World religion

The most amazing discovery when one approaches the commonly known world religion, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and the three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - is definitely the fact that all these, as different as they might seem at first sight, have one common goal: The betterment of the individual and the society. It is all the more disheartening that in our daily life and encounters, we tend to largely focus on the differences instead of the similarities. Most of us claim to believe in something, and all of us believe that their way of thinking and the values they committed themselves to would be the best for the rest of society or the world.  In doing so, we largely forget that our own level of spirituality, in whatever faith we might have settled in, largely depends on our own spiritual maturity. Listening to others oftentimes offers us a valuable chance in picking up knowledge, even if it originates from another belief system, that can as a result foster the development of our own spiritual growth. When you study the messages of the world religions, you soon discover that there is plenty to learn about each of them. Each religion in itself is a rich source of inspiration – or, how would it have survived the challenges of time? It is amazing to dive into this knowledge and to look at things from a different perspective. Not seldom, this is also an opportunity to explore one’s own religion in comparison; Sometimes it initiates the search of certain subjects in our own religion in the curious request of how it was phrased here and there and what makes it different and what makes it alike.

Another insight gained from this class was the fact that certain religions do not seem to see the need for the recognition of a higher being in their belief system. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism all seem to relate to an idea of a very vague picture of heaven or path, which left me wondering about the part that worship takes in my own life. I was asking myself how they achieve the self discipline to follow their undoubtedly noble ideals and manners without the ‘controlling’ instance of a superior being and how much the individual is able to commit to an ideal out of his or her own motivation.

I also realized that in order to have a fruitful and productive interfaith dialogue, it is extremely important that you are familiar and well educated in your own belief. It is difficult to share your knowledge with others, if you do not know, or you cannot explain where it is coming from. It simply helps to prevent confusions and makes the communication easier and more informative for everybody.

Personally, I came to believe that the best way to explore the possibilities and opportunities of other religions is to be firmly grounded in your own belief, in a way that allows you to be tolerant and curious towards other views and perspectives. Learning about other religions has also shown me that these realms of openness are a characteristic that can be found in all religions, but are sometimes hard to see for someone firmly stuck in the formalities and rites of his or her beliefs only. It is even more impossible to reach this degree of mutual acceptance and openness, when political and personal aspects enter our views and positions of others, who are different in their religious beliefs. Very easily, people fall in the trap of prejudice when it comes to isolated events that are used by some group to title or portrait the 'offender' as the prototype for a religion and its followers. These are unfortunately very common strategies in politics and media,  and consequently these patterns promote ignorance and prejudice because they cater to an ongoing cycle of artificially created demand to maintain the once -equally artificially- formed opinions in society. Therefore, to achieve the necessary open-mindedness and the ability and readiness to learn from other faiths, requires us to do an enormous preliminary effort that concerns our own souls and hearts. If we do not cultivate ourselves through reflection about our own motives and pattern of thinking and speech, we will limit ourselves continuously to a certain level of mental ability in taking in and processing different perspectives  and views that could ultimately enrich us and teach us to be better individuals and better parts of the human society.