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.