Question 144: About evaluating religions

 

 

Question 144: How does the Gospel of Oneness evaluate religious teachings?

 

You can evaluate any religious teaching, preaching, and prophecy by asking a few key questions. One of the first questions to ask is: Is this a teaching of an external salvation wherein you need to believe a certain doctrine, or do some rituals, or behave in a certain way, or have a specific mental image of a deity? Or is this a teaching that asks you to go within yourself and discover your own Self-realization and oneness with God? Does it encourage you to expand your consciousness and go for direct experience of God?

The next series of questions would start with: Does this teaching claim to have an infallible scripture, doctrine, and world view? Or is this teaching free of making absolute claims about truth? Does this teaching permit doubt and encourage the asking of searching questions about everything?

The third series of questions would be about the after-life since every religion has some opinion about it. Does it say that humans will go to either heaven or hell for eternity after one life on Earth? Or does it say that every soul is on a long journey of many physical incarnations before it fully reunites with the Creator God?

You can listen to most Christian and Muslim teachers, and they will say they have an external way of salvation that one must follow. They will also claim to have infallible scriptures and absolute truth on their side. If this is what you accept then you would be in the majority of the followers of these religions.

So we can see there are two types of religion—the outer and the inner. The outer religions emphasize certain beliefs and rituals that people should follow in order to be saved. For the Christian religion the outer part is a belief in Jesus Christ as God’s only begotten son and that he died on the cross in order to pay or atone for the sins of mankind, at least for the ones who accept that idea. Other outer rituals include a water baptism of some kind that marks you as a member of the religion, holy communion that symbolizes your discipleship, confession of sins because we are all sinners, and belief in the Bible as the word of God, whether entirely inerrant or not.

Within these outer activities there is much variation that Christians debate about. Some say the Calvinistic doctrine is the correct one, but plenty of people disagree. Other debate topics are about faith versus works, the correct way to baptize, the role of music in worship, the end times and whether or not Jesus is coming back soon, and whether salvation is universal or just partial. These debates have gone on for centuries and so appear to be endless.

This type of outer religion is what Jesus criticized the Jewish priesthood for. They had all kinds of rules and regulations for proper religious behavior such as not working on the Sabbath day and what actually counted as work. Their emphasis was on keeping a respectable outer appearance of religion.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is within us, and so he said we could have a direct inner experience of God if we put our hearts, souls, and minds into our quest for God-realization. He said love and compassion are the keys to living a holy life. He advised people to get rid of their own faults before criticizing others. Help everyone you can, especially the down and out, the forsaken, the sick and the lame.

In the inner religion you don’t need to debate all the nuances of the outer doctrines. Instead, the idea is to keep your mind and heart centered on your personal relationship with God and Jesus, if Jesus is your guide. If someone else is your guide back to God such as Krishna or a more recent teacher, then follow his or her advice. (the idea that Jesus is the only way back to God is an outer doctrine.)

Let’s go within and raise our consciousness so that we can get a better idea of the truth through intuitive experience. The inner connection with God is known by experiencing bliss, deep peace, ever-new joy, creativity, expansion of your consciousness, and ever increasing love for everyone.

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul. – Swami Vivekananda

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“Beautify your inner dialogue. Beautify your inner world with love light and compassion. Life will be beautiful.”

― Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power