Thursday, August 30, 2012

Getting To the Heart of Religion

                                                   Getting To the Heart of Religion

  -One should never take anyone at face value.It is what lies deep within a persons heart that makes up the fabric of their soul-


I recently got into one of those gut wrenching dreaded conversations with a close relative of mine who mentioned that they would appreciate it if I mentioned Jesus more in my work.

Now religion and politics are usually two topics I generally steer way from. Why? Because left to their own vices, those two have proven to start more wars, kill, conquer and divide more people than anything else I’ve ever witnessed before. Plus with overly religious people constantly telling me that I’m serving the devil for simply speaking my mind and my own truth, going into one of these theological conversations more often that not leaves everyone frustrated if we go in blaming and name calling like a bunch of five year olds.

We’ve all seen how entire people and their nations have been wiped out in the name of religion and even when we go back to the birth of Christianity, we find that millions of people were forced to convert or be killed; Let’s be honest, Christianity didn’t start off on loving grounds or even with basic compassionate humanitarian rights in mind.

So how can something that started off so with so many sinister intentions, pain, tears and bloodshed lead to enlightenment?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Christianity and it has especially helped me slow down as a young teen who was acting out from abuse I had experienced during my early childhood; But one thing I could never understand and I’ve asked many Christians preachers about is: “Why is the Christian God such an angry God?”. If he is all powerful why does he need to damn someone to hell to prove his point? Why is he a jealous God? And how could being a jealous God be a good thing? Wouldn’t sending a soul to Hell for eternity be counteractive? I mean how could spending an eternity in Hell actually help change the energetic vibration of a soul? Wouldn’t that soul be even more damaged and enraged? And how could Christianity be God’s only way of communicating with us?

Does that mean that everyone else is wrong and does that mean that if you were born in some small town in India where no one has even heard about Jesus, that we would all be doomed to go to Hell too? It is my knowing and belief that we are all connected directly to God and I believe that having a relationship with God, is a spiritual and sacred experience which is too often commercialized. When we close ourselves off from being able to simply hear others out and really open our minds to try to understand their point of view, we really miss out on juicy invaluable information that could have lead us to even deeper levels of Love or God.

I  mean how can anyone person judge a book by it’s cover until you know the contents of it’s soul?

Reflecting back on my upbringing, excursions with my mother to the Synagogue and the Mosque were frequent occurrences, we would even study Buddhism and read the Tao daily. We sincerely loved learning about these ancient wisdoms through their text and were Thankful that someone had actually taken the time to personally write them down! Coming up with the freedom to practice and study what harmonized within my soul rather than focusing and following what people on the outside told me I should or shouldn’t follow encouraged me to use my mind subjectively.

However there was one particular person who really helped me open up my heart at a young age and not jump on the damnation train was my late grandfather. Soon before he passed away we had a meaningful heart-to-heart moment which I will never forget. After giving me one of his signature sloppy granddad kisses on the cheek which everyone in my family frequently had a conversation about, this man, who was a devote Muslim, looked into my eyes and said :

"Grandbaby, I don’t care about what religion you follow, you could follow any religion, change religions as much as you want, I really don’t care because I know your heart”.

Those words coming from him meant so much to me. He was a man who put his community first, gave selflessly of his time to teens who came from dysfunctional homes, helped other families children go to university and sat studiously for hours mentoring kids who never had a father figure. Yet according to many religious Christians the fact that he didn’t follow the bible, meant he went to Hell. Maybe it was the fact that he was so different as a younger man, this same man had been outraged when he found out my mother was pregnant by someone from another race and I saw it in his eyes that he had lived to regret how limited beliefs had separated so many well meaning hearts.

Nevertheless, despite making mistakes, that day he turned to me and for the first time ever put Love before religion.

My grandfather made his peace before passing and if there is anything that I’ve learned from living in the line of being different is that nothing should separate us so much that we stop seeing each other from our hearts perspective.

What would the world be like if we didn’t have religion dividing us? I would really enjoy hearing from you!

If you get really energetically stimulated from expanding your mind and all of it’s horizons on theological talks, then please stop by and visit the wonderful Crystals S. Lewis’s blog at: http://crystalstmarielewis.com/ . She is expert who has majored in theological debates and I can’t tell you enough how much I enjoy her blog on matters of religion!

Another blog I found really interesting on spirituality is by a man named Scott Bruno, He is an international American who has traveled and lived abroad for years. I had so much fun visiting his blog and learning about his point of views. You can find out more about Scott Bruno for yourself: http://www.scottbruno.com/spirituality.htm

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