Tag: belief

LOVE IN EAST AND WEST

In Buddhism, Warrior-Boddhisattvas

(those who delay entering Nirvana 

to help others on Earth get there)

train in: interdependence –

if I hurt others I hurt myself –

it is love not aggression that will save the planet –

others are not different from themselves –

we are all one –

and they train their hearts to open 

in increasingly difficult situations

getting in touch with our True Self/God within

enables Boddhisattvas and us to listen/speak/act from the heart

“For without compassion all religious beliefs and practices

are useless and empty” – Albert Nolan

we now have so many tools to help us be compassionate

such as the Enneagram which exposes the hidden worldviews

we have been unconsciously operating out of our whole lives

and thus helps couples to view 

their partners foibles more compassionately

and their own foibles more critically

in previous cultures  

belief in God had nothing to do 

with the modern obsession with weighing evidence 

for the existence of God –

God must laugh at our attempts  

to weigh God in the balance

as if our thoughts or intellectual choice of doctrines

determined whether God existed or not –

in previous cultures

belief in God

was like a marriage vow –

“I do” commit myself 

to love and serve you, my God

mindful presence 

spent with the one we love

is the fullest expression of True Love

and mindful generosity

is the greatest gift 

we can offer our loved one –

the gift of our True Presence.

“ENLIGHTENMENT”

The new cosmology does not contradict Christian faith

but resonates with it –

God is neither reduced to the creation event

nor to the universe

nor is separate from the universe

but God’s Presence is in and flows through ongoing creation –

God is in the world but not entirely of it –

everything is made of the same stuff as God – divinity

but is not the fullness of Divinity

 

God flows thru the universe

and thru the progressive stages of human ethics:

ego-centric care (for me)/ethno-centric care (for my group)/

world-centric care (for all humans)/universe-centric (care for all beings) –

each stage has a higher compassion

so not all hierarchies are bad

 

the more mature religious mind has developed

an alternative/wider way of seeing –

Buddhism/Hinduism/the Gospel of John

call it “enlightenment” –

“you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) –

the light of Christ shines thru all who belong to him

and is meant to shine into every dark corner of the world –

Christians call enlightenment “conversion”

Jesus calls it “salvation” or “the kingdom of God”

which is not a place or only exists in the afterlife

but is a new way of seeing and thinking

here and now

 

“In the early church ‘believe’

meant to ‘belove’ something –

to give your heart/soul/trust to it –

but now society has become so ‘enlightened’

that to ‘believe’ something means

‘to hold an opinion about it’

so formerly ‘to believe in God’ meant

you gave your whole self/heart/soul to God

now, ‘to believe in God’ is to be of the opinion

that God may exist”

– Wilfred Cantwell Smith

 

 

 

YOUTH BASE COMMUNITIES

Christianity is moving from being a religion

of belief about God

to being an experience of God

whereas fundamentalism is a reaction against this –

trying to shore up belief about God

which is eroding – as the pounding of ocean waves

causes more and more cliffs along the shoreline

to collapse

 

as Christianity spreads in waves thru Asia

rooted in scripture and Xian tradition

it will include the mysticism of Ramakrishna/

Aurobindo/Ramana Marshi/Lao Tzu/Chuang Tzu/

Vedanta/Upanishads/Bhagavad Gita/I Ching

which will enrich and renew Xianity

far beyond what Plato and Greek philosophy did

 

however, because of rapid change in every society

Buddhist and Christian leaders lag behind

Buddhist and Xian youth

and no longer speak their language –

as at the Tower of Babylon

people are scattering in confusion

and youth have nothing good/true/beautiful

to ground their beliefs in

and abandon their parents’ Churches and Sanghas

 

but youth are more awake/more woke

than previous generations –

more interested in serving the poor

than in attending musty/dusty church rituals

but they need to wake up even more

to the Eucharist of Service as Mother Teresa said:

“In holy communion we have Christ

in the form of bread and wine

and in our work we find him

in the flesh and blood of the poor –

it is the same Christ”

 

youth also need to re-discover/re-invent “theology of liberation”

which first dawned like a Rising Son

at the 1968 Conference of Latin American Bishops

youth need to form “base communities” –

small bands like that of the Twelve Apostles –

mystic/activists who revolutionize the world.

LIGHT IN A DARK AGE

Thanks to the 18th century philosopher David Hume

we have made believing into a technocratic thing

having to do with true or false opinions:

“I believe (or do not believe) in climate change” –

belief now has nothing to do with trust/relationship/heart

“Believing is a modern concept and the great heresy

of the church today” – Wilfred Cantwell Smith

 

blasphemy is usually thought of as taking God’s name in vain

but it could include priests blessing nuclear weapons/

imams indoctrinating youth into political martyrdom/

religious leaders like Joel Osteen living in palaces/

being multi-millionaires/with private jets –

just like Jesus

 

we can only grasp the meaning of Christ today

and what is heresy and blasphemy

thru the lens of the evolution of human consciousness

to a new level thru technology/television/the Internet

facilitating world-wide consciousness

 

for example, Afro-American theology finds solidarity

with liberation theology/liberation movements

in Asia/Africa/Latin America

 

God is always connected to humans/the world/the cosmos

and in medieval times anthropology/theology/cosmology

were all one

 

however, since Copernicus and Galileo’s heliocentrism

the cosmology has changed and traditional ideas

of humans and God have been marginalized

to the point where we now live on an infinitely small dustmote

called “Earth” spinning in a vast godless cosmos

 

but there is light at the end of the Dark Age –

marks of a coming Interspiritual/New Axial Age:

  • friendships between many in various religious traditions
  • promotion of world-centric consciousness thru climate change
  • a vision of humans as one life form connected to all others
  • widespread receptivity to meditation/contemplative practices

 

The Cosmic Christ is not done with us yet.