This book celebrates the diverse and unique perspectives of spirituality, as expressed by the worldÕs major religions. At the same time, it explores the similarities between the major religions with respect to the transcendental experience itself. There are many paths that lead up to the mountain, and from its summit one can appreciate them all.
Whatever your current spiritual practice may be, the intention of this book is to help you deepen it. It was written to support mutual respect and tolerance between different cultures and their spiritual ideologies. We can even find ways to appreciate one another. For those of us who follow the spiritual journey, there is more that unites us than separates us. And the diversity between us can open us to new inspiration and to closer union with Spirit, as we listen to one another with an open heart.
Manifest Destiny - Scanning the religious universe and coming to the conclusion that religions are a primordial condition in the course of human evolution filling the psychological void inherent to our explicit and implicit cosmic angst. Belief is the cardinal ingredient. It goes hand in hand with orchestrated ceremonials, primitive at first and gradually developing into organized religions.
Organized religion has done a lot of good but it has also done a lot of harm resulting from zealotry and extreme fanaticism. Some religions more so than others.
In scanning the religious universe one cannot fail to be impressed by the vast diversity in matters of faith, belief and make belief. Most of it is man made contrary to the almost universal conviction that it is all divinely inspired and divinely mandated. My definition of God being a religious agnostic is that my God is blind, mute and deaf, before life as we know it, thus no gender and no offspring, and beyond time in the vastness of a cosmic fast expanding universe. Who are we? And what are we doing here? Remains an unanswered question. One thing is certain, we are! And it is not exclusively cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) but maybe more so sum ergo cogito (I am therefore I think)!
In today's complex, fragmented world, people of all races and creeds are seeking answers. The problem seems to come from two areas: the self and the complexity of the world. Now, more than ever before, people have to be able to reach out and see what life is really all about. Life turns out to be a very deceptive mistress indeed! Topping all of this off is the frightening notion that a God we make within ourselves is going to make things all right according to the way we think. This is an interesting proposition in that it has a tendency to make The God our servant rather than us being His servant - such is the greed of the self when it becomes entrapped in a certain culture or mind-set.
With science dramatically expanding, democracy being passed off as yet one more panacea for all the ills of the world and selfish notions that some can possess THE GOD; it is no wonder that such TV channels such as Discovery and National Geographic have come up with some doomsday rhetoric concerning the destructive pathway we are heading for.
To me at least, Truth is a higher virtue than just any faith or any 'named' belief - one has just to look at the multitude of different religions and the myriad of sects within these religions. The hunt for truth is a long and hard road but it can be used to separate falsehoods that have crept into one's cultural existence while bringing forth a more unified field of thinking. However, that takes courage and an ability to become more aware of the real meaning of existence. For this to happen one key ingredient must be present and that is that evidence must be brought forth and shown to be consistent down through the ages.