Here's the One Point We Know the World's Religions Agree Upon (in Word)
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To the right are links to the quotes from each of the world's common religions themselves about possessions & money (not listed in any order of superiority). Actually, it isn't really just about possessions & money, it's about the deepest heart of all that we value, the deepest heart of all humanity. Do they all agree? Judge for yourself.
The Root of All
Like a brambly tree, its branches seem contradictory & chaotic. But when you follow any of these branches down low, low, low, to the trunk, to the ground, to simplicity, you find the Root. Then you find that all the branches are One. Do You Practice Your Own Religion?If you don't see all religions as one, is it a sign that you don't practice the Foundation of Simplicity that your own religion teaches? When all possessions are given up, in other words, when all humility is taken on, then all things, physical & spiritual & intellectual, become Common. And, at this point of no-possession, like the Book of Mormon states, there are no more isms or ites or property, and, like the Buddhist sutras state, no more self and other.Totally RadicalRadical means "of the Root." If you're afraid to get radical, you're not worthy of your own religion. It might get you crucified. And if you're not willing to follow what you yourself know to be true, to the end, you reject that cross that hangs as a pretty ornament around your neck. Humble means "of the soil." You can't get to the Root unless you get humble. You have to give up everything. You have to bow your head to the ground, to the soil.
Every Religion, Every Philosophy, is a Witness
But the majority of religious folks think their own religion the only true religion. Seems ridiculous. But is it? This tribal mentality, Ego, is also an intriguing part of nature. This mentality has kept the witnesses separated. Separation, unity, separation, unity. This is the perpetual Law of all the universe. You can't know the truth in a court of law if you don't keep the witnesses separated. And you can't know the truth if they don't eventually come together. But it all must happen at its proper time, or it won't work.
Now is the time when the witnesses can no longer isolate themselves. Now is the time
when we compare the testimonies of the world's witnesses. Now is the time when the 12 tribes gather from the Four Directions and realize they are One.What Buddha preaches in his language, people receive and assimilate in their own language as if it were intended exclusively for them.(Mahaparinirvana Sutra)
Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I Am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? wherefore I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.
(Book of Mormon, 2Nephi 29:8)
Babylon
Yes, religion becomes meaningless babble under the drug of greed. Religion has become Babylon. Of course religion is meaningless babble when you sever it from its Root,
Simplicity. Religion has become dead, separated branches that bear no fruit. Get back to the Root of anything, and it all becomes clear, all contentions cease, and the twelve tribes gather again as One from the four corners of the world. Plus, the branches will actually produce fruit!
Let the Tower of Babel come tumbling down!
Babylon is fallen, is fallen!
Heaven & Hell
And what's with Heaven & Hell? Are they not Credit & Debt? Are they not our Great Test, revealing the Authentic & betraying the impostors of religion? Those who desire heaven & fear hell betray themselves that they are servants of desire, otherwise called greed: slaves of Mammon. They cannot help but be children of greed, chasing dollars.
True devotion is for itself:
not to desire heaven nor to fear hell.
--Rabia al-Adawiya (The Mother of the Islamic Sufi Way)
All the way to heaven is heaven.
― Teresa of Ávila
You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
(The Torah, Deuteronomy 5:32)
Blessed are those whose minds are filled with this longing.
They do not seek wealth, and they do not desire paradise.
They are immersed in the deep love of their Beloved, and the dust of the feet of the Holy.
(Adi Granth, Gauri Bavan Akkhari, M.5, p. 251)
We must learn to remove from all God's gifts to us
the sense of our own self,
to possess nothing of our own and to seek nothing,
neither advantage nor pleasure
nor inwardness nor sweetness
nor reward nor heaven itself
nor our own will.
--Meister Eckhart, Talks of Instruction
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