Sunday Wisdom

From One Mountain, Many Paths
An American Freemason Speaks Out for Peace

by Dr. Patrick Swift
Click book or here to go to the page and buy it for yourself,

As men approach me, so I receive them. All paths, Arjuna, lead to me.

Bhagavad Gita 4:11
Hinduism

We shall worship thy God, the God of thy fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and Issac, One God, and unto Him we have surrendered.

The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an 2:133

Islam

In the beginning of his book Patrick quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying

" Religions are different roads converging upon the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal."

Many years ago I copied this sentence into my book of things I wanted to save.

There are many paths to the top of the mountain but the view is always the same.

When I went to College I expanded my church experience. I went to Catholic Mass with my Catholic friends and to the United Church of Christ with friends from that church. I went with friends. When I came home I would go to the church of my childhood - First United Methodist here in Ames. It really didn't matter to me. Church was church. Later I began to learn about and study different religions. I had studied Judaism when I taught Sunday school. The lessons for the Sunday School class I taught were about things such as "It is the Christian thing to do to take a cake over to someone who has lost a family member." Come on! Do we really need to study that in Sunday School.

I found that there seems to be (in most people - yes even in some atheists) a yearning for something beyond themselves. I call that a desire for God. That desire is expressed culturally. I find that the only time we get into trouble is when we think we have the only truth, the only way and everyone must think and believe the same way we do. Then we go out and try to force people to be what they are not.

Let each believe according to his own needs and desires. Let each believe and worship in his own way. My grandparents seldom went to church and yet they were more Christian than many so-called Christians of today. There are countless examples of people they helped. They lived their religion and I never heard them say anything bad about anyone. That is much better (in my opinion) that looking around the room as I heard the younger Baldwin Brother did one time and say "all these people are going to Hell." Sorry guy, I still don't think that a God who is Love would send anyone to a place of eternal torment. That is something an evil person would do.

I am reminded of the story of the blind men and the elephant.

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths.

We are like those blind men. We should allow each to have his own path in peace and we should have ours. It is all right to share and discuss for that is the way we grow but never condemn or put some one's religion down. You can't pull yourself up by putting others down. God Bless and I hope your path is a smooth one.