Eyewitness Guides

Religion

Text is written by MYRTLE LANGLEY

God sad to MOSES, "I AM WHO I AM.

This is what you are to say to the Israelites:

Ì AM has sent me to you`".

Exodus 3: 14

Introduction by M. L.

When, as tiny babies, we first enter this world, we have no experience, we know no words; our mind are not filled with thoughts and ideas. We simply exist, aware only of our immediate surroundings and secure in the love of our parents.

As we grow older we become aware of ourselves and of our wilder surroundings; we lern to communicate through speech as well as with the other senses. Our minds and spirits are opened up to thoughts and ideas, experience, and refection. Questions are asked. Answers are sought. Who am I? Why is the world as it is? Why do people die? Why isn`t everybody happy? What is God like? Does God really exist? The world´s  religions and their founders have asked these questions and given their own very different and yet at the same time very similar answers.

"Know yourself." Know God". These two precepts sum up the religions search and at the same time help us to find again the peace and happiness we knew as children.

The religions quest

Text by M. L.

THE WORLD CAN BE an uncomfortable place to live in as well as a cause for excitement and wonder. Life itself can be both puzzling and exhilarating.

A person can feel very much alone although surrounded by others. To a very great extent existence and the universe remain a mystery. So from the earliest times humankind has set out on a religious quest or spiritual search, so that life and death may take on some meaning and significance. Out of this search the world`s religions have emerged. Broadly speaking, there are two main traditions. One accepts the essential goodness of the physical world but tries to change the parts of it that are wrong or broken.

The others says that reality is essentially spiritual, and seeks to release the soul from an endless round of birth, death, and rebirth in the material world.

Religions have several different dimensions. They teach people how to live, and tell myths-stories about the gods and creation which help to explain life. They offer their followers systems of ideas and beliefs, rituals (set patters) of worship, social organisations to belong to, and the possibility of the experience of a greater reality.

Religion is not alien to us..

It is always within us: with some consciously;

with others, unconsciously.

But it is always there.

MAHATMA GANDHI