An Experience of Togetherness and What Drives us Apart

This afternoon, I was fortunate enough to find out through my new friend Sergio that there would be a latihan in Chico. That's the spiritual training that I have been engaged in for more than 25 years now. This entire summer has been an extended meditation on a couple of themes. One of them has been this tension between aloneness and togetherness, both on a political and a personal level. Towards the end of today's latihan, I received a powerful indication that what drew us men in the Subud association together was a commitment to surrendering to God and receiving this latihan (or spiritual training). It's not that we're drawn together because of each other. We're drawn to a common endeavor. I felt great appreciation, not for their coming together with me, but for their commitment to this spiritual training that I'm also committed to. Our togetherness was created by this common bond of a common commitment. A few minutes later, I began to feel and think how, from generation to generation, rather than staying committed to a few core principles that could bind a family or community together in the most natural of ways while still allowing for growth, there is a tendency to extend these core principles to include dubious propositions that later generations question. Then there's a rift between the old and the new, and something has to give. But in the meantime, there are incredible tensions between people that needn't be that way. For instance, there a few core principles that all the major religions share with one another, and first and foremost amongst them is the common commitment to serve God. (If we include Buddhism, then it's a common commitment to come to the sacred, or Nirvana, which is much the same thing as God, only Siddhartha didn't personalize the concept.) If a Christian really believes that salvation depends on acceptance of Jesus, and that everyone else is going to hell, then there's little that can be said for tolerance, I guess. But if someone has more moderate leanings, then they'll believe that salvation really depends on our faith in God, and our submission to God's guiding power in our lives. And this they share with all faiths. To demand that other people believe more than a few core principles is an act of tyranny over the minds of others. To demand that others accept principles that are arbitrary myth is a tyranny over the minds of others.