"What a strange fellowship this is, the God-seekers in every land, lifting their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? Does one faith carry the lead, or do the parts share in counterpoint and antiphony where not in full-throated chorus?" HS
I won’t be able to go to a university to take a course in World Religions… but I did the next best thing. I picked up a book. Huston Smith’s “The World’s Religions” has been such an eye opening and inspiring read. Smith takes the reader on a flight over the world’s religions and from a very elevated perspective. Instead of writing it from the position of a caterpillar in the ground surrounded by one expression of “faith”, he takes the reader on a butterfly’s vantage point to see what one can see from the top. There doesn’t seem to be any agenda except to see what every one has to offer in beauty of expression. It’s not a technical primer, but an invitation to see the world differently through the eyes of other humans.
"But if we take those religions seriously, we need not fail miserably. And to take them seriously we need do only two things. First we need to see their adherents as men and women who faced problems much like our own. And second, we must rid our minds of all preconceptions that could dull our sensitivity or alertness to fresh insights. If we lay aside our preconceptions about these religions, seeing each as forged by people who were struggling to see something that would give help and meaning to their lives; and if we then try without prejudice to see ourselves what they saw-- if we do these things, the veil that separates us from them can turn to gauze." HS
In the years I traversed religion and my own expressions of it, I kept looking for "the right one". There was no such thing as beauty in diversity, there was only a dualism in the works. Someone was right and the rest were wrong. So as I changed expressions over the years, I kept hidden within me the yucky feeling that was telling me that maybe we are all right or all wrong and maybe it isn't even about right and wrong. What if every expression out in this great big world is beautiful and just a human attempt at the impossible... to understand the meaning and cause of our existence. What if that venture is truly out of our reach, and the best we can do is imagine what could be?
"That Hinduism has shared her land for centuries with Jains, Buddhists, Parsees, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians may help explain a final idea that comes out more clearly through her than through the other great religions; namely, her convictions that the various major religions are alternate paths to the same goal. " HS
I have an admiration for the Hindu way of looking at life and people. I spend two weeks in person and forty five years in relationship with my longest friend, Jenny. In the two weeks I spent in her home in the tropics of Trinidad, I was never asked to change who I was, I was never shamed for who I was, I was only loved for who I was and that made a huge difference to me. Because that was in 1991... and something in me then was taught and still believed that because of where she lived, the family in which she was raised and the way she prayed... she was not embraced by the Creator of the Cosmos. In fact, in order to be embraced, she would have to change everything about her. But for those two weeks, something in me greater than the religion I brought with me came to the surface... that something was a little thing called love. For two weeks, I just learned and listened and took in what I could. I left that country enriched because of the openness of their culture and their love for me.
"To claim salvation as the monopoly of any one religion is like claiming that God can be found in this room but not the next, in this attire, but not another. Normally people will follow the path that rises from the plains of their own civilization; those who circle the mountain, trying to bring others around to their paths, are not climbing." HS
This book can encourage you to climb the mountain. If your goal in life is just to circle the base and convince others that you are right and they are wrong... then maybe a book like this will have no place in your library. But if you want to climb the mountain and gain an appreciation and love for the other climbers, then this book will give you a peek inside different worlds and different paths on that mountain.
Religion may begin in ritual, but explanations are soon called for, so speculation enters as a third religious feature. Whence do we come, whither do we go, why are we here? -- people want answers to these questions. HS
I am in my fifties just starting to ask questions. I am in my fifties just discovering my own passion. I am in my fifties just wanting to see what love really looks like in this home we know as Earth.
"Being finite, the human mind cannot begin to fathom the Infinite it is drawn to." HS
Here is my biggest question. If we are truly finite and beyond us is an Infinite that we have no hope of fully comprehending or understanding, then why the need for so many soloists? Is there not a place in this world for a vast choir of different voices?
"We listen first because, as this book opened by noting, our times require it. The community today can be no single tradition; it is the planet. Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only place where peace can find a home." HS
If this book does anything for the reader, I would hope it opens a door to understanding and love. I used to believe I needed to change the world to think like me... I now want to embrace the only thing that can change the world... love. And the way I understand love... it doesn't require that I change anyone... it only invites me into its flow and that is the most beautiful thing.
For understanding, at least in realms as inherently noble as the great faiths of human kind, brings respect; and respect prepares the way for a higher power, love -- the only power that can quench the flames of fear, suspicion, and prejudice, and provide the means by which the people of this small but precious Earth can become one to one another." HS
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