So, if contemporary religions have been fatally corrupted by those who worship at the altar of mammon, by what principles are we to guide our behavior?
Of course, there are some universal truths to be found in every religion, even if they are not practiced. In fact, there is one precept which is found in every major religion: the Golden Rule. [5]
- Brahmanism: This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you. (Mahabharata 5:1517)
- Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. (Udana-Varga 5:18)
- Confucianism: Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. (Analects 15:23)
- Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss. (T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien )
- Zoroastrianism: That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself. (Dadistan-I-dinik 94:5)
- Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowman. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary. (Talmud , Shabbat 31a)
- Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that man should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. (New Testament , Matthew 7:12)
- Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. (Sunnah )
There have been attempts to apply this teaching to civil society, for example, the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, [6] though this is much like pointing to the Bill of Rights and claiming that the U.S. is a free and democratic republic. Or, as George Bernard Shaw remarked, "Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it." Neither the U.N. nor its member nations pay anything but lip service to this well-intentioned document.
So, why is it that despite our best efforts, the ideals to which we aspire are generally ignored? Because of the tyranny of our instincts and ego over our mind and spirit.
There are those--for example, our rulers and their minions--who relish telling us that this state of being (i.e., to be ruled by our instincts and ego) is the human condition, as if the universe was fixed in space-time. It's easy to understand why anyone trying to preserve the status quo would naturally believe this and use it to justify selfishness and greed.
Of course, science is able to show us that the only constant in the universe is change, other than the Singularity, that omnipresent dimension which animates our light-filled existence. It is light-filled by definition, because we can prove that everything in the universe comes from light and can be traced back to light. [7]
By coming to understand light (quanta in scientific parlance), we come to know the universe, and vice versa. At its most basic state, light is both a wave and a particle--at the same time no less! If you look for the wave you see the wave; if you look for the particle, you see the particle.
How can this be so? Because we are talking about the fundamental units of space-time. We have nothing smaller by which to measure these energy packets. Our observation of quanta affects our perception of how they behave.
This is perhaps the most beautiful thing in science, what Heisenberg called the Uncertainty Principle, because it means, essentially, that this part of the model can't be quantified. What a discovery! It is the point at which Science and Spirituality converge: over that which is infinite, greater than any set of symbols we can invent; what science calls the Singularity or the Great Anomaly; what spirituality calls God or the Supreme Being.
We can trace the behavior of light from the origins of the universe into the human genome and to the next step in human evolution: Conscious Spiritual Evolution. The details of this progression are covered in www.solomonsproof.com; it is the steps we need to take to get there than concern us here.
A spiritual practice can be as simple as taking a deep breath and counting to ten, or as involved as the eight limbs of Yoga, but the objective of any bona fide spiritual practice is overcoming the tyranny of the instincts and the ego and learning to share. Any practice which fails to do this condemns its practitioners to the state we find our rulers trying to justify in order to maintain the status quo--that of greed, self-interest, and profiting at the expense of our neighbors.
As all the
spiritual masters through the ages have taught, we must be the change that we
envision. Non-violent protest is, of course, permitted and even encouraged, but
the foundation for the new world we seek is not in present institutions; it is
in alternative solutions that we are creating and building. These are the
bridges to that new world, which is alive and growing as we speak.
How do we know this? Because we see works in which sharing plays the central role:
"If your brother asks for your shirt, give him your coat, also." (Matthew 5:40)
By this we do not mean to confine sharing to charitable donations and philanthropy, but to extend this notion to the simplest and most "random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty." [8]
All that this requires is for each of us to discover our unique gift, to develop that gift, and share it with the world. Singularity means that everything in the universe came from the very same thing. Sharing is what manifests this unity in humankind.
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