Religions

I do not follow any religion, but I do read and listen to them. I believe in an Universal law, the one of free choice, respect and unconditional love.

Yesterday night I was thinking about this forum and how I could contribute to it, then I open a book and found this by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh:

“Humanity presently lives upon a planet of choices: each of us can live our lives in the way we choose: in joy or despair. Our life is not ready-made, but something we have created. A Jew creates a Jewish life, a Christian a Christian life, a Muslim an Islamic life, and so on. That is what people have been doing through the ages. But now is the time to change this, because these types of lives keep us in limitation and do not let us come into contact with life’ as it is. When we overlay life with religion or philosophy, it distorts life, giving it a particular “color”. We are then unable to see life in its purity”
…..
He also said; “My message is very simple; live life as dangerously as possible. Live life totally, intensely, passionately, because except for life there is no other God”. He said he was not denying God, but was for the first time bringing God into real perspective, making him alive, bringing him closer to you, closer than your heart – because he is your very being, where nothing is separate, but here and now…

Love
Gabi

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As a Muslim, one of the most beautiful and touching concepts in my way of life is the concept of the fitrah. It is an innate nature that God created all of humanity with, one that when it is not corrupted, guides us to faith and goodness.

So much of the world today corrupts that innate fitrah so that we become slaves to our desires, or to our fears, or to something else less. But when we remember God is the greatest, that is true liberation.

When I reach something that I find hard to accept, I have to try to reconcile it because I cannot live a lie. I accept that this world is shades of gray – and so many beautiful sparkling shades! – but there must be some framework for me to understand it in a meaningful way – and I truly believe God has sent us that framework, set for us that great purpose of worship. But sometimes, even when attempting to reconcile those differences, the one rule that I always come up against is – I am limited. God is not. I am human. God is not. There will always be mysteries I cannot understand.

Peace.

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HI PAULO
i’m so proud that i’m a mixture of different religions,though i have one i already belong to which came to me through my parents.but the question i have in mind is,if we have all these religions that call for peace,love and respect to human kind,so why then do we have all this blood,killing and cruelty?isn’t it weird?what’s the use of all these religions?what’s the use of reading a holy book in a temple only while we go out the streets violating all the sacred psalms we’ve just read?these are questions that confuse me.

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This is a very complex question. First, I will give you a little bit of background. I always attended Roman Catholic schools, was baptized and confirmed in the Church at a young age. While I attended college I was extremely active in the Church because I liked their volunteer programs and overall Franciscan ideology. However, January of this year changed everything and shattered my confidence and adherence to the Catholic Church I attended. My best friend Jose, a good man. A recruiter, who often helped people in underdeveloped neighborhoods obtain jobs and develop their skills. He was fluent in both English and Spanish and volunteered at hospitals in rural communities that served poor farm day laborers, he always volunteered and often organized groups and fund raisers. He was always there to listen and provide a helping hand. He was a giver in every sense of the word passed away. He caught bacterial meningitis from someone he interviewed and passed away just 4 days after his 28th birthday. I flew to Chicago to attend his burial and the religious services provded at the Parish we belonged to as children and was appalled at the condemnation the priest professed that my best friend’s soul was doomed to because he was gay. I was horrified but silent out of respect for his family. Unfortunately during my mourning I’ve been unable to return to the Church that I felt once protected by but now feel repelled from. I still believe in God but have lost the blind faith I once had for the organized religion I belonged to. I feel sad because not only did I lose my best friend but also the safe haven that I saw in my Church. Perhaps my faith wasn’t strong enough, perhaps I never stopped to evaluate the Church’s teachings and determine for myself if it was a faith I wanted to follow. Either way I feel like it’s too late now because I lost 2 very important havens at once.

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Why do we need religion? I say we don’t. We need God. But that doesn’t mean that the path to God is through religion. The major world religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, and Buddhism, are all similar in the respect that they have and/or are excluding women on some level. Why would I do that to myself? My religions are science and intuition (fueled by curiosity, love for life, and conflicting emotions regarding the age we live in). Yes, a paradox, but, equally yes, they work.

I apologize for not answering your question, but this is the only way I know how. How far can we go? Why not all the way? The texts that have been organized for us become the truth only when we reorganize them.

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If one were to look at birth, the development of a child, the stages of growth a child goes through, humanity is similar. In each country of the world there are certain laws put into place, to protect it’s citizenry, to protect the power brokers, to establish law and order or rule and order. When we look at religions social rules, I think one has to ask, are they relevant in todays world? Just as parents set down rules, so do prophets. Just as children feel it’s their duty to go against their parents rules, so does humanity. A few generations ago it was acceptable to spank, to take a belt to a child, now we have time-outs. What I find fascinating is discovering the reasons behind these social laws, did they stem from a powerful church, in order to use faith as a means of control, not necissarily for the good of it’s flock, but for those with power, or to protect them. When I went to Rome, I read The Agony and the Ecstacy, it gave me a whole new look at the history of the Catholic Church, the early Popes were like nepotistic rulers, versus spiritual leaders! Do as I say, don’t do as I do, going back to mixed signals given to children, which makes no sense, the same goes for organized religions. Christian churches in the south, in the United States, went along with slavery, found a way to justify it, I think of the Crusades. It’s no wonder that spiritual people have turned against organized religion. I think for many, religion provides magic, beauty, ritual, which gives them more then the daily grind of survival. When I see some of these beautiful cathedrals, I wonder back when they were built, the hardship of the majority, then to be able to come to something so magnificent, maybe there’s meaning in that. Those that grow up in poverty, in city ghettos that never have the opportunity to feel the sand between their toes, the waves crashing on the shore, shades of green in forests, the majesty of sun streaming through a stained glass window, well, I had to rethink my views on the church spending so much money. I would have to say I’m one of those who questions the rules, asks why?

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Hi my dear friends. My parents are Baptist and raised us to make church services indispensable to our lives. But I’m grateful that they allowed us to choose the kind of religion, belief, or church we would want to be. I like sharing opinions or studying the bible, listening to sermons or joining this blog. What I’m not comfortable with is having a prayer partner. Some churches during midweek services don’t conduct services but only pray by partners or groups, even you’re just a walk-in church goer. So you introduce yourself to a partner and pray, share your frustrations, achievements, requests, etc. Try this, a friend went to a church not knowing that, the congregration will just pray. So, she chose her partner and introduce herself. When it was her turn she prayed to God. God bless,—–she went blank realizing that she forgot her partner’s name. There was a long pause before she was able to gather her thoughts to construct her prayer in an unembarassing way. I believe that a prayer should be solemn. And if done with a partner,it should be with a partner that’s somehow interconnected to you. So just like Savita, I sit near the door to make an easy exit in case the Pastor would say it’s a prayer vigil this time. I hope I’ll be enlightened to change my attitude towards this in case I’m wrong.

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I did not think I would be brought to this. I thought this was “just a forum on religion” – something simple and essentially benign. But, in reading and writing here this week, I have been brought face-to-face with something which Paulo, in his novel “The Zahir,” terms as the “acomodador – the moment in our lives when we decide to abandon our desires and make do, instead, with what we have.”

There was a time in my life when I literally ate, slept and breathed Liberation Theology, when it seemed that it was the only thing on this earth which truly justified my existence. When I left from grad-school, I was required, like all students, to write a statement on what I had learned and how I planned to implement that, and for what purpose, in the real world. My statement was many pages long, but basically it could be summed up as this: I planned to use my creative writing skills to expound the tenets of Liberation Theology in a format that was palatable and comprehensible to the public at large, specifically to the inhabitants of the highly materialist and affluent society in which I live.

Having learned much from my teacher, under whom I had studied for several years, himself a fairly well known Argentine social theorist and Liberation Theologian, I left from school with a stack of books head-high and aspirations equally high. I would fill in the gaps of what I did not know, and then I was going to write what I needed to write. The plan was clear. But then something happened: I stopped writing altogether. I even went through a period of a couple of years where I said, I don’t want to write anything EVER again. I don’t want to be a writer at all, and above all, I don’t want to know anything more about Liberation Theology.

Before this however, I was reading much, reading all these books by truly amazing theologians, social theorists, economists and the like. At the same time, I was reading the Bible, or should I say “analyzing” it, feeling my way deeply into it word by word, looking for the point of praxis where mere theory of what is “right” and “just” meets with concrete action in the present moment. My study was filled with stacks of books on relevant subjects, plus other reference books which helped me to decipher and delve deeply into the meanings of certain scriptures. My desk was strewn with various translations of the Bible, with interlinear texts, with concordances, with lexicons and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries. Everything lay under a dense layer of sticky-notes which enabled me to follow the thread of my own thoughts. Spiral notebooks were laid out everywhere, in which everything seemed to coalesce. Yes, this lead to that, which in turn lead to that, which afforded the possibility of making this or that point perfectly clear. Yes, yes and yes!

Then I got up one day and walked out of that room and didn’t even bother to pick up the mess. The books sat, pages open, to gather dust for months on end. I did not open my computer. I wrote nothing, and tried to think even less – the moment of the acomodador, my personal acomodador!

But what caused it? Why? And what caused me to sink into the deep dark depression which followed, and which took many months to escape from?

Just today, in this very hour, I have understood it. It started coming upon me yesterday, but it was one of those fuzzy thoughts that starts at the back of the brain. You know it is there, but it isn’t quite graspable, so you ignore it. Then it hit me, just today, just now.

The teacher under whom I studied liberation theology was himself a truly brilliant theologian. He was so brilliant, in fact, that it took every ounce of my will and certainly every ounce of my brain power just to keep up with him on paper. But, because I was so devoted to the study of liberation theology, I somehow made it through. Somehow, all the while, I had this idea in my mind that I had to be like him – that I somehow needed to muster that much brain power to do the work that I needed to do in the world. He often tried to convince me that this was not true – that while his gift might lie in logical analysis and thought, mine lay in the area of creative writing, nor was one approach more affective or needed than the other. “Who reads my books?” he would say “-other theologians and academics, college students assigned to read them. But you, in a book of fiction or autobiography stand to reach the minds of a much larger audience.” I was listening to none of this. “You don’t have to understand all of this, to read everything that was ever written in the field of Liberation Theology, in order to incorporate the basis of it in your work.” Still, I was not hearing any of this. I wanted to go on to a PhD and study Liberation Theology further. “Go home and write,” he said. “You know all that you need to know. A PhD is a waste of your time and money.”

So, one day, as I sat in my study, an email arrived, and attached to it, a partial copy of the manuscript of his new book. He wanted to know what I thought of it. I thought it was astounding, earth-shattering – wonderful! Also, when I read it, I think it shattered me. That manuscript was my acomodador, because when I put it down I put down my own work too, everything. I just dropped it where it lay on the table and walked out. I could never match this man’s brilliance. There is a limit to a person’s IQ, and mine would never even come close to his, no matter what I did, no matter how long or how hard I studied. That was it – I quit!

Just today, in this very hour, does this all make sense to me. I think this understanding results much, as well, from reading Paulo’s books over the past few months. Paulo books are so “simple” in a way. I even read them to my seven-year-old daughter, and she is able to understand at least the basic ideas conveyed in them. And yet the books which Paulo writes also contain these most profound truths. I realize now that I don’t have to be a “genius” with an outstanding IQ. Paulo, in his writings, is brilliant in another way – he is brilliant in his simplicity. It really isn’t about being able to comprehend and formulate complex thoughts. In fact, “thinking” really has very little to do with it at all. I am not saying that Paulo is not a genius, but he is a different sort of genius. The heart is the center of Paulo’s books, not the brain.

Thank you, Paulo, for this understanding, which I think may have freed me from my acomodador.

Sincerely,
Savita

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Dear Paulo,
You ask: “How far can we go, when we realize that what the priest or the rabbi, or the imam says goes against our beliefs?”

This issue came up for me recently when the preacher at the church which I was attending gave a sermon speaking out against “witchcraft” – specifically, I think, some of the things he mentioned were divination and tarot cards. Now, if he had made a logical argument against the use, especially the dependence upon, divinatory practices, I probably would have been very open to this, as, although I read tarot cards myself, and practice other such art, I do have great reservations regarding the utility of these practices under certain circumstances and/or for certain aims. However, the approach he took in his sermon was not one of rationale but of superstition. His stance, one of condemnation – anything and everything having to do with “witchcraft” in any form, as well as any divinatory practice is “from the Devil” and should be avoided. This I did not agree with.

But, at the same time, here I was sitting in this church, which I had been attending for a couple of years already – no one had asked me to “join” the church, as there is no “official membership” as such. There is no doctrine which one must swear by and accept in order to attend services there. I’ve never even been baptized a Christian, but no one there ever asked me about this – the subject never came up. At the same time, just as they did not invite me to “join,” they never asked me to leave either. I just showed up one day, I liked it, so I continued going there. That was that.

But then, when this preacher gave his sermon about the evils of witchcraft and divination, I had to pause to ask myself some serious questions. Do I belong here? If this is what these people believe and I believe very differently, is it a breach of integrity for me to continue to come here? I mean, it’s not like the other people were aware of my beliefs – I wasn’t going to jump up in the middle of a pew and shout out, “Hey, I read Tarot cards!” but I wasn’t seeking to hide anything either. Still, down deep I knew there was a conflict between what the preacher was preaching and what I know to be true in my own heart.

So then I had to ask myself: Why am I here? Well, I wasn’t there for the dogma – the moral “lessons” of the sermons. I would sit there and listen to the sermons, but, for the most part, the explicit points he was making were not what I was listening to or even hearing. Somehow the messages that I got when this particular preacher preached were transcendent of dogma and seemed to be directed toward me personally, related to some specific aspect of my spiritual path at that moment. I don’t quite know how to explain this. It’s sort of like picking up a book, say a book about the biology of frogs – a subject in which you have no interest whatsoever – and yet, in reading that text, you discover that there are metaphors implanted in it which are actually relevant to your own evolutionary process as a human being. “Signs” – is that the right word for it? I could be thinking something in the secret of my own mind, having shared my thoughts with no one, and yet walk into that church two minutes later, and the first words out of this preacher’s mouth would be directed toward the very question which I was just pondering. In other words, it seemed to me that he was a sort of “conduit” of the Divine – a telegraph line along which messages from God/ess travel to meet the ears for which they were intended.

So, I guess what I am getting at is that there are other reasons for attending a spiritual teaching or religious ceremony other than the absorption of and adherence to the dogma which it entails. I think that sometimes, if you truly experience the presence of the Divine in a particular setting or sense a particular religious teacher as a messenger of that Divine, you have to over look the fact that there may be faults in that building or imperfections in this individual. Maybe, in such instances, the dogma that is preached really isn’t that important (whether you agree with it or not) because it is not the reason for your being there. There is another kind of message which is meant for those who are able to perceive it.

Dogma is one thing. Some people attend certain religious services or join religious organization because they are attracted to and wholly agree with the dogma. This is one level of hearing. But there is another level which transcends dogmatic concerns – this is the direct and immediate apprehension of the Divine Presence in a place or through another person, or even in fellowship with the other attendants. If this is one’s reason for attending a particular church or being part of a particular religion, it matters very little what dogma is expounded, unless, of course one is asked to swear by it and make a vow to follow it.

So, in a way, my situation and your situation may be very different, Paulo. In Catholicism, as I understand it, one is indeed asked to take a vow, to swear by the truth of the doctrines expounded and imposed by the church. In this way one “joins” and becomes a “member.” In my situation, I am not held accountable by an expressed vow but only be my own heart, my own sense of integrity. I don’t know. I have taken part in many different religions throughout my life, but wherever I go, I always like to sit in the back pew, the last row, by the door. This is not a conscious decision that I make, but it always happens that way. I am never the one sitting at the front of the church, or closest to the feet of the guru. I am always the one by the door, because maybe on some subconscious level this is my way of insuring an easy exit should my heart within me begin to speak out too loudly in opposition to the dogma expounded. It is not that I am unwilling to commit – it is that I owe my allegiance first and foremost to my own heart and to God/ess, and I trust that, through the whisperings of my own heart, S/he will lead me precisely where I need to be at any given moment. Sometimes this is into a church, sometimes a synagogue or mosque, sometimes into the forest. I think, as you say, sometimes you have to take your spiritual path in your own hands, even if this leads you out the door – you have to trust that still small voice within.

Much Love,
Savita

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