Living in the Occident

Quite literally, and also, metaphorically, we live in the Occident, the geographic and spiritual West. According to sacred geography, Yeshua himself was born in the West, but as an infant was visited by three practitioners of oriental light—the Magi. So what does it mean to live in the West as followers of an Oriental tradition? Clearly, many things, but perhaps most important among them is to accept our present dwelling place and interact with it fully, all the while remembering our origins—where we are from and to what place we are returning.

One can so easily go to sleep in the western world. It is easy to nod-off or be mesmerized. This is an “occidental” condition. There are powerful soporific forces in the West very much alive today. In religious circles they manifest as certainties and demands that we conform to the norms imposed by external authorities in exchange for eternal or institutional security. Under this regimen, the options are limited, and much that is necessary is excluded. To be an orientalist means, therefore, that we begin to open ourselves to a wider diversity of spiritual and physical life, fully engaging the world of the West in which we live. To quote Tom Cheetham, a recent commentator on the oriental tradition:

We are always rushing somewhere else, to some other, better world. We are uncomfortable here, in this complex, confusing, plural mess. We want out. Escape. Speed. Distraction. Entertainment. Suicide. Our desire for escape gets easily confused with spirituality--the desire for Heaven, the other world. This confusion is itself archetypal: but the path to the other world must lead through this one. Our struggle is first and foremost in this world. We cannot escape by ignoring it. Corbin, and many others, say we must be born again, but I think we must be born in the first place into this world, that we may, perhaps, be born again beyond it.

--Tom Cheetham, Green Man, Earth Angel, 25