From ''Living the Consequences of Another’s Religion''
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 1:01 pm
Kishkumen
But there is another side to this, I think. Something that cannot be ignored. When religionists seek to impose on others laws that follow from their unique beliefs they invite an inevitable blowback. Here in the US religious laws have retreated before principles of personal liberty. If your belief in the devil makes you fight the right of gays to marry, then you must accept that your exercise of political muscle to push the consequences of your beliefs on others will make you and your beliefs unpopular.
Excellent point Kish... I just finished reading the Upanishads in yet another translation (It's fun and interesting to see how the various translations works). One thing about them is, they are not history as such, that is history for history sake of this happened to so and so, and the woman said this as she went to a particular city to do a particular something.
There is no doctrine in it one must believe in order to be a good Upanishadist. Doctrine was written because of people's experiences. What the Upanisadists experienced as they studied their own consciousness is what they wrote down. It is the ultimate subjectivity, which, in reality, as D. T. Suzuki taught, is truly the ultimate objectivity. What happens to someone how they feel, etc., is the ultimate reality whether words can capture the experience or not. Experience is the real, and all experience as it occurs to each individual, though the inability to exactly put it into words is what Zen Buddhism is all about. Words don't give reality. Words are not reality themselves, it is our mode of attempting to share what we have objectively experienced, even though we can never tell it exactly as it occurred.
As I have been studying Buddhism (more Zen actually, but the other branches also) and the Upanishads, I am continuing to realize that Huston Smith might truly be onto something. Take the very best of all the religions and use that! In fact, If the world would do that, and then with that amassed goodness use that as their religious base instead of attempting to make everyone join this church or that one, religion might very well be a charter way of living one's life in peace with all...
I tease my video gaming buddy that all the companies who make video games ought to get together with all their talents, help, computers, technology and put together the absolute fundamental ULTIMATE video game!!! That would just be so stinkin cool! Make it so the actual playing field in the game would be equivilent to the size of our Milky Way Galaxy! Make it so that even the very best of the kids could NEVER finish it and ALWAYS have challenges to over come, for that is their main complaint. Video games to these whizzes are too easy. They zip through the games in just a matter of a couple days.
Why not the same with religion and the teachings? Take the VERY BEST of ALL religions, both East and West, and put it all together. I have been thinking of beginning a preliminary commentary of comparison contrast and bolstering all the religious ideas together as a unit and making it a book just to see if the world would actually want to go that direction. Take what strikes me as the most interesting, most uplifting, and fascinating ideas and put them all together. Forget worrying about which religion is true. Lets say ALL of them have truth, and put ALL that truth together to benefit mankind. Give credit where credit is due to the scholars, the bishops, the leaders, and the scriptures, their ways of expressions, and see what gigantic fascinating overview of spiritual religiousity and intellect can actually give we humans. I am stone cold seriously thinking of beginning this. It's been mulling about in my mind for decades ever since Dan Peterson made a note about it in passing. Well it's probably time to FOCUS on doing that instead of merely wistfully wishing it would be done.
I mean Kabbalah, mysticism, the East, the West, the North, the South, Shamanism, ALL of it, from its best presentation and information could make for some terrific reading!