So I finished my last religion project for Friday (last friday) in a night and a half. I had the first half of it done a week ago, but couldn't continue it until Thursday night. So what I did was, I did some until 12am then took a 30 minute nap. Then did some until 3am, and slept until 6:20am. I went to the uni library and started typing like no other from 7:45am to 10am. Results: I had to skip the last class of both bio and English, and the following 12 page (double spaced) paper:
Enjoy! I haven't had a chance to read it in full myself, other than the quick 15 minute scan for obvious mistakes or out of place lines. :)
Principles for Dialogue
In preparation for dialogue, I have come up with two categories that would help in ensuring a smoother conversation. The first category is that of respect; it is important to come to the discussion with an attitude of respect for the other person. When he or she begins to talk, one needs to maintain eye contact as much as possible, even during an interview, it is crucial to keep eye contact while writing notes. All pride of one’s own religion and preconceived notions of other religions need to be put aside while showing a genuine curiosity about the other’s religion. Done properly, these two suggestions may lead the interviewee to be more open and to share more information about his or her religion as he or she realizes that you are here because you are truly interested about their experience, not just to gain information for the purposes of debate. In this way we may be reminded that the person sitting next to us is a person, not a religion, and thus is someone with experiences just like us.
The second category is that of loving the other as we love ourselves. It is a command that we have heard many times before in many places, ranging from the pulpit to the bumper sticker of an automobile. In the context of a dialogue about religion with someone of a different faith, it is perhaps safe to say that love may include, and therefore intertwine with, the first category as listed above. Actions such as genuinely listening to the other’s self-expression, restating his ideas in order to show that you understand, and asking for clarification where you do not, and keeping eye contact, will all display a sense of love towards the other person while simultaneously showing a sense of respect as well.
Most of these principles in the two categories can be surmised as such: if we behave in a manner that when on the other side of the table we would appreciate, it is that behavior that must be shown in all dialogues. This is the very basic meaning of loving others as one loves oneself.
Experience Report
My experience with Jamil Adams Sulemana started off on a rather unusual note at around fifteen minutes passed noon at the Student Center. Apparently miscommunication happened along our brief email exchange, and we misunderstood one another as to where exactly the location of our meeting is to be. A good fifteen minutes was spent on waiting for each other, me at the Student Center and him in the Library, after which I proceeded to call his cell phone number to clear up the situation. It is understandable, however, that such an occasion occurred with both of us coming from different countries and being familiar with the Kent State campus for only around a year miscommunication was bound to happen; but after short pleasantries and apologies were exchanged, the dialogue quickly progressed to “official business” and I began by asking a question that has been on my mind for the past couple of days: how does praying five times a day really look like? Naturally, due to my own limited knowledge of Islam, the answer took a moment or two to be understood. It never struck me as possible that prayer should be guided by a leader or teacher in the mosque and thus further questions came to me as our conversation went on. How do the thousands of participants, like those on the television, know when it is time to bow, to chant, to move forward, to stand, or simply when the prayer is over? As it turned out, the leader is reciting certain Sūrahs that the congregation is expected to know by heart, and it is through knowing the specific Sūrahs that the prayers know when to act how. As an example, Jamil said that when the leader states “G-d is great” in Arabic, the participants are expected to prostrate themselves before Him. I was curious on the specifics of the prayers and so pursued the topic a little bit further by inquiring as to what, exactly, goes on inside the head of the person participating in this activity. Jamil informed me that usually one listens to the leader and meditates on the Sūrahs recited and, in response to my next question, also told me that after this meditative ritual has taken place one is free to talk to G-d about whatever it is they need to talk about, just as I have for my last two projects.
The air with which our dialogue began was one of an interview and it continued throughout our time together until we both went on our separate ways at exactly one o’clock. Until that time, however, we managed to discuss many different issues in Islam and exchanged certain feelings shared by both of us. Such as the disappointment that both Christianity and Islam are birthing new denominations and the agreement that such division frequently leads to internal bickering between churches. I was surprised to learn that Islam has sects other than Sunni and Shiite, including one by the name of Hannita. I strived to keep my principles of dialogue as written down in the pages above, it was much easier than expected mostly because I was intensely curious as to how another human being carries out his religious duties, and was rewarded in a manner that I never anticipated as I gained an enormous amount of respect for Islam and its adherents. I realized how similar our two religions were really were, that all that separated us was my own belief that Jesus was the Son of G-d and Jamil’s that Jesus was a prophet. I found out that the purpose of all of what we call “rituals in Islam”, the five times daily prayers, the pilgrimage and especially Ramadan is to learn discipline. Prayer is a combination of both worship and discipline, the order being to practice five times a day requiring discipline and the act itself, that of meditating on the Koran and talking to Allah afterwards, being the act of worship. And for that I greatly came to respect Jamil, for he finds time to pray in a manner that requires time to be devoted in a special way. All the more as I found out that both of us are aspiring to get into the Spring Nursing Sequence, something that comes with an inherent amount of stress and maturation. The fact that Jamil is able to commit prayer time each day for the purposes of worshipping G-d still amazes me to this day, and I can only hope that that kind of commitment can be imitated by my fellow Christians around the world.
Spiritual difficulties of our generation
If one takes a look around his or her section of the world, be it a university, the suburbs, the urban area or even just the mall, and observe the behavior of people in that area, one will likely find behaviors to complain about. Behaviors such as someone cutting another in a line, younger children acting out in public, men and women ignoring the mentally handicapped person struggling to cross the street, drivers aggressively cutting off each other on the road and similar actions can be easily ignored on our day-to-day tasks. However, while such actions may seem to be normal and as part of everyday life, it is certainly not the world that we would like to live in, as can be experienced by the crowds patiently listening to the pulpit criticize society as having gone for a turn for the worse. Indeed, while such actions may be ignored on the spot and at once dismissed as being “just rude”, it is harder to ignore once we have time to think about our experience as we lounge inside our home. Is it agreeable that the only homeless in town cannot be taken care of by the city? Is it right that the mentally handicapped be treated with such disrespect in our schools? That the one blind soul is struggling to find a seat on a bus packed with the seeing? The common theme that is generally assumed to be appropriate in public in theory is largely missing from the public in practice, as people tend not to think about what they hear on Sunday mornings after Sunday afternoon. Love is, therefore, turning out to be a rather “nice commodity”, not a “must command”, and this fact I vigorously object to.
Along with loving themselves as they love others, people are more likely now than ever to treat the topic of G-d as a “hush-hush” topic, that is to say that it is frowned upon in today’s society to attempt to start a discussion on G-d in public unless with some very close friends or family members. People are more likely to watch television on a Sunday morning than to attend a church, mosque or synagogue to attend to the spiritual side of life. Even in tighter circles, the mention of G-d can bring about an awkwardness that is hard to ignore, and to overcome that awkwardness one may be expected to end the topic with a joke or change of topic. In this fashion, G-d has become a kind of commodity slightly below football on a Sunday morning. On the other hand, however, a need for change seems to be in the air as more and more books on G-d and love are flying off of the bookshelves. People are looking to get in touch with their “innerself”, which I can only assume to be a reference to the Holy Spirit within, in order to get their lives back on track. This too, however, is a sign of apathy towards G-d: as the only reason to even attempt to find Him comes when material hardships are on the rise.
The two spiritual difficulties have a much larger implication other than the immediate niceties implicated above, large enough in fact to affect the entire world out of the box. As a society places values on its children through its schools, when the children grow up into adults and finally leaders, those same values will be reflected back on society and, in the case of the federal government, the rest of the world. In today’s world it is rather shocking to see how America’s leaders are acting in the face of such issues as mass starvation, genocide and wide-spread infectious diseases, but even more shocking to observe how well the government reflects the American citizenship’s attitudes to these issues. When it comes to genocides, like that of Rwanda and Darfur, the general attitude seems to be to ignore and hopefully it will go away. Indeed, the general public seems to show the metaphorical cold shoulder to even genocides, and by extension towards starvation and pandemics, like the AIDs pandemic sweeping the world as we speak. As it goes, the government tends to listen to the public on issues such as these, so that as the public isn’t demanding anything of the federal government, the federal government will demand even less of the international community. Such a trickle-up effect could be said to have come from the initial attitudes of society, starting with the smallest of niceties neglected, such as directing a visually impaired human being to one’s own seat on the bus or the polite manners on the roads amongst other traveling automobiles, that eventually influence our future leaders who will have the same kind of attitude to much bigger issues affecting the entire world. Many other stumbles stem from the lack of the two main spiritual difficulties, finding G-d and by extension showing love: from disregarding warnings on national security to pretending that another Holocaust is not happening and is not ever going to happen again. That is why I believe the major spiritual difficulties of our world to be a lack of love and a lack of concern towards G-d.
Addressing the issues
Each of the five religions studied this past semester, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, address both of the spiritual difficulties discussed above. In all of these, the common theme seems to be one that of love of G-d and our neighbors. As these five religions are the major religions of the world, accounting for approximately 74% of the world’s population according to adherents.com, it is perhaps logical that if everyone went with what their religion teaches on the issues of love and G-d, the world might be a much safer and happier place.
Dharma is a concept in Hinduism that means one’s righteous duty as it pertains to his or her life, this can be seen in the Bhagavad-Gita in Teaching 3, verse 8: “Perform necessary action; it is more powerful than inaction; without action you even fail to sustain your body.” In today’s world, it can be argued that the necessary action today is to love one another. By defining dharma as such, the cycle of no love and inconsiderateness can be broken and the difficulties solved. On a different note, the Bhagavad-Gita states “disciplining himself, his mind controlled, a man of discipline finds peace, the pure calm that exists in me” (Sixth Teaching, verse 15), which explicitly implies a sense of calmness to the man of discipline who controls his mind and focuses on Krishna. Such calmness, when applied to all adherents, can be very effective in controlling any anger that might arise from any situation. On a worldwide scale, the Presidents, Prime Ministers and other leaders of the world might very well avert international miscommunication by acting in such a way. It might be worthwhile to note that while Krishna of the Bhagavad-Gita does encourage a certain distancing from those around us, He does not suggest a total withdrawal, as can be implicitly seen in Sixth Teaching:
He who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me will not be lost to me, and I will not be lost to him. I exist in all creatures, so the disciplined man devoted to me grasps the oneness of life; wherever he is, he is in me. When he sees identity in everything, whether joy or suffering, through analogy with the self, he is deemed a man of pure discipline. (verses 30-32)
These verses seem to imply that Krishna is in everyone, that there is a oneness in life and that the disciplined man is always in Krishna. Since Krishna is the lead god of the Bhagavad-Gita, it makes sense to not harm one another if He is inside of us, and the only way to recognize that he is inside of us is through knowing him through discipline (in this case, yoga) of the mind, thus addressing both spiritual difficulties mentioned above.
The Dhammapada of Buddhism strongly encourages a life of love for our neighbors, be they friend or foe, and addresses most of the issues in the book in way that ultimately asks us to love. On the topic of violence, for example, verse 130 states that “all tremble before violence. Life is held dear by all. Having done the same yourself, you should neither harm nor kill” in a clear message to avoid murder and war for you would not want to be harmed either. In verse 197 it also asks us to live peacefully even in the midst of hostility and in verse 251 compares hatred to seizure. Furthermore, Buddhism seems to be a quest to cure all suffering, as can be seen from the four noble truths: that life is dukha (suffering or pain), that the cause of dukha is tanha (craving), that the way to cure dukha is to remove tanha, and finally that to remove tanha one must follow the eight fold path. With such an emphasis on eliminating suffering and hatred, Buddhism clearly addresses the issue of lack of love in the world today and therefore the increase in apathy in affluent countries towards those in third world countries.
In contrast to the Dhammapada, the Jewish Torah is more directed at finding G-d Himself, at discovering how one could be with the one and true G-d, the second problematic issue addressed previously. In Deuteronomy 11:26-28, Moses is speaking to the Israelites when he says that
I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the L-rd your G-d that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the L-rd your G-d, but turn away from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.
It is clear from these verses that by obeying G-d, that by loving G-d (Deut. 11:1), a blessing will come. Naturally, chapters such as chapter 10 in Deuteronomy lay out the specific instructions which must be followed if the Israelites are to obey G-d and fulfill chapter 11’s instructions. A part of these instructions is that “you shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:19). Deuteronomy 24:19-22 and Leviticus 19 continues this trend of compassion for those around us by instructing the Israelites to leave harvest, olives and grapes for the outcasts, the orphans, widows and strangers. Deuteronomy further continues to give instructions in various disputes, anything from the legal to the personal, in order to avoid conflict and to promote peace and love for those around us. By making love an order, the Torah is also stating that since we are to follow G-d in all we do, and He commands us to love each other, through loving we can get closer to following His requirements for us.
Christianity continues in the steps of Judaism through encouraging the order to love by separating it into two commandments that summarize all the other laws of Judaism. These commandments, that of to love G-d with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:29) and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31), were said by Jesus in response to a question on which law of the Torah was the greatest of them all. Jesus’ response was a clear commandment to love everyone as ourselves and that by doing so we are doing G-d’s will. In this way Christianity and Judaism has common ground, both address the two issues of apathy towards G-d and lack of love towards man as being just one issue where the other (love towards man) is dependent on the former. The New Testament of the Bible instructs these two types of love in numerous occasions, mentioning “love” 234 times in the New American Standard Bible, including the profound verse in John 13:35 where Jesus says that “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.” With such an emphasis on love, it is not surprising that many key figures of Christianity continued emphasizing love; like Mother Theresa who stated that “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” The Christian is, therefore, expected to strive to solve both issues of apathy towards G-d and a lack of love towards man, first by seeking G-d and then therefore through loving others as commanded by G-d.
The Quran of Islam places an even greater emphasis on obeying G-d and seeking Him out, stating in Sūrah 17:23 that we are to worship none but the L-rd and that, in verses 25-30 that in order to worship we need to be kind towards others. On the topic of forgiveness, Sūrah 7:199 says that we should “hold to forgiveness; command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant”. In an effort to practice the latter of this verse, Mohammed asked his followers to pray five times daily in order to practice discipline and to worship Allah. Furthermore, in confirmation with that order, Sūrah 16:128 states that “Allah is with those who restrain themselves, and those who do good.” Such orders to worship and be kind to one another are applicable on an international level as well, Sūrah 8:61 urges nations to not make pointless wars with each other, that if a nation searches for peace we should search for peace as well. In this way Islam addresses both issues as well, but places emphasis on worshipping Allah and following His commandments in everything.
As we can see, each religion addresses the two main spiritual difficulties affecting our world today. The overwhelming theme is to love G-d and to love our neighbor, with many times the second being the result of the first. The second is not only the result, but in religions where a heavy emphasis is placed on a god, loving your neighbor is usually a command along with loving your god; with the exception being the Dhammapada which does not emphasize the god concept but rather strives to free all human beings from suffering through achieving Nirvanah in a meditative state. If all adherents of these religions, 74% of the world population, followed these specific verses and instructions, the world might very well be rid of most of its violence, hostility and ignorance towards those less well off than we, we can only hope and pray that future generations will take seriously these very serious commands to love everyone, regardless of who they are and where they stand in the global, local and social societies of our making.the sc
Okay, maybe not to only do that, but still. 12 hours is a long time. :P