Barriers That Need to be Removed: Exclusive Claims Of Religion

By Brien Pittman

Clearly, a great danger lies in waiting when people close themselves into circles of certainty from which they cannot break free; these individuals have their own absolute truth. Each considers anything not his/her truth a lie. As the journalist Marcio Alves once said, “They suffer from an absence of doubt.” When one has absolutely no doubts in their version of “truth” they stop searching for answers and they refuse to question, or recognize beliefs and practices that are abusive, or acknowledge the suffering they create.

In my understanding, uncritical faith is a barrier that can only be removed by experiential education and the practice of mature spirituality. Education increases our own ability to widen out our hearts, not only for the experiences of others, but many times for our own unacknowledged experiences as well.  Thus our reality and depth of spirituality are enlarged.

In other words if we genuinely increase our own enlightenment of humanization, which is intrinsic to mature spirituality, it immediately ushers in the recognition of dehumanization, in all of its forms and degrees, whether it exist in our countries, religions, or homes and this recognition should become our motivating force for action; and this action will constitute a bold act of love in direct opposition to the lovelessness found not only in religious abuse but also in all forms of repression.

Imagine for a moment that one group decided the entire world must speak one language, have only one culture and that one way of life was best for all people and then they proceeded to promote this singularity. It’s not a far stretch of the imagination, for history and present day is full of such oppression, correspondingly spirituality that remains infantilized to the point of promoting supremacy of one religion as the only truth for all humanity, would also be oppressive.

In belief classes I have noticed that the concept of religious inclusiveness initially poses a hurdle, but after some critical thought and individual prayer, words like “pluralism” take on a more spiritually enlarged meaning.

Hinduism, the largest pluralistic religion in the world, teaches that there are many paths, many sages, and many holy books and that no religion can claim any exclusive or final representation of truth. This does not mean that Hinduism does not recognize a unity to truth. On the contrary, Hinduism recognizes a total and profound unity but one that is broad enough to allow for diversity and to integrate multiplicity, like the many leaves on the Hindu banyan fig tree.

This Hindu pluralism has confused people coming from singularistic religious traditions, such as have dominated the Western world, who are baffled by the great diversity within Hinduism. It has caused them to look upon Hinduism as a collection of cults or sects rather than any consistent religious heritage. However if we look deeply into the many-sided vision of Hinduism we will discover that it has much wisdom to teach everyone. Today in the emerging global era we must learn to handle the great diversity of human beings and their often very different cultures. This requires a pluralistic vision in all aspects of life, from which religion, often the most important aspect of human culture, cannot be excluded.

We can contrast the Hindu view with that of dominant Western religions and their singularistic religious traditions of one God, one prophet, or savior and one holy book that has led them to promote the supremacy of their belief for everyone. Despite the fact that many other cultures have their own form of spirituality, Christianity and Islam, with few exceptions, have sought throughout history to convert the entire world to their faith, and to this end have often tried to discredit, if not suppress other traditions — a practice that still continues today.

In the dawning global age we can no longer claim that any one religion is the only truth for all humanity any more than we can claim that one language, culture or way of life is the best for all. We must have a broad enough view to recognize what is of value in the different peoples and cultures of the globe from so-called aborigines, who have a much deeper understanding of nature than modern people, to the great civilizations not only of Europe and the Middle East but of America, Africa and Asia, including those not built upon Biblical religious ideas.

Come back to FAVS for parts two of this series.