filling that void of being human

Li, reading your post about your manila experience. I feel happy for you and at the same time thoughtful. You've come back refreshed and spiritually revived. You sound ecstatic! Maybe It's been too long since I last felt that kind of spiritual freedom. I remember feeling joy during worship and yes, a strange kind of release. It's like I don't care who I am. I felt glad. There was no past and future, only the feeling of the present joy and freedom and confidence that there is something bigger than myself out there. There was also the times when a whole mass of people sang in unison when I felt connected to others. Like I am not alone in the world, like we are all so connected to one another but it's just that we can't really see it. that feeling that everyone there felt the same. That we are not some isolated autonomous being, each going our own way, doing our own things until the day we die and then the end.

I did a module on religion and history this sem, I definitely do not agree with the Marxist veiw that religion is an opiate of the masses, and it is a form of delusion that as we progress and science starts providing us with answers it will become irrelevant. Despite Marx's genius, that is foolishness. There is that void of being human and the existence of religion is not a symptom of delusion or economic inequalities or whatever lack of scientific information. It is the struggle of not knowing yet being aware. Of being able to question but having no answers. Why am I here? Why do I have to die? Where do I go after death? The problem of being human and knowing so. Religion will not disappear, not until science can explain the whole universe and the meaning of life. (which it prob never will)

Sometimes, I wonder why do I still struggle. I don't know in my heart of hearts that one religion is better than another, or that it is the right one for me. If I try not to think about it, nothing happens. But when I do, I get all confused. Perhaps, it is the issue of faith, if only I can close my eyes and just leap with the fullest confidence that I will not fall. But it is not only that, maybe it is not knowing where to jump, why I should jump and fear that once I have jumped I cannot jump back.

Or perhaps, it is the struggles of being a human which I do not want to let go off. Maybe I need them to continue to know that I am, and I struggle and I fear and I get angry as well as I am confidence, I love life, I feel safe and I am happy. That I need the questions as much as I need those answers. Knowing that there is a void but that this void makes me whole. [see! It is a can of worms! I can't open it without everything spilling out. Sigh...]

p.s Li sorry about yesterday, i want to hear more about your trip! My last paper ends on the 1st!