Are all Religions Created Equal?
We’ve spent a year visiting holy places of as many denominations as we could find. Our goal was to see how divinity showed up in these places. I’m legally blind, but my spiritual vision or clairvoyance enables me to see Spirit. We discovered that divinity showed up according to what people believed it to be. We saw angels in churches, Buddhist deities in the Buddhist temples and Jewish kings in Synagogues. The interesting thing was that in the Sikh Gurudwara I saw deities from multiple faiths I saw Jesus, Krishna - a Hindi deity and many Sikh gurus. Upon asking the Gyani or priest we learned that the Sikh holy book, Gurugranth Sahib mentions holy beings from many faith traditions.
At each place we visited I told at least one member of the community what I saw. Many people were very receptive to this information. Many people were very touched and said that what I shared helped to deepen their connection to God.
In some of the Faith traditions meditation and a personal connection to God was encouraged. In others, it was believed that only the monks or mystic people or leaders could communicate with Spirit. In these traditions there wasn’t as much acceptance of other faith traditions. There was a strong belief that their way was the only way. In such traditions meditation was frowned upon and visiting other places of worship was frowned upon.
I will not be naming the faith traditions where we had negative experience out of respect for those who attend them and have faith in them. I feel it’s necessary to note that not all places are holy. Some huge organizations are not based on truth or love.
In these more rigid traditions there was a need for confession to a priest. He could choose to absolve you of your sins or deem you unworthy of absolution and deny you communion.
In some other traditions there was a belief that there would be a final judgement of souls. In some of these traditions it’s believed that there are only a certain number of spots in heaven. In these communities people can be shunned. This was so deeply shocking to me. On one hand there was a belief that God is compassionate and all loving, and on the other hand, there was a belief that God would reject some people. These communities could shun parishioners not only from church, but from the community and their families. I spoke to people who had been shunned or judged as sinners and they spoke of their fear and a high rate of suicide in those who were excommunicated. In these places of “worship”, there were no angels or deities present whatsoever. This seemed to intune to me that divinity did not support these ideas. God is not a God of fear and does not seem to support this type of teaching.