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Thoughts on Religion

Posted by on June 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

I have been, and still am, studying many religions and I came to the conclusion a long time ago that there is some truth in all religions. There have been, and still are, many people on this planet who have found the right path – for them, at least. There are many paths to the Divine, mine is but one. Picture, if you will, a huge field. At the center is the biggest tree you can imagine. There are perhaps a million or more ways to get to that tree. It all depends on where you are currently standing. There is no single correct way to get to the center. Will not any path to the center of the field get you to the tree? No matter what side of the field you are on, your path is to the center. The tree is the . It is the source of all knowledge.

I feel that all religions stem from the same source. Just what the source is, I am not sure. Call it whatever you wish. We are all also a part of that source. We are one. One human family, one world, one universe. As the says it:

“All human beings come from a mother’s womb. We are all the same part of one human family. We should have a clear realization of the oneness of all humanity.”

and

“All religions are essentially the same in their goal of developing a good human heart so that we may become better human beings.”

I have a deep respect for the Dalai Lama. He has his path to the Divine and also has a respect for all religions. If only we as the human family could also find that respect for each other. In finding that, we would also find a great respect for ourselves.

Why do we seem to like to define ourselves with labels? Labels are mere words. If we want others to know what we are, why not show them? Show them through action. Actions still speak louder than words. I do not care if you are a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew, a follower of the many paths; or any of the countless other faiths, traditions, paths, or religions that are spread throughout this World. We are all one.

This is exemplified by the beliefs so many hold about . During the years of the historical ’ life, there are eight or nine years that his whereabouts are not accounted for. These are referred to as the ‘lost’ years. It was after returning that he truly began to teach his wisdom. Many scholars believe he was in India studying Buddhism during these ‘lost’ years. Who was ? The Indians say He was a great yogi, the occultists and Theosophists say He was a great initiate of the arcane science, while Spiritualists regard Him as a great medium or a very high guide. I know who many say he was. Why can they not all be right?

I do feel that if he was a real person, Jesus was a great man. His teachings are full of truth. It is some of the people that think they are following his teachings, that I sometimes have problems with. These people are not truly representative of the entire Christian path though. Just as there is good in everyone, there is also a tendency to – well, not so good. Jesus taught love, not hatred. Jesus taught tolerance, he treated all as equals.

What I do with people is show them what I am. Let them see for themselves. Try to get them to learn for themselves. Let them know what I really am and what I really do. Show them that I am not what they have been told. Show them first hand. Let them see and learn instead of stating that which they have been told. With most of them, I have read The Bible more than they have. I also tell them to go read the rest of the Bible. Read it as a book. You can not take random quotes from a book and put them together and still have the same meaning that was originally intended. Some people tend to quote you this verse and that verse. They often do not know what the rest of the passage is about even. Read it as a whole as it was intended.

As for The Bible, it is a good book. It was written by man, though, not /dess. Many portions of it were written centuries after Jesus moved on. The Old Testament is not the only ‘old’ Christian book. How about The Dead Sea Scrolls? Have you read The Apocrypha? Maybe I should ask this first, have you ever heard of The Apocrypha? The Apocrypha where included in the Bible for some time, they were even a part of the original King James Version. How about the texts of the Nag Hammadi Library, have you ever seen them? They make for some interesting reading. The Gnostic Society Library shows these texts in a historical light. I recommend you read through them, if you want to see some writings from the early .

I feel Jesus was the son of God/dess, just as we all are the sons and daughters of God/dess. You ever notice how little Jesus actually talked about sin? He did say a lot about love. He lived his life as an example of what others could be and to show he was like us. I want to show you something I have come across myself while studying. This was put together to show the similarities of the many religions of the world. You might take a special notice as to where the wording of ‘The Golden Rule’ actually comes from. All religions have such ‘rules’. The religions are in Bold print, followed by the quote and then the source text.

Baha’i
‘Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.’
BAHA’ULLAH, Tablets of Baha’ullah, 71

Buddism
‘Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.’
UDANA-VARGA, 5:18


‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’
JESUS, Matthew 7:12

Confucianism
‘Do unto other what you would have them do unto you.’
Analects 15:23

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

Islam
‘No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.’
SUNNAH

Jainism
‘In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.’
LORD MAHAVIRA, 24th Tirthankara

Judaism
‘What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowman. That is the law: all the rest is commentary.’
Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Native American
‘Respect for all life is the foundation.’
The Great Law of Peace

Sikhism
‘Don’t create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone.’
Guru Arjan Devji 259, Guru Granth Sahib

Zoroastrianism
‘That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.’
Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5

And of course my favorite:
‘An it harm none do what ye will.’

I feel there are truths in all religions. I feel that all comes from the same source. Call that source what ever you wish. There are many paths to the Divine, mine is but one. I want to give you a few more quotes here from different paths.

“Do not say, ‘I follow the one true path of the Spirit,’ but rather, ‘I have found the Spirit walking on my path.’ For the Spirit walks on all paths.”
- Khalil Gibran

“At the top of the mountain you find it very cool. There will be none of the dissimilarity that you can see at the bottom of the path. The fundamental principles of all religions are one.”
Words of Yogiswami

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it.”
The Buddha on Belief – from the Kalama Sutta

I do feel that a Christ type figure was a great spiritual teacher. So was Buddha, So was Krishna, So was Mohammed. So was the great Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus. As was Plato, Socrates, Pythagorus and many others before them. The story of a God born into the flesh was told many times in many parts of the world long before Christ was supposed to have existed. Many of the initiates in the various Pagan Mysteries were wandering teachers and healers. They all performed the various miracles later also attributed to Christ.

Life cannot be explained with a single formula. If it could be, we have no free will. If we have no free will, why are we even here trying to learn? No free will would mean life is predestined. Now I can imagine many, many formulas reacting to each other in a random fashion. Sure, things are influenced to some degree by what is around them. There is an order to the universe. The universe is constantly changing though. The formulas have to keep changing with it or be left behind. It is nice to see some ‘maps’, if you will, have been left behind. Where are we going that we need a map? I can only speak for myself, but I am on a journey. A journey of the spirit/soul/divine – call it what you will. If the map is internal, or of your spirit, it could come in handy.

The beauty of freedom is that we are all entitled to our opinions as much everybody else. That is what all beliefs are though, opinions. We have no clue what the truth is. Beliefs are things we humans create to help us make sense of the things we do not understand. There is a difference between beliefs and facts. If something is a fact, it cannot be a belief. If it has been proven to be a fact it can no longer be a supposition or theory or belief.

I do not know if what I feel is fact or belief. I know that I feel it and it feels great to me. I feel lots of things. My ‘church’ is the world. The best chapel I can imagine is forest clearing or a mountaintop, with nature all around. How does everyone feel? Do we all feel? Do some just go off what they have been told and have yet to explore for themselves?

There are those who think they are outside of the universal laws. What I say about them, is Karma will catch up with them. It will catch them in this life or the ones that follow. They must learn or it will cause them harm. They will likely not only harm themselves, they may indirectly cause a ripple effect on those around them.

All things begin with thought. Thoughts can manifest themselves into reality. That applies to both positive and negative thoughts. With that in mind, be careful what you spend your time thinking about. When you think about something you are devoting energy to it. To perhaps oversimplify things: If you want to help, think positive thoughts. If you spend time and energy worrying about what might happen, you are only helping it to become closer to reality. We may not be able to control much in the world, but we can control our thoughts. Control your thoughts and control yourself.

Why do we humans think we know anything, much less religion? We live on a speck of dust in the middle of nowhere in this universe. We practically border on insignificance on a universal scale. How dare we think we know what God/dess thinks or even what God/dess is, for that matter? We are specks of dust, living on a speck of dust, in this awesome Creation and we THINK we know God/dess. We have no clue what the truth is, we never have and so we begin to form beliefs. There is a difference between a belief and a fact. If something is a fact, it is not a belief. Beliefs are things we as humans create to make sense of the things we do not understand. We fear what we do not understand.

In the days of early humans, fear served a primary purpose. Fear kept us alive. Fear to not play with the tigers. Fear not to take food from a lion’s mouth. That type of fear kept people from dying. Perhaps, we should not say fear but rather having a healthy respect for those things kept people from dying. At that time the ‘rule’ was pretty simple, If you do not know it, fear it. We learned to fear what we do not know from an early point in human history. We have since outdone that though even. We learned to fear that which we not understand. In some cases we went one step further, we learned to fear anything that is not familiar. There are some cases where fear can still be helpful, but in most cases, fear is our own worst enemy. Fear keeps us locked away in our own little box.

This fear we have of everything must be overcome for our spiritual growth. This fear keeps us locked away from our own true nature. Many people have a fear of death. Why is that? Death is not the end. Death is another part of the cycle of life. Death is a release from this physical body. It is a release that allows the spirit to be free of the physical world. Just because many people fear death, does not make it natural. We must respect and honor our emotions and feelings of loss, but there must be a limit.

How do we overcome these fears of the unknown? Learn to understand them. Face your fears, overcome them. Learn about the things you fear. Once things are more familiar to us, it is easier to overcome any fears we have associated with them.

If anything I have said rings true in your heart, then take it and make it your own. Make it a part of your thoughts. If nothing I said rings true to your heart, then disregard it. The things I have said are neither positive nor negative they are neutral. It is our own interpretation that assigns the positive or negative to thoughts and actions.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it.”
The Buddha on Belief – from the Kalama Sutta

Many of us are from families where we were taught one of the more prominent western religions. Unfortunately, the driving force that guides us is often extinguished by organized religion. That force is to ask questions and to THINK for ourselves. We are taught This is the way, do not question it, just believe. Where is the Wisdom in that? We must THINK for ourselves.

There is no new knowledge. The things we may learn a hundred years from now are not truly new. They may be new to us, but the knowledge was always there. All the knowledge we have gained is but the diluted Knowledge of the God/dess.

I thank you for letting me share my views. Sharing is how we learn from others. Through sharing comes understanding. From understanding comes trust. From trust comes friendship. From friendship comes hope and admiration. From all of these great things there comes peace.

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Summer Solstice (June 21st)

Posted by on June 9, 2009 Leave a Comment

Since it’s almost the Summer Solstice, I thought I’d share some information and  a few things that you can do to celebrate the (Midsummer) of the year.

Summer Solstice or Litha is celebrated on or around June 21, is when the hours of daylight are longest. The Sun is at the highest before beginning to slide into darkness. Traditionally, herbs gathered on this day are said to be extremely powerful. On this night elves and fairies abound in great numbers.

Also known as: Alban Heruin (Druid), Alban Hefin (Caledonii), Summer Solstice, Midsummer, , ’s Eve, Gathering Day, and Feil-Sheathain (Pecti-Wita – July 5).

Symbols: , Mistletoe, Feathers, Blades.

Colours: Green, Gold, Yellow.

Herbs: Chamomile, Cinquefoil, Elder Flower, Fennel, Lavender, Mugwort, Thyme, and Vervain may be burned; Hemp, Larkspur, Pine, Rose, St John’s Wort, and Wisteria may be decorations.

Midsummer is the time when the sun reaches the peak of its power, the earth is green and holds the promise of a bountiful harvest. The Mother Goddess is viewed as heavily pregnant, and the is at the apex of his manhood and is honoured in his guise as the supreme sun.

But don’t overlook the Celtic in a celebration. The Celts are one of several cultures known to also have female deities to represent the power of the sun. The are some of the very few in which the names for the “sun” are feminine nouns, which attests to the one-time prominence of these Goddesses. A number of the myths surrounding these ladies of light have been preserved. Among the most well-known are Sul (Anglo-Celtic), Dia Griene (Scottish), the princess of the Sun (Breton), and Grian and Brid (Irish).

Just as the Holly and Oak Kings battles for supremacy at Yule, this ever-repeating fight is re-enacted at Midsummer, this time with the Holly King , as king of the waning year, victorious.

The following are some suggestions for Litha activities, some of which you may want to incorporate into the Sabbat, while others would be more suitable during the day.

*        Tie a sprig of Rowan, a sprig of Rue, and three flowers of St John’s Wort with red thread and hang over the door.
*        Make amulets (simple charms) of protection out of herbs such as Rue and Rowan. If you make new amulets each year, you can dispose of the old in the midsummer fire.
*        Create a pouch for psychic dreams (Mugwort and Bay Leaves in a cloth of Lavender, blue or yellow and sewn with red thread) and place under your pillow.
*        Make a Solar Wheel as a terrific family project – everyone can make one for their bedroom. Wind Palm or Grape Vine into a circle, twisting as you go. Cut two short lengths of stem to be just a bit larger than the diameter of the circle and place one across the back horizontally and the other vertically crossing in back on the horizontal one and coming forward to the front of the circle to secure both, then adorn with symbols of the elementals (stone, feathers, ashes in a pouch, or a small candle, and a shell) and festoon with green and yellow ribbons. Hang in a tree outside or indoors as a reminder of the God’s protection.
*        Make a Witches Ladder (another fun family project) using three coloured yarns (red, black and white for the Triple Goddess) braided together to be three feet long. Add nine feathers all the same colour for a specific charm (such as green for money) or various colours for a more diverse charm, tie ends and hang up. Colours are red for vitality, blue for peace and protection, yellow for alertness and cheer, green for prosperity, brown for stability, black for wisdom, black and white for balance, patterned for clairvoyance, and iridescent for inight.
*        You can burn the old Yule wreath in the Litha fire.
*        Make a rue protection pouch out of white cotton. Add two or three sprigs of rue, bits of whole grain wheat bread, a pinch of salt, and two star anise seeds and hang indoors (can do one for each bedroom).
*        Tie vervain, rosemary, and hyssop with white thread and dip the tips into a bowl of spring water (you can buy bottled spring water in grocery stores) and sprinkle the water about the house to chase out negativity, or sprinkle your tools to cleanse and purify.
*        Gather herbs, like St John’s Wort, Vervain, and Yarrow.
*        Soak thyme in olive oil, then lightly anoint your eyelids to see faery folk at night.
*        Tie a bunch of fennel with red ribbons and hang over the door for long life and protection of the home.
*        Look for the faery folk under an elder tree, but don’t eat their food or you’ll have to remain with them for seven years! (Which could be a lot of fun, but will seriously wreck any plans made!)

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Evil Ducks aka Eddie Izzard has a lot to answer for!

Posted by on December 19, 2007 Leave a Comment

In my last post I mentioned Evil Ducks while talking to some -Squadders who knocked at my door (see previous entry) and said that any fan would understand what I was talkimg about. Well, for those of you who have never seen Edde do stand-up, below is the transcript of the specific part of his Glorious show where he brings up the whole flood theory.

Enjoy!

So God said, “I will send a Flood, , and lots of umbrellas, but I will save two of everything, because it looks good on the seesaw floater. Two hippos” (mimics motion) “Noah, stop what you’re doing and build me an Ark.” And Noah, who’s playing the role of Noah

“I’m working on a speedboat at the moment. It’s much more exciting, a bigger engine in a speedboat, and you can shoot across the water like that…..”

“No, Noah, I want an Ark; an Ark with a big room for poo.”

“Look, a speedboat would really kick ass, it will give great photos to the people in The Bible. We can get all the animals with long ears to sit along the side….. it’d be fucking excellent! Excellent photographs!”

“No, you build me an Ark. You can put a big engine in the Ark, if you want.”

“Okay… I should compromise.”

So he started to saw up pieces of wood to make the Ark. (makes sawing noises) That’s not how you start sawing, is it? You start sawing by going (fast sawing noises). It’s impossible to start, isn’t it? Then you get into that middle bit (more sawing noises), which feels good – when you feel like your Dad… when your Dad used to say, “I’m just going out to the garage to saw a plank of wood in half.” (sawing noises and thud) …..”There we go! Oh, Dr. Benoski on Sunday television! ‘˜The ’”…. (snores) Sundays with my Dad, that was!

No, you want a speed-saw, don’t you?, much more….. (speed-sawing sound) Those power saws, much better! But sawing has a difficult start-off, then it goes into a bit of that, and in the end it goes back to (fast sawing noises). And after a while, Noah realized he was actually punching a baboon! (more noises)

“Stop hitting me! (noises continue) Leave me alone, I’m trying to sleep!”

“I’m not punching you, this is my mime! I’m sawing an Ark, I’m making an Ark. Get out of my mime! I don’t want you in my mime.”

“What have you got against baboons in mime?”

“Nothing, you can do your own mime, but not in my mime. . . not on my mime. It’s my motto, No Baboons in Mime.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?”

“I did before, but I don’t now!”

So he built an Ark, and that was great; and he went around collecting two of every animal from all around the world, including two baboons, one of them punch-drunk. (staggers) “He was hitting me earlier, I don’t know what’s going on.”

He was going, “Okay, who have we got here? Two dogs. . . okay, two dogs, long ears, along the side, please. I’ll explain it to you later. Two sheep. . . on you get, sit along the side, there we go. Two cats – small ears, inside the boat. Two ducks. . . The ducks are going,

“We’re not coming.”

“Well, there’s gonna be an enormous fuckoff flood.”

“So? What’s the big problem?”

There’s a huge hole in the whole Flood drama, because anything that could float or swim got away scot-free, and it was the idea to wipe out everything, He didn’t say, “I will kill everything, except the floating ones and the swimming ones, who will get out due to a loophole.” All that in a James Mason voice, (as Mason) “I will kill everything, except the floating ones and the swimming ones” (mumbling) “a loophole. Sorry, I wasn’t here, I was off-stage, in my trailer. Someone else did my lines.”

So. . . yes. It is, anything that can float. . .you’ve got bad ducks, bad geese, bad swans. . . (miming evil demeanor) Bad ducks going, “quack, quack, quack” (mimes gargling and spitting) They’re the spitting ducks. You bad fish! (mimes fish) Bad pilot fish, with those little lights on the top . . .evil pilot fish, really, really bad! Those that go down in twos, and swim up to other fish, you know, with the little lights on the top, and the other fish are going, “No, there’s a car coming towards me! Aaah! Hey! Bloody pilot fish! You evil pilot fish! I know your Dad.” (walking very erect) That’s how a fish walks if he’s English. . . .You don’t know what just happened there.. . Yes!

So it’s a big hole in the whole thing. I mean, with the humans, we understand the idea of good and bad; evil and very, very good. . . saintly, I suppose, but with animals? What, in fact, is an “evil giraffe”? How do they. . .”I will eat all the leaves on this tree. (mimes eating leaves) I will eat more leaves than I should. . . and then other giraffes may die. (evil chuckle) I am an evil herbivore. . . (mimes the giraffe walk) It’s very difficult to be evil. “I will hide berries where no one can see them.” (evil chuckle)

So yes, there you have it.. Evil Ducks, pilot fish and herbivores!…. go watch Eddie Izzard.. it’s much funnier than reading what he’s saying ;)

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Door-to-Door “God Squadders”

Posted by on December 18, 2007 Leave a Comment

Before I start, let me make clear that I have no real problem with or – each to their own, I say. I do have issues with The Bible and various aspects of the religion but I believe that every person has the right to believe what they wish and if is what floats your boat, then so be it.

About 11am this morning, there was a knock at my door (yes the door with the big purple in the centre of it!). When I opened it, there were two women standing there – one I would say was in her mid-50s, the other younger in her 20s or early 30s. The older woman opened with “May I ask you a question?” I shrugged and said sure, whatever.

“Do you feel that has been taken out of Christmas?” says she.

After gazing at her for a long second or two waiting for the punchline, I shrugged again and informed her, most politely, that she was really asking the wrong question – me not being Christian and all that. She asked what faith I was and I told her I was . I was quite impressed (and serioiusly amused) with how quickly she managed to hide the look of horror. As she seems quite insistent on wanting to talk, I figured I had a few spare minutes and I’m always willing to discuss religion with people. I told her I didn’t believe in the Christian version of – being solely male and obviously schizophrenic! I don’t think she appreciated the schizo comment, so I cleared up what I meant, pointing out the two obvious personalities of in the , and throwing in the whole problem with the Flood theory… she didn’t seem to understand the evil ducks and evil pilot fish and I think I may have lost her totally with the evil herbivores! (If you’re an fan, you’ll understand that).

I mentioned a number of problems with the various transcripts of the Bible, not to mention the fact that it’s written by man not God – to which she argued that it’s the set down by man… which I responded to with you’ve only got the authors’ word for that. I briefly touched upon the fact that a number of “Gospels” were left out of the Bible due to their contradictory nature and not fitting in with what the Pope wanted it to say back whatever century it was (I don’t remember offhand) and brought up the King James version with his infamous line “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” which is a misinterpretation and means something else entirely.

I also asked her if she truly believed that Jesus was crucified and rose from the grave on random days in March and April to which she looked blank so I reminded her that Eostre (Easter) doesn’t fall on the same date each year, unlike Christmas, and asked her why it was’t a static date like Christmas.. she couldn’t give me an answer to that (no surprises there!)

She then changed her method somewhat and asked what I thought of the world now. I told her it was bloody awful and getting worse every day. You could almost taste the glee in her expression. Then you’ll agree, says she, that we must eradicate all wickedness from the world!! Oh the fervour in her voice!!! Wickedness is a matter of perception, I told her. What seems wicked to one could be the right thing to do to another.

But you must agree, she spluttered, that killing someone is wicked.

Nope, says I. Again, its a matter of perception and of circumstance. If someone came into my house and threatened my kids, I’d kill them without any hesitation. Would I be evil for doing that?

Oddly enough, it was then she decided she had to continue to another house in her quest. She asked if I’d like some literature to read. I told her that the only Watchtower I wanted in my house was the Jimi Hendrix song…….

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