Western religions allow people to believe in things that have absolutely no basis in reality or fact and this has led to the madness in our country now.
It is Saturday morning and I am relaxing with my tea and reading. The doorbell rings, and two Mormons are at my door, delighted at the opportunity to push their beliefs on someone who did not invite them to do so.
I ask for their address so I can go to their house while they are relaxing and talk them into switching to my spirituality. They do not listen and continue with no awareness as to what is happening on the other side of the conversation. I may as well be a wall.
I tell them they are being rude to ignore my response and to not come back. I am speaking out against this aggressive and intrusive tactic as well as their ignorant and dangerous way of thinking.
I picked up a book called, “Love Poems from God, Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West” which illuminated the difference between the East and West. The West speaks of god being outside of oneself - male, white and to be feared. What a powerful way to control: You go to hell forever and ever if you don’t obey. What a loving god!
Of St. Thomas Aquinas it says, “numerous stories of Thomas often being absorbed in states of enchantment and being completely unconscious of his surroundings or his actions, even to the point of putting inedible items into his mouth at the dining table.”
How is this a good thing? This is disembodied, no link from mind to body. This perhaps explains how deeply religious people can commit such atrocities. They are not connected to their body, which means they cannot be connected to their heart. They act and react from beliefs and mental concepts. How else can someone justify putting children in cages (only one of countless atrocities) in the name of God? Or believe Jesus, born in the Middle East 2000-plus years ago, was a white man, therefore the white race is the only race God loves? (I haven’t even touched on how religion treats women).
The poems from the East, in contrast, speak of God as the Beloved -- as us. We are god and everything is god. That we cannot harm another without harming ourselves, because there is only one of us. No need for a hell or punishment for sins.
“If you put your soul against this oar with me, the power that made the universe will enter your sinew from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm that lives within us.” - Rumi
Jade Chun, Sandy, is a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner with diverse and extensive training, helping people with a wide range of issues through shifting energetics, deep introspection and lifestyle changes.
