Should religions tells us what to think, or should they give spiritual guidance? The Bible was written at a time when we didn't have the understanding of the Universe we have now, althought for me it explains metaphorically the big bang theory.
Do religions turn followers againest each other just because they take a different point of view? Is this the basic message of religion, to go againest anyone who thinks different?
Religions and religious leaders should be preaching peace.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, peaceandkarma. I don't think it's the more enlightened religious leaders who are messing things up, however. There are plenty of them who are pretty much dumb as rocks, and yet they set themselves up on the nearest stump and preach to whoever they can get to listen.
Thanks to television, some of these wolves in sheep's clothing can prey on the weak-minded, the gullible and the elderly ... and keep the contributions
rolling in ... which is simply a modern `sale of indulgences.' Not much different than tossing a few greenbacks into the collection plate on Sundays to
ease our conscience; however, at least the televangelists know good and well that we know good and well of their wickedness!
The message central to
every major religion has certainly included an emphasis on our need to get along with others ... not to mention holding to a lifestyle which some call
righteous ~ and which others might call
ethical, or moral. Problems arise when we
misinterpret what all of the great sages and saviors came to teach. The deceitful ones, who know what they are up to, are truly unconscionable in the deepest sense of that word, for they are choosing to ignore their soul and to exploit the lower nature for their personal gain.
Even among those who should know better, instead of
keeping it simple we see a tremendous deal of theological wrangling, and pretty soon the very simple idea
Love they Neighbor gets turned into BIG BUSINESS. Now we have two different churches opposite each other at every major corner in downtown America, with two competing banks on the remaining two corners. Instead of ONE Jesus, ONE Message, there is fragmentation to the point of having
tens of thousands of independent little Churchianities.
Anyone in their right mind knows that this is not what Christ intended.
But look at the extremists who distort the Message of Mohammed, or who argue over the Vedic
Brahma Vidya. There is such confusion that we begin to understand why the Buddhas speak of times when
the Dharma withers and is no longer practiced. But, if we are paying attention, we can also see how Sri Krishna's message to us in the Bhagavad Gita is as timely as ever:
"O Bharata [Arjuna], whenever there is in the world a decline of dharma and spread of adharma there I reproduce [incarnate] myself."
Naturally, we have the same message in every tradition, and the wise person would would naturally be led to the idea that in fact,
Krishna might have more in common with the
Christ than obvious etymological similiarity. S/he would see that the
Imam Mahdi of Islam, the
Messiah of Judaism, the
Saoshyant of Zoroastrianism and the
Buddhas which appear age after age
all seem to share this commonality. ALL of them come to us when the world most needs them in order to Teach and to lead us back to something
we tend to deviate from.
On an Interfaith site, one pretty much evidences either extreme wickedness, or extreme ignorance, if one cannot see
or at least learn to focus upon those things which
draw us together ... rather than those which divide us. Hypatia of Alexandria mentions this several times in the movie Agora, although I think she quotes
Xeno in so doing. Gee, I never figured Hypatia OR Xeno as unwise, even if the
`enlightened fathers' of early 5th Century Christian
tradition did tend to feel otherwise.
So you see, any old idiot can put on a silly hat, dress himself up in high-priced robes and prance around and act like he has some special
revelation or special message from
on high. We have a
tradition that exemplifies such lunacy ... and almost one sixth of the world's population still wanders in the dark shadows cast down through the ages by such wicked men [for truly it was MEN who created this evil] ... while another billion folks call themselves Christian
by some other name [Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Mormon, etc.] ~ amounting to no difference whatsoever as far as the Soul is concerned.
All that matters to
God, or
the Soul, is
what we do with what we know, or believe. And that's it. Not complicated at all, or at least,
NOT if we would at least start with Square ONE.
But when we refuse to acknowledge the central teachings and tenets of EVERY world religion -
that `what goes around, comes around' - we make asses of ourselves, we reveal our obstinacy, our ignorance and our foolishness ... and worst of all, we yield to the ONLY evil that actually exists in the world. It resides WITHIN us, when we give it center stage.
And the man who will rush forward FIRST and fastest to
beat you over the head with his high-falutin', high and mighty
theology, is really just the one who knows
best that everything here is true ...
straight-up. For he knows that he has the most to lose, since he is also
most invested [what did I say about banks?] in the SYSTEM and power-structure which currently holds our proverbial
cojones in its vise-like grip ~ in America, in the UK, in Europe and on
every continent ... POSSIBLY save the Japanese islands.
Which makes it interesting, to me, that this
ancient fortress where Zen Buddhism has been practiced for centuries, and where technology has yet managed to leap
well ahead as compared with anywhere else in the world ... recently suffered such a terrible earthquake, plus aftermath. We see no
evil Islam, we see no
hijacked airplanes, but I would suggest that it is only in our ignorance [meaning
nescience] that we say that what happened was a NATURAL disaster. Folks, there
aren't any other kind. Humanity is a part of Nature; Nature emcompasses all that exists.
It is increasingly evident for anyone paying attention that
matter is not just some strange, inert STUFF that *happens* to fill
portions of our Cosmos ... while the majority is
`empty space.' Nature ABHORS a vacuum. I thought folks
knew that.
And yet we are still, apparently, deceived by our senses. Thus we say that
space is mostly empty, when what we really should be saying is that the physical world is only
a tiny sliver, or fraction, of the matter-substance-energy which literally
fills our Cosmos to abundance! We should be getting closer and closer to an honest, working recognition that
what we do to one another DOES AFFECT both ourselves, and all other people on the planet, as well as the planet
as a whole ~ and every other system [or Kingdom] within & UPON this little planet.
Yet we scoff at the scientists who are on the verge of being able to phrase all of this for us in terminology and a new ideology which would truly
revolutionize our self-world-other understanding. It is, of course, nothing new for
religious and spiritual thinkers; yet some of the brightest of these evidence the
most oblique of possible viewpoints when they open their mouths ... giving TRUE MEANING and CONTEXT for that old expression,
blockhead.
Indeed, if you can't see the commonalities by now, and if you aren't willing to dispense with
"let's do this JUST THIS way" and let's pronounce that word,
"just thus," ... then chances are you are probably more anal-rententive than *I* am, as if that were possible. And let me assure you, if that's the case, you're in for one HELLUVA ride ...
because I DO know a thing or two about what's in store for ya.
So, either we learn to get along now, and with less unnecessary pain & struggle ... or we learn to
somewhere down the line, and with WHATEVER is required in order to master the objectives, which, as a matter of fact, DO include
the various elements ~ both seen & unseen, known & unknown. Even a young schoolchild understands that these are
literally being discovered, hypothesized, studied and synthesized
every single year. And that's just
in the PHYSICAL world!
My, we have a
looooong way to go in our understanding, don't we. Yet Socrates, revered and regarded by so many of us as
wise beyond his years and well beyond his time, was precisely so `in the KNOW' because he had NO problems whatsoever admitting what he
DIDN'T know! He was not ashamed; he made it a POINT. After that point, however, I'm pretty sure he tried paying attention ...
and LEARNING.
ASEKHA ADEPT means
NO-Learning ... A+Sekha
Gee, they had ideas like that
10,000 years ago and more within Hinduism.
And an
Asekha, though not yet a full Buddha,
really didn't have anything more he could learn here on Planet Earth. Thus, the tradition of
Nirmanakayas in both Buddhism and in Hinduism. If there's nothing else left to LEARN while here, WHY
on Earth [sic!] would such individuals REMAIN on Earth!?!
Dear God, what a notion. Remaining here,
pitter-pattering around, all just to help struggling old,
blindly groping HUMANITY.
Such is the great love of the Adept for His children [this is what we are to the Adept,
and Christ as the Good Shepherd is an OLD, old metaphor ... let's see, WHEN again was the cyle of Aries, the Promised
Lamb, prior to its most recent inception ~2300BC?
Damn near 30,000 BC, in my reckoning; but this is only
one earlier cycle in the Egyptian Denderah, which counts three such cycles as I recall!] ...
such is that Love, that the Adept forsakes his Nirvana
(the rewards, in this cycle, of Salvation-Redemption-Ascension-Moksha) in order to remain with us and assist us.
Wow. What an ancient, wonderful, beautiful idea ... with more individuals testifying to its
Glorious application than you can count on all your hands and toes, and all your neighbors' hands and toes. Yes, it is true, NOT ONE of these Adepts
beat his students over the head with their lessons, or forced them at gunpoint or swordpoint to
master some aspect of the Dharma. Interestingly enough, though, the Buddha was said to have
900 Arhats [near-Adepts] ... and it is said that the next Buddha will lead
ten times that many to Liberation.
Now the part I don't follow out of all this, is ... where is the
non sequitur? Some of it is probably familiar to some folks, much of it to others, and there may be a few who haven't seen a lot of these ideas
at all. They do all pertain to Soul, either directly or indirectly, for the notion of
a purposive, INTENTIONAL ~ certainly Intelligently-Designed Planetary System ... seems inherent. Souls pass through here like a giant schoolroom, and when we've finally mastered the necessary lessons, we matriculate. This, however is so that we may move on
to the `Real World' [sic] ... and as analogies apply, yes, this does mean to future
WORK.
The reward, however, as it seems and appears [plus
appeals] to those of us who have studied such a notion, is well worth the temporary sacrifices that may be required ... I mean FAR beyond our imagining. Yet if all we've been told about is being lulled into
a deep, neverending sleep, then *no wonder* folks really don't have much interest. And of course, for those who have a completely misinformed idea of reincarnation to begin with, propagating such notions as
eternally recurring cycles, repeating the same kinds of lessons over & over & over, AS A HUMAN ... well again, *no wonder* the idea is a little distasteful.
Would that there were those who could present
the Plan ~ even as I understand it in limited and incomplete detail ~ yet in a simpler, more appealing format! Of course, fortunately
there are, fortunately there are such folks here at IO, and
fortunately for my sake, and for everyone's ... we are occasasionally graced with the presence of these sorts of folks, who walk in our midst, many of them working silently, effectively, without ever calling attention to themselves.
The world of tomorrow is never quite so far off as some of us tend to imagine, whether in our moments of despair ... or simply due to unhealthy and completely avoided
learned patterns of cynical, pessimistic thinking. As a friend of mind often reminds me,
"What we do today, determines our tomorrow."
It is, imho, even a few moments spend in pondering this, one of the most basic and fundamental ideas,
the very Law of Life ... which can most helps us at various times along life's path. Imagine if everyone paused at some point in their daily routine to do just that.
Combine that with practicing
intentional acts of kindness, and
sensible acts of Beauty or beautification in one's environment [and here,
the sky's the limit!] ... and we might already be doing 2/3rds better, some of us. I know I certainly would!
There is the expression:
Whatever floats your boat. This too, has a certain wisdom about it, for it is clear that no two paths are alike, even where we can find all sorts of similarities. Each of us walks our own path, but in the world we are building for ourselves, I think we are increasingly recognizing that we are defintely all headed
wherever we're headed TOGETHER.
