This is the book that is the basis for the workshop, Sacred Words of Wisdom. It consists of texts from the seven so-called World Religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. There are texts directly from the Sacred Books of each religion under these ten headings: The Great Mystery; The World; Humanity; Teachers; The Way; Prayer and Meditation; Struggle; Evil and Suffering; Death; The Ultimate.
Read the introduction:
FOREWORD
I hope you find this little selection of texts from the world's religions to be useful on your spiritual path. There is an old Chinese curse that says, ""May you live in interesting times. As human beings that share a planet in the twenty-first century, we are witnessing unprecedented technological and medical advances at the same time there are terrible threats to our very survival. It is one of those watershed moments in human history. A fledgling planetary vision will either come clearly into focus, or be obliterated by the smoke and ash of upheaval. Interesting times indeed!
I love the Sufi story of the elephant and four blind men who were touching it from various angles and describing it to each other. One man said it must be like a rope, since he was holding its tail. Another said it must be like a fan, since he had hold of its ear. The third said it felt like a curved stick as he had a tusk in his hand, and the fourth said it was like a tree trunk since he had hold of a leg. The debate over the nature of the real elephant became heated.
Of course, the elephant is a metaphor for Truth. It can be perceived from many angles. All of them are true, yet none is complete.
When I was a young Religious Studies student, I asked a Hindu scholar which religion is True. He said, "you Americans are obsessed with the Truth. If you want to climb to the top of a mountain, you can take any one of a number of paths and you will get there. Why not just take the one that's nearest to you? Christianity will get you there just as well as any. But then again, if you are drawn to try a different path, find one with interesting scenery. If you climb, you will get there either way."
The "True" Mystery is like the sun whose clear blinding light is filtered through the earth's atmosphere and diffused into different colors during different times of the day - sunrise, high noon, sunset, and twilight. After it rains, the light is refracted into the colors of the rainbow. The light is different in different weather and in different seasons. It is different at different latitudes. It appears as a magnificent riot of colors through a stained glass window. None of the light colors is any more True than the others. You can not look directly into the sun to see its light more clearly. If you tried you would go blind. Most of the world's great wisdom traditions abound with metaphors of light as an archetypal symbol of illumination. It is up to us to develop the vision with which to perceive it.
I take all of these insights to mean that there are many ways to glimpse the Great Mystery. The Qur'an says it is closer to you than your own neck vein. Gandhi says "it is one, though named variously named… we remember Him by the name which is most familiar to us." Paul says "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." It is our universal longing, to find our way to light.
When I started to study the religions of the world, I kept getting excited about new discoveries. A Chinese scholar friend said to me "You are like someone who is always finding jewels, and doesn't realize she is in a jewelry store. There are jewels everywhere!" She is now married to my Hindu friend, and between them they represent all the religions of the East, as well as one of the West. He is a Hindu. She was raised as a Christian and says that when you are Chinese, you are born with a Taoist ritual, live according to Confucian principles, and buried with a Buddhist ceremony.
If we are true seekers of Wisdom, we will recognize it wherever we find it. The world's great religions and ancient native traditions have survived for thousands of years. They wouldn't have lasted if they had not had the power to move and sustain hundreds of millions of people with their spiritual nourishment. Their words offer us promising veins to mine for nuggets of wisdom about the questions that concern our innermost hearts.
What is the Great Mystery we feel compelled to search out so that we might fathom the meaning of existence? It is tremendous and overwhelming, yet infinitely close and familiar. It is inscrutable and ineffable, awful in power, yet peaceful, silent and endlessly creative. It is found within our human hearts and in the grandeur of the boundless universe. It has many Names but defies the power of words to describe. It is called Yahweh, Father, Allah, God, Brahman, Atman, Nirvana and Tao. It is beyond all Names.
And what of a world that is both cosmos and neighborhood? It is incomprehensibly ancient and vast. It is filled with people, animals, plants, and stones. And it reaches beyond the stars. It is solid and it is illusion. Was it created at a moment in time, or has it been here forever and ever? It is ours to share, to explore, and to exploit. It is a joyous garden and a vale of tears; a testing ground to which we endlessly return, and a place that we will never revisit. And "what is man that Thou art mindful of him?" We humans are suffering creatures who long for bliss. We are infants and children, householders and elders, creatures alone yet born into community. We are good, we are bad, we are brilliant and foolish; we can be the loveliest and most devilish of creatures.
What is the meaning of death? We live our lives in the blink of an eye, and then we are gone - but where? To be born and reborn? To be rewarded or punished? "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And what can we think of the teachers who suggest meanings for suffering and joy, and point out rules by which we should live? They answer our craving for that something that is just beyond us, but that we have always known is there. There are saviors, teachers, prophets and messengers who appear inexplicably in history. They show us the pathways that we must walk for ourselves. They are Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and the holy sages and shamans of the tribes of the world.
And what is the way we must act in our lives? We are called to prayer and to introspection. We are called to mercy and love. We are called to struggle for strength and courage. There are laws to follow and sins to avoid. The golden rule, the Ten Commandments, the beauty way, and the eightfold path, all provide templates to bring out the best in us.
And what do we make of evil and suffering? There are destructive forces abroad in our world. We strain to comprehend them, and we strive to combat them. This is our present World Dharma and our "holy war." It is the striving of good against evil, the timeless struggle that now must be waged on a personal level and on the level of the cosmos.
And what of our hopes for our ultimate end? When we escape the bonds of life, what will we achieve? Will we be elevated to Nirvana or Paradise, or return to the Nameless that is beyond all names? Will we be cast into hell from which there is no salvation? Or will there be - Nothing? Every fiber of our being recoils from the thought. We want to know. So we seek.
Scholars have filled thousands of books with commentaries on religion. This book contains a little selection of texts from the sacred books themselves. We will see what they say about the timeless themes of the Great Mystery, the world, and humanity, as well as about our teachers who call us to be virtuous, about the consequences of our good and evil actions, the meaning of death, and the ultimate goal of our lives.
As we look more closely at wisdom, we find ourselves to be aware that we are face to face with an elephant, and that we have been blind, or at least shortsighted. We can begin to understand that we share the elephant with other people. We can call to each other, and tell each other the stories of how our ancestors understood wisdom in their times. And, sensing that the whole elephant is more like a mountain than a rope, a fan or a tree trunk, we can begin to climb. Who knows what we will find on top? Elephants and more elephants and more elephants...? Mystery, Mystery and more Mystery…
These sacred words will speak to you for themselves. May you find in them what you need.
Sandy Kahn, Belmont, Mass
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
PART I. WORLD RELIGIONS
Chapter 1. History of World Religions
PART II. THE MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS
Chapter 2. Introduction to Themes for
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
THE TEXTS
Chapter 3. Judaism
Chapter 4. Christianity
Chapter 5. Islam
PART III. THE EASTERN SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS
Chapter 6. Introduction to Themes for
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism
and Confucianism
THE TEXTS
Chapter 7. Hinduism
Chapter 8. Buddhism
Chapter 9. Taoism
Chapter 10. Confucianism
Appendix 1 More Religious Texts
Appendix 2 Parallel Translations
Notes
Bibliography
