered is to be in a state of bliss
that nothing else compares to; it's to be very close to the oneness of the
universe, the metaphysical that underlies everything, and the whole beauty
of timelessness.
CLIFF GOGH: An observer of life, highly fascinated by the deeper unconditioned
nature of being. Has traveled, wandered,
and been up to the tops of mountains. His work, which has spanned over twenty
years of self-searching and reflection, is an effort both to candidly reveal
his own inner landscape and highlight the way the being can be open to other
beings. His book, Beyond the Furthest Edge of Night, is a spiritual memoir
along these lines and can be found here:
We sincerely thank you
for your time and hope we shall have your continued support.
Aparajita
Sen
(Editor:
Songsoptok)
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