Any people into the concept of all paths lead to God?

I'm a universal Sufi, and also practice the Dances of Universal Peace, a moving meditation honoring all the world's spiritual traditions. I'm interesting in connecting with others in this group who honor all spiritual traditions and who do interfaith practices.

conclusion... it was a strange place but I did.

I am Jewish who grew up in a Catholic country..., and a child of a survivor. So you may understand taht I grew very protected.

So one day while being in the middle of someobdy else's lithurgy, due to what I chose to do as a volunteer, I reached that conclusion.

The problem is that many folks believe in my way or the highway. Heck I even think that you can find similar stories (such as the Flood) across cultures, and chiefly creation, because we all yearn to understand and all patsh do lead to a single crator force. There are days I think I am becoming a Deist, in the traditional 18th century sense, if you get my drift

:hi:

Nothing else makes sense to me.

This idea is only practiced by the heterodox members of most religions. About the only momotheistic based fgaith that accepts the validity of all previous religious are the Baha'is. For a time while he was exiled in Iraq, the founder of the Baha'i faith was beleived to be a dervish (or sufi mystic) by the people living in the area where he was exiled.

Most of the founders of various Sufi sects were greatly persecuted, by the orthodox, conservative followers of Islam, som even executed for their beleifs. Al Hallaj, one of the greatest Sufi Mystics was crucified for his more mystic and universal interpretation of Islam and other faiths. There are even tales that Hallaj. like Christ, rose from the dead, and was raised bodily to heave, the second coming of Christ. YOu dont hear much of this in Christian lands. In Turkey, for many years after the overthow of the Ottoman Empire, the Sufi Followers of Mevlana persecuted and their practice made illegal. It was not until the year 2000 that Turkey finally honored the founder of this sect of Islam.

All religions go through this sort of orthodox/heterodox schism in their practices. After the founder of the religion dies, invariably, his words are carved in stone, and the founder made more than human, his teachings made inaccessable, so that later orthodox practitioners of the watered down faith can rest assured in their beleifs that they were not meant to behave in the fashion that the prophet or founder of their religion indicated in scripture.

The heterodox tend to take the universal spiritual and social teachings of their faith literally, that the prophet meant that they feed the poor, and that their god is not the sole property of "true beleivers". The orthodoxy usually behave more like current fundamentalist christians, insisting that there is only one true religion and only one true way of practicing their religion. They usually end up persecuting and even killing those who do not agree with them.

the point of Sufism is direct experience of God...to feel the unity, to understand the purpose of life, clearly. This is sometimes called "dying before death". Sufis call God The Beloved, their day of passing their Wedding Day.

I have a feeling those who cling to orthodoxy are really afraid. Their belief system is such that they fear any change, for anything different will make the whole system collapse and fall. Sufis look on religion as a concept of God, Who is beyond all names and forms. "Shatter your ideals on the rock of Truth", one of my favorite sayings of Pir-o-Murshid Haz. Inayat Khan, describes the natural process of a person going through life, changing their concepts as they grow spiritually.

Was in Oriental Studies. A lot of Buddhism and Hindism and Taoism, but a fair amount of coursework devoted to mysticism,and Islam.

There was always something very appealing about Sufism. Its links to early Christian Monastiicism are very interesting. No one isreally sure whether much of later Christian mysticism and monasticism is based on Islamic Sufism, due to medieval contacts with Islamic Spain, North Africa, and Turkey, or Islamic Mysticism based on the reverse.

My thoughts are that there was a little bit of give and take in both directions.

The schism between Islamic Mysticism and orthodoxy seems to be wider than it was in the history of Christianity, Sunni Islam is a rather orthodox religion, giving little room for mystical experiences. The Shia have a bit more room for the mystical.

It sort of reminds me of the schism between the catholic Chruch and the Orthodox, with the Catholic Church being morevgiven to the rational and the Orthodox being more mystical in nature.

The farther away you get from the Mid Eastern home of Islam, the more you find Sufism given more room to breath. Morroco is filled with shrines to saints who were essentially Sufi's (anyplace named Sidi anything is a shrine to a Sufi in Morocco) Afghanistan and most often Pakistan are also places where Sufism is more accepted among Muslims. Pir Vilyat Khan, who you mentioned, is from Pakistan and is the Muslim most responsible for brining Sufism to the west and explaining it ion terms understandable to westerners. It was through his works that I originally became acquainted with Sufism.

I guess it is like that with all religions. They tend to be more conservative in the places that they started (or even totally rejected, as was Buddhism in India, and Christinaity in Palestine). But once they move into other cultures,m they tend to bloom and become a living entity, taking on the flavor of the cultures they move through. This is most certainly true of Islam, which absorbed much of the cultures that it moved through. Islams golden age in between 800 and 1200 was probably one of the most advanced civilizations this earth has seen, and perhaos the only theocratic state that most closely liived up to the social justices prescribed in their scriptures. During this period, every city, town and village had an "Office of Zakat: where the poor, hungry and sick could go to receive public aid. Public hospitals that treated the sick for free were the most advanced on earth. Once orthodoxy finallygained the upper hand, the great Islamic Civilization of the Middle Ages came crashing down. A shame really.

Pir Vilayat Khan isn't from Pakistan; he's from Europe. His father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, whom Ayesha mentioned, came from Gujarat, India.

Interesting how so much of universalism in comparative religion has been connected to Sufism. This is not a modern trend but goes back to early Islam. There are plenty of examples in, for example, the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi.

I'm uncomfortable with the definition of "orthodox" Islam in opposition to and exclusive of Sufism. It might be more accurate to say that "legalistic" Islam is inhospitable to Sufism, but that too would be an oversimplification. Many scholars of Islamic law like Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti were also Sufis. In fact, the one who is considered the greatest Sufi sage of all time, Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi, also wrote works on Islamic law in addition to his major mystical revelations which transformed the Sufi world. After al-Ghazzali's work harmonizing Sufism and Islamic law, the mainstream of Islamic thought for centuries accommodated Sufism to an extent.

The way I see it, traditional Islamic orthodoxy is a big tent that accommodates Sufism (although the more outré formulations of Sufism have always been marginalized). The opposition to Sufism from certain legalistic Muslims has not always defined the mainstream. Especially during the Ottoman Empire, in which the top figures of the Islamic orthodox establishment were almost always Sufis. Much of what fell out in the past 2 or 3 centuries (like Wahhabism and militant fundamentalism), came about as a subversive reaction to overthrow the Ottoman legacy.

Stephen Schwartz's book The Two Faces of Islam praises the Ottoman system for being moderate and tolerant, and condemns Wahhabism for destroying the tolerance of traditional Islam. Schwartz was converted to Islam through exposure to Sufism in Bosnia, where he loved the multireligious culture of Sarajevo that accepted Jews like him, a survival of the Ottoman legacy there. He also saw Wahhabis trying to take over Bosnian Islam and destroy its traditional Sufi-based interreligious harmony. It pains me too that traditional Sufi tolerance has been so eradicated by modern fundamentalist aggression that few people now are even aware it was once the norm.

Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) was a Sufi from Switzerland who wrote The Transcendent Unity of Religions, drawing on his studies of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, American Indian religions, and Islam. He showed how the inner, esoteric doctrines of all these religions coalesce into a single unity of meaning, however their outward forms may differ. This book could go a long way toward advancing interreligious understanding and mutual acceptance. Schuon, the French metaphysician René Guénon, the Swiss art historian Titus Burckhardt, and the English art historian Martin Lings are examples of European Sufis who converted to Islam, were initiated in the Shadhiliyah order of Sufism, and devoted their lives to explaining the universal meanings shared by all religions. Their perspective is sometimes called Perennialist, as in Aldous Huxley's book The Perennial Philosophy (although Huxley was not affiliated with them in any way). These gentlemen are good examples of how Sufism continues to promotes religious universality that goes back to Rumi and Ibn al-‘Arabi.

You are correct in saying that Sufism has found a home in the west. Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, who was from India, came to the West in 1910 to "tune the hearts of men" as his teacher said. He was a premier musician in India, but gave up his music. He married an American, and had four children: Vilayat, Hidayat, Nooranisa (who was killed by the Nazis for working for the French Resistance during WWII), and Claranisa. Vilayat was his successor for the Sufi Order International, and passed on this last June. His son, Pir Zia Inayat Khan is his successor and makes his home at the Abode of the Message in New Lebenon, NY. Pir Hidayat Khan is head of the Sufi Movement, which is based mainly in Europe. A third group in this same lineage is the Sufi Ruhaniat, which was founded by one of Pir-o-Murshid's students, Samuel L. Lewis, an American who lived in California. It was through Murshid S.A.M. that the Dances of Universal Peace came through.

Sufis often say there are connections with mystical Christianity and Sufism--St. Francis of Assissi, it is said, knew Sufis and it can surely be said that Sufis have learned from him.

The difference between Sufis and Christian mystics is, I believe, the concept of the silsala. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I just know that when one is initiated into a Sufi order, one is mystically connected not only with one's teacher, but their teacher, and the line of teachers that reach back to Mohammed, Jibreel, and to God. Is this the way it is when one becomes a monk or a nun?

I have several books by Hazrat Inyat Khan that are old eidtions reprinted in the 1970's when Sufism started to have a revival in trhe U.S. I had them up for sale on Amazon but decided to re-read them a few days ago. I have both The Soul Whence and Whither (c1977) printed by the Sufi Order and Mastery Through Accomplishment (c1978) by the Omega Press. Have had these for all that time.

Maybe we should start a "Heterodoxy Group"

however, is paved by Republicans.

I like the notion that all paths lead to God, as long as those paths tend to lead inward away from strict orthodoxy (or orthopraxy). And I reserve the right to reject and condemn paths that mandate harm or violence against others. So I couldn't endorse, for instance, Wahhabi Islam, The Spanish Inquisition, or Aztec human sacrifice. That's the whole issue - knowing how to balance ecumenical tolerance with judgement against those practices which harm others - some paths, regardless of the convictions of their practitioners, are obviously misguided.

-SM

there is a nearly endless variety of individuals on earth, and therefore there is a nearly infinite number of possible paths toward God. This isn't to say that every path leads that way... I agree with you that I don't see how paths of violence toward others could be leading toward God -- rather away from God.

I just think that individuals who are sincerely searching will find a way -- or better, that they will be found.

I was noticing on the religion pages earlier - everyone dividing themselves up.

While I suppose that is the way of things - it's not how I see it. I would rather share the commonalities.



I saw some sufi dancers dancing a couple months ago. I thought that was pretty cool.

I lead the Dances of Universal Peace in my neck of the woods, and sometimes we get folks who drop in "to watch". We tell them they'll get as much out of it as if they watched someone read a book. Hope you have a chance to try Dancing sometime.

I was never a strict adherent to doctrine anyway, mainline protestant in my case.

It just makes sense to me. And God is so easy to touch and to find this way, not remote at all. If I experience God through someoneelse's eyes, I feel closer to them and to God.

:grouphug:

Of course, I am assisted by the fact that I belong to no organized religion, nor do I identify as a member of any specific religion. I try to read as much as I can, and feel free to pick and choose what works for me, and I disregard the rest. As a result, I see the connections and the similarities that many religious traditions have.

The great Masters all teach the same basic message of truths. Cultural differences require different symbolism. Those living in the arctic north were unlikely to teach parables about sheep herders. The Lakota's relationship with the buffalo would mean little to those in the rain forests. But there is one God, and one race: the Human Race.

Aldous Huxley wrote a book about this in the mid-1940s, the Perrenial Philosophy.

I believe that all paths lead to God, as long as that path has Love as its core value.

You know the tree by its fruits. A religious practice that leads to love, love of fellow man, love of God, that condemns hatred and injustice, that encourages peace, harmony, that encourages the knowledge of the Divine Ground of the universe, that is a path to God. All religions have a core of mystical truth which will lead you to God. But all religions, some more than others, also have a lot of cultural and theological baggage that actually obscures the true path and message of the religion.

This is what I believe.

a whole bunch of people. I don't believe a loving, just God could do that.