Comparative Religion

I believe that all roads lead to home

Some of the mystic and spiritual paths which
I have ventured down on my way home.
Some were more direct than others
but I honour them all.

God is One but the paths to God are many
If I believe that I have the right to seek God in my own way then I must extend that right to all.




The following brief descriptions, in alphabetical order, are but a few of the paths that I have travelled on my still unfinished journey home. Press an icon below to read a short description of the specific path or scroll down the page.

Bahá'í began 148 years in Iran (then known as Persia) by Ali Hammad, who took the name Bab (the Gate) and claimed to be the hidden "12th Imam." He revealed the holy book called the "Byon" and preached that the long-awaited Kingdom of God was at hand and the Promised One of mankind was soon to come. The Muslim clerics denounced the Bab as a heretic. Thousands of followers of the new faith perished in a series of massacres, and the Bab himself was executed in 1850.

In 1863, a man of noble birth named Mersa Ali — a contemporary of the Bab who had renounced his priviledged position to join with the Bab community — revealed that he was the Promised One spoken of by the Bab. He thereafter took the name Baha'u'llah, which means "the Glory of God" in Arabic.

Strongly concerned with improving the conditions of the common man, in his lifetime Baha'u'llah wrote over 100 volumes of letters and revealed knowledge dealing with various aspects of the human condition. His burial site, in Israel, is a place of pilgrimage for the worldwide Baha'i community.

The Buddhist's essential aim is to achieve enlightenment and liberation — called Nirvana — from the remorseless round of birth, death, and rebirth. Unless a person achieves liberation he is doomed to be reborn again and again, "transmigrating" from one existence to another.

Buddhism's founder was Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha, who proclaimed a middle path, a way to be in the world but not of it. In many cultures, images of the Buddha are revered in various forms representing different aspects of his teachings.

There are several different forms of Buddhist philosophy in the present world. Zen Buddhism is a Chinese-Japanese form of Mahayana Buddhism.

Christianity sprang from Judaism, the religion of its founder. Jesus Christ asserted that God's Great Commandment was to love God and each other above all else.

Christianity as practiced in the United States takes myriad forms and doctrines, but all Christian faiths adhere to the following basic history of Jesus Christ: Jesus engaged in healings and miracles, consorted with social outcasts, and in other ways appeared to be guilty of blasphemy against the form of Judaism practiced by the priests of the Great Temple at Jerusalem. He was executed by crucifixion under the charge of being a false messiah and "the King of the Jews." His disciples alledged that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Belief in the Resurrection established the Christian Church.

A Course in Miracles implies that what Jesus did all persons can do. This is a practical course meant to be performed in daily life. It teaches that there are but two choices open to us at all times: Love, or Guilt/Fear. The choice we each make is manifest in the world in which we live.

The routes of Hinduism go back 6,000 years, and it is a religion rich in traditions and great literature. The oldest texts, the Veda, are a vast collection of holy scriptures that describe God as eternal, omnipotent, all-embracing. The three strata within the Vedic canon are the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanishads, succeeding each other and each expressing a different point of view evolved from the earlier canons.

In the Svetasvatara Upanishad, the supreme position is assigned to a personal God — the ancient Vedic go Rudra, now also referred to as Shiva, the Mild. In the epic poem Bhagavad Gita it is Vishnu Incarnate who is the Krishna, who is above all a God of love.

The Quiran, God's eternal and unchanging word as revealed to Mohammed, is regarded as infallible. It gives guidance on many subjects, summoning humankind to submit to God and to do God's will on Earth, promising the garden of paradise or threatening severe punishment in the hereafter. The Quiran commends those who observe worship and pay legal alms, and who abstain from all vices. It is a work of great beauty, expressing both mystical thought and practical advice in highly poetic language.

Once a ritualistic religion centered around sacrifice and worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, since about 70 A.D. Judaism has become a religion centered around the family home, the community congregation (the synagogue), and the Hebrew schools (the shul and the yeshiva). There are several major divisions within Judaism, but all are grounded in the importance of the Torah and the Holy Scriptures.

The Kabbalah is a mystical offshoot of Judaism. It provides a massive, detailed and coherent view of the nature of human existence and man's relationship with the cosmos. In the Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation), 32 secret routes to God are discussed. These channels are symbolized by the ten primordial numbers (the Sefirot, or energy-essences) and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. All aspects of the cosmos, including the nature of space and time and man's interaction with them, are said to be upheld by the constant interplay of the vibrational forces represented by these 32 characters.

The Rosicrucian Order teaches heartfelt charity work and a rational outlook upon the cosmos. The order traces its origins to a society of philosophers and scientists created around 1,500 B.C. by the Pharoahs. In the United States, the order was founded in 1693. The order's full name is The Ancient Mystic Order Rosae Crucis.

The Martinist Order is a form of Christian mysticism, and teaches complete anonymity in the performance of good works of charity and healing. One must be a Rosicrucian first to become a Martinist.

I have focused my study of shamanic practices on the rituals of African and Native American peoples. These rituals include ancient healing circles, the rites of passage from adolescence into adulthood, and seasonal celebrations of the gifts of the Earth.

In Sufism, the highest ideal is "head in Heaven and feet on Earth." Most Sufi orders are Islamic, some are not.

This spiritual practice revolves around the basic concept of Tao, "the way," of which the Tao Te Ching says, "the Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao." Over the course of time, Taoist adepts have developed a wide range of practices — including meditation, ritual movement (t'ai chi chuan), herbalogy, acupuncture, martial arts and other disciplines — designed to increase one's ch'i, or vital energy - Reiki for instance.

The Wicca tradition has experienced a revival in modern times, as many feminists have turned to it as a tradition perceived as particularly female in character.