Every Path Leads Homes: Opening to Your Spiritual Journey

Holmes

Chapter 1

Religious Differences

Like the bee, gathering honey from different flowers, the wise man accepts the essence of different scriptures and sees only the good in all religions.

–Srimad Bhagavatam

spiritual text of Hinduism

Toxic Religion

There’s only one way to God—and it’s my way!

Every time I hear that claim—in one form or another—the muscles in my stomach tighten, my jaw clenches, and I go on the defensive. Who do the people making this claim think they are?

I was attending the funeral of a close friend when one of her relatives approached me. After introducing ourselves I said, I’m sorry for your loss. She said thanks, and then asked if I followed the news. Hesitantly I said, Not too much." Embarrassed by the admission, I feebly added that my wife did, and she kept me informed.

Would you like to know what’s going on? she asked.

The reaction I described above happened again: stomach muscles tightened, jaw clenched, and I prepared for an attack. Something out of the ordinary was going on. Her serious expression boded evil, doom, and gloom. Not knowing what to say next, I asked her to explain.

I’ll show you, she said.

She walked to her car, retrieved some papers, and handed them to me.

Read this, she said.

I didn’t want them. I had come to mourn my friend, and I didn’t want whatever propaganda she was proffering. But, thinking my refusal would seem unkind, I took the material.

As she released the papers she added, This will explain everything.

Thanks, I said.

She nodded and walked away.

What is this? I thought to myself. Did this woman come to grieve the death of a relative or to hand out tracts?

Later I took time to glance through her information, and it was worse than I expected. The flyer condemned our country for having lost its Christian heritage and the United Nations as ungodly. It condemned other religious belief systems and predicted the end of the world because the rest of the world didn’t believe in her professed form of religion.

Of all days to be approached by a religious enthusiast, a day of mourning is one of the worst. Having the papers near me made me nervous and uncomfortable. The scent of evil associated itself with the documents, and I wanted nothing to do with the condemnations they preached.

Frankly, I was angry.

In its purest form religion yields happiness, purpose, love, and serenity. How many religious people do you know who demonstrate those qualities? Speaking about one form of religion, Christianity, I heard someone once say, The problem with Christians is that I’ve never met one, which sounds similar to what Gandhi once said: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

In its toxic form religion produces followers who are judgmental, angry, hateful, fanatical, and miserable. They make the people around them uncomfortable with their smug attitude that says, I know the answers, and if you’ll listen and believe as I believe, you can have them too. I’ve met my share of toxic Christian believers. But Christians don’t have a monopoly on toxic religion. Muslims have followers who believe their faith is the only way home—to Allah. Some insist that Buddha and the path to enlightenment is the only road home—to Nirvana. I’ve been there. I’ve been that kind of believer.

I once believed that my form of religious Christian faith was the only right path, the only road home to heaven. That only those who believed in Jesus and followed the Romans Road to Salvation ¹ or The Four Spiritual Laws ² would be swept away into a heaven paved with streets of gold. I taught, preached, and tried to convert people to my way of thinking. Truth is, it wasn’t my way of thinking, but only the doctrine handed down to me by other well-meaning people.

Based on my Christian beliefs, religious zeal was logical and mandatory. The logic went like this: God is love. We are to love everyone. God sent his son to die for our sins. Jesus did that on the cross. We must accept Jesus as our savior. If we refuse, then we lose eternal life with God, and are condemned to an eternity in hell.

If we buy into that belief system, then love demands we do our utmost to save the world by converting everyone outside our little group of co-religionists to our own set of religious beliefs and doctrines. I bought into that, and spent a short time going door-to-door trying to spread salvation. One of my not-the-best-witness experiences came when I knocked on the screen door of an older gentleman. As I peered into the house through the screen door, a man—who looked as if he didn’t want to be bothered—descended from the second floor as I gathered my courage. Can I help you? he asked from the other side of the screen door.

I was on a mission—a mission to save his soul.

If you were to die tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?

I’m not much of a mind reader, but even a novice could see he didn’t want to be bothered. He frowned, turned without comment, and proceeded back up the stairs.

Angry that I could be dismissed without so much as a word, I yelled through the screen door, You can know for certain where you’ll spend eternity if you acknowledge you’re a sinner, confess your sins, ask Jesus to forgive you, and invite him into your heart!

There, I got all four points in, even though he didn’t hear anything past the first two, I thought.

But, I was angry. Furious, in fact.

Why? I wondered. It shouldn’t be like this. I was only trying to help him.

Young and stupid, I didn’t understand that his rejection had hit me personally, as if he were not only rejecting my words, but everything I believed in and stood for. I had come to rescue him—well, not me personally, but Jesus.

I was upset. When he refused my offer of eternal life in the name of my religion, I became the persecutor and eventually I took on the victim role.

I’ve come to understand a different way. The Buddha said, When the student is ready, the teacher [or master] will appear. The man wasn’t ready to hear my words. Or maybe he had heard the same rhetoric before and had made a decision. Who was I to force my religion upon him or anyone? Who says that Christianity is the right religion—or the only road home?

We’ve come a long way from the example of the followers of Jesus who told the disciples to go into the world and make disciples—not Christians, but disciples. Strong-arm, guilt-ridden tactics were never commanded, hinted at, or implied. Jesus had a spirituality that was contagious. He never had to advertise to draw a crowd. No Facebook page, no social networking.

The same was true with the early followers. They caught the essence of spirituality and it intimidated the religious rulers, threatening their beliefs, social status, and perhaps most importantly, their income.

The early followers didn’t canvas neighborhoods door-to-door promoting their new religion. They lived in peace and harmony, endeavoring to reproduce in their lives what they learned from their teacher. They followed the essence of what the Buddha taught: when the student is ready, the connection between student and teacher will happen. There was so much religious and political fear and hatred of the new thought system that safety became a priority. To openly profess their beliefs often landed Jesus’ followers in jail. For some it cost them their lives.

Spirituality has at times offended the established norms. The religious rulers during the time of Jesus railed against him and plotted his demise. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a gospel of love and acceptance—and his appeal was met with hatred, bigotry, violence, and his assassination. Dr. King was a Southern Baptist minister and his message of unconditional love and acceptance of all races, creeds, and colors was a spiritual theme for all people and for all religious traditions. Often those who practice nonviolent forms of protest are subjected to violent forms of treatment, even by religious groups who profess love, forgiveness, and tolerance.

Right vs. Wrong: In my attempts to gain converts, the basic problem was right vs. wrong. I was right, and those who did not believe as I did were wrong. There was no room in my religious world for gray areas. My door-to-door attempts to evangelize the world failed miserably. Taking a cue from one of those obnoxious evangelical tracts you sometimes find left in the buildings of highway rest areas and in public restrooms, I began by asking the question, If you died today, do you know where you would spend eternity? Talk about a rude way to be greeted on a Saturday morning! It doesn’t get much more offensive than that. Today, I look back over my youthful naiveté with mild amusement.

Perhaps, I sound critical of my fundamentalist religious background. However, over the years I’ve come to accept and appreciate many aspects of the things I learned. The fundamentalists differ little from other religions in that they mean well but often allow man-made doctrines to supersede the basics of love, gratitude, service, and kindness. When we open our minds to world religions, we often find the same concepts permeate them. For example, consider the golden rule

• Christianity: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. (Matthew 7: 12 KJV)

• Confucianism: Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state. –Analects 12:2

• Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. –Udana-Varga 5,1

• Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." Mahabharata 5:1517

• Islam: Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. Islam. Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13

• Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. –Talmud, Shabbat 3id

• Taoism: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. –Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

Each of these religions says essentially the same thing, some with a bit different emphasis, but all lead to the same destination. By loving others the way we want to be loved, we fulfill the prime call of religion. When we try to define what loving others looks like, differences arise and we get back into the mode of I’m right—you’re wrong. We think by definition that we can’t both be right—or both be wrong. I’m reminded of the poem of the blind men who examined an elephant.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,

And happening to fall

Against his broad and sturdy side,

At once began to bawl:

"God bless me! but the Elephant

Is very like a WALL!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,

Cried, "Ho, what have we here,

So very round and smooth and sharp?

To me ‘tis mighty clear

This wonder of an Elephant

Is very like a SPEAR!"

The Third approached the animal,

And happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands,

Thus boldly up and spake:

I see, quoth he, "the Elephant

Is very like a SNAKE!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,

And felt about the knee

"What most this wondrous beast is like

Is mighty plain," quoth he:

"‘Tis clear enough the Elephant

Is very like a TREE!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the