Finding the Sameness in All Religions

    Not long after my spiritual awakening, I contacted a Taoist and Qi Gong practitioner who was kind enough to talk to me for a while as I tried to figure myself out. At one point, we discussed how I had gone to believing the Protestant Christian view of the world was the only correct viewpoint to now being able to see nearly every point of view. He said something that has stuck with me since then. "When you look at different religions, don't look for the differences. Look for the sameness." Since that point, I have come to realize that, as Stuart Wilde once said, "the spirit world has a nice way of making everybody right."1

    There are many religions and philosophies the world over, and many of them are quite dogmatic. In the past, Christians persecuted other groups and each other. I have a friend on the other side of the world whose whole family converted from Buddhism to Protestant Christianity, and they were persecuted by the Buddhists. I once met a man who was the founder of a British Political Party and Presbyterian Denomination, who had publicly denounced Pope John Paul II when he addressed Parliament. I have also been challenged by a man who was very insistent that the Roman Catholic Church was the only true church, and it was time for me to "come home."

    I love experiences, and I am grateful to each one I have had. All of these would serve only as amusing anecdotes if I could not see them from a higher perspective. It is easy to point my finger at these different religions and call them foolish, but are they really? In each circumstance, the seeker has found something that they believe in very strongly. Whether a man has had a life-changing experience by receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, or decided that he is going to become a disciple of Krishna, something has happened that has made that person think the way that they do. We should not despise spiritual experiences. Each one has an impact on that individual life.

    It does become a problem when that person tries to convince the whole world of the truth they have just experienced, but that becomes par for the course in some belief systems. The best way to deal with that is just to love that person despite their insistence. In Taoism, I have learned a lot about the flow of the Universe. I am discovering that the differences in religions and philosophies are simply an illusion, and therefore we need not concentrate on them at all.

    It is the same universal force that is pulling the Jew, the Christian, the Muslim, and the Buddhist toward itself. In a way, it is the universe experiencing itself. This is good to remember when you start to see yourself as separate from everyone else. Every person you meet is just another extension of the universe. When we can see that concept, we can also see how all religions and belief systems eventually come together as one, even though they seem to be antithetical to each other.

    As I am writing this, we are looking ahead toward Christmas. Despite my new set of beliefs, I still love the pomp and pagentery of Christmas. The natiity scenes, the Christmas carols, peppermint and hot chocolate, waiting up for Santa. All of it makes this time of year seem magical. Despite my Baptist upbringing, I almost feel more Catholic than anything during these days simply because the events of Christmas seem to take on special significance if they are held in high liturgical regard, as the Catholics seem to do with everything. They overdo it, but then Christmas is all about overdoing it, isn't it?

    I recently studied all the events that take place in a Catholic Mass, and instead of looking for all the things Protestants abhore, I saw many similarities in the belief of sacrifice, and forgiveness of sins. I was able to see a little bit of truth in both religions in looking for something outside of oneself, and how that actually becomes the same as looking within oneself as I do in meditation. All of us are looking for a Saviour. It's just that in the end, we discover that the Saviour is us.

 

  I really don't understand how some on the spiritual path can boil with anger at Christianity. They seem to like to blame all the problems of the world upon the church, while claiming to be on a higher way because of their spiritual awakening Yet, this is the problem that the ego poses to us. Once you see yourself as better than followers of different faith practices, you only demonstrate that you do not have full control of the ego as of yet. There is an issue with religions proclaiming their way as the only way because it feeds the ego of those who subscribe to those religions. Don't look at yourself any differently. There is much that we spiritually minded people do that feeds out egos too. Do you see now the sameness in all religions? All of us have an ego to deal with. Leave those religious adherents to deal with it in their way, and work on getting rid of your own.

1 Wilde, Stewart, The Force, p. 4, Carlsbad, California: Hay House Publishers, 1984.