Interfaith

Our minds can only think thoughts and concepts.  So think of the Absolute, as beyond all concepts, totally unapproachable by the mind.  Whatever you might think of the Absolute, call it God, or whatever, it is beyond that.  But the Absolute wants to communicate with us humans.  So the Absolute manifests itself to us in our human reality.  This could be Christ, Krishna, Buddha for instance.  They are not all the same, as is obvious from any study you might do.  But each is not a partial revelation of the Absolute.  The Absolute cannot be broken into parts. They are not each pieces of a puzzle, called the Absolute.  Each revelation is the fullness of whatever the Absolute can reveal to our limited perspective of mind, soul, human makeup.  So Jesus is neither a partial revelation nor the only revelation.  Neither is Buddha, Krishna, and Allah.  They are all fullness but in different ways, appealing to different cultures and humankind.  Only the mystic sees something of oneness underlying revelation.  So why proclaim or follow Jesus?  For me, it is the fullness of revelation on my spiritual path.  It is my way of accessing what I call God.  To me he is everything.  I proclaim this revelation to all hoping that it may resonate with some.  But I do not say "I am right.  You are wrong."  Nor is it relativity, that is, "We are all the same."  What I have learned from my contemplative practice is that we do have differences, deep differences.  I have the gift of faith in the revelation of Jesus Christ, but it may not be a universal path for all people.  So why did Jesus say to go baptize the world?  So that we could come across "the other" and maybe through deeper prayer, learn to love one another rather than kill one another for what the mind perceives as differences. Plus, we might learn something more about our Christ from the perspective of adepts in other paths. We might learn to talk to others about our Christ from within their culture.  There is only one Absolute, and it is beyond all paths.  But I for one need a path or I am lost.  My preaching shares my Christian path.  It is expanded and deepened by contemplation.