johnmdemarco posted on March 18, 2010 09:08
The world’s greatest religions appear to be equally true in essence, if different in doctrine, practice and personality. This is cause for celebration, not argument.
What are the essentially true components that they share across the board? An embrace of life-giving, consciousness-expanding qualities such as compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, grace, love, mercy, self-awareness, service and stewardship. And an eschewing of life-suppressing, unconscious behaviors and qualities such as anger, control, deception, fear, guilt, insecurity, legalism, lust, obsession, oppression, shame, selfishness and violence. These dynamics are the ultimate arbiters of what is truly “right” or “wrong.” You either see them in action or you don’t.
As David R. Hawkins points out in his compelling book Power vs. Force, the original teachings of spiritual luminaries such as Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed are still profoundly sound and powerful. It is their expressions and implementation by followers across the centuries that have varied in efficacy and embrace of the life-giving qualities and behaviors.
The result? A vastly-reduced impact of the potential for these incredible belief systems to thoroughly address all human-driven shortcomings, and an unnecessary fragmentation of the mobilized, compassionate action that pro-actively responds to suffering and tragedies beyond a person’s control. For all the countless, wonderful stories of people of faith doing great deeds for others, there are a million more that could be told but never come to fruition.
Think of how many resources and countless hours are wasted each year because of the duality of religious beliefs. Someone must be wrong in order for me to be right, and this win-lose (or even lose-lose) arrogance hinders compassionate vision by erecting splinters of pride, arrogance and self-righteousness. Honestly examine any denomination or sect of any of the world’s major religions today, and you can easily punch holes in some of its practices where the ego-driven need to be right or exclusive gets in the way of love.
The journey I’ve been on for nearly three years now is one of transcendence: not pushing aside my particular religious belief system (Christianity), but seeking to fulfill its original intentions beyond the dogma of man in order to access more and more divine potential. That potential, I have come to understand (although I certainly do not claim to have found the answer, but simply state what I perceive on this given day) is none other than the infinite power and energy source of all existence.
It is pure consciousness. It is the universe itself, holding all living things together in synchronistic eternity—the ultimate reality beyond the expressions of forms and clock time. We often call it God, Deity, Divinity, Buddha, Christ, Nirvana, Krishna, and so forth. Its nature is infinite power, compassion, gentleness and love, as Hawkins aptly puts it. And, Hawkins adds, a person who surrenders to “enlightenment” has a sense of self identified as consciousness itself; all duality has ceased. The Apostle Paul described this condition well, although his words have been distorted by dogma: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
My learning journey continues. I hope to have new epiphanies with each resource I encounter, knowing very well that at any given moment I know very little…but am making progress toward complete surrender to that ultimate reality.