Re: pessimist
Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Sat, 07 Feb 1998 21:59:42 -0800 (PST)
> << Specifically? But Christ's point was "don't worship me, you don't
need me,
> you
> only need each other" and unfortunately that is the perspective I was
>sharing
> which you obviously missed. It is the concept of worshipping one
person
>above
> others which completely destroys spirituality. Love is a concept, not
a
> celebrity.
> You don't need to be a Christian to serve Christ. Get it? And if you
have to
> be a
> Christian to serve Christ, then you don't get it.
I remember Joseph Campbell talking about a cross-faith meeting of
clergies...and he tells us that while the Buddhist and Catholic priests
had trouble understanding each other, the Buddhist and Christian monks
understood each other just fine.
Mr. Campbell also tells us that reading the Bible and puzzling over the
literal meanings of the writing is comparable to going to a restaurant,
seeing steak on the menu, and then beginning to eat the menu.
The Word describes the truth; it is not itself the Truth. Once you can
see in that state of mind, I think, you can see that Jesus and Buddha
were telling us the same thing.
What were they telling us? God, I won't even pretend to be qualified to
teach that. Or perhaps I'll just refer to the Buddhist teacher who
stepped up before his pupils to give the day's lectures. Just as the
lecture was about to begin, a little bird sang a song out the window.
The teacher waited until the bird had finished and said, "The lecture
has been given."
Brendan
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