I awoke this morning to the news of the terrible atrocities carried out yesterday in Norway, and as ever when something like this happens, I had great difficulty in getting my head around it all.  I always feel a kind of surreality about occurrences such as this; as I watched from the comfort of my living room (that I often complain about as being too small) I simply couldn’t comprehend the horror experienced first hand by all those concerned.  These awful deeds were apparently perpetrated by a Christian fundamentalist; which probably raised a few eyebrows, for in the West, with our tunnel vision and selective eyesight and hearing, we nearly always expect such perpetrators to be so-called Muslim fundamentalists.  But why should anyone be surprised that this atrocity was carried out by a right-wing Christian activist?  All this man did was confirm what has been known for a long time by all those who walk a pathway of light; that is, that ALL religion as we know it is man-made and has no place in modern-day spirituality.  For thousands of years humans have taken the names of various religions, that the early pioneers sweated blood to found, and have simply put their own stamp on them for the sake of their own egos and greed.

Not so long ago I was listening to a programme on the radio, it was one of those programmes where they invite a panel on to take part in a discussion.  Basically, one of the panel was a lady who was quite high up in the Christian church here in the UK and she was accusing Islam of being a political organisation; this it seemed was the crux of the discussion.  It was probably the only time I have been tempted to call into one of these phone-in type shows.  The lady in question came across as being nothing more than a racist bigot, and she was certainly not representative of me or any of my spiritual views.  Another panel member was a very polite and humble Muslim man from the North West of England who conducted himself with great humility.  It was suggested to him that his religion was a political organisation with a sinister hidden agenda.  I had to laugh, because you can’t get more political than Christianity; just ask any woman who has ever applied to become a priest.

But the purpose of this article is not to have a go at Christians per say; the purpose is actually two-fold.  Firstly, it serves as a reminder to the Western world that there are two sides to every coin.  It has almost become fashionable to assume that all Muslims are terrorists, when we forget that, apart from the man who carried out the slaughter in Norway, there are also organisations such as the Ku-Klux-Klan for example, who profess to be Christians and have been carrying out acts of atrocity for years.  Secondly, it also serves as a reminder to us all, regardless of which side of the fence we come from, of who we are NOT.

The true nature of human beings is that of love; but in this world of paradox it stands to reason that we will experience the opposite of who we are.  By experiencing who we are not we are able to know who we are and realise our true identity.  From time to time during human incarnation we most certainly will encounter that which makes us think and that which makes us feel uncomfortable; and it is in such moments that we are experiencing who we are not.  Anyway, back to religion.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which ”club” we join and which label we choose to stick on ourselves; we are all inter-connected.  I’ve said it before many times, and I’ll say it again, the beauty of the human race is its unity in diversity.  On the surface we are all different colours, races and creeds…. and yes… religions.  We are all different shapes and sizes, but underneath we are all Divine spirit.  That is the pure, unsullied beauty of it all; no matter what anyone does to try to separate themselves from the caste of humanity, any such separation will only ever be a figment of the imagination.  I’m going to finish by reproducing a section of a discourse by Sri Sathya Sai Baba that I’ve taken from the February 2002 edition of the ashram magazine Sanathana Sarathi.

WHAT DOES RELIGION MEAN

Religion today has been rendered meaningless and valueless by all kinds of misinterpretations given by sectarian and perverse exponents.  The basic meaning of religion is to lead man to his source.  The word “religion” consists of two parts: “re” meaning “again” and ”ligio” meaning ”to come together”.  That is to say, ”reuniting with God is religion”.  People consider religion as a bundle of do’s and dont’s to be followed strictly.  This is totally wrong.  The sacred aim of religion is to remind man of his Divine origin and help him to reunite with God.

~ Baba