Bill Moyers Goes Searching for God

Few can forget Bill Moyers’ widely acclaimed 1988 PBS series on “The Power of Myth” with the late Joseph Campbell. Now viewers are in for another Moyers special, a five-part PBS series on “The Wisdom of Faith” with religious scholar Huston Smith.

Beginning tonight, the series will explore Hinduism and Buddhism (part one), Confucianism (part two), Christianity and Judaism (part three) and Islam (part four), then will conclude with a one-hour summation of Smith’s personal philosophy, which sees God in all things, and all religions converging into a unifying truth.

Smith, 76, is best known as the author of “The World’s Religions,” first published in 1958 and since translated into 14 languages. At the moment, he is a professor of religion at UC Berkeley.

But Smith is no Campbell. Campbell did not actually believe in the myths he knew and shared so well, only in their power to move and motivate, to change lives and shape history. Smith, on the other hand, is a believer as much an academician, as much a pilgrim as a chronicler and popularizer of the world’s religions. He has been to the land of light. He has immersed himself in the incandescent brilliance of “the Other.”

The son of Methodist missionary parents in China, Smith has danced with Muslim Sufis, studied and meditated with a Zen master in Japan, delved in India into the Bhagavad-Gita--the sacred Hindu scriptures--and practices yoga. He kneels on a prayer rug five times daily to pray toward Mecca, goes to church on Sunday and participates with his daughter and her Jewish husband in observing the Sabbath and Seder.

Now he is called upon by Moyers to share those experiences at a moment when Americans seem intrigued by all things spiritual--from channelers of New Age wisdom to Buddhist Zen masters and Christian contemplatives. The series also comes at a time when “Christian America” is becoming acutely--and, for some, uncomfortably--aware of the growing religious diversity in its midst.

Unfortunately, like others who have entered into the presence of the holy, Smith is sometimes hard pressed to describe what it is he saw and experienced. Its glory is too great, its majesty too blinding, its simplicity and unity too complex for mortal words. At times, Moyers steps in to help his struggling guest articulate what it is he is trying to say on camera.

The mystical experience, Smith says in the segment on Christianity, is “a sense of ultimate belonging.” In the segment on Buddhism he says, “At some point something gives and you enter into the deep mind and you enter into the mystical experience.”

In the final segment, in which he tries to explain his personal philosophy, he tells us it is “a knowing where language cannot take us.” He speaks of rare, wonderful moments of joy and gratitude when everything is in place. “Doubts are banished as irrelevant during those moments of disclosure.”

Whatever it is, Smith believes that all religions converge in a movement toward “the other” when one digs deeply into their underlying strata. Ultimately, it is up to each individual who longs to know the ground of all being to make their own pilgrimage. Smith cannot take you there. But he knows his quest is one universally shared.

Smith recites from memory a poem by the 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, about a reed cut from its root and made into a flute:

“Listen to the story told by the reed of being separated. Since I was cut from the reed bed, I have made this crying sound. Anyone separated from the one he loves understands what I say. Anyone pulled from the source longs to go back.”

Moyers asks how one can know when a mystical experience is authentic. Smith replies, “If anyone feels they are growing closer to God . . . and is not drawing closer to his fellows in terms of empathy, compassion and concern, you can be dead sure you are suffering from an illusion.”

In other words, Smith says, the chief end is not altered states but altered traits.

The series deals little with evil done in the name of religion. But there are important insights and basic instruction about religions unfamiliar--perhaps even threatening--to many Americans.

At a time when Islam is known more for the terrorist acts of a minority of its adherents than for its proclamation that “there is no God but God,” Smith’s insights help clear up misunderstandings.

Perhaps it is because Smith was reared in Protestant Christianity and is more at home with Judaism that those two segments lack the energy that so obviously animates those dealing with Eastern religions. But even when he speaks of Christianity, he is likely to cause believers to do a double take, such as when he says Jesus was continually questioning whether he was the Son of God.

In the end, the entire series poses questions, and the biggest one of all is, who are we, and what must we do before we exit?

* “The Wisdom of Faith” premieres at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.