I have many questions.

[Mahasvapna]

The biggest reason for the misunderstanding of the word comes from Saddam. When the first Gulf War started, he called for a Jihad. So every non-arabic speaking person took that as being literally a holy war.

This is an interesting thing to hear. I suppose religion has always been, and may always be, a tool to galvinize the masses towards whatever ends the power chooses. Cultural parallels of religion have been a focus of my curiosity for sometime.


Of course I am not offended by what you had to say. Perspective is the food of God, in my opinion. A different life, a different experience, a different flavor.


There is no question that we are all in the same boat - we are all human, and we have a world to share and take care of together. The fact that so many people are at odds because of religion - an institution who's singular purpose SHOULD be to create peace and happiness on earth - is what I have a hard time understanding and accepting. I understand the necessity of adversity for spiritual growth, regardless of one's path - for all paths seem to agree that suffering exists to be transcended - but I feel that religion and spirituality should be the source of hope and peace, not the source of adversity. As it stands now, this is not the case. If my nation were muslim, or your nation were christian, I wonder if the events of this millenium so far would have been different. It is difficult to say. It is a hard truth that the mind of Masses is never as discerning as the mind of the individual - even though our greatest achievements come to pass only when we work together. It is no wonder the brain is located in only one part of the body.


Thank you for your compliment; I believe matters of insight and education are relative. I know virtually nothing about Islam. As far as far as religion goes, I understand it from a few perspectives. I was raised christian first, then Mormon - they are similar in practice, but with several fundamental differences in world view. When i was young, I decided that neither of these religions offered me any connection to God - or whatever was beyond my Self. They were simply a tradition of practices and empty words. Though for some people those words had meaning and power, this wasn't the focus. The Connection itself is never the focus hear - only the assumptions of what such a connection requires.


No man can know the mind of God thoroughly, and any guidance from on high committed to paper is subject to the same material free will as any human individual. This means only that the messages from God are only clear once - after this it is only a facsimile, lacking the depth of truth and wisdom that God's words inherently have. Perhaps God did speak directly to Muhammed, Jesus, or Moses, or all three, but only they individually knew the magnitude of truth and power behind those words. For the rest of us, I believe that no amount of tradition will connect you to the voice of God. Only individual devotion, and actions both internal and external which reflect that devotion, can grant audience with God and enlighten us as to our individual purpose and meaning in life.


I asked this question a few years ago. "Why am I here? What is My purpose in life? How shall I adress suffering in my world? What name shall I call God, and how shall I worship him? Does he need to be worshipped?"


I examined the ways by which I live one by one, sometimes with help from those around me who can see me without my own views obscuring the details. By working to know myself, and working to understand those around me - and most importantly by recognizing the significance of our relationships - I came to realize my own personal connection to God.


I know that religion is important - if it were not, it would not occupy so much history, so much significance in our minds - but I do not know how or why. Christians will tell me that CHRISTIANTY - not religion at large - is important because it is the message of God himself, as though he were a person like you or I, telling us how to live in a way that will please him, and that doing so will ultimately grant us an afterlife which is good. This message is mixed with one of ultimate and unconditional forgiveness, even as conditions are laid down for that same thing. By and By, I began to see the flaws in the christian dogma. In this universe, there are no contradictions. Contradictions, I have come to understand, represent human flaws that have been projected onto the world we inhabit.


I wonder often if relgion is not a product of our Transient Nature. All things pass, all material existence changes eventually. Even a diamond will one day decay. But, we see the material world and think of it's state of change - we call it Death, but this is just a label for what we percieve, though we don't even really know what it is we are looking at, in most cases - and believe that this means all things pass. However, Transience is ultimately an illusion created by the limited perspective of the human experience. Really, the material which makes up this world is never either created or destroyed. Our scientific understanding - and I make no distinction between scientific truth and spiritual truth; either one is as complicated and meaningful as the other - tells us that or material world is, for all intents and purposes, eternal. It will always be, in some for, and has always been.


And so it will. Yet we believe that life is transient - in fact, life will most likely always exist. I am not concerned with Aliens, or life beyond our own planet, though. Not yet, because this age is about the growth of Mankind as an individual race. Like individual humans, we must grow up and pay our dues before we life amongst our neighbors as independants.


So, there came a time when I was able to look at the idea of my own death and not see transience - not see and ending, but simply a transition from one state into another. My own perspective is an illusion of my shape. I have a brain, a body, which functions in a very specific way to give me a means by which to experience the world, but it is not a vehicle that I stepped into, once it was constructed. My soul is not seperate from my body or mind. Rather, my Ego is an illusion of circumstance which will disappear when this machine can no longer continue to generate a charge. Like a magnet that has been permanently demagnetized - it is simply a matter of inefficient cells too old to continue.


All of this I say only to say: we seek to understand and know the mind of god, and when someone comes up with something good, they write it down and say that it is the Way. But, to God, to the Greater Mind, the Atma, the Brahmin, the Universal Subconcious or the Oversoul - nothing changes. God is not compassionate - his love is a necessity, our existence is necessity. God without existence is empty, inert, eternally nothing. So what is the point of devoting oneself to a dogma of taboos, of social ritual, of empty traditions that serve only to dress up God in various costumes and make a show of thinking we understand. We demonstrate our limited, human scope of perspective, and in the end it gains us nothing.


It isn't to say I don't believe there is a purpose to existence. Actually, I believe existence is necessary for the evolution of God himself. One may wonder, how God can evolve, but I believe that above God is a greater God, and Above this one is yet another. God cannot be Finite. He exists outside of Scope, space, or time. Outside of Perspective, yet the Substance of Perspective. There is nothing BUT God, in his totality. Our presence in existence is the literal manifestation of the necessary presence of division. Only through incarnation is the Whole made into Parts. And though God is aware of all of his parts at once, as I am aware of my body, his parts are not so directly aware of him. Does my arm know it's place in my body - both what it can and cannot do, what it is meant for, or what my intention for it is? It is debatable, but I think not. I think i simply is an extension of my own Self, which does whatever I tell it to, within it's capabilities. I think the


realtionship between God and Existence is the same, exactly.


These are all only my opinions of course. I have questions about Islam, as well, because it is as I said, a matter outside of my own perspective. You say there is a wisdom in life that many are ignorant of. I would agree - but what is the islamic perspective that is singularly unique? Religions have a tendancy to declare themselves the Only Truth, the Only Path, as though god were so narrow minded, and so out of touch with his creations that he would not design more than one path to knowing him. Variety and Curiosity are the two foundations of human nature. No matter how advanced you become, spiritually, these two things will always be the foundation of how and why you got to where you are. Given such a natural state of human nature, why would our creator grant a blissful reunion to only a fraction of the human race, while damning others to a negative afterlife? Much of religion in general, as a social concept, runs counter to reason and logic - both tools given to us by our creator, as everything else is. Faith and Logic do not really contradict - in all cases one or the other must be flawed.


On the other hand, the belief that one's path is the only path would seem to be the inevitable result of true devotion. Overcoming that sense, and understanding that devotion itself IS the path, not the transient traditions we use to justify it, is something I hope can be attained by anyone - I have long thought that religion exists in part to give some hope to those for whom life is not meant to take them through the journey of personal spirituality. Perhaps devotional traditions are enough, regardless of where they come from. Many questions.


I do not normally believe in delivering my opinions or questions with obscuring pleasantries to soften their 'political' impact. However given the cultural divide that might exist here, please know that I speak forcefully only because I have spent many years tempering my thoughts, my assumptions, and reworking them again and again. I speak with confidence out of conviction for my own connection to god. But, I do not believe one should ridgedly cling to a single line of wisdom or understanding. The spectrum of perspective is polarized between the narrow mind of Man and the Limitless mind of God. Within this, there is no wrong perspective because every thought is within it's purview. Like the color spectrum, not all colors strike everyone as beautiful or interesting. But that does not mean they are not truly colors.


Hopefully you'll have a great deal to say, I am most interested to hear your perspective. Hopefully we'll have a great deal more to exchange in the future as well.


Peace


Mahasvapna