Concerning Sacred Texts

Concerning Sacred Texts

Most inspired literature like the Qu’ran, Torah, Buddhist Sutras and Bible, have common themes and common misconceptions. At one level, they must be taken as allegorical, mainly because the depth of the spiritual concepts are not easily translated into common language. These books are rare because the experience of attaining this level of awareness takes its toll, and requires much sacrifice and effort. 

The spiritual understanding necessary to first hold those ideas is not something we experience every day. When an individual is catapualted into the interconnected realms, words become almost petty and senseless, their inability to transmit profundity require a complicated balancing of almost touching the concept but never realizing it, because words tend to lose their power at certain levels of awareness. We may find poetry, music, dance or art more direct than words.

This requires the reader or listener to exert energy into re-translating what it means given the time, understanding, experience and knowledge of each individual.

Other misconceptions may disrupt or pollute the initial explosion of a profound truth. History, culture, geography, and weather, all form and inform part of the context of the original text. 

The Prophet Mohammad was not only trying to bring the idea of one God to a disparate, illiterate, blood thirsty, gambling and drinking indigenous people, he was also trying to develop equality, compassion, respect and generosity to superstitious and miserly tribes. Imagine trying to help a people who cringe at the idea of any kind of change. 

Because language is human, it changes through the centuries. The texts must keep up to date. Understanding of science, new discoveries and therefore new facts and current truths must also be incorporated and dealt with appropriately. Discussion of miracles may refer to actual physical manifestations, not understood at the times. It does not diminish the idea of deity, but widens our appreciation of how benign and compassionate is the Divine One.

In a sense, language is a living organism. It changes and adapts to the time, place and circumstances. Various revelations arise over time from both historical research, but also abuse and misinterpretations that need to be revisited in a new and less ‘charged’ manner. One example might be the word ‘sin’. The word itself seems ‘charged’ with the fire and brimstone sermons of evangelists. Perhaps a better or, at least, less ‘charged’ interpretation, might be the term ‘mistake’. We will always make mistakes. That is how we learn. But to keep making the same mistake and not learning a better way is a flagrant, if not stupid, error. Or perhaps a way to think of ‘sin’ is an113 action that causes damage to the soul.

Very often a sacred text is the excuse of heinous and deplorable acts, thinking this is ‘our way of praising the One, when in reality, every sacred text considers any murder or abuse a sin, a corruption of the soul, a foul deed against all humankind. Compassion, generosity, humility and love are revealed as the commonality of all major belief systems. The Qu’ran, for example, makes exceptionally clear when it states, “There is no compulsion in religion.” Meaning, you cannot force another to believe in your religion. It will never work, because the whole point of th

Salaam Alaykum, murids, seekers, curious and interested listeners,

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