UNITING EASTERN AND WESTERN RELIGION

The truly mature attitude is to stop fighting/

trying to eliminate your own shadow

and learning to accept and work with your shadow-energies –

all saints know they are sinners

and all sinners think they are saints

with no shadow.

 

All world religions including Catholicism and Protestantism

strive for greater spiritual freedom

but the opposite, for example

the Third Buddhist Precept on Sexuality: self-restraint –

what western religions call “chastity” –

is also meant to free individuals and society –

so many children/adults/couples

have been destroyed by sexual misconduct

and enslaved by sexual trafficking.

 

Many of the same teachings but using different words

are found in all the great religions:

chastity = sexual restraint

karma = sowing and reaping

but the challenge for western pioneers in eastern mysticism

Thomas Merton/Bede Griffiths/Raimundo Panikkar

was uniting Asian meditation

with a deep commitment to Jesus/Scripture/Tradition.

 

These pioneers who led us into the future

accomplished this union by reaching into the past

rediscovering the Desert Fathers/Mothers

and apophatic mystics like Meister Eckhart/Johannes Tauler/

Teresa of Avila/John of the Cross.

 

All these mystics, those in the West

and mystics in the East: Gandhi/Aurobindo/Rabindranath Tagore

knew that solitude and service are reciprocal:

true prayer results in service

and true service must be grounded in prayer/solitude.

 

In both East and West, small base communities

focused on spirituality and political activism

hold great promise for individual/social transformation –

all it took was the smallest base community –

twelve men and their Leader

to transform history and the entire world.