I find this article interesting, written by Jim Dreaver, a
Canadian. @ www.jimdreaver.com
Enlightenment and Religion
Q. Are you saying that enlightenment is incompatible with religion,
that we cant both be enlightened and, say, be a devout Jew, or
Christian, or Moslem?
I think if people are devout and follow the true teachings of their
particular religion, especially as they relate to the values I just
mentioned, then that is a fairly enlightened way to live. However,
awakening, or enlightenment, in the way I use the word, refers to
understanding who we are beyond all our beliefs, concepts, and
ideas about who we are.
It is knowing ourselves as the awareness, the consciousness, behind
all phenomena, behind all creation, which includes the creation of
religious beliefs and stories. Enlightenment means unconditional
freedom, a freedom that does not depend on any agent, belief, or
circumstance.
Once you have seen through the illusion of the world inside your
head, which is what enlightenment is, you can no longer cling to
any particular story about reality, which includes a religious
identity or point of view. Instead, you find yourself honoring,
equally, the core of truth and goodness in all religions. However,
you may well choose to worship or express your love of the Divine
through a particular religion.
The path to true freedom is not incompatible with going to church,
the mosque, or to temple. In fact, the freer you get of your own
story, and of attachment to ideas and images of self, the more
clearly youll understand and relate to the heart of the great
spiritual and religious teachings. You just wont get lost in all
the dogma, the rules and restrictions, the guilt-tripping. Meister
Eckhart, the fifteenth century German mystic, had clearly realized
his true nature, but he continued to be a Christian preacher. The
Dalai Lama is a contemporary example of an awakened human being
who, because of destiny, finds himself espousing the cause of
Tibetan Buddhism
For a growing number of us throughout the world, however, the
deeper our own inquiry into the true nature of God and creation,
and the greater our own hunger for true inner peace and freedom,
the less satisfied we are with attaching to any form of belief or
story. We want the experience of awakening, of enlightenment,
now.
For that to happen, we must get fully and alertly present now, see
all our stories and beliefs for what they are, mere objects in
consciousness, and realize that what we fundamentally are is the
consciousness which sees.
