Duet on Religion

Wow, I visited the School of Oriental and African Studies in London for an Open Day yesterday, and maybe I shouldn't have. Now I'm going to be gutted if I don't get in. The morning started with a view out of Paul's elaborate artiste's den onto the most traffic I'd ever seen before brushing my teeth, progressed past a minor skirmish with a sullen and rude bus driver who looked at me like I had a rat in my mouth, up a record-breaking 177 steps from London's deepest underground station, onto Russell Square.

A duet on an African xylophone in the university theatre opened the day, then after, things that stood out included a market with hand-made goods in the Green Room; the posters strewn carelessly round the walls of the student bar, announcing everything from environmental talks to indie gigs; the library that takes up the top two tears, making a playground of the East; the art gallery with a selection of Eastern religious bits and bobs; and the fact revealed by the girl who took us around - Rehana, that there's a Hare Krishna temple nearby, the disciples of which provide the students here with vegetarian food once a week, should they be strapped for cash. Keep my place in that queue! There's not many places where this would seem right, but SOAS earns its chips (or veg) by being a genuinely alternative, intellectually and spiritually worthy university, or so it seems.

The subject I've applied for as my lone choice (Study of Religions) seems like everything I'd hoped it to be. The lecturer, a very nice and sensitive German lady, pointed out the importance of the plurality of "religions", explaining how the coarse at SOAS is unique because it doesn't just start and end with Christianity or any mainstream religion or conventional viewpoint, it doesn't start or end with anything, it's structured to let the individual take their own journey through cultures old and new, which I feel would be a joy to participate in for the next three years.

I spoke to Paul after about a lot of stuff. He mentioned something about the private sector vs. the public sector, how the private sector functions on hierarchy, and how the public centre is more democracy driven, and I thought too how people from certain backgrounds, not geared to intellectual participation, are not meant really to be haunting such hallowed halls as SOAS, and this is why I can get lost in dreams and be a bit hesitant sometimes, as I was after listening to the lecturer explain things to the class. I left right after the presentaton without following other potential students up to ask questions, and fought an inner conflict with myself as to why I didn't ask anything later. I reasoned that I was completely won over, and that's why I didn't have any questions, but maybe I should have been sharper, and need to start actively participating more. My parents were as loving as any parents could possibly be, but being from the industrial (though beautiful) South Wales valleys, I was probably destined for hierarchies and insularity like everyone else, and now that this new, more open world is in reach, as Paul said, I have to reach out and grab it, become more participative, only without becoming an arsehole, hopefully.

My dreaming during the lecturer's presentation by the way consisted of this: I was thinking that religion has always been something that develops from the individual spark. It throws up pretty ceremonies, traditions, superstitions and rituals, but never mind how pretty and ceremonious they are, they're always deductive, in coming from that individual spark but not "being it"; and I suppose "prettiness" and ceremony can be misinterpreted by the idealistic human beast, and can lead him on a merry dance, which might be why the world is so full of sorrows. I was thinking too that in its most negative sense religion is the poet's original words taken as building blocks to create and maintain empires; while in its most positive sense it's the poet's words warming the heart of individuals, and bringing them closer to their real, effortless selves and to others around them. Does every ceremony or "movement" of religion contain these two opposites? It'd be fascinating to get the chance to study it in all its complexity, at a university like SOAS. But in saying this I'm destined to be told to fuck off back to the mountains when the decision is made, where I'll likely collect string for the rest of my life.