An Original Faith: Love
Scripture tells us to love others; but have you loved those you’ve loved because scripture told you to? Written words can be wonderful and inspiring, but we would testify poorly to our love if there were no more to it than obedience to something external to us. We do not love our children because the Bible tells us so.
You might say that love’s testimony is given first hand or it’s just hearsay. If we loved each other in no more than a spirit of obedience, no one would feel loved and no one would be loved.
Love precedes the written word. The spirit has been moving over the waters for a very long time.
Catch the drift; ride the wave. Be more than a student of religion. No religion? No problem. Be more than a student of your narrower desires.
There is a self with each of us that is more than self referential; those with ears to hear also find themselves with lips to speak and hands to act.
There is an original faith.
Original Faith: Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality will be available to order at this site and on Amazon next month.
You might say that love’s testimony is given first hand or it’s just hearsay. If we loved each other in no more than a spirit of obedience, no one would feel loved and no one would be loved.
Love precedes the written word. The spirit has been moving over the waters for a very long time.
Catch the drift; ride the wave. Be more than a student of religion. No religion? No problem. Be more than a student of your narrower desires.
There is a self with each of us that is more than self referential; those with ears to hear also find themselves with lips to speak and hands to act.
There is an original faith.
Original Faith: Finding the Interfaith Soul of Progressive Religion and Spirituality will be available to order at this site and on Amazon next month.
Posted by Paul at 11:02 AM Permalink
30 Comments:
I think that the most powerfully experienced and potentially significant elements of religion and spirituality, of which love is one, run deeper than doctrinal differences. (I would view faith as another such element.)
But aren't you invalidating your own point by trying to direct your reader awayfrom written words, yet using writing to do it?
I'm not making the point seriously, because it seems to me - and I will wait for the book to see if my surmise is correct - that your writing has the function to remind the reader of something already known, even if overlaid with other stuff: that original faith lies there inside us, intact.
It seems like I've started doing a series of posts that sound like ads but also have content. Guess it's my brain anticipating the book being available.
VINCENT: You've got it exactly right.
BETH: That sounds right to me too - and that getting to the essence is possible.
Do you think humankind will ever turn from its current ways of separation from truth, as described in the book of Revelation? I have faith that it will, at some point, and words from folks like you will aid people on that path.
As Ben Franklin wrote: "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth the reading, or do things worth the writing."
Good stuff, Paul. I'm looking forward to the book.
great site!! :)
TIMJAMZ: I look forward to you reading it and I like the Franklin quote.
I really have no idea whether we have what it takes to survive long term as a species. Personally, I find that using my abilities toward that end as well as I can, win or lose, and as small as my contribution would be if I managed to make one, is what gives me peace – makes me feel “right with God,” so to speak.
From what I can tell, our experience of faith runs deeper than the success or failure not only of our own efforts, but those of our species.
AMBER R: Thanks, and yes, it seems to me that one way or another religion and spirituality speaks to our own personal, first-hand transformation into more generous and peaceful persons, or it’s inauthentic – or, to use the word Jesus often employs in the gospels when reproaching the scribes and Pharisees, “hypocrisy.”
yday when my 3 and a half year old nephew come to me and hugged me..........i cant express that feelin in words!
it was one of the few times when the hug was not given as a means of bribe( he knws one hug and i ll give in to all of his demands) just becoz he felt like it!
love is beautiful! and i love it:D
I think that you have a large mission - so it is time to heal yourself. I say this with love and understanding.
Denise
The Power of Being
MY THOUGHTS: Yeah, I love the transparency of young children. It’s usually pretty easy to tell what’s real with them.
DENISE G: Thanks for sharing your story of illness as spiritual redirection. Sounds like you've approached your situation in a very meaningful way.
“I believe that when God does not give us an illness that Doctors can understand, it is because it is between Him and us and not the medical profession - it is a spiritual redirection.”
I’ve found that the meaning of severe illness or accident varies according to the nature of the disease and the individual’s stage of development and outlook at the time of onset. Because a disease is now poorly understood doesn’t mean that it comes as a message from God any more or less than, say, appendicitis or diabetes, whose causes would have been unknown not long ago in human history.
A couple quick examples: young people, children, and babies, who haven’t had time to find direction let alone redirection, die every day from poorly understood diseases. Also, people who suffer from well understood diseases sometimes, but not always, find in this experience a call for redirection just as you did.
Personally, the meaning of my poorly understood illness has been learning that the way of great joy and great pain both lead me to the same place. It has been reaffirmation rather than redirection.
Finally, it’s important to note that good health/recovery of health doesn’t correlate to spiritual wellness. There are many physically healthy/mentally unwell individuals and many mentally well/physically sick individuals. Of course, having a constructive, positive attitude is always a plus, but this is no guarantee of a positive medical outcome.
You've clearly grown a great deal through your experience. Yet one of the things that can make communication about spirituality difficult is how individual it is, despite our sense of important commonalities.
That was one of several major challenges for me in writing Original Faith: figuring out how to make use of my own experiences to help point to larger patterns without overgeneralizing from them.
Btw, when I clicked on your name I couldn't seem to find your URL. ("User profile not enabled" or something like that...)
I have no idea if that makes sense to anyone but me....
DENISE: I agree - religion as predicated on fear/acting good to avoid punishment misses the real point.
Congratulations on your book!
From what I've learned in my studies, the core belief of love was unique to Jesus and many religions have since incorporated it. Clearly Islam, which regards Jesus as one of the prophets, was informed by love. It seems incomprehensible that other, more ancient religions were.
But then, people like to equate Christianity and Hinduism as "the same at the core" too, and that simply isn't borne out by the evidence.
I have books from the religions of ancient Egypt all formed around the love of mankind and brotherhood, but here are some examples that are easily accessible.
First I will begin with Buddhism:
'Compassion and love are not mere luxuries.
As the source both of inner and external peace,
they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species.'
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama
INTRODUCTION
The four immeasurables, also known as the Brahma Viharas (Skt.) are found in one brief and beautiful prayer:
May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,
May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering,
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.
The Buddha taught the following to his son Rahula (from "Old path white clouds" by Thich Nhat Hahn):
"Rahula, practice loving kindness to overcome anger. Loving kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return.
Practice compassion to overcome cruelty. Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return.
Practice sympathetic joy to overcome hatred. Sympathetic joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success.
Practice non-attachment to overcome prejudice. Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. This is because that is. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another.
I call these the four immeasurables. Practice them and you will become a refreshing source of vitality and happiness for others."
LOVE
The definition of love in Buddhism is: wanting others to be happy.
This love is unconditional and it requires a lot of courage and acceptance (including self-acceptance).
The "near enemy" of love, or a quality which appears similar, but is more an opposite is: conditional love (selfish love, see also the page on attachment).
The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy: anger, hatred.
A result which one needs to avoid is: attachment.
This definition means that 'love' in Buddhism refers to something quite different from the ordinary term of love which is usually about attachment, more or less successful relationships and sex; all of which are rarely without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to de-tachment and the unselfish interest in others' welfare.
'Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.'
Nagarjuna
"If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue"
His Holiness the Dalai Lama from 'The little book of Buddhism'
Hinduism
Foreword
Among the Upanishads, the Mundaka Upanishad is regarded as one the most important. It throws a flood of light on the Jnana Marga (the path of Knowledge) and leads the aspirant to the highest rung in the ladder of Jnana—Brahmavid Brahmaiva Bhavati.
That this Upanishad was meant for the Sannyasin (and hence the significant name Mundaka Upanishad) is itself the highest tribute that can be paid to its sacredness. The truth that this Supreme Knowledge which the Upanishad imparts is to be had through inspirational initiation direct from a Guru who is well versed in the Brahma Vidya and who has at the same time had the Brahma Anubhava, is brought out very clearly in this Upanishad.
At the very commencement, the Upanishad throws out a challenge to all finite (and therefore imperfect) sciences. Real Knowledge does not consist in the mastery of cartloads of mere verbiage, but in the immediate experience of the Self. Without this Self-Knowledge, it is futile to try to know anything else! Man's knowledge of an object is clouded by the ignorance that shrouds his own Self; and minus this unifying force of Self-Knowledge, all knowledge is reduced to mere conjecture and, therefore, it is arbitrary. Knowledge of the Self instantly means true knowledge of everything.
How is this Knowledge to be attained? While yet engaged in the performance of his daily duties, the aspirant should carefully and minutely analyse the nature of the world, and grasp the transience of all objects. If everything is transient, what, then, is Eternal and, therefore, worth aspiring for? This question cannot be answered by the aspirants' intellect, for the intellect itself is a finite and frail instrument and one amongst the transient objects in this evanescent world. But the emergence in the aspirants' mind of such a Query is itself the signal that the heart-strands that bound him to Samsara have got loosened, and that with the sword of Jnana he can easily cut them asunder. This sword is in the Guru's sheath and has to be acquired by direct personal initiation. In the Guru's holy presence, the disciple's intellect ceases to function. Like the gushing waters of a mountain torrent, when the obstructing dam is broken, Divine Wisdom floods the heart of the aspirant: he knows. He realises that in essence he is that Knowledge Itself! That is the Supreme Knowledge in which the distinction between knowledge, the knower and the known vanishes. And, that is the reason why the Upanishad alludes to It with a series of negations.
The Upanishad gives graphic descriptions of the effects of desire-prompted actions and shows how the wrong performance of these actions brings on evil consequences and even the correct performance, while conferring temporary affluence and happiness, terminates in the reincarnation of the Jiva in even lower births. Desire is condemned in unequivocal terms.
Practice of truth is one of the foremost Sadhanas for the purpose of Self-realisation. And the powerfully reassuring Mantra Satyameva jayate na anritam occurs in this Upanishad. Practice of Truth, penance, Brahm- acharya and the acquirement of correct knowledge are the practices that bestow strength on the aspirant—physical, mental, moral, intellectual and spiritual strength; and an aspirant endowed with this strength alone can reach the Goal—not a weakling, says the Upanishad.
These are all preparatory practices. These are excellent aids for self-purification. But these 'actions' cannot by themselves achieve That which is not the product of any action—the Supreme Brahman. Utter annihilation of the ego is called for; and the Upanishad again and again stresses the Truth that the Atman is all-pervading and is the Self of all. Failure to perceive this Truth alone results in egocentric personality. The Upanishad forbids one from talking of anything other than this all-pervading Self. The austerity of speech (and of the inner Bhava that prompts speech itself) is hidden in this! Just reflect for a moment. If you really and sincerely recognise the presence of the Atman in every being, no contemptuous expression would escape from your lips, no falsehood will be uttered by you; your speech would be sweet, truthful and loving. Universal love will reside in your heart; and cosmic love is synonymous with supreme self-sacrifice, or egolessness. That cosmic love is the threshold to the limitless domain of Brahmic Bliss.
Islam
Prophet Mohammed declared (5):
"He who helpeth fellow creatures in the hour of need and he who helpeth the oppressed, him will God help in the day of travail"
"What actions are most excellent to gladden the heart of a human being. To feed the hungry, to help the afflicted to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful and to remove the wrongs of the injured"
"The best of men is he from whom good accrueth to humanity"
" Do you love your creator? Love your fellow beings first."
" A perfect Muslim is he from whose tongue and hands mankind is safe"
Thus we see that Islam preaches love, service and compassion and complete submission to God that is only possible with unquestioned love towards the creator.
Sufism : An Overview
The substance of Sufism is the Truth and the definition of Sufism is the selfless experiencing and actualization of the Truth. The practice of Sufism is the intention to go towards the Truth, by means of love and devotion. This is called the Tariqat, the Spiritual Path or way towards God. The sufi is one who is a lover of Truth, who by means of love and devotion moves towards the Truth, towards the Perfection which all are truly seeking. As necessitated by Love's jealousy, the sufi is taken away from all except the Truth-Reality. For this reason, in Sufism it is said that, "Those who are inclined towards the hereafter can not pay attention to the material world. Likewise, those who are involved in the material world can not concern themselves with the hereafter. But the sufi (because of Love' s jealousy) is unable to attend to either of these worlds."
Zoroastrianism preaches love and mutual co operation wherein it is stated (4):
"Teach us Ahura Mazda, to live as comrades all, in willing fellowship and loving fraternity, I brotherly helpfulness and co operation"
"Inspire us, Ahura Mazda to live in mutual understanding and trust and peace"
" Seek your happiness in happiness of all"
"Exude warmth, affection, and cheer, and dispel the coldness of hatred and the gloom of sorrow"
"The kingdom of Ahura Mazda is for him who helps needy"
"All men and women should mutually love one another and live as brothers and sisters bound by the indestructible bond of humanity."
Roman Pagan Religion: "The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves."
Shinto:
"The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form"
"Be charitable to all beings, love is the representative of God." Ko-ji-ki Hachiman Kasuga
Sikhism:
Compassion-mercy and religion are the support of the entire world". Japji Sahib
"Don't create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone." Guru Arjan Devji 259
"No one is my enemy, none a stranger and everyone is my friend." Guru Arjan Dev : AG 1299
Sufism: "The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven't the will to gladden someone's heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone's heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this." Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.
Taoism:
"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien.
"The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful." Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 49
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PEYTON CONWAY MARCH:
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.
Please visit my blog at:
http://thepowerofbeing.net/
Sometimes the language differs, but I think, for example, of Christian "mercy" or "forgiveness" and Buddhist "compassion." Seems to me like the same wavelength.
I'd add that love is a staple element of being human.
Denise
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