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When a tree has the same roots and the main trunk begins to rise it depends upon the manner of the limbs for the light and chemistry that will help it flourish. We have all seen limbs begin to think they are the trunk, and become so self-important they become a liability to the well-being of the tree. Their burden breaks the tree down. Ignorantly and unknowingly, the limbs can kill the tree and themselves.
Today, we are watching this same drama in the human world of religions. Judaism, Islam and Christianity all have the same roots, and the same origins; yet, they are so full of themselves and their sense of exclusiveness that they are destroying themselves and the beautiful world around them. They are not limbs that feed the whole of humanity with the light of the Creator. Rather, limbs of burden that are killing the tree.
Each can blame the other while each is to blame. For thousands of years, now, these dogmatic institutions have ravaged the planet with their self-righteousness, platitudes that disguise their bigotries and self-assumed favoritism of their God as they fester and perpetuate the greatest inhumanities upon themselves.
Few are willing or capable of returning to the roots, to the richness of the Creators’ soil and intentions, which is most simple and completely void of all the dogmas and ritualism and spiritual prisons of the human invention. Even their ‘holy books’ are full of evils, devious contrivances and contradictions; yet, so engrained into the shallow souls of humanity they are a virus, a fungus, eating away at the divinity within the roots of the tree of life.
These burdening limbs have many branches. From each has sprouted countless variances that become the compounding complexity of human life. How many sects, separations, and interpretations of life are there within each? Those who spend a lifetime in the study of religions are never conclusive as to how many and what they may call themselves, and why. And we, each and every one of us, fall victim, to some measure, within these influences, of our thoughts and way of life. Willingly or completely unwilling, we perpetuate and endure the continuances of this paradox of the human plight.
We are now in a world that can no longer avoid the insanities of others. We are involved, whether we want to be or not. The events and consequences of these unholy-holy conflicts on our planet directly impact us, regardless of where and why they occur. The choice is no longer ours to make. Perhaps it never was.
Choices become personal only. We each have the power to decide what we think, feel and do, what we believe and can shed from our past and present beliefs. It is a worthy effort. The dare is in the question: To date, how have our religions, as they present themselves and their consequences, been working for us so far? The answer is obvious.
Yes, as we find those moments of ‘epiphany’, an experience that foregoes the usual daily life of our emotions and state of mind, we convert these moments into ‘spiritual experience’ and tag it to a religion. And, to be sure, we are within a domain influenced by many other lifeforms intent upon influencing us in many ways. In essence, our spiritual life is real among the unimaginable infinity of life. It becomes more comfortable and manageable to make your religions small, orderly, and rigidly defined.
The resulting paradox, as we pursue personal peace and a world at peace, is a world of violent bigotry and mass inhumanity. This will never end until we free ourselves of religion, as a dogmatic sense of exclusiveness, and replace it with a spirituality inclusive of all possibility within our goodness as a creature of the universe.
Clay (The Universal Infidel)
✭✭✭ THE AMERICAN WAY. Don’t be Afraid. ✭✭✭
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