The Steps of Faith

I'd always been a deeply religious person. I can remember as I child in primary school having to write a book report for our English class. I asked the teacher if I could write a report on the Bible. Although I was always a rowdy kid in Sunday school, I still paid attention to the stories and meanings of the parables we learned. The community of the church was always important to me even through my teen years, when I developed some solid friendships within the wider youth of the Anglican Church in New Zealand. For my final year of high school I felt impelled to attend a private Christian school, partly to aid a shift in personal values that came around the same time, and partly so that I could focus more on my spirituality. During that year I read many books by C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, amongst others). I read the Quran, I studied the Old Testament with various study guides, and read up on different Christian approaches to creation and evolution, from the conservative to the radical. When I finished high school I continued to keep the Bible close to my heart. Verses by Paul which seemed to glorify the life of the celibate seemed to appeal to my spiritual side. I contemplating having a friend put together some homemade Franciscan robes for me to wear, as an announcement of my completely informal vow to a life of poverty and simplicity.

For various reasons, perhaps primarily an increasingly mature view of my life, I discarded these ideas as impractical, and not entirely compatible with the life I actually desired to live. The rebel in me drew me more to a critical view of the world, and to radical activism. I continued my teen obsession with challenging the conceptions of the mainstream world, and that rebellion led me to question the ethical and theological basis of my Christian foundations. As a result, I abandoned Christianity, and I began to satisfy my spiritual thirst by delving into the traditions of the east, including Taoism, Buddhism and the Vedas. I also began to read books discussing pop science and quantum physics. The universe began to seem more confusing than ever before, a view that ironically seemed to better correlate with my experience of the world than my previous theology had offered. I remember sitting in a religious studies class at Waikato University, which I would regular sneak into, and hearing for the first time the Buddhist statement that everything is temporary and therefore a source of suffering. That truth hit me so hard as I realised that the very seat which had brought me great relief when I first sat in it at the beginning of the class was now a source of great discomfort one hour later. I began to feel a renewed focus on taking on a deeply spiritual lifestyle, and I started to inquire everywhere about meditation and mysticism. I started to attend various discussion groups, and meetings to learn more about these new concepts I was encountering, but I never exactly found a community that I felt I could belong to in any deep and meaningful sense.

In early 2003 I moved to Wellington. Before moving, my girlfriend and I compiled a small zine, as a gift to the friends we were leaving behind in Hamilton, and more for myself as a means to gain a better perspective on the growing up I went through while in that odd and isolated little city. At the end of that zine we listed our goals for 2003. Mine included something along the lines of gaining a better perspective of this existence. So when we arrived in Wellington, I started in earnest to look into all the different spiritual communities in the city, primarily those that focused on eastern mysticism and traditions. I spent hours reading in the library, always focusing on the philosophy and religion sections. I attended so many meetings, seminars and discussions, and I tried to develop friendships within all of these communities. Sometime in the first week of February I ran into an old friend of mine, who had become a Hare Krishna almost two years prior. She invited me to visit their centre, to see a monk speak. I was definitely intrigued to come along, especially as I was very poor at the time, and there was promise of an awesome vegan meal for me to partake in afterwards! Never underestimate the power of a decent vegan meal. This was especially a major factor in my attending the Wellington Taoist programs. My motives have never been 100% pure in anything I have do.