by Zachariah Langley

Created on: February 22, 2010

The biggest problem claiming any certain belief is the "one true faith" is that no one figures in perspective. Why do you think there are so many fast food places? They all pretty much serve the same thing, like religion, except there are differences. In some cases the differences are astronomical! Each of these paths, or ways, is connected to a much larger road, and, like all the fast food places, serve as a reminder that there are others.. and one simply is no better or worse than the other by means of perspective.

Take Hinduism for starters. This faith dates back to the late Neolithic period in the early Harappan period, which is about 5500–2600 BCE for those who want to know, and is quite beautiful. This also makes it one of if not the oldest religions there is. People are taken aback by its "multi-God" belief without understanding that their main God Shiva encompasses all of them. Now Judaism dates back close to 3000 years and the Tanakh is their account of the Israelites' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple, somewhere around 535 BCE. With Judaism you have a switch in faith that you don't need all those other Gods, who are pretty much the One God anyway. You simply need the One. It too is quite beautiful, and like Hinduism brings those to God who are meant to be brought. Some have said that Judaism spawned Hinduism, but scholars have found it's actually the other way around. The big difference between these two is that Hinduism accepts all belief. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and others, for the most part, do not.

What does it matter how someone comes to God? Take this for an example. Three people get ready to go to a football game. One takes a car, the other takes a truck, and the other finds a ride while walking. They ALL make it to the same game, maybe not at the same time, but they got there. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if you use the format of Hinduism, Judaism, Islam or Christianity, it's the act of talking to God, of becoming ecstatic with love for God and communication with Him or Her or however you might see God. The act of talking to God, of opening your heart to God, the act of humbling yourself towards God are the means through which you can become absorbed in God. Drunk with God as they say in the Bhakti tradition.

The more the intensity and the more you thirst for God, the more that God will reach out to you. The main thing blocking most of us Jews and Christians and Islamics is that we are caught up in externals. We worship the things we can see, including our minds which have never even seen the Sun. When we get out of our heads and into our hearts, where we really feel the love of God, then the journey is truly beginning.

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