For a long time, I wrestled with what I perceived to be, a dilemma:
How can someone who professes to be a Christian be so deeply involved in Eastern philosophy and thought? Am I not being untrue to my belief? And how can the things I am studying resonate so profoundly with me if I have a different religion?
The answer, when it became clear, was quite startling.
One of the things that probably everyone struggles with at some point in there lives is the question; “How can there be so many religions?” ”They can’t all be right!”
My position is this, and it has been a hard-won realization:
Forget “ianity” and “isms” and study the real. In other words, forget Christianity and study Christ. Forget Buddhism and study the enlightenment. Forget Taoism and study The Way.
More and more I understand that the suffix “ism” really does mean: “a system of beliefs, ( or beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school” as my Word Web dictionary so aptly describes it. The key word here is “system”. At some point, some individual has put together his/her interpretation of the religion, or philosophy, and begun to promote it to the masses.
Looking deeply into the life and words of Jesus Christ, you will find that the true intent of all that he lived and taught, as well as died for, was that man would be brought into more intimate contact with the Creator of the Universe. Since that time however, his words and teachings have been first; recorded, then interpreted, ( by individuals, some well meaning, and some self-serving ) Then great temples have been built in his name. And along the way, all sorts of “trappings” have been accumulated.
Jesus lived a simple life. He was a carpenter from Galilee. His teachings, or ’services’ if you will, were held either in a home, or in an outdoors setting where he taught the people of his day. The same was true of his Disciples, as they followed his teachings. Somewhere along the way in the last twenty centuries however, We have diverted into the “Christianity” we know today. We still have his teachings tho, and whether or not they have been accurately preserved, we can still use them to draw nearer to our creator.
Buddha, (the name is Sanskrit for “enlightened one”) was born Siddhartha Gautama to a wealthy king in Northern India, in what at present day is known as Nepal. At an early age, he began to understand the emptiness of wealth and priviliege and renounced his position in order to learn more about the causes of suffering. His teaching was about how to avoid suffering in this life. He did not claim to be divine, or to teach of any afterlife, re-incarnation, Gods or Devils. Only of how to be “Awake” to the reality of the present. According to one account, before his death he instructed his followers: “…do not make a religion of this.” Yet today, we have Buddh”ism”, with all sorts of gaudy temples, robes, beads, incense, statues, etc.!
Beginning to sound familiar?
One More:
Taoism is another religion founded around the teachings of one man, Lao Tzu, although there is some controversy about whether he was a man, or a group of men, and today we have “Taoist” temples, statues, architecture, etc..
It becomes obvious. Over the centuries, too many people have lost sight of the moon, and see only the finger pointing at the moon. But because it is an elegant finger, it looks so classic, and it gives one an air of great mystique to be able to talk about it, most people have forgotten the moon! I suppose in part, this is because of our natural tendency to think we “know” something if we can talk about it. Nothing could be further from the truth! If we cannot “do” in reality we know nothing!
We must be able to “apply” in order to say we “know”!
So forget labels, seek out the real. This is enlightenment, and the eradication of ignorance.
