I am not a religious man. Growing up Roman Catholic beat that out of me. I get dogmatic folks though, it can make life more easily understood and one's place in the larger scheme of things a little more understandable. I have no issues with folks that are religious...
Except
Except for those folks who think that just because they can point to a line, any line, in the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, whatever, and argue that I am wrong. Or worse, that I will be dammed...well, that strains the limits of my compassion. It seems to me that the experience of God is better by far than the word of God...
The great rabbi Hillel (excuse my lack of precise spelling, I'm writing from memory and don't feel like actually looking up the quote) said that beyond the Golden Rule, which he indirectly quoted, everything else is 'just commentary'...
Just commentary...I'm not saying that the commentary is worthless...just the opposite, it...all of it, is worthy of reading and deep study. But in all that I have 'studied' the contact with the page and the essence of what I have read pales in comparison with the many faces of God I have seen in the people I've met, the actions of love and compassion I've witnessed...in those lovely places on the earth I've visited and felt awe and wonder at such sublime beauty.
There I have experienced God.
So, I wonder, do you have to be religious to believe in a God? And if one does believe in something a Christian calls God, is it sacrilegious for that same person to say that there's no way any of us can be that certain of whatever scripture we may follow? After all it is called 'faith'...a belief in something not seen.
I'm not a religious man. I believe that there is a higher power and that we...all of us...are reflections of that thing some of us call God. I've had way too much experience NOT to believe. But don't try to tell me that I should/must believe as you do. God is attributed with many powers, omnipresence being one of them. God's message to human kind is reflected in the Vedas, the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran...the sutras of Buddhism and, in my very humble prayer of "Thank You" that I utter each morning and each night.
Just a thought, but like I said, I am not religious. I wonder why anyone would tell me I need more. I wonder why people claim that the word they have is better, more sufficient, than those two...thank you...and I must say, that ever since I started my meditation practice I've come to understand that's when whatever God there is speaks back to me...when I am quiet, placid and still...not attaching to any word, no doctrine, no dogma...just spirit.
