In these sistersufi blogs, one of my goals is to find universals across many different religions. Not in the same words, but similar ideas. To my mind, the Bhagavad Gita offers three such universals, each a part of every great religion. But each is also beyond religion, dogma, and gods.
TRUTH – DHARMA:
Good exists. There is a right order to daily life and to the universe.
Fear, anger, hatred, envy, greed, selfishness, and ignorance obscure this truth. Our conscience, sometimes but the faintest whisper, can learn to sense the right and wrong of the moment, and guide us to act accordingly.But intertwined with our own responsibility are the mysteries of destiny and fate.
PATHS – YOGA:
There are several paths of practice to perceive dharma and advance spiritually. Or actually, just to become what everyone would agree is a good human being.
These paths require will, discipline, and introspection to understand our habitual thoughts and clear our minds.
Hinduism has organized communication of a number of practices that can that can help. Devotion and love, right action, and meditation, can help our captain of selfishness get out of the way. These approaches can bring peace in daily life as well as higher levels of spiritual experience.
BEYOND MATERIALISM:
This is about what is beyond the material. “Is there “something” rather than “nothing”? Science cannot prove or disprove the “something.” Perhaps there is a delicate sensing. Religious experience is a way to test “something”. Buddha said “try it, you’ll like it.”
Chapter 11 of The Bhagavad Gita offers Hindu visions of Absolute Reality. Strong visions like that experienced by Arjuna, which enabled him to fight in a just war, have been experienced by the founders, prophets, and saints of all religions.
- With iron will and determination, Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree, meditating and resisting visions of temptation, until he was “enlightened.” He successfully taught the Buddhist path, walking across Northern India for 45 years until his death at age 80.
- Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, entered “the cloud,” and returned to his people with the Ten Commandments. This concise set of laws has been called the minimum that people must follow to live together. For years Moses continued to lead the Jews across desert to the promised land.
- Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days, endured visions of temptation and came to understand and accept his difficult mission.
- Muhammad, returning from meditation in a cave on Mt. Hira, encountered the angel Gabriel, and received his first inspiration to found a new religion.
Others followed in their wakes.
These visionary experiences were earth-shattering, not unlike those described in Chapter 11. These experiences were not followed by madness but by wisdom and effectiveness.
My next post will delve into the Mahabharata answer the question: “ So you won the war, how do you become a just ruler?”
Straight from Wikipedia: Evil is Sin, evildoing, sinfulness, iniquity, vileness, baseness, badness, wrongdoing, dishonesty, unscrupulousness, roguery, villainy, viciousness, degeneracy, depravity, immorality, vice, corruption, corruptness, devilry, fiendishness, and malfeasance.
There are many ideas about what is evil: randomness, punishment, education, human nature, free will, separation from God, etc. I particularly like Kabir Helminski’s contribution: the opportunity for heroism. (Link https://www.facebook.com/thresholdsociety/posts/105596812819784)
However, the existence of Evil does not prove that God does not exist, it just proves that God may not be what you think. Here are some fast takes relating to evil.
- Indifferent: Everything is relative. Evil is relative. Everyone is out for themselves. Whatever.
- Atheist: We humans are the result of evolution. There is no evidence for the existence of God. Evil like the Nazi Holocaust proves there cannot be a God who is both good and powerful as religion claims. We must develop human values as the foundation for combatting evil.
- Agnostic: The atheist has some good arguments, but there might be “something” rather than “nothing”. Anyway God is not all that important in my life. I just try to be a good person.
- Spiritual: I am convinced that there is “something” rather than “nothing,” but the so called great religions have been responsible for too much hypocrisy, too much intolerance, too much evil. I walk in Nature and I will find my own way. Maybe Buddhism.
- Religious:
- Judaism: Ours is an old religion and we are the chosen people. Inspired through our Prophets, we were the first to recognize the one God. We have been steadfast in the face of evil and we now must take responsibility for our own survival.
- Christianity: Evil stems from the original sin of Adam and Eve, inherited by all humans. God saved us by sending his only son Jesus Christ to die on the cross to pay for our sins. Jesus fnded Christianity and taught us how to bear suffering and evil. The only path to heaven is believing Jesus and/or doing good. We are disappointed that Jews and Muslims do not accept Jesus as their savior.
- Islam: We recognize only one God, Allah. The Quran has taught us how to please God and overcome evil as well as how to bear suffering. We honor the Jewish Prophets and the Prophet Jesus. We are disappointed that Jews and Christians do not accept Muhammad as a Prophet and as the founder of the last and truest religion.
- Hinduism: We are the oldest religion, the product of many different cultures. As a result we have many different scriptures, philosophies, and practices, including the choice of many gods. Dharma (righteousness) is above the gods who are gateways to the One Reality. Our scriptures give us paths to purify ourselves of selfishness and evil. Ultimately, our purified individual souls (Atman) will recognize oneness with Absolute Reality (Brahman). Most likely this will take many lifetimes.
- Buddhism: We have done away with the confusion of gods and instead strive to purify ourselves to realize the Truth beyond gods. This Truth is that all is One. All is Buddha Nature. Many of our practices of purification and our belief that realization of Buddha Nature usually takes many lifetimes are similar to those of our mother religion, Hinduism.
Why These Different Religions?
If you are troubled by the existence of the many different religions and their infinite divisions, consider the following question. If there is one great spiritual Unity, is it not natural, with different times, geographies, cultures, personalities, that different interpretations would emerge? And I didn’t even mention the theologians, carefully working out their rational explanations, their commentaries cascading over time.
Of course the ante is upped with scientific discoveries. With our current knowledge of the universe, the “Something” or God would have to be very big. However, the other alternative is figuring out the “Nothing” behind all this huge, marvelous complexity. “Something” and “Nothing” are equally difficult to grasp. In terms of which perspective to support, the rational proof for “Nothing” is no better than the proof for “Something.”
However we do have religious experience. And this is where the mystics come in.
Mystics and Evil
I find it wonderfully ironic that if someone deeply meditates and empties her mind, seeking nothing as it were,, something may appear in all glory. Like the Cosmic Vision, Chapter 11* of the Bhagavad Gita.
Mystics provide the strongest and most important commonalities across different religions. Mystics want to experience God or Absolute Reality directly in this lifetime. They are willing to give up focus on self and distractions to pursue this experience.
But before we explore universal mysticism, we let us revisit evil. We seem to agree that it exists.
Maybe you encountered difficulties, experienced sadness, labeled them evil, suffered, and then moved on, back to the same old life.
Perhaps evil drove you from religion. The violent death of an innocent child? Genocide? Some stupidity given the name of religion?
Perhaps evil drove you to religion. A peaceful refuge? A source of strength to work for good? The counsel of right action?
What would life be like without evil?
Would it be bland, one dimensional? Would we be bored, no problems to solve, no challenges to meet, nothing to learn? Stepford men, women and children?
What is life with evil? Today’s headlines tell the story, from the ridiculous to the horrific.
Humans are presented with a wide range of moral possibilities. We experienced the extremes of this range between 1925-1945. For two decades Mahatma Gandhi and Adolph Hitler coexisted at two ends of the earth. Both acted on the world. Each with great effect.
I believe that what we call evil is a necessary part of the Grand Design of our moral existence. Our choices are wide. Our challenge is to understand the depth of our self-absorption. Although self-interest is useful for survival, to understand the whole picture, to realize that all is One, we need to find those challenging practices that enable our small selves to get out of the way.
The mystics say evil is a part of human nature. We all experience anger, hatred, fear, greed, and ego. But there are ways out. Mysticism is the individual’s project of overcoming the human qualities that are the seeds of evil.
You might think of mysticism as extreme religion. Not extreme in terms of religious intolerance or Islamic terrorism, but extreme in terms of the concentration, intention, and seriousness of purpose to move beyond evil.
However, authentic mystics will make no pretense of reaching perfection, there is always the need for close monitoring of thoughts and behavior. There is always the challenge of cultural bias.
You will note that all the great religions, at their core, ask us to examine our thoughts and behaviors to understand the seeds of evil which are in us all. This is our game in our Great Design.
As with the Nazi holocaust, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said of both armies, righteous or not, “they will all die.” That is true, good or bad, we will all die. For each individual in line for the gas chamber or in the last stages of cancer, the answer is surrendering to Death.
God is not always nice. God is All. God is Death, Justice, Love, and Intimacy. The idea that God is with you is not just words, it is an actual feeling. It is the Christian “Peace beyond understanding” and the Peace wished by the Islamic Greeting “Salaam Alaikum” Approaching death is not the time to rage for Justice, it is the time for surrender. Mystics seek to experience many aspects of God. They seek this Peace now, before death.
Perhaps as a surprise to the religious, you don’t have to be a member of a synagogue, c hurch, mosque, or temple, for these experiences.
A future profile from my recent visit to India will be about just such a person. Our next profile from my visit to India will be an exploration of the complementary paths of Karma Yoga and Devotion, the RamaKrishna Mission in Varanasi.
*Chapter 11. The Cosmic Vision, I recommend the “The Bhagavad Gita: Translated for the Modern Reader by Eknath Easwaran