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Still, I am not shy about benefiting from any religious path that offers tools for me to live at peace. I take from ALL spiritual paths without prejudice, my only requirement is that the religious or spiritual tool be one that offers peace. Any tool always has to pass the peace test, this way it speaks of a 'higher authority' than just man made dogma - it speaks of universal truth. But, this all has to be done in balance. For there are many true things that are good - but done in excess they become bad. For, even though air and water give us life, they will also give us death when in excess. So always seek balance. For instance, the Muslims have a practice of praying five times a day to Allah. For those that do not know, Allah is the same God of the Jews and of the Old Testament that the Christians worship.
The Muslims pray at sun up, when the sun is at its zenith at noon, when the sun is part way down in the afternoon, when the sun sets and when they go to bed. Even though I am not a Muslim, I borrowed from the Muslim's prayer schedule to use as a reminder to be mindful of "gratitude" in my life. If you do not want to develop a practice of gratitude, then what about using it as a reminder 5 times a day to relax your breath, practice mindfulness and bring your thoughts back to the present moment? When you have come to a point of gratitude for being able to open your eyes in the morning and being able to take a breath of air everything else is just gravy so to speak. Gratitude plays an important part with finding inner peace, just as being mindful of the present moment and being aware of anything that causes this mindfulness to wander.
If I could define the basis of my spiritual practice it would be that of peace and practicality. Inner peace is the foundation of it all, for we cannot have world peace without first being at peace within. I used to be a Catholic for many years of my life as well as a freethinking Buddhist before becoming an agnostic spiritualist.
For further discussion of my background beliefs see:
http://**********************/jne/fo...hp?topic=318.0
A few years ago a lady moderator on a Christian forum banned me for claiming that God is peace, telling me "you don't know who God is." Funny thing about the Christians. I was a Christian as well as a freethinking Buddhist in my earlier life and 100% of the Christian forums have banned me, and 90% of the Buddhist forums have also banned me. This says something about the Christians and Buddhists and whether they practice what they preach? The Christians chanting the Golden rule of Reciprocity and Charity and Humility? and the Buddhists preaching Compassion, Do No Harm and Egoless Non-Self?
Why am I banned so much? Is it for getting in fights or flame wars? No...I get banned for writing about truth. When someone disagrees with you, apply the law of opposites to get at the truth. This removes the personalities and focusses on the principles and helps you see the entire picture. If God is not peace, then God must be the opposite of peace...turmoil and unrest. I prefer to believe God is peace and God is the authority on the subject of peace. The difference between an authority and an authoritarian is this. An authority speaks from a place of truth and such speaks as an authority. Whereas an authoritarian rules by fear and not by truth. For the truth stands on it own and the authoritarian stands on their ego.
The Buddhists have a set of rules they use to determine what are definitive truths and what are not. This can also be applied to such questions.
1) Do not rely on just the person but rely on the doctrine.
2) With respect to the doctrine, do not rely on just the words, but rely on the meaning.
3) With respect to the meaning, do not rely on just meaning requiring interpretation, but rely on meaning that is definitive.
4) With respect to definitive meaning, do not rely on just dualistic understanding but rely on the wisdom of the direct perception of the truth.
Bringing this worship business back to the topic of religion, do we worship a higher power out of fear for if we do not worship this higher power we will be killed? Sounds like the aliens in an old "Superman" movies that came to earth to tell us to bow down to them or else? If there was a God or a higher power does this entity need us to 'bow down' to a 'big ego' or does God need us to 'act right' to our companions as well as to act right to ourselves? Bowing down produces no peace, whether in the person that demands it due to an over bloated ego, nor does it foster peace within the person forced to worship against their will. But this is how man made religions work - they are run by fear, greed and ego. I prefer to be truth and peace based. Many think God is like 'Santa Claus' and must come through with their demands, just as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for Santa to fill. This smacks of the ego based practitioner.
See my post:
http://**********************/jne/fo...hp?topic=133.0
The ego based person prays thinking they know better than God does. The truly spiritual based person prays for God's will and not their own, for if they truly knew better than God...the practitioner would be the God. Nothing wrong with asking if one is a believer, but always end such requests humbly with accepting Gods or a higher powers will with gratitude. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered according to our self centered and conflicting demands? The world would be in real turmoil then. No, I prefer to make God peace and truth based and as such any action that develops peace brings one closer to God and any action that destroys peace brings one away from God.
Many times we violate the three branches of laws that govern us and constantly ask God or a higher power to give us 'hall passes' to avoid the consequences of our actions. Such prayer is again ego based, thinking we should have preference over the rest of the world for wishing to be exempt from our actions
We are all governed by these three areas of laws.
1 - Natural Law
2 - Divine or spiritual law (if you believe in spiritual matters)
3 - Manmade laws
I find that sometime spiritual practitioners neglect the natural laws that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack of living a balanced life. Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies living in physical world and governed my both spiritual and physical or natural laws in addition to man made laws. We need some effort with spiritual work and some effort in physical work for a good balance. Some of us think we can defy man made laws as well as divine or spiritual laws. But no matter how defiant the person is...we all answer to natural law. We all bow to nature in the end.
Anyway, you are free to think or not think of God or higher power as you see fit. I am only a 'minor authority' on peace and do not wish to be an authoritarian, so I allow freedom for all to think as they wish and only ask the same courtesy be extended to me - reciprocity. Psychologist William James once said, "A great many people believe they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." This applies to atheists as well as the religious or the pious. To avoid prejudice, we have to be careful of 'black or white' absolutes if you claim to truth based and not ego based in your beliefs. I work to keep an open mind for all religions as well as those persons that believe nothing.
When I discussed Christian principles one time an Atheist piped up to say "the Christians have no principles," and "Jesus was a fabled creation of the Christians." When we sperate the personalities from the principles it makes looking at things much easier. When I am referring to Christian principles I speak of such things as charity, works of mercy and the golden rule, where the emphasis is on principles and not on the personalities of the church. For even if Jesus was just created as a fable, these Christian principles are universal truths in their own right if one desires to live a life at peace and promote the inner peace of others in this world.
"The Corporal Works of Mercy"
To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To harbour the harbourless
To visit the sick
To ransom the captive
To bury the dead
"The Spiritual Works of Mercy"
To instruct the ignorant
To counsel the doubtful
To admonish sinners
To bear wrongs patiently
To forgive offenses willingly
To comfort the afflicted
To pray for the living and the dead
You see, by applying the rule of reciprocity or rule of opposites we can see if we were in these positions of the needy mentioned above, we would like such charity bestowed on us for the most part. What about our children, parents and loved ones? Wouldn't we wish the same for them? We have no loved ones? What about our neighbors? The Christian ethic says to treat one another as we would wish to be treated. As we give ~ so we receive. Even if an atheist, as we give peace - we receive inner peace as many of the tools I mentioned above do not require belief in God, they only requirement is a desire to be at peace and to bring peace to others. This is the Christian doctrine in a nutshell, when we put principles before personalities.
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