In a recent interfaith discussion, the question of “Who is a saint” came up. On one side there were traditionalists who were inclined to say that a saint was one who had done miracles that could be proven and who otherwise lived a heroically spiritual life. On the other side, were those who said “We are all saints, potentially or in our … Read More
Can you recall the rural train crossings with the big X sign on which the words STOP, LOOK, LISTEN are written? You’re supposed to stop your vehicle before cross the tracks (which don’t have electric gates); roll down the window; look both ways, and listen for the sound of a train BEFORE crossing the tracks. STOP, LOOK, LISTEN is solidly … Read More
It is not uncommon to have Catholics recite the countless miracles (and resurrection) of Jesus Christ and his holy saints down through the ages and the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin as proof of the validity, presumably exclusive, of their faith. Protestants might insist that one can only be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ for it is necessary to take Jesus Christ … Read More
Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the now classic “Autobiography of a Yogi,” lived in America during World War II. He considered that war to be a just war which would also have the effect of accelerating the dissolution of colonialism including, especially, the British rule of India and many other countries. In the last years of Yogananda’s life (1893-1952) he warned … Read More
If, then, the universe is maintained by ceaseless change and the opposition of opposites, the experience of happiness cannot be known without its opposite: unhappiness. If you had the perfect life as you would imagine it, you would eventually be restless, bored, and unhappy. It didn’t take much to get Adam and Eve to leave paradise, right? Yogananda commented that the reason God doesn’t talk openly with … Read More
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, Adam and Eve are placed in a paradise. Instructed not to eat the fruit in the middle of the garden from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You know the rest of the story. Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate the fruit and were banished from the garden by God. How … Read More
God created the universe but life contains suffering as well as pleasure; satisfactions and accomplishments, as well as sorrow and failure. If evil exists, perhaps as a conscious force, did God create it? Questions such as these run to the core of our human experience posing an existential paradox. If one posits that the creation does not require a conscious Creator in order to exist, then the questions are merely academic and … Read More