My Journey Thus Far: Part 1- On God, His Message, and Morality

As I progress along my spiritual journey I have introduced myself to a wide range of ideas, thoughts, and concepts so that I may understand and love my fellow man. In celebration of my approaching 100th post I thought I would review my spiritual growth over these last few months. I had made a similar post once before when I started this blog and even though it does not outwardly appear that I've experienced any spiritual growth, I have begun deeply internalizing what I've learned.

God
I see too much order and patterns in the Universe for there not to be a Creator (Primum movens or a First Cause God). Whether this God takes the form of an omnipotent Being outside of the universe or as the universe itself (Universal Consciousness), I do not know nor do I think is important. I see an eternal creative force present in everything throughout the universe and from this force out flows eternal beauty and eternal love. It is this eternal love that I recognize as God. I do not believe that any holy text comes close to describing the Creator and a part of me believes that the Creator portrayed in our text is man's honest attempt at describing Him. But I'll touch on that later. The more important question every believer must eventually ask of themselves is how does my belief in God make me a better person?

The Message
Live a loving, compassionate, and just life. That's it. Everything else, be it belief or works, should revolve around this foundation as an expression not as the foundation itself. Merely believing in God does not make you a loving a compassionate person. It might "save" your soul but it may trap you from fully embracing and loving your brother. I know and have met many believers that lack these foundational qualities. Over and over again in the western monotheistic religions there is one theme that repeats itself: if you love God, serve your fellow man. I would take it one step further and say: whether or not you love God, serve your fellow man. We should not be good people BECAUSE a holy book or God tells us to be good people, but we should be good people because we WANT TO BE good people. Our morality should come from within and should not be dictated from an outside source or else we would just be bad people who act good because we're told to act that way. Of course some believers would say I have it all wrong and say it is because of their beliefs that they are good people.

Personal Practice and Morality
Do we need to acknowledge God to be a moral person? No, we can doubt all we want as long as we strive to be loving, compassionate, and respectful to one another. As I've stated above, I believe we have the ability to become good people without any outside force poking us with a stick until we get it right. This is what Atheist would argue and I agree with them. There are universal truths (common sense laws) that speak on morality that everyone agrees on. Everyone agrees that we should not go around randomly killing, stealing, and raping people without justice. We agree that these are acts against humanity, which is what we should concern ourselves more with instead of acts against God. Which is more important: feeding and clothing the needy or protecting the definition of marriage? On an individual level, I believe that anything that truly cause you to becoming a more loving and compassionate person should be practiced. If meditating on the Golden Image of Buddha helps to build patience and kindness (which I'm not even sure if that's even what it's suppose to do), then May the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha bless you. If believing in the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ causes you to be a more loving and charitable person, then may God be with you. If praying 5 times a day while facing Mecca reorientates your life so that you are mindful of your daily actions, then peace be upon you. I believe that our goals all point in the same direction: service to one another.

Even though my stance on certain religious views have changed, and will continue to change, I ground my spiritual foundation in Love, Justice, and Compassion. While growing up my foundational example, which acts as my moral compass, is represented in the teachings of Jesus. He along with many other prophets and spiritual guides have tapped into these universal truths which mankind desperately seeks. What I seek is to serve my fellow man, others may judge my methods as "sinful" and even dangerous, but I would rather serve my fellow man in this life and risk "damning my soul" than to believe in rigid beliefs that keeps me from truly loving my brother.