Blake: 'Energy is Eternal Delight' - discussion

I’ve been thinking about your line of Blake, which I strangely haven’t encountered before despite his works being more to my taste than more overly religious writing. I had a look on line and found this https://uh.edu/engines/CD-EnergyIsEternalDelight/track1.html which I don’t find satisfactory. I would prefer to read someone like Aldous Huxley on the subject as he would interpret the C18th language and idioms in a way that resonates more with me. 

Ayako at her family shrine 

I quoted the line to Ayako and of course she agreed with it immediately - though she is tempering her Chi Gong exercises these days as she - I think - correctly understands that excessive energy is hard to control and that one can be swept away with delight (in particular, spiritual pride is always waiting to carry us down). We talked of the harmonious balance of ying and yang -  ‘the still point of the turning world’ - and the dangers of religious fervour. She still abhors the proslytizing Catholics who took root in Japan even before it opened up to the West in 1869 and the church’s militaristic tendencies which are so alien to Asian religions. ‘Heresy’ is unknown and no one has ever been burnt at the stake for their views on ‘religious’ matters there. As in India, the priesthood has never had or sought any power. Of course secular forces may clothe themselves in religious imagery (eg the Kami-kaze or Divine Wind’ in WW11 ) and the Hindu right in India but these are seen as aberrations and people soon return to the peaceful ‘worship’ of many gods (in India) or their ancestors in Japan. 

Incidentally, this daily ritual practice is almost universal in Asia. Would our society not be the better if we still followed these old ways? I’m afraid the Catholik ‘religion’ has much to answer for, having been captured for centuries by secular forces, whatever the spiritual truths it tries dimly to expound..

To me the fundamental problem is that we arrogantly claim to know God (as I wrote in that note some time ago). The Asian beliefs leave God out if it and focus their attention on the lower ‘gods’ or ancestors, as they understand that God is completely unknowable and so they are not driven to extreme positions and some human-imposed ‘orthodoxy.’ To them, the Pope laying down the law on celibacy or birth-control on religious grounds is just laughable. As it is to me. And relying on the Bible and all its contradictions is almost as bad. The priesthood is trained not in spirituality (though of course many are deeply and properly spiritual like you dear Hazel) but in learning how to explain and nullify the contradictions, - and woe betide those who argue that this is a fundamental flaw in the whole edifice. 

Sorry to use the excuse of the clocks going back to redirect the discussion, but to me God can only be whatever brought this universe into being, and if one believes that one knows what ‘it’ wants or is, one is frankly ‘barking’  (ie most of the religious right in America). We just need to watch Brian Cox’s ‘Universe’ to dimly understand how far beyond our understanding such an energy and purpose could be. I fall back on the ancient cosmological stories, as well as Genesis of course, as being beautiful but impenetrable fables of how we came about. My favourite this

 https://herrylaw.blogspot.com/2007/04/stanzas-of-dzyan.html?m=1  One thing Is sure, ‘Energy is Eternal Delight’ but we had better keep it under strict control (cf the Buddha’s Fire Sermon’)