Is God universal?
And if He is, is religion?
The following is taken from Wikipedia:
Charles Henry Allan Bennett (8 December 1872 – 9 March 1923) was an English Buddhist and former member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was an early friend and influential teacher of occultist Aleister Crowley.
Bennett received the name Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya at his ordination as a Buddhist monk and spent years studying and practising Buddhism in the East.
So, a question: is Buddhism a belief system of universal application (I think it is)? And, if it is, why would one need to study and practise it in the East? Or is God’s Buddhist universe only to be found in the East?
It’s not provocation this time, other than to myself: I hold to a belief that all roads lead to Rome (or God) and that the path we pursue is the one that inspires us most. I used to cross Edinburgh to take communion at St Giles’s Cathedral, rather than my local church because I liked Gillespie MacMillan as a preacher. Some might say that’s like declining a double-decker bus in order to take a taxi, both of which will go to the same place.
But Bennett’s move to the East has me interested to find out more about whether he was drawn there or whether he went there in order to be drawn. Because any religion’s belief surely must be universal, and therefore as applicable in the West as in the East. A recent new friend knows much about Buddhism and is from the East. I shall ask him.
There is a basic reality which is too vast for feeble beings to comprehend.
Our instruments only sense a tiny part of the spectrum. From trusted friends we gain a broader perspective, much like a large array telescope. .From this incomplete collection we extrapolate our model of the universe.
This is not knowing, it is faith. It is very incomplete but it works for us.