ONE UNIVERSAL FAITH. THAT IS THE TRUTH OF THE ETERNAL, ...

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ONE UNIVERSAL FAITH. THAT IS THE TRUTH OF THE ETERNAL, AND IS SACRED AND SPIRITUAL THE TRUTH THAT ULTIMATELY WE MUST AWAKEN TO. AND ONLY WITH THIS AWAKENING, SHALL COME OUR SPIRITUAL HEALING OF OURSELVES, OF EACH OTHER, OF OUR COMMUNITIES AND OF OUR MOTHER EARTH, OUR HOLY GAIA.

An excerpt from Richard Dell's YOUR FLOCK FORGOES YOUR FOLD' speaks of the need to recognise that all paths to God are valid. This is a constant theme in Richard Dell’s STARS IN OUR SOULS. And surely it is one of the most important points that we can make about men and women and their spiritual journey. Having one path is fine. Indeed, many of us need just one path. But to imagine that our own path is the only true and valid path to God is to negate so much of what we might gain from following our path. For most of us, the spiritual / religious path we follow is as much an accident of birth as something that has been independently thought through. Do Anglicans really imagine that they would be Anglicans if they had been born into a Muslim family in Saudi Arabia? Likewise, vice versa. But there is a much more important point to be made. None of us can know the truth, the real truth about God and about the higher spiritual realms. None of us can afford to be exclusive. It is not our role to be exclusive. It is our sacred duty to be inclusive. In fact, it should not be seen as a limiting duty. It should be seen as a joy, as an approach, a state of mind, that connects us with each other, that liberates us and that enriches us. In our natural environment we instinctively know that monocultures are limiting and potentially deleterious to our wellbeing. It is the same with religion, with our spiritual journeys and quests. As one of Richard Dell’s poems in STARS IN OUR SOULS explains: each of us when seeking God sound a pure note of spiritual aspiration. All of us together, sounding our own individual notes, sound a hymn.

Chapter 7

So understand this with regards to your scriptures, oh people of the Faith and the Book. And know this: that the mind must be free and the heart must be open.

Understand, oh people of the Book, that when our Master laid upon us this truth; that ‘no one comes to the Father but by me’, no stricture of conformity was being placed upon us in his saying that. Indeed, to the contrary. What the Master was inviting us to do, was open our hearts.

Understand this: that we were not expected to institutionalise that Truth, though tragically we did. Know this: that our Master was not talking about the Church or the Word, though in our lust for separation, we have made it so. Instead, oh people of the Faith and the Book, understand that He spoke to us of matters of the heart.

Understand thereby this eternal Truth: that when one of God’s children reaches out in love and kindness to another of God’s children, or to some part of God’s creation, then that child of God has Christ and God within his or her heart and is one with the Father. And whether they practise Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, or are atheists to their bones, makes not one jot of a difference.

So know this well, you people who have taken the letter of the Word and thus have trampled upon the spirit of the Word: When our hearts are inclusive, when we are filled with kindness and love: then we are with the Master and our road to the Father is assured. And no attempt at divisive labelling, no curse of otherness, no spiritual demarcation into any particular faith or denomination or scripture, can ever alter that fact.