by Dharmacharya Gurudas Sunyatananda

Created on: January 17, 2009

A student asked, over the weekend, "Could you please speak about how religion figures into the spiritual path, if at all? I understand that you are an atheist, and yet you consider yourself to be a disciple of the Christ and a valid successor to the Apostles. Does this mean that you consider yourself to be apostate? What about your considering yourself to be a disciple of the Buddha, and a Buddhist monk, and yet rejecting the traditional Buddhist monastic rules? Thank you for helping me to understand this."

Namast! Thank you for that great question. It's actually been a while since we've had any questions at all!

Rather than using the word atheistic, which is certainly an accurate description of my non-belief in supernatural deities, demons, and all of the other beliefs that arise from such belief systems, I choose to use the descriptor non-theistic. The reason is that I often find atheists can be as dogmatic and passionate about their belief that there is no such thing as gods or goddesses, that their belief system becomes something of a religion itself. And I am non-religious, therefore; I don't consider myself to be an atheist either.

I personally view atheism as a belief system, and I try to guard myself against belief systems in general. The great master, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, "Faith in ideas is risky. Ideas can change, and tomorrow we may not believe the same thing." We find this same wisdom teaching in the Christian scripture, which admonishes that one not build their house upon sand.

My being non-theistic means simply that I do not concern myself with the idea of gods or demons. And by the very nature of not concerning myself with such things, I respect not only those who do believe in such things, but respect their gods and goddesses themselves. You see, I do not deny that there are supernatural phenomena. But I believe that all phenomena are, in fact, impermanent.

It is true that I am considered, by virtue of my having been ordained as a Catholic bishop in direct and documented succession to several of the historic disciples of the great Rav Yeshua (Jesus the Nazarene). I don't necessarily buy into the historicity of Christian scriptures' claim that there were twelve disciples (a reference to the signs of the zodiac), nor the idea that those closest to the Anointed One were all men. And as a theological anthropologist, my personal research has lead me to believe, for example, that the characters of Judas and Thomas, for example, are the same person

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