One Song
What is praised is one, so the praise is one too,
many jugs being poured
into a huge basin. All religions, all this singing,
one song.
The differences are just illusion and vanity. Sunlight
looks slightly different
on this wall than it does on that wall and a lot different
on this other one, but
it is still one light. We have borrowed these clothes, these
time-and-space personalities,
from a light, and when we praise, we pour them back in.
~Jelaluddin Rumi
It's funny to me, how the Peace Corps was adamant about how Muslims proselytizing to me was a form of harassment. It goes to show that most Peace Corps volunteers must be from the Northeast or the West Coast. I am from the South, and am quite familiar with proselytizing. In fact, I once spent an evening at a fair talking with a man about Leviticus and Romans while my friends went in and rode the rides. It is a normal part of life. People in the South expect you to be Christian; if you aren't (even if you say you are, sometimes...) they will tell you that you need to become a Christian (or their type of Christian...)
My friend Princess Leia and I discussed this. She so happens to be from Colorado, an area of America that has a lot of Evangelicals, and the Family Research Council, in particular, a group with which whose work I am fairly familiar. As a woman, I don't think she is as often "harassed" about converting to Islam as the men are, but I still find it funny that they use the word harassment.
They tell everyone to just say things like, "I have my religion, you have yours." or the rather innocuous statement, "I believe in God." and leave it at that. Of course, Princess Leia and I both know that seldom works. I usually end up discussing some topics with the locals here about it, but my language isn't quite able to create a meaningful dialogue yet.
I bring this topic up not for some surprise announcement of calling myself Muslim, but I do want to point out some of the cultural similarities that I have seen, especially since I come from an area of the South known as the Bible Belt.
Where I'm from, everyone has this idea that everyone in the Middle East stops whatever it is that they are doing five times a day, fall to the ground and pray to Mecca. This is decidedly not true - of the four months I have lived here, I have seen maybe one or two people do this in public. It is similar to views of the South, I guess. They see "O Brother Where Art Thou" and imagine everyone in the South rushing to the river in white robes, or some other nonsense like that. The truth is, we are both very similar. We wake up, we go to work, we come home, eat, go to bed. And the next day we do the same thing.
Also, here, as in the South, much emphasis is placed on how you look in public. In the South, everyone wants to portray themselves as good Christians, while at the same time, hiding little bottles of liquor in their cabinets. (full disclosure: my family is Catholic, we have no qualms with partaking of the drink...) Without going into detail, we have the same thing here. It's just about keeping everything secret. Just as in the South, great emphasis is placed on abstinence. Just as in the South, a blind eye is turned towards the indiscretions of the men while the women are scorned and turned into outcasts.
I want to point out another issue regarding religion here. In a book I borrowed from the library, "The Soul of Rumi," it says that Rumi, along with Eckhart and St. Francis of Assisi were "lovers of God's presence in humanity, and in existence itself."
One thing that has always fascinated me with the "revealed" religions is how the leaders so often make ambiguous comments regarding their own relationship with the divine, neither admitting nor denying whether or not they have a special relationship that everyone else cannot have.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. ~John. 14:6
There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.
Why I find these quotes interesting is the fact that, when the Biblical reference is taken in context with the rest of the passage of John, and the statement of Faith in Islam, when taken in context with the rest of the Koran, we are given a very interesting image of the two men. I have always interpreted the bible passage to mean that Jesus and God are one just as Buddha attained Enlightenment. Jesus' salvific powers came not through his personhood but his saviorhood, it is by following his actions that one attains unity with God. Likewise, the Koranic expression is intended to mean the unity of what God is - God is the ultimate, the pinnacle. And Muhammad is the Ultimate Seal, the Last Prophet, not qua Muhammad, but as a symbol of the Ultimate Man, just as the Buddha was not some savior or prophet, but rather, the symbol for the Ultimate Man. This is a universal quality to which all humanity can aspire - regardless of whether one calls himself Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or anything.
That is the beauty of religion - each religion becomes a little hidden treasure chest that anybody can open. Most people do not open the chest because they feel the chest itself is beautiful enough to get them through life. In all religions, there are people who take the teachings at a literal level. And for the most part, this is fine, for now. It is as far as they are able to get in their spiritual life. But for those who have the mental capabilities to look beyond the words and into the spirit of the words, to them, it is as though they are opening a treasure chest filled with riches as vast as space itself.
That is true regardless of whether or not you are a Muslim in Morocco or a Christian in the United States. Truth is a lamp that can guide us through the darkness, but too often we focus on the most mundane of things; who is holding the lamp, what does the lamp look like, etc. Jesus is gone, as is Muhammad, as is Buddha, but the lamp is sitting there right in front of us. It is our job to pick it up and let it shine through the darkness of existence.
"And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp unto themselves, and refuge unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge but holding fast to the truth as their lamp shall not look for refuge from anyone besides themselves - it is they who shall reach the topmost height!
~Buddha's Farewell Address
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