Interfaith Awareness Week

Only Four More Days To Go—Thank God!

We are currently in the middle of the 9^th annual Interfaith Awareness Week (August 10-16): seven days where we pretend that the world’s religions worship the same god, share the same goals, and preach universal love. Luckily, that leaves humans 358 days to be honest about our gods and beliefs.

We don’t worship the same god. The Jewish and Muslim gods are childless. The Christian god has a son. The Christian god incarnates as Jesus. The Hindu god incarnates as Krishna. The Jewish god wrote the Torah, the Christian god inspired the Gospels, the Muslim god dictated the Qur’an, and the Hindu god authored the Mahabharata. The Jewish god chooses only Jews. The Christian god saves only Christians. The Muslim god divides the world into believers and infidels. The Hindu god separates Hindus into lower and higher castes. The only thing these gods agree on is their mutual oppression of women and queer folks.

Regarding their goals, Christianity and Islam aim for global dominance, often through the use of force. Meanwhile, Hinduism and Judaism are nationalist religions that allow violence to achieve local superiority rather than worldwide control.

For every house built through interfaith cooperation, many more are destroyed by interfaith violence. Despite the love-bombing typical of interfaith gatherings in North America, actual bombings are the norm in real interfaith encounters between Jews and Muslims in Israel, Gaza, and the Occupied Territories, Christians and Muslims in Sudan and Nigeria, Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and Hindus, Muslims, and Christians in India. Although these conflicts involve ethnic, racial, and economic factors, it is religion that sustains the violence.

There was a time when I was active in the interfaith world, but that time is long past. Central to my transition out of interfaith was the time I spent at Yogaville, the Satchitananda Ashram, in Virginia. I love the place, the people, the teachings, and the practice. At the center of the Ashram is The Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS). Inside the shrine, there is a series of altars honoring different religious and spiritual paths, each lit by a central light rising from beneath the shrine floor, symbolizing the Divine Light within us all. Meditating in the shrine is a powerful experience. Over time, however, I cared less about the altars and more about the Light.

As St. Paul taught, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Sit in The Light of Truth Universal Shrine long enough, and you will realize there is no Christ or Krishna; no Torah, Gospels, Qur’an, Vedas, or Zend Avesta; no Jew, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Baha’i, or humanist, or anyone or anything else. There is only the Light: the nondual reality of YHVH/Brahman/Tao manifesting as all of reality, and the Golden Rule offered by Confucius and Hillel that naturally flows from knowing it: What is hateful to you, do not do to another (see Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent and The World Wisdom Bible).

While this truth exists in each religion, finding it requires a great deal of effort, and seeing how each religion justifies breaking the Rule leads to despair. As we enter a new dark age of civilizational collapse driven by a deep fear of reason, science, nature, freedom, and nonduality, I suggest we replace Interfaith Awareness Week with a daily commitment to step beyond religion to the truth of nonduality and the ethic of the Golden Rule that accompanies it. Religion is not the answer; it is the problem.

To get started, listen to Tom Lehrer’s 1965 anthem for National Brotherhood Week and relate it to Interfaith Awareness Week, particularly its closing verse:

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Muslims
And everybody hates the Jews

But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood Week
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you
It's only for a week, so have no fear
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year