My truth. Your truth. Their truth. Our truth.

I was going through old journal entries and ran into this post. I wrote this last June when I was in New Mexico caring for my mother. I had no intentions on publishing this on here, because it's a sensitive subject for me. I've done a lot of spirtual maturing in the past couple of years, and I want to make a more conscious effort to document and share my maturation. Feel free to share your thoughts, I would love to hear your response. 

 

June 2013

As a six month old vegetarian, I have a growing appreciation for all things raw. A friend told me that as I become accustomed to my vegetarian lifestyle, I would soon start to notice myself wanting to naturalize all aspects of my life. True enough, I have slowly started to notice my thumb turn greener.

Outside of my love for raw fruits and vegetables, I have an even stronger love for the raw truth. Over the past three years, I have developed an obsession with the truth. I still don’t quite understand it fully, but I have learned a lot about it. The dictionary describes truth to be something factual based on reality. Most religions base their absolute truth on their deity or God, claiming that their religion (truth) is the only way of life. Now, if I remove myself from any of my religious beliefs for the sake of a hypothetical situation, I would notice that there are a whole lot of different religions claiming they own the truth. Still from a hypothetical standpoint, I can recognize that’s a whole lot of versions of the truth- which, leads me to question someone’s validity. Someone, something, some religion has to be wrong, right? The absolute truth is final, unmatched and unduplicated. Right? So, this is where the whole ‘religion is division’ saying starts to make sense to me. All of these different religions are feuding over who owns the truth.

From my experience, any extreme or devout human who stands firmly behind his religious beliefs will not nudge at the thought of their being any other form of the truth except their own. They stand as soldiers for their beliefs, ready to point out excerpts from their truth book to prove that their way is the only way.

Most of the time, humans place a heavy load of pride in their religion. Eww, that pride word gives me the creeps. Mainly because it's my biggest nemisis. Nonetheless, the first sentence in this paragraph is a fact- based on my experience. To get to the point, pride may be the only reason that holds us back from seeing the universal way of religion. Maybe that is why religions are so divided? Maybe we should spend less time defending our religious title, and spend more time embracing in its’ love and goodness? What if we encouraged more than we compared? I know that may not make much sense, but it is the best way I can explain it.

I walk on my tip toes when dealing with any conversations about religion. Mainly, because I’m humbled by how much I don’t know about it. I will not discredit myself for the things I have learned about religion. My most invaluable life lessons are because of religious and spiritual encounters. I grew up as a kid riding the church bus by myself to Sunday school. I really experienced spirituality for myself as a college junior at a small Baptist church. I have grown to love the practice of Yoga and meditation. I didn’t grow up in a strict religious home. My mother instilled love in our family and we all found God through our own free will. My father, who did not live in our household, was an upright Muslim man. I spent two summers in a small Islamic country in Africa, where I met the most inwardly beautiful people in my life. I have several friends ranging from I-will-save-myself-for-marriage Christian girlfriends to male friends who choose science over religion. I love them equally. I choose not to announce my religious stance, only because I want to be loved by you despite my religious preference. So, love me as would your Christian sister, Muslim sister, Buddhist sister, or whoever you choose to worship’s sister. I am learning that the constant, common thread in all ways of life is love.

I don’t know who I am writing this to. I have a feeling it’s mostly for me. Honestly, I didn’t even plan on going this direction with this journal entry. All I know is, I got out of my mother’s bed at 1:30am because my mind was too busy to sleep. So, I got on computer and started typing.

I will conclude with saying this, by no means am I suggesting anyone to drop their religion and become a philosopher. In the name of Love, I say to stay true to your truth, whatever it may be. Continuously search for your truth.

If I could suggest one thing, it will be to challenge yourself to recognize your truth as simply ‘your truth’ and know that it doesn’t have to agree with your neighbor’s truth. To each its own. Believe in your truth, while respecting other’s truth. 
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Maybe no one is lying? Maybe every religions individual belief system is right in its own special way? Maybe they all tie together to praise a God that is bigger than any of our religions alone? Maybe the whole ‘agree to disagree’ notion is our world’s solution to peace?  I repeat the word ‘maybe’ because I don’t know the answers. I do know that there is a supernatural love that has created this world and is probably disappointed by our prideful, petty hang-ups on this subject.  As hippie-ish as this may sound quoting Jimi Hendrix, maybe he understood the world better than anyone when he stated, “When power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”