One trait of most people who live in England that we can be proud of is that we’re a fairly tolerant bunch regards people’s religious beliefs. There are of course issues (Compassion in World Farming’s vet experts confirm that animals do suffer if not stunned, but it’s perfectly within Muslim and Jewish law to be vegan to avoid Halal or Kosher meat – read plant-based Middle Eastern recipe books). The law is also a mess, with CIWF saying many meats sold as Halal are stunned (so not compliant anyway) and many supermarkets don’t label it, so people of other faiths unwittingly buy Halal meat, when they don’t want it.
And although a small minority of (every religion) use their ‘faith’ to commit atrocities (not just Muslims but also Catholics in the IRA and Italian mafia), most religious people follow the Golden Rule that permeates most faiths that is always one version or another of ‘Do unto others as they would do unto you’.
the history of religion in England
England was until a few hundred years ago a Catholic country, overseen by the Pope in Rome (a good percentage of all men became monks). Then Henry VIII banned the religion to put himself in charge, so he could get a divorce (he was obsessed with producing a male heir). Monks and nuns were killed and many monasteries destroyed, a terrible time of religious persecution. In 1553, Queen Mary restored Catholicism as the state religion, but this was later reversed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1559, who created what is now the the Church of England.
This however did not lead to peace. Roman Catholics were not happy that they had to be ‘subjects’ of (in their eyes) a ‘made-up church’. And others not happy at having their faith ‘ruled by a monarch’ led to breakaways. Two were Quakers (peaceful activists including George Fox who did not like elaborate churches and preferred ‘plain living’) and Episcopals (who did not believe in the still-used right of the Monarch to appoint bishops) and is today often a ‘run-to’ Church for disillusioned (and abused) Catholics as it also has Mass, but accepts gays and women bishops warmly into the church.
Like Orthodox Christianity, neither of these religions recognise the Catholic Pope as head of its church. The Vatican has caused controversy in recent years with many high-ranking officials having chosen to ignore or hide sexual abuse of children or even nuns. And even today it accepts $30,000 a month from a branch of McDonald’s in rent money, something that most followers of Jesus Christ would baffle at.
England’s multi-cultural religious soup!
Of course, England is renowned to be one of the most inter-racial countries on earth, and therefore we are home to almost every religion! A high Indian population means we have many Hindus and Jains (a beautiful ancient religion that is different from Hinduism in that it does not worshop Gods, though like Buddhism, believes in karma and reincarnation).
Sometimes I come across a tree which seems like Buddha or Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, enlightened, giving shade to a cow, berries to a bird, beauty to its surroundings, leaves for the soil, asking nothing in return. The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer. Satish Kumar (former Jain monk)
Much newer religions are Sikhism (around 500 years old) and Ba’hai (born in what is now Iran, in 1844). One of the oldest religions is Judaism (Jews don’t follow Jesus as the messiah and unlike Chrisitanity does not believe in the ‘holy trinity’). Then we have Taoism (the first religon of China), agnostics (people who aren’t sure), atheists (people who say there is no God) and humanists (‘positive atheists who focus on doing good in the world).
Then we can go into deeper waters still! The Dead Sea Scrolls have lead writers to claim parts of the Bible were left out or mistranslated to ensure churches had power over the people. You have people who get distressed at reading of animal sacrifices in religious texts (some scholars say that Jesus was a vegetarian pacificist) and of course we can also be inspired by animal-loving saints like St Francis of Assisi).
Then you have American right-wing ‘Bible bashers’ voting for politicians who prefer drilling for oil over protecting our Creator’s planet. And ex New-age celebrities who go on YouTube to tell people that if you practice yoga or reiki, chant mantras or try to ‘manifest your destiny’, you’ll go to Hell unless you’re ‘saved’ like they are. No wonder everybody’s confused or sometimes terrified!
so what’s the truth about what to believe?
Who knows? But it seems pretty obvious the answer is Love and Peace.
LIFeexplained.com is a website by Hans Wilhelm, who has spent decades studying what the truth is. He’s pretty convinced that the reason for Churches is to assert power over the masses, and that ultimately God is Love and that’s all you really need to know.
It’s also pretty clear that karma (in some form of other) is at play. This can be from simple ‘action and reaction’ (African children starve due to policies and not sharing world resources, not because they did something wrong in a previous life). Countries at war are due to negative energy en-masse, which is why everyone from peace volunteers to Catholic nuns silently praying on the other side of the world all make a difference.
It does appear that we all have soul lessons, and by recognising and learning from them, we can help our own journey and that of the world. Anna Sayce makes a good explanation of this:
Bad karma is essentially our accumulated stories over many lifetimes. These govern what situations we incarnate into, then we attract experiences based on our karma. Then we find ourselves in situations we don’t want: sacred pointers to where you soul needs you to grow and change. Bad karma is not ‘a bunch of stuff in past lives that was bad and needed to be punished’.
So in summary, if you keep attracting situations that self-sabotage your life, that could be a soul lesson to have some self-worth and follow your own path, rather than what others (including organised religions) tell you to. Advice would be to set some boundaries and practice ‘grounding spiritual practices’ to control your own life, rather than let others make decisions for you.
Aussie writer Andrew Matthews explains this in more simple terms. If life ‘taps you on the head’ with a life lesson and you don’t listen, you’ll get a harder knock. If you still don’t listen, life will ‘smack you over the head with a boulder and knock you down’, until you get the message to change direction.
So in summary, the truth is that if you follow a path of kindness and peace, you should be good to go. Follow a religion if it suits (but don’t be controlled by anyone who tells you what to think). Do anything that makes you feel good (from prayer to yoga to sailing to gardening). But stay away from anything dodgy of every ilk (that includes priests who threaten Hellfire to ouiji boards or dodgy psychic mediums on the pier!) Give up buying New Age rubbish and dig deeper into real spirituality (east or west) if that’s what interests you.
There is no ‘one religion’. Faith is cultural. If you’re born in southern Ireland, you’ll likely be Catholic. If you’re raised in the US Deep South, you could be Baptist and if you’re raised in India, you’re likely to be Hindu or Jain. Don’t let politics or sheer bloody-mindedness lead you to try to ‘convert everyone else’. Work on yourself. Remember the poor misguided man who was coerced by a religious organisation to go to a remote Indian island to ‘convert islanders’ to Christianity. They had never seen another human before, so killed him with a bow and arrow. It’s important to respect that our view may not always be the only view (or the truth) of how the world works.
Eastern spirituality is not ‘New Age crap’
In recent years, ‘manifesting’ and New Age have become big business. And now we have (particularly in the US) testimonials of ‘former New agers’ who have ‘returned to Christ’ (often due to scaring themselves silly when dealing with dodgy practices). Priests and vicars in England say they ‘role their eyes’ when they see psychic fairs advertised, knowing they will get calls from people who start messing around with energies they shouldn’t. And they are right. There is a huge difference between genuine Eastern wisdom and ‘made up New Age crap’.
Paul Kingsnorth (a recent convert to Orthodox Christianity) experienced this firsthand. After practicing Zen Buddhism for many years, his love of nature took him to the Pagan lifestyle where he fell into Wicca (a kind of modern made-up mish-mash of various religions). This attracts ‘good and interesting people’ who can’t find a religion to suit their beliefs of peace and loving the natural world. But even he found himself ‘dragged out of it by God’.
Spiritual seeker Martha Hartney is not happy at former New Age ‘celebrities’ now scaring the living daylights out of anyone who wishes to practice yoga, use a Reiki practitioner to heal a lame horse or chant a mantra to balance their chakras. Neither a New Age fan, she says that ‘Jesus was a Shaman of the highest order’ and ‘we do well to learn his ways and walk in his path’. Rather than use fear and condemnation, to try to force others to submit to putting faith in just one belief system.
All paths lead to God. When we restore the sacred balance between ourselves and the natural world, we come closer to God. The realms of spirit are not all sweetness and light. The presence of evil is a blessing that forces us to seek God and all that is good in the world. Martha Hartney
Read Jesus in the Lotus, a wonderful book by Russil Paul (a Christian monk and yogi) who studied with Bede Griffiths – a Catholic priest who also studied and lived at Indian ashrams. Interesting stories from this book:
In the 1930s, many Christians visited India and stood on street corners to denounce the ‘evils of Hinduism’ to persuade local people to convert to Christanity. Weeks went by with hardly anyone taking up the offer. When the Methodist reverend asked MK Gandhi why this was, he replied ‘The day you stop talking about how good your religion is and start living it, everyone will want to join it’.
There is a story that Gandhi himself almost became a Christian, until running into a ‘white church elder’ who spoke to him in a racist manner. Knowing that Jesus’ message was ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, he decided from that day to ‘practice all that was good in Christianity’ but without belonging to any church’, saying ‘When all Christians live by the Sermon on the Mount, I will be the first to become a Christian’.
From the author Russil Paul:
As you continue reading, you will see I have a deep love for Jesus and that I understand the significance of his life, death, and message. However, there can be no doubt that the West is in need of balance. Some of the best parts of Eastern spirituality (especially Yoga) can contribute to restoring this balance. The East is not perfect either and can benefit from values emphasized by Christianity.
Unlike indigenous cultures, Western peoples have tended not to replenish what they have taken from the earth and have not practiced taking in moderation. This has brought on global warming and other ecological imbalances. Is it not evident that our relationship with our planet is directly associated with the way in which we understand God?
yoga is not ‘demonic’, so stop scaring people!
Recently, one Irish journalist wrote of a former New Age guru who now scares people that practicing yoga is ‘demonic’. She writes that fortunately she does not believe such nonsense, but is angry that some people would be scared that her grandmother (the kindest Catholic person she ever new) could be at risk, as she visited a local community centre for a yoga class to help her aching joints.
This is serious stuff. We now have a world where very new converts are going online to scare people witless if they take a dog to a Reiki healer or listen to a lovely Sanskrit mantra. The defence of yoga has not been made easier by scandals that have rocked the world in recent years, with tales of sexual abuse where (not unlike the catholic church) the top schools have chosen to hide the truth, to keep power and money. But real yoga has nothing to do with million-dollar DVDs and toxic PVC yoga mats.
In his wonderfully funny book Happy Yoga, Steve Ross (a former rock guitarist who spent years living with ‘real gurus’ in India’) teaches of how most people have got ‘manifesting’ the wrong way around. Rather than an endless stream of desires, the goal is to find inner peace, then you just flow through life and what comes to you – comes to you naturally. He says you literally have to be Jesus (who could walk on water and turn water into wine) to be able to have that kind of focus to manifest without distraction, unlike the rest of us mortals who ultimately will fail, then yell at the universe that ‘we didn’t get what we ordered from the cosmos!’
Sen of Calm Down Mind writes something similar. If you try to ‘manifest’ a simple peaceful happy life but subconciously are stressed, you’re never going to make it. You must practice manifesting for inner peace, or else you’ll simply stay creating the same stressful situations again and again. One reader asks him ‘If I go after a peaceful state of being, I don’t need to define what I want anymore? Is that correct, or am I just being lazy?’ Sen replies, ‘Actually, that’s how it works’. Yoga teacher Erich Schiffman says he ‘lives like a King’ without asking for anything, due to finding inner peace (his yoga teacher wife is the daughter of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall).
We all die. We all suffer. We all have karma and predestined circumstances that can’t be changed. Vedic astrologers say most of our lives are mapped out (to the letter) before we are born, and there is nothing much we can do to change things. One even says it’s so mapped out that if a boat goes past your viewline at 4.02pm tomorrow afternoon, that was always going to happen. As well as all the other big stuff. So rather than take on the burden of trying to change it all, sometimes life is much simpler to ‘let go and let God’ and just go with the flow of whatever is going to happen anyway.
What’s true or not, who knows? But Love and Peace (not control by organised religions) is the answer. And you can find that peace yourself or in organised religions that practice it. It’s your choice.
