Universal Religion

I came across this in my reading today, and it was something I wanted to share on FB with my family and friends, but it was too long for a post, and it while I could have made it a note, I'm not sure that would give it a "share" link, and I think it's something that should be shared.

One of the things to note when reading this is that the word "God" is also used for an all encompassing unity, not a personification or willful individual... that God is a spirit, power, or energy that flows through everything. Now some people may say that's just woo, but who says that "energy" or "power" or "divinity" can't be love, altruism, electromagnetic radiation, whatever... and wasn't it Carl Sagan who pointed out we are all made of star-stuff?

Universal Religion

-- Swami Vivekananda

If there is ever to be a universal religion,

it must be one that will have

no location in place or time,

one that will be infinite

like the God it will preach;

one whose sun will shine upon

the followers of Krishna and of Christ,

on saints and sinners alike;

one that will not be Hindu or Buddhist,

Christian or Mohammedan,

but the sum total of all of these,

with infinite space for development;

and one that with its catholicity

will embrace in its infinite arms

every human being, 

from the lowest to the highest man.

It will be a religion that will have no place

for persecution or intolerance in its polity,

that will recognize divinity in every man and woman,

and whose whole scope, whose whole force,

will be centered on aiding humanity

to realize its own true, divine nature.