I AM US (VIDEO) MANY ARE THE PATHS TO GOD; MANY ARE THE SPIRITUAL AND MYSTICAL WAYS; MANY ARE THE SACRED AND HOLY WAYS: BUT ALL WHEN UNDERTAKEN IN THE SPIRIT OF INCLUSIVITY AND LOVE, IN THE SPIRIT OF ONENESS WITH ALL, IN THE HUMILITY OF THE TRUE SPIRITUAL PILGRIM, ARE TRUE AND HOLY AND SACRED WAYS. THIS IS THE GREAT LESSON OF OUR TIMES. ALL IS ONE, AND ALL TRAVEL TOGETHER WHEN WE ALL REJOICE IN EACH OTHER’S WAYS. EXCLUSIVITY IN EVERY FORM: RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND PERSONAL, DIVIDE US FROM OTHER, FROM OUR TRUE SPIRITUAL AND HIGHER NATURE, AND FROM THE ALL, THAT WE CALL GOD. OUR SPIRITUAL AND SACRED MISSION IS TO UNDERSTAND THIS AND TO THEREBY MAKE SPIRITUAL INCLUSIVITY IN EVERY FORM OUR REALITY AND DESTINY.
A film-illustrated reading by Richard Dell of his poem I AM US: the fundamentalist notion that only one religion is true, reflects the notion that only one culture or nation or people have worth. It is a lingering manifestation of a complex that within its overt superiority, conceals a corrosive insecurity. This is No. 16 in Richard's book STARS IN OUR SOULS: a new look at our perennial religious and spiritual questions.
The fundamentalist notion that only one religion is true, reflects the notion that only one culture or nation or people have worth. It is a lingering manifestation of a complex that within its overt superiority, conceals a corrosive insecurity.Here is a great truth that we forget at our peril. Many are the paths to God; many are the spiritual and mystical ways; many are the sacred and holy ways: but ALL when undertaken in the spirit of inclusivity and love, in the spirit of ONENESS with ALL, in the humility of the true spiritual pilgrim, are true and holy and sacred ways. This is the great lesson of our times. ALL is ONE, and ALL travel together when we ALL rejoice in each other’s ways. There is no true spirituality, no mystical touching of the most sacred, no spiritual awakening into the true meaning of our awareness of God, where there is no inclusivity. As the spiritual history of our planet Earth unfolds, as the sacred story of all our lives unfolds, there will be a folding-in of our spiritual and sacred and mystical selves as we truly become ONE. Oneness is the key to our inner spiritual healing, to the spiritual healing of our communities and nations, and indeed to the spiritual healing of all the flora and fauna, of our Planet Earth, of our Gaia.We have to understand this if there is to be any hope for us as individual humans, and us as human society on Earth. We have to understand that no religion holds an exclusive monopoly on the Truth of God and the heavens. The spiritual, mystical and sacred ways have always understood this. They have always known that the path to God is not paved with the bones of martyrs to any particular religion, nor carpeted with the ancient texts of any particular religion. The sacred and spiritual path has no signposts and is different for every pilgrim. Deep in our hearts we know this, yet our times and our past times are riven with claims for one religion or another against all other religions. Thus is one of the terrible fault lines in our lives.We also have to understand that there is no hope for us if we cannot see that we are all humans, that we all walk this planet and we can only walk this planet in peace and with heads held high if we accept that we all walk our planet together as brothers and sisters.Racialism and religious bigotry are manifestations of a corrosive insecurity that can eat like a cancer into our souls. We can only be proud and cherished members of our races if we embrace and hold dear all members of all other races. Likewise, we cannot take the sacred path to God unless we embrace and hold dear everyone else’s pathways to God. It has been said that ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’. That is all that needs to be said. We ‘judge others by what they do, not by what racial or religious label they might bear.These are profound times for us. The mood-song of humanity is shifting slowly and at times painfully towards inclusivity, thereby towards a living recognition of the ONENESS of ALL. The fault line across the social, political and religious arena of our present time, is the fault line between inclusivity and exclusivity. At times violent and vicious battles are being fought over these fault lines. But the terrible wounds of division between societies, countries, races and religions are in the process of being healed. Our social, political, racial and spiritual destiny awaits us within our liberation from the divisions that so fracture us. The important thing is that these divisions are healed, that the ONENESS of ALL can be made manifest in our lives. What many will not realise is that this will be a key moment in our spiritual journey, our spiritual pilgrimage. We can call these things with many different words: but as we enter at last into a living inclusivity, so shall we surge forward in our sacred and mystical and spiritual journey to ONENESS with the entire Creation. That is our destiny. This is where we are: on the threshold of ’God with Us’, on the threshold of the ultimate spiritual healing of ourselves, our societies, our nations, our races, and our religions.Our destiny was always meant to be a holistic destiny. Our destiny was always to be a spiritual awakening. It has been our divisions that have held us back from that destiny. We can see this with how we at last reach out to the flora and fauna of our planet, of our Holy Gaia. We recognise our interdependence with nature and the environment. In other words, we recognise and seek to live and make manifest our ONENESS with nature and the environment.Our troubled time presages an age of true spiritual enlightenment. We join together in healing; we recognise in our religions and races our true ONENESS. The old world of exclusivity is in its long-drawn-out death throes. Our being ONE with each other in every sense, is all but upon us.