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Spiritualism and Religion
“Even
if yoga and religion can wed happily, many religious
people feel compelled to get permission first
— from their religious leaders, families, or the
recorded teachings of the faith. In the same way that
Klotz (a Philadelphia-based rabbi)
has found a place for her yoga through the deep
teachings of Judaism, Fox suggests that people of any
major faith will find an actual resonance with yoga in
their own religious roots if they look below the
surface: "Most Westerners are unaware of the
mystical depth of their own tradition. [For instance,
most Christians] don't know MeisterEckhart or
Hildergard von Bingen. They don't know of Thomas
Aquinas' mysticism. They don't know Jesus as a
mystic." Demand more of your tradition and you
will find it.
Of course, even if you make peace inwardly between
yoga and faith, religious leaders or family members
may still worry that you're "leaving the
fold/" If quoting Eckhart or Hasidic writings or
the Prophet Muhammad won't reassure them, what will? .
. .
The message, observes Sheila Weinberg, is that each
tradition has something to teach to the other.
Religion has done damage as well as good, she says,
"so we have to find the life-giving aspects of
all the traditions." Yoga is one of those
aspects. "The major goal for everybody," she
adds, "is to move into a spirituality that is
grounded, that's embodied, that is practiced, that
works." ”
Alan
Reder, Yoga Journal (April 2001
“All
religion, as theologians - and their opponents -
understand the word, is something other than what it
is assumed to be. Religion is a vehicle. Its
expressions, rituals, moral and other teachings are
designed to cause certain elevating effects, at a
certain time, upon certain communities. Because of the
difficulty of maintaining the science of man, religion
was instituted as a means of approaching truth. The
means always became, for the shallow, the end, and the
vehicle became the idol. Only the man of wisdom, not
the man of faith or intellect, can cause the vehicle
to move again.”
Alauddin
Attar (Shah 261)
“It is by now well known
that the centrepiece of Zen is satori, i.e.
enlightenment as the awakening of the awareness of your formless
self, the self that is encumbered by or covered over
by the noisy, superficially busy ego of everyday life.
Satori is said to be the realization of your own
Buddha-nature, which means that you come to know that the
non-illusionary self is always already as perfect as the
enlightened Buddha, and that this inner realization or
discovery ever awaits your realization of it. Satori is the
state of being freed of all duality.”
Robert E. Carter,
Becoming Bamboo
“He who realizes that
actuality (or what we call 'reality') is the product of our
own actions (which start in the mind), will be thoroughly
freed from the materialistic conception of the world as a
self-existing or 'given' reality. This is, by far, more
convincing than all the theoretical or philosophical
arguments. It is practical experience — and this has an
infinitely deeper-going effect than the strongest
intellectual conviction, because 'the act of spiritual
vision transforms the seer; which obviously demonstrates the
extreme opposite to the act of perception, which
differentiates the perceiver from the object of perception
and thus makes him conscious of his narrow separateness.' ”
(Ludwig Klages)
Lama
Anagarika,
Foundations of Tibetan
Mysticism
“Throughout
the dervish literature you will find us saying
repeatedly that we are not concerned with your
religion or even with the lack of it. How can this be
reconciled with the fact that believers consider
themselves the elect?
Man's refinement is the goal, and the inner teaching
of all the faiths aims at this. In order to accomplish
it, there is always a tradition handed down by a
living chain of adepts, who select candidates to whom
to impart this knowledge.
Among men of all kinds this teaching has been handed
down. Because of our dedication to the essence, we
have, in the Dervish Path, collected those people who
are less concerned about externals, and thus kept
pure, in secret, our capacity to continue the
succession. In the dogmatic religions of the Jews, the
Christians, the Zoroastrians, the Hindus and
literalist Islam this precious thing has been lost.
We return this vital principle to all these religions
and this is why you will see so many Jews, Christians
and others among my followers. The Jews say that we
are the real Jews, the Christians, Christians.
It is only when you know the Higher Factor that you
will know the true situation of the present religions
and of unbelief itself. And unbelief itself is a
religion with its own form of belief.
Ahmad Yasavi - Naqshbandi Order (Shah 171)
This approach also cuts through the trappings of
asceticism as merely a way station on the road to enlightenment, thus also espousing creative knowing
which transcends ascetic limitations.”
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