Know Thyself
…I have experienced the journey of my evolution from theoretician to practitioner. I have known the soaring of my heart, with each successful breakthrough; the feeling of freedom, from within, of tolerance; and the appreciation that there are indeed many paths to God, in the broadest sense of the name. I have understood that a mature believer of whatever religion or faith is one who entertains the criticism of other ways of seeing the world and tries to explore the questions that men like Karl Marx and Wilheim Nietzche posed to them. By looking at his religious or spiritual life through another’s glasses, such a believer finds release from an institutional machine, to freedom, love and understanding.
It is my sincere hope that religious institutions would, one day, no longer dictate pre-formulated answers to all the questions of the seeker; that the seeker would cease to submit to the obsessions of former generations; that he or she will discover an experience of uninterrupted vitality; and become motivated by freedom, love, understanding, and originality. It is worth it. As the prophet Mohammed explains so elegantly, it is because: “Whoso pursues the road of knowledge, God will direct him to the road of paradise. Verily, the superiority of a learned man over a mere worshipper is like that of the full moon over all the stars!”
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