I am new here, and finding it hard to find a place in this interfaith wilderness to find rest and respite. I’m not sure where to post as going through the threads I do not see open doors but locked gates. To be honest it saddens me, because I have been enslaved behind such gates before, and my experiences almost broke my spirit and cost my soul. It is such locked gates that bar entry to paradise, they bar ascension to heaven, they stifle progress to enlightenment, limit achievement of selflessness, the locks render superior intellect worthless, and over spiritualization meaningless. But mostly, these locked doors deny any hope of unity.
These are the locks and our cages:
1. When faith becomes an intellectual pursuit. I see here that people are so intelligent that they write at length complicated theories and deductions in the pursuit of truth, quoting scholars and writing like professors; caught up in their own minds, so much so that they do not realize that if faith is an intellectual truth, it would bar heaven to people of even average intellect by such standards. In the same there is risk of feeling special, and standing as a teacher of lower ones, the roots of pride. I have no interest in what is behind those doors, and the spirit becomes troubled.
2. Defining and naming. Here are clever definitions of god, names and explanations, and many are unswayed because of those defined truths. The sadness here is that our names and definitions of god are blemished and ultimately corrupted by our inferiority and lowly position, thus limiting god, chaining him to our needs and desires, molding him or it for our purposes, actually confining him/her/it to the area of the earth. Once again those under such well defined gods run risk of feeling special, to stand as teachers, all also the roots of pride. I have no interest in what is behind such doors, and the spirit becomes troubled.
3. Over spiritualization (truth without foundation in reality). Like a boat without an anchor thrust about by the waves are those that overspiritualize god. It is a tumultuous ocean seen in prophetic words (pardon my biblical references, it is my base but the symbolism is part of many interfaith concepts) such as the creation account where the dry land was formed by gathering the water so there could be a firm foundation, Jonah, also the flood accounts and Revalation’s ‘sea’. It is an unstable place far from reality and practicality where anything goes, and anyone can be special, even a teacher, all roots of pride. I have no interest in what is behind such doors, and the spirit becomes troubled.
This was written as a statement, but is in essence a question: If the truth binds us in chains, is it truth? The truth should set us free.
Maybe the first step to such a place is silence; in an attempt to stop lying from my inferior and selfish position, so all I will say is I dont think I can contribute here, as I have only questions and no answers.
Visit thread: https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/20897/