Also, a quote from Rumi: [on the diversity of religions] “The lamp is different, but the light is the same. Love alone can end their quarrel. Love alone comes to the rescue when you cry for help against their arguments.” Rumi [Mawlana] I

Ritual and Symbols. The inner meanings of the scriptures, the spiritual teachings of the prophets and those personal searchings which can lead to divine union were often given lesser importance than outward rituals, symbolism and ceremony in many institutional religions. Observances, reading scriptures, prescribed acts, and following orthodox beliefs cannot replace your personal dedication, contemplation, activities, and direct experience. Preaching is too seldom teaching. For true mystics, every day is a holy day. Divine revelation is here and now, not limited to their sacred scriptures.

Conflicts in Conventional Religion. “What’s in a Word?” outlined some primary differences between religions and within each faith. The many divisions in large religions disagreed, sometimes bitterly. The succession of authority, interpretations of scriptures, doctrines, organization, terminology, and other disputes have often caused resentment. The customs, worship, practices, and behavior within the mainstream of religions frequently conflicted. Many leaders of any religion had only united when confronted by someone outside their faith, or by agnostics or atheists. Few mystics have believed divine oneness is exclusive to their religion or is restricted to any people.

Note: This is just a consensus to indicate some differences between the approaches of mystics and that of their institutional religion. These statements do not represent all schools of mysticism or every division of faith. Whether mystical experiences vary in their cultural context, or are similar for all true mystics, is less important than that they transform each one’s sense of being to a transpersonal outlook on all life.

Please pick up a copy of Edwin Newman’s “Strictly Speaking,” and read it.

To the Rabbi, with all due respect: I know that there is something bigger than us upon which this planet is based. I know it because I have experienced it in my life. That’s the only way anyone can know it, is to pursue it and put it into action in your life. So maybe “life after death” is an illusion in that this body won’t continue, nor will “I” continue in the current state, but my spirit will continue as a wave in the ocean of that which first breathed life into me.

“We live only part of the life we are given. Growing acquaintance with once-foreign cultures, new discoveries about our subliminal depths, and the dawning recognition that each social group reinforces just some human attributes while neglecting or suppressing others, have stimulated a worldwide understanding that all of us have great potential for growth.

“Unfortunately, however, professional specialization and divergent beliefs systems, along with the information explosion, make it difficult to bring such knowledge into a single purview. Like the unassembled pieces of a great jigsaw puzzle, discoveries about our developmental possibilities are scattered across the intellectual landscape, isolated from one another in separate fields of inquiry…”

For me, it seems clear enough that religions tend to “emphasize some aspects while neglecting or suppressing others.” The way I see it, the Buddha underwent his own Crucifixion — and I don’t think seeing it this way cheapens anything — indeed, I think it clarifies the meaning of intercultural encounter.

And in an age when there are far too many excuses for indulging in misunderstanding, I’d say we need a strong clear push to identify and clarify an authentic foundation for unity. So I agree — to see the elephant, let’s turn on the lights….

“Love God more than you love your religion…”