You will ask of course is that all? But is not religion all deeds and all reflection? If so what are the best ways to “give” witness to your religion than to practice good thought and good deeds?
Instead of immersing yourselves in empty rituals, symbolic only in their archaic structure and symbolism.
Myamoto Musashi – Japan’s legendary samurai, in his book of five rings – commissioned us to, “make your warrior stance your everyday stance and your everyday stance your warrior stance!”
Yet, today’s religious practices are currently not something that passes that litmus test.
Neither be good, do good, think good nor having a daily warrior stance.
Today’s religious practices are but egotistical exercises put forth by immature and damaged people who would rather tell you how to be good than practice how to be good.
They would hold you to the worship of idols and symbols, dead and inanimate things as conduit to the bosom of the creator.
These are people who are so afraid of themselves that they encourage fear and retribution as a tool for conversion instead of deed or reflections.And that which is both deed and reflection, is a daily rejoicing of the soul, even while the hands “hew the stone or tend the loom”, that is the every day stance of the spiritual warrior.
They, whose every day stance is a spiritual warrior’s stance, cannot separate his faith from his actions, his belief from his occupations!
Along the way, humblness is a vehile to truth, so he who wears his morality as if it was his best garment might as well be naked.
And he who defines his conduct by falls ethics imprisons his spirit in a cage.
Daily I encounter members of different religious positions, out propagating and seeking converts, mostly from the 6000 year old European Christian practice, but from others as well.
So filled with the “joy” of testifying are they that they end up forcing their beliefs on others through fear or intimidation.
The “old time religion” – that is pre-Christian religious convictions - was never about “spreading the word”, but about inner reflections and higher deeds. None can encase the spirit in a “house” or temple outside the self.
None can understand the depth of knowing when their work is based on fear and intimidation, for the freest song comes not through bars and wires, but through the freedom to commune with the universe.
Abraham Lincoln reminds us about the pitfalls of existence as a human being: “Everyone is born an original, but most die copies.”
The teachings of the Sufi tells us…to “know” intimately the creator of all things, you need not do anything."Just remain sitting at your table and listen. You don’t even have to listen: just wait! You don’t even have to wait: just learn to become quiet and still and solitary and the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet".
Khalil Gibran tells us; “And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn”.
Finaly Blaise Pascal, the French thinker who is famous for saying “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know,” also said: “All of humanity’s misery comes from the inability to sit quietly, close the eyes, and do nothing.”
Your daily life is your temple and your religion, whenever you enter into it take with you your all, for you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures; you cannot fly higher than your hopes nor fall lower than your despair.
They, who proclaim their knowing of god, will gladly preach to you of the wonders they have seen, yet if they would know God then they would not take it upon themselves to be solver of riddles.
The ancients say look into space and you will see the all knowing; you shall also see the all knowing walking in the cloud, with outstretching arms in the lightning while descending in the rain. Look about you and you shall see the creator playing with your children.
Those who are deep in their understanding will see the creator smiling in flowers, then rising and doing the wave amongst the trees.
With this understanding come not the fear of death, but the love of life and a way to live eternally.
Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi breathes the life of the spirit and love into us when he joyfully says:
"You are the unconditioned that is trapped in conditions
Like the Sun in eclipse . . . .I died as a mineral to become a plant,
I died as a plant to become an animal.
I died as an animal to become a man.
I will die as a man and soar with the angels.
But when I die as angel what I shall become you cannot imagine. . . .
Why then should I fear to die? "
To know means to be learning or to be teaching; there is no middle way.
The human mind enjoys no state of passive grace. Yet beyond a certain point teaching becomes a subtle and deceptive undertaking, scarcely to be distinguished from learning . . . .
“Neither believe, nor not believe, and, believe me, you’ll begin to believe!”
Reason and intellect look outward, the ancients counsels inwardness where there is neither inward nor outward direction in space and time.
St Francis of Assisi says: “What you are looking for is what is looking.”
So many of us have beaten our heads and hands on the door, and so created our own obstacles.
It was once said that academic philosophy is nothing more than a black cat in a dark room, only there is no cat there.
Our incessant search for existence in the non-existent turns us into wandering stray cats.
We spend our lives in the service of teachers who do not teach.
We never ask of some who seem to lead: which way is the power flowing?
He who thinks he leads and has no one following is only taking a walk in the park.Who know the creator? He who knows not.
Finally, there is a telling Proverb from Sufism which speaks to us so:
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not
Is a fool—shun him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not
Is a child—teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows,
Is asleep—wake him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows,
Is a wise man—follow him.
