In my life-long study of the world’s religions I have come upon one central fact that I deeply believe.  That is that I’ve found that the basic truths of this existence cross-pollinate across most all religions.  The language may be often unfamiliar, but the essences of what each inspired person who originated the religion was trying to get at are the same.

At Watchfire Music, we like to say, “Truth is truth” meaning that no one religion has a particular corner on the great truths of our universe and that truth simply is.  When a person of any race, creed or color discovers it and puts it into their own words, we as a people are drawn to that truth simply because it is the truth – no matter what the wording.

Granted, some do it better than others, but if we separate it out, we often find that it’s the phraseology that makes us mistrust the words and consequently sometimes also the inner truth.  Let’s remember that it’s the inner truth that counts.  A wording that might work for one might not work for another and vice versa.  Different strokes for different folks.

The important thing is the nugget of truth.

I like very much to approach the truth through different channels of language and religion.  I find that one illuminates and solidifies the other as long as we can see through the language and focus on the inner truth.  Sometimes approaching the truth this way can illuminate things like never before — like studying a particular Bible passage using various Bible translations.

I came across a couple of paragraphs in a Buddhist book that I read each morning which further illuminates this:

“After meditation, it’s important not to give in to our tendency to solidify the way we perceive things.

When you do re-enter every day life, let the wisdom, compassion, insight, humor, fluidity, spaciousness, and the detachment that meditation brought you pervade your day-to-day experience.  Meditation awakens in you the realization of how the nature of everything is illusory and dreamlike.  Maintain that awareness even in the thick of samsara.

One great master has said, “After meditation practice, one should become a child of illusion.”

Go back and read the above quote paragraphs and replace the word “meditation” when it comes up with the words “deep prayer”.  When we do, the truth shines through.

We get stopped when we get to the word ‘samsara’ if we don’t know what ‘samsara’ means to a Buddhist, but when we look it up and see that it means “the endless cycle of birth and suffering and death and rebirth” then we get it and understand that ‘samsara’ simply means our mortality.  The good advice given is to maintain that awareness even in the thick of mortality.

Essentially, what the above paragraphs said to me when I first read and then studied them are this.  Don’t stop and take time to consider the infinite and then dive mindlessly back into the finite.  Take the experience of prayer or meditation on with you as you live.

If you’re going to realign, make sure it sticks.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.