dave_a_mbs
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central california
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Hi folks-
Dalila, I agree that for the religion of the people in the street, Islam is indeed the only religion in which we have specific effort to follow the will of a single God. This is actually a significant improvement over the more common street-level understanding of most peoples.
The streets in Buddhist nations are filled with common people who worship the Buddha, yet the term "buddha" simply means "a person who is awake", and Siddhartha himself was nothing but a regular person. In fact he told people not to make statues of him or to venerate them. The thrust of Buddhism was especially against religious asceticism, starvation, standing on one leg for years, and similar things, when the problems were essentially unawareness of how and why the world operates. To get rid of the stone idols and the thousands of gods of the common interpretation of Hinduism, Siddhartha denied the existence of a pre-existing material God, as Richard Burton put it, no "bigger, stronger, crueller man". Also the idea of a permanent unchanging soul that was made of some kind of permanent "soul stuff" with eternal existence was denied. Instead, if we look into the core of both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs we find the notion of either a Universal Consciousness, which is one way to view God as the All-Knowing and All-Understanding , or the idea of Brahman, the name Hindus give to God in the sense of being the Ultimate Creator, much as St Thomas Aquinas called God the Uncaused Cause.
In the Upanishads, we read that Natchekitas' father made insincere offerings to God. Natchekitas criticized his father's offerings. His father did not like it. Because it was customary for a father to give the son to apprenticeship, he asked his father, "To whom will you give me?" His father snapped, "I'll give you to death." So Natchekitas went to Death's house and knocked, but Death was out being busy. (It is said that Death's proper name is Yama, because that was the first man, and when he died, nobody was runnning the Underworld, so Yama inherited it.) After three days Death returned and was horrified that he had a left a prestigious visitor unattended. He said, "Ask of me three boons, and I will grant them, no matter what they are." Finally Natchekitas asked, "How many gods are there, Yama?" Death replied, "Where there is water, there is a god." Natchekitas asked "Oh yes, but in truth, how many?" Death said, "Nine thousand nine hundred ninety and nine." "Yes, said Natchekitas, "but really how many are there?" Death said, "Nine hundred ninety and nine." "Oh yes, but in truth how many gods are there?" This went on for a while, and finally Death replied, "There is but one god." Natchekitas then asked, "And tell me then, what of the other Nine thousand nine hundred and eight?" Death replied, "They are but God's other manifestations and appearances."
I'm also reminded of the Hoopoe in the Conference of the Birds (Farid un-Din Attar), explaining that most of our impressions, or goals and values, and desires in the world are imperfect until we settle on taking personal responsibility for everyday life and spiritual development. As we ascend the tree of wisdom, we begin to acquire a new awareness. At the common levels of people in the street, there are many who confuse names with the underlying reality.
One step in solving this was the Prophet's simple statement that God has many names, all of them most excellent. It makes no difference whether we use the term Jaweh, Ram, Brahm, The Creator, or simply God - literally Allah.
I get the impressions that many non-philosophical people still
argue that each religion has a separate God, even though they are monotheistic. From a philosophical viewpoint, it seems far more likely that we have numerous manifestations of a single God, in each case presented to the people in accordance with their needs.
Each of us seems to have been guided into the appropriate religion for our own needs, so that we can develop our strengths and work through our frailties. Unfortunately, many fail to use the opportunity to develop the Doctrine of the Heart, and are content with the Doctrine of the Eye - that after prayers today we can go out and lie, cheat and steal from our neighbors. This shallowness, coupled with failure to exercise the abilities given us, is where we develop the Nasrudins of every faith, such as Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor in Spain.
The ideas that most of us who bring our different faiths to examine the world of spirit are an effort to find a common path, a single door through which we can enter. Thus far, because religion is always a human interpretation of the divine, it seems that we remain at odds. Much of this is that we refuse to accept that others, acting in good faith in the religious traditions of birth, can have beliefs and experiences that differ from our own Yet that is certainly true. Example - I can recall what must have been 60 million years of evolution, yet I am not a psychic intuitive in any way. Bruce Moen is a psychic intuitive with motivation to rescue those who get stuck while transitioning into the afterlife. I've worked with people who have been killed in Nazi death camps, who once were US GIs in Viet Nam where villages were being destroyed and now are having nightmares and feelings of guilt to be unable to stop the killing. I recall a young woman, previously a guard at Auschwitz, who was so sorry for the Jews that he killed hmself, and then felt guilty in this life. Not long ago I worked with a young woman who was a Nagasaki bomb survivor in her last life.
Many of us who meditate have intense personal experiences that seem to be remarkably constant, whether one's background is Falun Gong, Hindu, Sufi, or New Age. There is a common factor, and it seems to be transcendental. I think you're quite right, Dalila, that the spiritual world is totally different from this one and that nobody will care about their origins when they get there. (This is also true of the world discovered by meditators - not much like the material world except at the earthbound levels.) But in the present moment, there seems to be a great unwillingness to accept anything that cannot be valued in gold, or proven by quantum mechanics, or supported by traditions that must be accepted on faith because nobody remembers how or why they began.
I would like to see a world in which the involvement of the common people in the street would increase, not in practices, but in awareness, and that all people would begin to find their way back to their Creator. Sufsm, the core of Islamic mysticism, offers this, but as yet has not become widely known in the West. Perhaps the reason for the present mess in the world is to set the stage for precisely that emergence. If so, it will also bring new experiences and new understandings.
Hmm - lotsa words - apologies for running on and on.
peace-
dave
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