I’m sitting here, cheekbones glistening with a cry I didn’t know I had
in me. I’ve listened to John Lennon’s “Imagine” somewhere around 125,000
times, I’m almost certain. Sometimes it makes me cry, sometimes it
makes me smile and other times I just sing along and don’t even realize
the poignancy of it. But after the question posed in our eastern
religions class about the concept that every religion believes… no…
factually KNOWS that there way to “God” is the only way. Passionately
knowing that they are right and everyone else is wrong. That’s the very
essence of conviction, right, and more specifically, central to keeping
one’s faith.
If I pull away, from the way I was raised, the idea that I have been
conditioned to and try to be open it still is a baffling concept. How
can they all be right? How can only one be right? How can that notion
actually exist in the same place. WHO is right? This isn’t a question of
tolerance. It’s a question of FACT.
Let me start here. At the base of this, really, I don’t know what’s out
there. I know there are vast amounts of space. I know that there is
ground… sky… a sun… a universe… I know that below me is a deep descent
through various layers of matter which leads to a core. I don’t have
proof of a higher power and even if I believe “He/She” is there or want
to BELIEVE he’s there, it just isn’t tangible in the physical sense.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY of knowing who is “right”, in the factual
application of religion. It deals with those things we cannot touch or
see. The spiritual path is based on something occurring inside us.
Conviction is very real and very powerful but you cannot touch or see a
conviction, only the effect of it on the carrier. All these religions,
believing they are right and the rest of the world is lost, it can
co-exist because no amount of oppression, restriction, war, famine,
disease, anger or love can take away what you feel and what you KNOW.
In the last year, well… in the last seven years the person I am and the
person I am becoming is evolving. My journey to being enlightened, to
being a better human, to being closer to a meaningful “sacredness” is
based not on having to know I’m right. It’s based on accepting that no
matter what lies beyond this blink of a life I am connected. Connected
to the Buddha, connected to Jesus, connected to the person I sit next to
in class, to the people in undeveloped corners of the world that I will
never meet. We are all here, experiencing this. I don’t know who is
right but I don’t feel lost. I feel a part of something beautiful. That
within this “suffering” of a life, I am, in fact, able to hold it in the
right place and am learning to live in the right way. The tragedy to me
is that people kill other people over these sorts of convictions or on a
much smaller level, people judge so harshly and hatefully because of
them.
“…you may say, I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one…”
