Why is it hard for many people to accept miracles in a religion other than their own? Very normal, logical and sane people accept that Jesus walked on water, changed water to wine, healed the sick, brought Lazarus back from the afterlife and rose himself three days after his own death; but these same people think miracles in other religions are myth and fable.
Maybe I am able to suspend reality and accept imagination better than others? Perhaps I am equipped to see divinity in people where others can not? I don’t know, I do however know that it bothers me when Christians can not accept that the divine can choose to show itself to any one anywhere.
Why can some people not understand that what they call God might show itself to others as gods, or devas, or angels or whatever it is that a person or people might need to experience? If a mother from the amazon prays and begs for the forest spirits heal her child, why would the divine not intercede and do just that? Just because she uses a name other than Jesus, or Yahweh or Allah or Buddha; don’t we think that the divine can hear all?
OK, I will stop ranting now…
This all started because I am reading a book right now called Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. I am not far enough in to the book to offer anything like a review or insightful comment, but I know that the book describes the lives of many yogis from India and the Himalayas. I know that it describes men and women that could heal the sick, float over rivers and become non-corporeal with thought.
I can buy all of that. I believe that Jesus did the works associated with his ministry, and I can accept that there might be others who can do many if not all of those same miracles, even today; all by faith in themselves and faith in the divine. I have faith that the divine creator of the universe can manifest itself anywhere in any time. To do otherwise would be to limit the limitless, to contain the universe in my own box. I can’t do that, can you?
I know that I cannot be considered an orthodox Christian any longer, nor could I be counted among the orthodox Buddhists, but I am comfortable with my own beliefs. I see the divine in others and myself, I see the divine in the world around me and I welcome it and call out to it. I also know that we all have eternal souls that suffer because we are mired in delusion.
I am no Bodhisattva, but I pray, I meditate and I smile. I try to be compassionate and mindful at all times, though I do fall short sometimes. “Loving kindness is my religion,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that once, but I will use it from now on as my own statement of faith.
So for now I am back to work, love you.
Matt
Amen.