The moon
I want to start this one with a small story.
There was this master, truly enlightened, known to have helped so many people in a major way to achieve great spiritual heights. An eager student went to see him and asked him some explanation about the holy scriptures. The eager student was flabbergasted to learn that the master did not know the scriptures. Then the master took the eager student outside and pointed with his finger to the moon. Can you see the moon? The eager student saw the moon. The master explained that his finger was used to show someone the moon. It is perfectly possible to see the moon without his finger. Similarly words are used to point at the Truth and it is perfectly possible to see the Truth without words.
I think this is a great story. But the true meaning lies perhaps a bit deeper still. If someone shows us the big moon with his finger, we will sure be looking both at the moon and see the biggest nightly light illuminating the earth in its own magical way. If we search for the big Truth, surely we will find it through the meaning of the most important words.
The problem arises when we start to get super-focused on the small truths. If someone's finger shows you a small star among many other stars, the chance is great that you will look at a different star than the one the finger points at. Similarly if we look for small truths we may see something different than what the words are pointing at. The stars do not give too much light, they may be merely there to beautify the sky. So is it also with small truths, they do not give to much light, they may be just meant as small ornaments.
Today, many of our scholars in different religions tend to get lost in the small truths, like what we should wear, what rituals we should perform (inclusive of exact timing and postures). They may even be looking at the wrong stars. The smaller the truths, the more likely they look at the wrong stars, making the world instead of bit more beautiful, a bit more ugly.
If just more scholars could get focused on the bigger truths on the real source of light. they could share the light with their followers. If more scholars would focus on the essentials (which are often very similar among different religions), they would become of real benefit to the world and help speed up the kindness revolution which our world needs so much and so urgently.
Any doubts about the biggest truth? Here I give one example from one religion. There is a phrase in the Quran, that is repeated 114 times. It states that our Creator is the most gracious and the most forgiving, which is matching closely the main message that Jesus (Isa) had for us.. How many sermons do we hear focusing on this? Most sermons I attend talk about rituals, punishment, culture, clothes, anger of God, hell, and so many other small, small things. If we all realize and are fully aware most of the time about the goodness of our God, we cannot but become the most grateful human beings. We will try with all our soul to live in the true spirit of God and follow the right path, the golden path of honesty, kindness, humility, sincerity, charity, caring hearts and love in its biggest sense.
Searching for the big Truth, we will find
Searching for the small truths we may get lost in rituals and culture
True!
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