Many Paths One Heaven
By
Nuri Mass

Contents:

Scan / Edit Notes

1 - Man Looks and Marvels 
2 - India's Hinduism and Sikhism 
3 - The Story of Buddha 
4 - The Yang and the Ying of Chinese Thought 
5 - The 'Kami Way' of Japan 
6 - The Story of the Jews 
7 - Mohammed and his Sword 
8 - The Birth of Christianity 
9 - The Growth of Christianity

~~~~~~~~~~~

Scan / Edit Notes 

Versions available and duly posted:

Format: v1.0 (Text)
Format: v1.0 (PDB - open format)
Format: v1.5 (HTML)
Format: v1.5 (PDF - no security) 
Format: v1.5 (PRC - for MobiPocket Reader - pictures included)
Genera: Religion - General (All Faiths)
Extra's: Pictures Included (for all versions)
Copyright: 1977
First Scanned: June 2002
Posted to: alt.binaries.e-book 

Note: 

1. The Html, Text and Pdb versions are bundled together in one zip file.
2. The Pdf and Prc files are sent as single zips (and naturally don't have the file structure below)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Structure: (Folder and Sub Folders) 

{Main Folder} - HTML Files 
   |
   |- {Nav} - Navigation Files 
   |
   |- {PDB}
   |
   |- {Pic} - Graphic files 
   |
   |- {Text} - Text File

-Salmun

~~~~~~~~~~~

1 - Man Looks and Marvels

----

[Insert pic p004]

----

There is one thing above all others which sets mankind apart from every other living creature: his ability to wonder—and to worship.

Right from the beginning, he looked and marvelled at what he saw around him—even while he himself amounted to very little in a world dominated by animal monsters.

Way back in those early days, he seemed me least favoured of all the creatures on Earth. He was small and puny, he had no way of defending himself, and he had no home. He wandered hither and yon at the mercy of everything that could reach him—heat, cold, storms, earthquakes, huge meat-eating animals, and countless other threats to his survival.

Yet even then, he possessed one gift greater than those of all the other creatures put together: the gift of conscious thought—the ability to ask How and Why—and the ability to marvel at what he saw.

He would scramble up difficult cliff faces to escape from the dangers of the forests and the plains. He would perch up there on narrow ledges, feeling safe for a while—and he would look around at everything, and think.

He watched the sun as it rose above plains and mountain peaks in the early morning—as it travelled across the sky during the day, giving light and warmth, and finally as it sank out of sight again, leaving darkness and cold—and he wondered about it, and he marvelled at it.

He marvelled at the moon and the stars, at the wind and the rain. He feared the lightning and thunder, and the fires that sometimes raged through the mighty forests. He feared the earthquakes that sometimes tore open the ground beneath him, or sent whole mountains of earth and rock tumbling around him. And he feared those other mountains which sometimes gushed fire, and boiling lava, and death.

But even while he feared, he marvelled. And this was something quite new on Earth. None of its other creatures had ever marvelled before.

There was a feeling, in man, of his own smallness beside the greatness and power of many other things, like trees, rivers, hurricanes, fire, rain, mountains, the sun and the moon. And realising the greatness of these things, the spirit of man bowed down before them, and he began to worship. So, to begin with, man was a worshipper of Nature in its endless different forms.

But the sun and the moon, the trees and the rivers were the same for everyone, and as time went on, man the individual felt the need for a separate little god all to himself—to protect him and his family from harm. There was so much danger everywhere, so much need for protection.

----

[Insert pic p007]

----

One afternoon, long before the days of written history, a primitive man set out to hunt for food. He prowled through the forests for hours, but found nothing. Then it began to rain, and soon darkness fell, and he could not find his way back to where his family were waiting for him. He knew that the forest was full of dangers, but, as he was very tired, he decided to rest for a few minutes in the comfort and shelter of a hollow tree-trunk—and no sooner did he settle down than he fell asleep.

Hours passed, daylight came, and suddenly he was wakened by a shrill cry. It was only the cry of a bird perched on a branch just above him, but he leapt up in fright—and if he hadn't done so, he would most likely have been killed by a large snake that was just about to strike at him. Undoubtedly, he told himself, the bird had saved his life, and was his special guardian.

He hurried to tell his family about it, and they all agreed that, while the bird was near, no harm would come to them. But suppose it did not happen to be near at a time of danger ... what then? The father, or the mother, or perhaps one of the older children hit upon the excellent idea of carving a likeness of the bird out of a piece of wood or stone, and carrying this around with them wherever they went—one for each member of the family. Then, for certain, no harm could come to any of them. The bird had become their family god, and they began to worship it.

In the same way, other people revered the images of other things—frogs, beetles, grasshoppers, shells, crabs, and so on.

Our story of the man lost in the forest may or may not have happened exactly like that, but it gives the general idea of how idolatry began.

Then, of course, there followed something else, with people expecting their family gods not only to protect them, but also to harm their enemies. They started praying to them, demanding that they harm their enemies. And the enemies prayed to their own gods for the cruellest forms of revenge.

Naturally, there could be no joy in that kind of thinking or praying. Yet only a few among all the masses of humanity have ever truly realised this. And, down through the ages, these few have tried to enlighten their fellow men. They have taught that true and lasting happiness can be gained only by thinking kindly, living unselfishly—and by praying, not to carved and painted idols, but to the one Creator of all.

This is how the world's great religions began.

In western countries, so many people follow Christianity, that most of the other great religions are practically ignored: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism. Not only do many of us feel that these belong in far-away countries and have nothing to do with us, but also—unfortunately— there is a tendency to believe that all of these other religions are 'wrong' because they are different from our own.

Nothing could be a greater mistake.

Just as we are all members of the one human family— whether we be Australian, Italian, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Japanese or Arabian—so all of the world's great religions are closely related to one another. We have only to look beneath their different names and forms, to make an exciting discovery—that they are all very much the same.

Though languages and customs differ, they are all aiming toward the same ideal—the highest ideal possible to the race of man—oneness with God ...

As we shall now see in the following pages, by reading the stories of the great religions one by one.

~~~~~~~

2 - India's Hinduism and Sikhism

----

[Insert pic p010]

----

Hinduism is the religion of India, and it is also the oldest of all the great religions in the world. Some of its most sacred writings, the Vedas, are about 4000 years old, and nobody knows who wrote them. Unlike most of the other religions, Hinduism was not started by any one person, but just seemed to grow with the whole of the Indian people through the ages. So of course, like the human race itself, Hinduism is a huge mixture of all manner of things that contradict one another.

In its purest form it is a religion of only one God— Brahman. Yet Hindus themselves worship many thousands of separate gods. Also, it teaches the greatest possible love for everything on Earth, no matter how small or lowly, yet Hindus themselves are divided into different sections or 'castes'—and these castes are by no means loving towards one another. It is a religion of colour and festivals and joy, and of people having fun, like children at a party. Yet the highest goal, for a good Hindu, has nothing whatever to do with the material Earth. His goal is to become so closely united with God—or Brahman— that he is not a separate person at all, but pure spirit.

In short, Hinduism has grown from mankind, and it expresses mankind. It expresses his love—and his cruelty; his pride—and his humility; his small earthly interests— and his highest thoughts and feelings; his body—and his soul.

Many Gods—and One God

It is not difficult to understand why the Hindus worship so many gods. After all, as other people also did, they began by worshipping Nature—and the different forms of Nature are never-ending.

Then their wise men, meditating about this, realised that there must be something else—something much greater than the visible world around them—something that went on and on for ever, quite different from the constant starting, changing and ending of everything on Earth.

They realised that this greater thing was Life itself, unseen but all-powerful, and they called it Brahman.

When we think of God, we mostly say Father—or sometimes Father-Mother—but the Hindu speaks of his God as It or That, because he knows that Brahman is everything as well as being the creator of everything.

Now, of course, for the priests or teachers—called Brahmins—who spent most of their time meditating, this was easy to understand. But it was not so easy for other people to understand. After all, it is very difficult to imagine anything that goes on for ever, and fills all space, yet which cannot be seen. Ordinary people have to be able to see things, and touch things. So, in spite of what their wise men told them, they just continued worshipping their separate little gods much the same as before, only that now they thought of Brahman as the greatest of them all.

Then, even Brahman became divided into three parts. This happened because the wise men explained that Brahman had complete power in three different ways—to create, to watch over, and to destroy in order to create again. So the people began happily worshipping three more, separate gods, whom they called Brahma the creator, Vishnu the guardian, and Shiva the destroyer. And of course they made drawings and images of these three, as of all their other gods—and very strange beings they looked, often with several heads, and with many arms and hands, showing how much they knew and how much they could do.

Particularly beloved among the Indians is Ganesha, with the head of an elephant, and usually shown in the happy colours of yellow or pink—the god of wisdom and good fortune.

----

[Insert pic p013]

----

Then too, among innumerable others, there is Hanuman, monkey god and son of the wind, who is said to have been very helpful to the hero Rama—one of Vishnu's incarnations—in his war against a powerful demon.

Despite all of this separate worshipping by the masses of the people, in reality the God of Hinduism is only One, and that One expresses Itself in everything—birds, fish, rocks, trees, mountains, cows, thunder, people—everything.

There are certain questions that almost everyone asks himself at some time or other in his life: What am I, in reality? Why am I here? What is 'here'? What's the meaning of it all?

A learned Hindu would answer such questions somewhat like this: 'As Brahman is everything, then everything must be Brahman. So I am Brahman. And the part of me that I see—the same as everything else that I see—is maya. That's the outside world. That isn't Brahman, but it does come from Brahman. It lasts for about 4,320,000,000 years—and that, for Brahman, is only one single day. Then it is destroyed by fire or water, so that everything is pure spirit. Then it starts all over again, for another day of Brahman, or 4 320 000 000 years. And this goes on for ever.'

Castes—and Being Born Again

Many Hindus must grieve about death, and about beautiful things being destroyed, for that is the way of most humans. But those with a deeper understanding of Hinduism do not grieve, knowing as they do that nothing can really be destroyed—it is only ever changed. Also, they know that the death of a person's body merely sets his true self free, to unite with Brahman. And this uniting is the greatest of all joys. So death is something to rejoice over.

Certainly, down through the centuries, it must have seemed a much happier state than living for the Out-castes or Untouchables among the Hindus, looked upon and treated by the castes above them as the lowest form of humanity.

Teachers and priests, called Brahmins, belong to the highest of these castes. Rulers and warriors belong in the next one down, and ordinary workers in the lowest of all.

Today, Indian law declares that all its people have the same rights, regardless of what group they belong to. But until quite recently, people of different castes could not marry, or eat or worship together, or mingle in any friendly way at all. And in spite of the new laws, it will surely be a long time before the feeling of caste fades out of the people's hearts and minds.

This state of affairs began many centuries ago, when tribes of light-skinned Aryans from the north swept down into India, conquered the darker-skinned people there, and established themselves as masters. In fact, the very word 'caste' comes from a word in the old Sanskrit language meaning 'colour'.

As time went on, the Hindu religion found its own explanation for caste. In the beginning, Brahma created the first of all men, called Manu. But Manu was not one man alone. Rather, he was humanity itself, with the highest class of people (the Brahmins) as his head, the warriors and rulers as his hands, the merchants and craftsmen as his thighs, and the lowest classes as his feet. Since then, it has been one long story of repetitions in endless time—of comings and goings, like the waves of the sea.

Just as the whole universe exists for 4,320,000,000 years before being destroyed and starting off again for another 4,320,000,000 years, so every living thing is born again and again, but not always in the same form. If you are a mosquito in this life, you do not have to be a mosquito again in the next one. If you have been a particularly good mosquito, you may be reborn as a frog or a grasshopper.

But if you have been an extremely bad human, you may be reborn as a mosquito. Or you may not go down as far as that. You may become a dog or a pig.

If, on the other hand, you have lived a truthful and unselfish life in the lowest or Untouchable caste, you will be reborn into a higher caste in due time. And if you live truthfully and unselfishly in this higher caste, you will later be reborn into a still higher one, until you become a Brahmin—the very highest. Then finally, a particularly good Brahmin does not have to be reborn at all, but becomes pure spirit, completely united with Brahman— and no happier state than this could possibly be imagined.

This is Heaven, or, as the Hindus call it, Nirvana. Being born again and again is 'reincarnation', and becoming either a higher or a lower creature because of your good or bad deeds and thoughts is 'karma'. Karma simply means that good is rewarded with more good, and that bad is punished with more bad. It is the law.

Utter Gentleness—and Many Divisions

Religion, with many of us, is something that we think about now and then when we haven't anything else to do. But, for a Hindu, it is the most important thing in his life. He may suffer endlessly on this Earth. He may be poor and hungry and despised. But none of this matters to him. He bears it all patiently, for he knows that it is only part of the outer world or maya, and will not last. The only thing that really matters is the spirit, and the wonderful promise of Nirvana, if he makes himself worthy of it.

Meanwhile, he looks upon everything around him with respect, and treats it kindly, for it is all part of Brahman's creation. A good Hindu would not damage a rock, or kill an animal—for food or any other reason—and he regards the cow as one of the most sacred things on Earth, for, as well as giving milk, it helps him greatly in his work, dragging ploughs over the fields and pulling heavy loads.

To kill a cow and eat it, would be one of the blackest crimes that a Hindu could commit, and his next reincarnation would be terrible indeed.

Considering all this, it seems a pity that Hinduism has become so much divided. Among Hindus today there are thousands of small sects, and two very large ones—for the people who worship Vishnu and Shiva.

They seem to have a special affection for Vishnu because, like themselves, he comes to Earth again and again in different forms or incarnations. Their two favourites of these incarnations are Krishna and Rama. But Hindus have a great respect for other religions besides their own, so they believe that Vishnu, in his tenth earthly form, was Jesus.

There are even larger numbers of Hindus who worship Shiva the destroyer. This is not as strange as it might seem, since a Hindu thinks of destruction only as a new beginning. But what is strange is that many of them also worship Shiva's wife, Shakti—a truly terrible character. She can be a gentle wife and a loving mother, but mostly she is cruel and violent. She is the goddess of storms, earthquakes, sicknesses, and other calamities, and she thirsts for blood.

Right up to last century, there were men called thugi who went around strangling people to win favour with Shakti. (That is where our word 'thug' comes from). And even today, her followers kill harmless animals to please her, even though true Hinduism is, above all, a religion of kindness toward every living creature.

People develop wrong ideas about things, and become completely convinced by them. They 'dream up' evil powers, then commit evil deeds themselves in order to placate those 'powers'.

This is why it is so important to understand the actual teachings of each religion, rather than judging it by what people do with it.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, a wonderful man called Ramakrishna thought deeply along these lines. He studied the world's great religions, and revered all of them alike, for he saw every one of them as merely a different path toward the same goal—unity with God, or Heaven. He recognised no castes, he completely rejected the worship of many gods, and he reminded the Hindus that their religion was one of total love.

If you claim to practise Hinduism, he told them, you must think and act lovingly toward all other people, no matter what class of society they belong to, what work they do, where they live, or what they believe in.

A Great Hindu—Mahatma Gandhi

Of course, there are many people in the world who think, 'Ah yes, beauty and gentleness are nice enough to dream about, but they have no practical use. How could you possibly apply them, among the hard realities of human affairs?'

Yet the truth is that people tend to decide about such things without ever trying them out.

One of the greatest men in history, whose achievements were so amazing as to have seemed like miracles, was a small frail Indian—living as well as teaching true Hinduism. His name at birth was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, but years later he became known throughout India and the whole world as Mahatma Gandhi, or 'Great Soul'.

Gandhi lived at a time when India was under British rule. At first it seemed that this would benefit India, for the country was industrially backward, and would surely gain much from Britain's help and guidance. But what happened in actual fact was that England grew richer while India grew poorer—and also, that India lost her independence.

Young Mohandas Gandhi had completed a Law course in London, and was at first in favour of the association between England and India. But later he realised with horror that his country had become enslaved, and from then on he devoted the rest of his life to freeing it.

This was indeed a task for giants, and Gandhi was no giant. At least not physically. It was a task which, anywhere else, would have meant war, with billions of dollars spent on weapons, and with countless people killed. Yet Gandhi had no plans for war. He planned that India should resist the British peacefully, merely refusing to buy their goods, or to obey their orders when unjust, but never once taking up arms against them.

Gandhi, in short, was a true practising Hindu, and as such could allow no violence towards anyone or anything.

Also, throughout his life, he worked untiringly against the cruel injustice of the caste system, and one of his greatest dreams was to see the coming of peace among India's teeming millions of Moslems and Hindus. Thousands of times he explained to them that there was no reason for their hatred of one another—that they had the one loved country, and the one loved God regardless of the different names they gave to Him.

Non-violence and gentle persuasion—these seemed strange weapons indeed with which to solve India's vast problems, yet they succeeded. Certainly Gandhi himself paid with his own life. In January, 1948, a Hindu fanatic, who resented his tolerance toward the Moslems, assassinated the 'great soul' on his way to prayer. But already the previous year, the British had agreed to withdraw from India, leaving her to govern herself—so Gandhi's famous non-violence had succeeded in freeing India from the rule of one of the world's great military and economic powers. What better proof could there be that the quiet, peaceful approaches of religion can truly move mountains?

Of course, Gandhi understood Hinduism deeply, and it was with this deep understanding that he thought and acted. But the same cannot be said of everyone who calls himself a Hindu. And it is because of this that, during the centuries, there have been other people, with special vision, who have felt that Hinduism did not provide the true and final answers to life.

The Story of Sikhism

One of these was known as Kabir the Poet, who lived about 500 years ago.

He started life very much the same as Moses did— floating in a basket. But whereas Moses was set adrift down the River Nile because he was threatened with death, little Kabir was placed in a lotus pool, and we have no idea why his mother abandoned him in this way. All we know is that he was a particularly beautiful baby.

Soon, however, he was found by a married couple, who loved children, yet had none of their own. They cared for little Kabir, loved him dearly and, when the time came, saw to it that he had an excellent education.

He was a keen student, eager to learn everything, but most of all he enjoyed studying Hinduism, the teachings of Mohammed, and the poems of Ramanand.

The main theme of Ramanand's poems was that only simplicity and truth can lead men into a state of perfect happiness, or Nirvana, and that in reality, instead of many gods, there is only One.

Kabir knew in his heart that all of this was right and, as he himself was also a poet, he wrote beautiful verse around this same theme—and enlarged upon it. Particularly did he condemn the belief in caste, and the pride of the Brahmins, who considered themselves superior to everyone else. In fact, his whole life became dedicated to the worship of One God, the destruction of idols, and to the teaching of equality and brotherhood among men.

Needless to say, Kabir had many followers, and among them was one called Nanak, born about 30 years later. Even as a young boy, Nanak showed a greater interest in the poetry of Kabir and Ramanand than in any other study. In fact, he was more interested in these than in any other activity, for neither his father nor his mother, nor later his pretty young wife could ever persuade him to work for a living. He would just wander off into the woods, reading poetry and meditating.

One day he returned home from one of these walks speaking strange things. First he declared over again, as so many times before, that there was One and only One God, that all idols were false, and that the system of castes was altogether wrong. Then he went on to say that, in searching for truth, everyone needed a teacher or guru, and finally he amazed his family by announcing that he himself was the first guru of a new religion.

From then on, being a guru became his life work. He travelled the length and breadth of India with a faithful companion Mardana, who had a lovely singing voice. Guru Nanak expressed many of his teachings in the form of poetic hymns. Mardana would sing these, to the accompaniment of the rebeck, and when a crowd of people had gathered to listen, Nanak would explain in spoken words what had not already been told in song.

Always his teachings were of the One all-powerful God, and they always condemned both idols and castes. In the sight of God, he said, there were no castes, any more than there were Hindus or Moslems. There was only the one great human brotherhood.

Expressing his own feelings—as well as the fact that his new religion, Sikhism, was a religion of love towards all men—he himself always dressed in a mixture of Hindu and Moslem clothing. And in return, the Moslems and Hindus both thought so highly of him that when he died, they both claimed the right to bury him. However, Guru Nanak had already left instructions that the Hindus should place flowers at his right hand, and the Moslems at his left hand, and that his body should be disposed of by those whose flowers were still alive the next morning. The story goes that the flowers on both sides were equally alive the next morning, but that the body itself had disappeared. So the Moslems built a tomb and the Hindus a shrine on the banks of the River Ravi. However, with passing time, the river washed both of these away.

Guru Nanak won about 100,000 followers, and one of these became the next guru. After this one came another, and another—ten altogether, counting Nanak.

It was Guru Arjan who collected all the writings sacred to Sikhism into a book called Granth Sahib. It was also in his time that Amritsar became the headquarters of the Sikh religion. And it is here that their wonderful temple Har Mandar stands—a golden building rising out of the Pool of Immortality—surely one of the most beautiful of all man-made things. But now, too, the troubles of the Sikhs began.

A new emperor came to power, who accused the gentle guru of plotting against him and of teaching a religion that was offensive to the Moslems and Hindus. And in spite of the absurdity of these accusations, Guru Arjan was tortured to death. Now the history of Sikhism moved into a new and altogether different phase, for its followers took up the sword to defend their faith, and they fought with great skill and bravery in many a battle, especially under the direction of the last of the ten gurus, Gobind Singh.

But it is said that they fought only to defend themselves, never out of greed or cruelty.

Gobind Singh wanted all Sikhs to wear certain things by which they could be recognised wherever they went—for instance, a sword, a turban, an iron bracelet. But today, although most Sikhs wear turbans under which they have long hair that must be combed at least twice a day, they do not usually feel that they should carry swords. For all their fighting history, and their reputation as fine soldiers, they are, after all, followers of the gentle Guru Nanak— glorifying the One God, and working toward unity and equality among all men, without hatreds and without caste.

The Sikhs of today—about 8,000,000 of them—know full well that war solves no problems, and brings no lasting peace. But they also know that these things could come about quite easily through the practice of true Sikhism, as of any other of the great religions; that is, through the practice of world-wide brotherhood and love.

~~~~~~~

3 - The Story of Buddha

----

[Insert pic p024]

----

The world is full of ordinary people who would give almost anything to become princes and princesses—yet the story of Buddha is the story of a prince who abandoned all of his wealth and comforts and power to become one of the poorest among men.

His name was not Buddha to begin with, but Prince Siddhartha Gautama, and his father was the king of a group of Hindus called the Sakyas.

Throughout a kingdom, the birth of a prince or princess is always a matter for rejoicing, but in the case of little Siddhartha, the happy celebrations continued for many days, and among those who came with greetings and gifts were seven Holy Men. These Holy Men, as soon as they saw the baby prince, foretold wonderful things for him. They said, in fact, that he would some day be the greatest among men.

But 'some day' was still a long way off, and for all the years of his childhood little Siddhartha enjoyed a carefree life, doing all of the things that boys like best. He was very clever at sports, especially archery, he learned how to manage horses and elephants, and he never knew what it was to want anything without getting it.

Of course, as he grew older, he had serious things to attend to as well. He was the son of a king, and his education had to be of the highest.

At the age of 12, it is the custom for the sons of good Hindus to put on the Sacred Thread, and promise to make a deep study of the Holy Books of Hinduism, which are written in the ancient language of Sanskrit. So, as soon as he turned 12, Prince Siddhartha put on the Sacred Thread and made this promise.

He studied very hard, under the best teachers, and he learned so well that in four years' time he knew a great deal more than most people did about the complicated Hindu religion.

He had everything that he could possibly wish for— parents who adored him, pleasures and luxury, great knowledge, and handsome good looks.

The Prince Makes a Sad Discovery

Loving Prince Siddhartha as he did, his father the king wished to shield him from all ugliness and grief. He knew that the world outside the palace, the world of the common people, was filled with poverty, sickness, crime, and unhappiness and he hoped that his son's heart would never be disturbed by knowing of such things. Remembering this, years later, Buddha said, 'At my father's home lotus pools were made for me—in one place for blue lotus flowers, in one place for white lotus flowers, and in one place for red lotus flowers—blossoming for my sake .... Day and night a white umbrella was held over me, so that I might not be troubled by cold, heat, dust, chaff or dew.'

To complete his happiness, Prince Siddhartha married a very beautiful princess, the same age as himself, and again there was great rejoicing in the kingdom, and among his father's wedding gifts to him were three palaces.

But a healthy, active young man cannot shut himself up for ever, even in the splendour of three palaces. And a young man with a brilliant and inquiring mind cannot be satisfied forever with mere sports such as archery and hunting. So one day, with the thrill of a bird trying its wings, the prince rode out in his chariot among the common people of his father's realm. No doubt he expected to see many interesting and wonderful things. But what he did see, caused him much sorrow.

He saw a man lying ill and in great pain at the side of the road. A little farther on, he saw another man crippled with old age; and farther on again, he came upon a funeral, with many people weeping for the death of one they had loved.

Prince Siddhartha returned to his palace, where everything was so happy and peaceful and so beautiful. He looked around him and marvelled at the difference between all of this and what he had seen outside. Most of all he marvelled that he had spent 29 years of his life studying from books, and amusing himself, without once realising that there are great sorrows in human life. And he knew that he would never again be able to rest until he had learnt two things: the reason for suffering, and the way to set people free from it.

By this time he had been married for ten years, and every one of those years had been filled with happiness. He loved his beautiful wife very dearly, and he had a baby son whom he also loved dearly. Yet he knew that he must now leave everything that was precious to him, and go wandering out into the world alone, if he were ever to find wisdom and truth.

He pondered about this for some time, because the decision he had to make was a heartbreaking one. But at last there came the night when he knew that he must delay no longer. He knew also that if he waited until morning, the pleadings of his wife and the sight of his little son would make it almost impossible for him to leave them. So he crept out of the palace silently, there and then, in the middle of the night.

After he had gone some distance, he stopped and shaved his head, in the manner of monks who spent the whole of their lives alone, thinking about the mysteries of the world. Then he met a beggar, and changed clothes with him. He gave the beggar his own princely garments, and went on his way wearing the beggar's rags. From now on he would live without shelter or comfort. Like other wandering monks he would beg for food, and he would search untiringly for truth.

This occasion is honoured by Buddhists throughout the world as the Blessed Night of the Great Renunciation.

'A Beggar'—in Exile

Year after year, Siddhartha wandered on, over dusty roads, through towns and villages, and forests and great lonely places, searching for one who could teach him the secret of life, the wisdom of the world, the reason for human suffering. He sought out one great teacher after another, and asked for guidance, but all they ever told him was to study the Vedas— the ancient Holy Books of the Hindus— and Siddhartha had already done that, for many years, without finding any of the answers in them.

At one stage he met five monks who, like himself, were searching for wisdom. He asked if he might join them, and they gladly agreed. Their idea was that, if they made their bodies suffer, their spirits would be better able to receive wisdom. So they, and Siddhartha with them, starved themselves almost to death. But after all this, they knew no more than they did before.

Perhaps, thought the five monks, some other kind of suffering might be what was needed, but Siddhartha knew better. He had learnt his lesson—that punishing your body does not make you any brighter or wiser. So he decided to leave the five monks and continue his search alone, and to eat properly while he did so. When the monks learned of this, they shook their heads and felt rather disgusted with him.

Seven years had now passed since the prince left his family and his palaces. He thought of his baby son, who would now be a baby no longer, and of his wife with all her gentleness and beauty, and of his loving parents—and a great longing for them filled his heart. He thought of all the years that he had lived separated from them, without learning anything of real value, and a sense of despair came over him. He also felt very tired.

Under the Bodhi Tree

Over the way a little, he noticed a bodhi tree, casting shade on the ground below it. He went across and sat under it, and made a vow that he would not move away from this spot until he had learnt the truth of life. So, actually, he already knew one of his most important teachings—that wisdom and truth are not to be found in books, in temples, in punishing the body, or from anything outside of one's own self. It is necessary only to become perfectly quiet and still, and the answer will be found in that stillness.

Now we know how, at one time, Jesus wandered alone in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, and how the evil one came to him in his loneliness, and offered him all the power and riches in the world if he would only obey a few simple commands. And 500 years before this, exactly the same thing happened to Siddhartha, under the bodhi tree.

For 49 days and nights he sat there, and the evil one (Mara) did everything possible to distract him from his great purpose—set fierce storms raging around him, with rain, winds, lightning, and falling rocks. And when all of this failed, Mara offered him the world's riches if he would break his vow and live the life of a thoughtless, pleasure-seeking prince again. But Siddhartha seemed not even to hear him, and at the end of the 49 days and nights—during the hours known ever since as the Sacred Night—the wonderful, simple truth dawned upon him. It brought with it a sense of peace and of rest such as he had never felt before, and for a short while he was tempted to guard this peace within him, and live with it as a precious secret for the rest of his life. But he knew that he could not do this— that he must share it with the whole sad and weary world.

So he left the bodhi tree, and set out to travel even farther afield than he had gone already.

Now, his name was no longer Siddhartha Gautama, but Buddha (which means The Enlightened One).

The Sermon of Benares

He went first to the holy city of Benares. There he met his old friends the five monks, who were still torturing their bodies, and still finding no answers to their questions. When he told them that he now knew the wisdom of the world, they begged him to explain it to them. And so it was that he preached his first sermon—the famous Sermon of Benares.

We do not know the exact words he used, but their meaning was very clear and simple, and so different from the old Hinduism that, at first, the poor monks were quite startled by them.

After all, the Vedas had been accepted as mankind's most sacred books for thousands of years, yet now, here was this young man declaring that, in reality, they were not sacred. And it was well known that temples were holy places where all good Hindus went to worship, yet this young man assured them quite firmly that temples had no value whatever. And everybody knew that, in the beginning, the great Lord Brahma had created people of different qualities, or castes, yet now this young man said outright that Brahma had done nothing of the kind—that castes were the work of man, not of God.

It was all very upsetting, but in the end, his words made such good sense and explained so many difficult things so clearly, that the five monks bowed before him and called him 'master'.

As we have seen, the Hindus believed that Shiva destroys and that Brahma creates, yet Shiva and Brahma are not enemies, but parts of the One Being. And, in the same way, Buddha had first to tear down many of the old beliefs before he could build up his new ones. These new ones— the very heart of Buddhism—are known as the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths are: 

1. Life on Earth is filled with suffering. 
2. This suffering is caused by selfish desires and cravings. 
3. The way to end suffering is to stop craving. 
4. To stop craving, one must follow the Middle Way—not the way of earthly pleasures, nor the way of earthly sacrifices, but the quiet, peaceful way in between.

This Middle Way is what is known as the Noble Eightfold Path. It is so important that it is pictured in the form of a wheel with eight spokes, all leading in toward perfection or Nirvana.

The names of the spokes are: 

1. Right knowledge—the knowledge of truth. 
2. Right intention—always to be calm within one's self, and kind towards others. 
3. Right speech—without lying, and without condemning. 
4. Right conduct—never killing, stealing, or doing any other harm toward any living creature. 
5. Right livelihood—never becoming wealthy by making or selling anything which might be harmful toothers. 
6. Right effort—always toward self-control. 
7. Right thinking—thinking no evil at any time, keeping one's thoughts as pure as one's actions. 
8. Right concentration—not on the little affairs of the self, but on the great truths of life.

How a Good Buddhist Should Live

Suppose two people were quarrelling about something, and you wanted to settle the argument for them. You certainly wouldn't go about it by rushing to defend one side against the other, but by hearing both sides and then finding a solution—somewhere in between the two— which would be satisfactory for both of them. The Middle Way is the way of Buddhism, and in it there are no extremes or opposites.

If you were a good Buddhist, you would not think of your self as separate from my self. You would think of us both as parts of the one great Life. You would not feel any great pleasure or any great pain, but, inside yourself, you would be perfectly quiet and calm. And you would not think of anything as either good or bad, because, if everything is one, it cannot be divided into opposites.

Of course, you would have to work very hard at this kind of thinking and feeling before it came naturally to you, and the only way you could work at it would be through silence and meditation.

This sounds easy enough, but actually it is quite difficult to keep your mind fixed upon one thing only, even for a few seconds. Suppose you decide to fix your whole attention, for just one minute, on the petals of a rose.

Perhaps it is a yellow rose, and it reminds you of a pullover that your sister started knitting and never finished. Very much the colour of honey ... which reminds you that you must make inquiries about how to set up your own bee farm ... and supposing you did, would you have enough flowers in the garden for a few thousand bees, or would you have to move them around a bit, into the neighbours' gardens—even out into the bush? ... Imagine the bush in springtime—how those bees would regale themselves! Then, of course, you would get honey tasting of gum-blossom, wattle, boronia ...

Well now, our minute is up, and how much of it have we spent concentrating on the yellow rose? Very little indeed, for that is the usual way with thoughts. They flit around like butterflies, getting nowhere in particular, especially when you try to fix them firmly upon things like truth and wisdom. Yet, no matter how difficult it is, the Buddhist must train himself to concentrate long and deeply.

This may take him many years—or most likely many whole lifetimes or reincarnations. At long last, however, he comes to the stage when he has no selfish desires—and no interest in the small things of this Earth, like power and money and possessions—when he knows that he is one with the whole human race—when it would be impossible for him to think or act unkindly toward anything or anyone—and then, he has reached Nirvana or, as we would call it, Heaven.

And the most important thing is, he has come to this wonderful state within himself. He has not travelled a long way off to it, or had it opened up to him as a reward. Buddhism does not teach that there is an outside God who judges people and then rewards or punishes them. It teaches that there is only the one great Life or Spirit, and that we are all part of it.

If we choose to live selfishly, without caring about anybody's welfare other than our own, we are breaking away from reality and living in a dream, and this dream is so often a nightmare that it cannot bring us happiness.

Selfishness leads to greed, greed leads to cruelty, cruelty leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and so on. There seems no end to the miseries that we create for ourselves with selfishness. And we might live through hundreds and thousands of lifetimes in this way before we at last experience the deep joy and quiet which come with an understanding of truth. So, as Buddha explained it, this is the working of karma.

Do not think for a moment, he told the startled monks at Benares, that there is a God who sends you down to Earth in a high condition or in a low one. Nothing of the kind. Your own thoughts and actions do this.

The Death of Buddha

The sermon at Benares was only the beginning. After that, for 45 years, Buddha travelled around India teaching all who would listen.

Once, he returned to the palace homes where he had lived as a child and a young man. His family greeted him with reverence as well as joy, and they all became his followers.

After many more years of travelling, he died at the age of 80. It was said that he passed straight into the infinite, never to be born again on this Earth. And it was also said that 'there was a great shaking of the earth, terrifying and frightful, and the drums of the gods resounded'.

Soon after his death, his closest followers, or disciples, began to recite his teachings among themselves and among all who wished to learn them, and for about 240 years they passed from generation to generation in this way. Then, in the year 242 B.C., they were written down for the first time, by three very earnest students, and called the Tripitaka, or 'Three Baskets of the Law'. And right to this day, the 'Three Baskets' are regarded as the holiest of all writings about the teachings of Buddha.

How Buddhism is Practised

The great new religion of Buddhism gradually spread far beyond India, because—unlike Hinduism—it was a religion for all mankind, no matter what their race, or colour, or social class. Hinduism was only for Hindus, but anybody anywhere could become a Buddhist by living and thinking in the way that Buddha taught. For the first time in the history of man, here was a religion without boundaries, a religion for everyone. Wherever it travelled, people accepted it eagerly.

Today, there are possibly about 250,000,000 Buddhists in the world, mostly in Japan, China, Sri Lanka, Korea, Mongolia, Indo-China, Burma, and Thailand. Yet, strange to say, there are comparatively few in India, where Buddha himself was born, and where he lived and taught—for India remains the land of Hinduism. Yet among all the millions who follow his teachings, how many really understand them?

Think, for instance, of all the thousands of Buddha images that there are in the world—yet Buddha taught that we should never worship images. And there are wonderful Buddhist temples, and thousands of strange little buildings called stupas, where sacred Buddhist relics are kept—yet Buddha himself taught that there should be no temples and no relics.

People throng to these stupas in their thousands, just to walk round and round them, meditating. Often they bring flowers and food as gifts, and carry long strings of beads which they finger as they recite all the wonderful words which describe Buddha.

The most sacred of the stupas are those which are said to hold some of Buddha's actual teeth and hairs. But no matter what they hold, Buddha himself would be most unhappy about them.

Of course, with passing time, many variations have crept into Buddhism, or into the way people practise it.

Some think it means one thing, some think it means another. A large group of Buddhists feel that one should search for truth within oneself—as Buddha did, sitting under the bodhi tree—and that, having found it, one should guard it away in deep silence and secrecy, if possible in a monastery, where life is utterly uncomplicated. But there is a much larger group who feel that it is right to go out and live in the crowded, jostling world of people, just as Buddha himself did, trying to share with all humanity the joys of the spirit when it has been awakened to wisdom and truth.

In Tibet, Buddhism became mixed with a type of Nature worship. And many centuries ago, when India's Buddhism came into contact with China's Taoism and Confucianism, a remarkable new form of it arose, known as Zen.

Nobody knows for certain exactly how this came about. Some say that it was brought, intact, into China in A.D. 520 by the Indian monk Bodhidharma. But this seems unlikely, since the attitudes of Zen are so 'Chinese' in character. Also, we know that Buddhism itself reached China in the first century A.D. And early in the fifth century, a young scholar-monk named Seng-chao, steeped in the study of Chinese Taoism and Confucianism as well as of India's Buddhism, was showing unusually deep insight into Buddhist teachings, but in an altogether new way—the way which later came to be known as Zen.

What Is Zen?

Zen is not so much a religion as an attitude of mind; and not so much an attitude as a non-attitude. And if this is the right way to describe it, it is also the wrong way, for right and wrong are not opposing ideas, but essential parts of the same idea. To know is, at the same time, not to know. This is a small part of what we learn from Zen.

We learn, also, that there is nothing whatever to be gained by striving after this or that, because as soon as we attain it, it no longer seems important to us. Something else becomes important instead, and this goes on without end. So that, in reality, we gain nothing worth having. And in our rush and frenzy to get it, we miss out on the only thing which really is important: the passing moment which is the everlasting 'now', and the sudden awakening which might come to us in any one of those precious moments.

This 'awakening' cannot be taught or learnt, any more than it can be experienced by an effort of will. If a student should ask a master of Zen how to attain the Buddhist consciousness, the master might well reply, 'It's beginning to look like rain'. And nothing could tell the student more clearly that the true answer to his question must come, not from anyone or anything outside, but from within himself. Also, it will come in a flash, not after searching or labouring or brain-teasing.

Zen Buddhism doesn't symbolise things. It accepts everything in a very down-to-earth manner, just as it is, but never isolated or 'cut off, always as interrelated with everything else. In a cluster of dew-drops, each dew-drop contains within it the reflections of all the others. And the same goes for mankind. Each human being is a necessary part of the whole world around him; not by becoming this or that on purpose, but merely by being.

The mind of Zen gives no explanations. Its awareness of the sheer 'is-ness' of everything is simple and direct:

'The snail gliding over the bent grass-blade.' 
'Cassia, yellow in the sun'.

No wonder that Zen has found such perfect expression in the art of Chinese painting, and in the haiku poetry of Japan!

The Chinese artist holds his brush upright, and must move it continuously to keep the ink flowing out of it smoothly. His arm and hand must be able to move with complete freedom, and in this way his painting can 'alight' upon the paper like a sudden thought—usually with plenty of empty space around it, for the 'void' is as important a part of the painting as the figures are. This, as Zen expresses it, is another way of 'playing the stringless lute'.

Then again, the little Japanese haiku poem gives perfect expression to Zen, for it merely states things as the poet becomes aware of them, without any elaborate settings, and without either comments or explanations:

Golden butterfly 
Opening and closing 
Fan-like wings 
Against a city wall.

Sincerity—and Love

Zen is by no means the only variation upon the original Buddhism, yet there is no hostility among these many different forms, for when it comes to the most important teachings, they all believe the same. And it is interesting to realise how much these teachings have in common with all of the other great religions of the world.

Here, now, are a few of the most important of them— some, it is said, in Buddha's own words. Let us look at them carefully, and see if even one of them could be considered 'wrong' by any of the other great religions:

'All that we are is the result of what we have thought .... If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. ... If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him.... Hatred does notecase by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love.'

'If a man foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me.'

'If (a man) conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors.'

'Earnestness is the path of Nirvana, thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die; those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.'

'Brethren, even if one should seize the hem of my garment and walk behind me step for step, yet if he be covetous in his desires ... malevolent of heart, of mind corrupt, careless and unrestrained, ... that monk is far from me and I am far from him.'

There is no value in good actions if they are done with the idea of winning praise. They must be done for their own sake, and as a pure expression of love towards every living thing.

'Hold fast to the truth as a lamp.'

'Go ye out of compassion for the world and preach the doctrine which is glorious'.

In other words, Buddhism is, above all, a religion of love—and this alone makes it one of the truly great religions of the world.

~~~~~~~

4 - The Yang and the Yin of Chinese Thought

----

[Insert pic p040]

----

In common with the rest of mankind, the Chinese began by both fearing and worshipping Nature. From the way things happened in the world around them, it was quite obvious that some forms of Nature were friendly and that others were not. So naturally they began to do all manner of things to please the friendly ones and to quieten the unfriendly. They had festivals, they made sacrifices, they offered gifts—all to keep on the right side of the good spirits (Shen) and of the bad spirits (Kwei).

Then—possibly about 3,000 years ago—a change began to take place. A few men, who were more thoughtful than most, began to wonder about the why and how of Nature. Instead of just accepting it as it seemed, they wondered how it all came about, and at last they put forward a clever explanation.

Everything in the whole of creation, they said, is made up of two opposites—the Yang and the Yin. These opposites appear in as many different forms as there are in Nature itself and in as many different amounts. While a rock may have a great deal of Yang in it, and very little Yin, a clump of grass may have mostly Yin and very little Yang, and there is absolutely no end to the varying amounts of these two in every single thing on Earth and in Heaven.

Yang is a strong, masculine kind of force, while Yin is a weaker, feminine kind. If Yang is the hardness of a tree-trunk, Yin is the softness of its leaves. If Yang is heat, Yin is cold. If Yang is light, Yin is shade.

But there is never any rivalry or unfriendliness between them. They exist together in perfect harmony, because there is a power much greater than either of them, a power impossible to describe or to imagine. Its name is Tao, and it brings all things together. Yang and Yin could not possibly quarrel with each other or divide, because there is Tao. Tao existed long before they did—long before anything did. It never started, and it will never finish.

If man lives quietly and peacefully, under the laws of Nature, his affairs go well, and he is happy. But if, as so often happens, he flies in the face of Nature, and chases after his own selfish ends, he upsets the delicate balance between the Yang and Yin in his own life. He destroys the perfect flow and rhythm, and nothing but trouble comes his way.

It may be said that, in the beginning and down through many generations, no other group of people had quite as deep-rooted a sense of unity with Nature as had the people of China.

But Yang, Yin, and especially Tao were shadowy, formless, and difficult to understand. So, in their need for something more definite in the way of gods, the people worshipped the great T'ien, who lived in Heaven and was master of all. They also worshipped the god immediately under him, Shang Ti, who had complete control over people, animals and the Nature spirits. And they also worshipped their ancestors. Not only the ancestors of their own families, but also the spirits of dead emperors, and heroes, and sages.

In addition, they held special festivals every year, first to ask the gods to send them good crops, and later to give thanks for a good harvest.

To be sure, T'ien and Shang Ti seemed a long way off, but the spirits of sun, moon, rivers, trees, mountains, and so on, were with them all the time, and their ancestors also were always with them—actual members of their family, who must be constantly remembered, honoured and fed.

Looked after in this way, they brought good fortune to the whole family. But the spirit of an ancestor who was not properly looked after could be very troublesome. He would most likely drift off and join a gang of demons, then come back and do real mischief.

Then came the sixth century B.C. That was the time when Buddha lived in India. And strange to say, in this same century, not only one, but two great thinkers were born in China. The first of these was Lao Tzu, the second was Confucius—and you could scarcely find any two people more different than they were.

We know so little about Lao Tzu that he seems almost to have been imagined rather than real. About Confucius, on the other hand, we know every detail, even what he ate, and how he fished.

Lao Tzu, although he was a very learned man himself, believed that people needed no learning in order to achieve goodness and happiness, that they needed only to understand the wonderful working of Tao and to feel this, deep inside them, trust it and rest in it. Confucius, however, believed that goodness and happiness depended upon education above all other things.

Lao Tzu taught that the spirit of man is greater than his body, and that this goes on living after his body dies. Confucius refused to teach anything whatever about life after death. He said it was not very likely he could understand that, when he understood so little about life right here on earth.

Lao Tzu believed that, to gain goodness and happiness, one must live an utterly simple life hand-in-hand with Nature, far from all the rules and manners of civilisation.

Confucius believed that goodness and happiness were possible only for those who knew exactly how to behave well at all times in their dealings with other people. While Lao Tzu concerned himself with things of the spirit, Confucius concerned himself only with the practical, everyday affairs of man's existence on earth.

Yet the strange thing is that the teachings of these two great thinkers joined together in moulding the Chinese way of thought for many generations. True, there were those who leaned more toward Lao Tzu. Because of his devoted striving for an understanding of Tao, these were called Taoists. Then there were those who leaned more toward Confucius. But all Taoists sometimes thought the way Confucius did, and all Confucians sometimes felt the way Lao Tzu did. In short, these two completely different attitudes were part and parcel of the whole Chinese character. They were indeed the Yang and the Yin of the pattern of Chinese thought.

Confucius—the Yang

In China, wonderful stories used to be told about the birth of Confucius. An extraordinary animal, the kilin—part unicorn, part dragon, part deer—came and presented to his mother a precious stone on which was written 'Thy son shall be a throneless king'. Then, two kindly dragons patrolled the skies to ward off evil influences, and five old men came down from heaven to keep guard over the place where he was born, and all the while the air was filled with strange, heavenly music.

We cannot be quite sure about all that, but what we do know for certain is that Confucius was born in 551 B.C., into a noble though not wealthy family, and that his father was well over two metres high—a real hero of a man, as strong as he was huge.

Little Confucius (or Ch'iu K'ung, as his parents called him) was given a great welcome when he arrived, because the nine other children born to his parents had all been girls, and that was considered more than enough girls in the China of those days. After all, a man had to have a son to keep worshipping him after he died, since his daughters would be kept too busy worshipping their husbands' ancestors.

When Ch'iu K'ung was three years old his father died, and, although his mother was very poor, she did not let this stand in the child's way. She saw to it that he had an excellent education, and her efforts for him were not wasted. Not only did he learn quickly, but he showed such depth of wisdom and understanding that grown-up people came to him for advice about their problems even while he himself was still a mere boy.

He was only 17 when he took his first Government position, looking after a section of the public lands and the storage of grain. This brought him into contact with rival herdsmen who always seemed to be quarrelling about something; and not only did he have a happy knack for settling arguments, but he always sent them off with something special to think about, a neat little phrase full of wisdom. The idea was that they could think this over at their leisure, then use it as a guide when the next bit of trouble cropped up.

Even at this early age, Ch'iu K'ung was able to express the most difficult reasoning in a few short, simple words which the least educated people could understand. So altogether it is no wonder that people began to call him K'ung-fu-tze—or Confucius, as we pronounce it— meaning K'ung the Philosopher.

He worked very well in his position, and was well paid for it, but his dearest wish was that he might spend the whole of his life studying poetry, music, history, and the works of ancient writers. As it was, he did the next best thing, and studied untiringly through all of his leisure hours.

But he had to earn a living, and especially when he turned 19 and his mother chose a wife for him. As the obedient son that he was, he married this girl, and they had one son and two daughters. But Confucius was not as good at marriage as he was at other things. He no doubt expected his wife to be as perfect as he was himself in every detail of behaviour, and he made a constant study of this. He was faddy and finicky over everything. He would not sit on a mat that was the slightest bit crooked. He must always face a certain point of the compass at meal-times, and he had all kinds of strict rules about the style and colour of clothes, as well as about special manners for every occasion. It must have been very difficult indeed for his wife or anyone else to find favour with him.

Then, when he was 23, his mother died, and—as was the custom—he retired, to go into mourning for her for three years. He was not altogether unhappy about this, because, although he truly grieved for his mother, he also had three years of almost unbroken time for his beloved studies. Afterwards, instead of returning to his Government position, he bought himself an ox-cart and set out in it to travel the open roads. A band of pupils and admirers followed him, walking at an easy pace beside his cart and listening to his many teachings—about music, poetry, history, manners, archery, morals—all kinds of subjects. He had something wise and learned to say about them all.

By the time he was 34 he had 3000 pupils, but Confucius wanted more than this. He wanted to find a ruler of a city who would give him a chance to put his many excellent ideas into practice on a large scale. And he did at last find such a ruler, but not until he was 52 years old.

The Duke of the province called Lu realised how contented and orderly were all the people who came under the influence of Confucius, and as he himself had a particularly troublesome lot of people to govern, he asked Confucius to become his Minister of Crime.

Confucius accepted gladly, and before long the people of Lu were living happy, useful lives. This was because Confucius acted as a good doctor would act: a doctor who finds out what it is that is making his patient sick, then removes it. Confucius tried to find out why the people of Lu were so troublesome, why they were always committing crimes and getting into gaol. He discovered that nearly all of them were uneducated and poor.

He made arrangements for them to be taught useful trades and crafts so that they could earn a good living, and interesting things with which to fill their minds. In about two years' time, Lu was the happiest and most well-to-do province in China.

Realising this, the rulers of all the other provinces became so jealous of the Duke of Lu, that they plotted to undo all of Confucius's good work. Cunningly, they sent the Duke a gift of many fine racing horses, and 80 beautiful dancing girls, to distract his attention from the serious work of government. The Duke foolishly fell into this trap, and spent so much time in idle pleasures that Confucius could no longer persuade him to go to the trouble of passing good laws, and Lu quickly fell back again into its old unhappy state.

Bitterly disappointed, Confucius left the province, and travelled around once more for 15 years. He was poor and homeless, with a deeply sorrowful feeling that his life was a failure. But without being able to help it, he kept on studying, constantly learning more and more, from books and from life itself—and teaching as he learned. When he died, at the age of 73, large numbers of students mourned him for three years, as though he had been their own father.

Confucianism and the Chinese People

But this was only one of the many interesting things that happened. The sayings and lessons of Confucius were collected into a book called The Analects, and he had an adoring grandson named Keigh, who spent his whole life teaching the wisdom of the great philosopher.

About 100 years later, his teachings were spread much farther again by Mang-tze (we pronounce it Mencius), who travelled far and wide throughout China, carrying the message of Confucius. Emperors began to worship at his grave, and gradually the people of China came to think of him as a god.

The present system of government in China has outlawed the teachings of Confucius. But for 25 centuries before this, the whole of China's great civilisation was moulded around them. They lay at the root of Chinese education, and had to be thoroughly understood for all public service examinations.

However, the Chinese people did not have to have Confucianism forced upon them by their Government. They accepted it because they loved it, and because they were already prepared for it by their own inborn feelings.

Although the Chinese were worshippers of Nature, they had never been deeply religious the way the Hindus were. Their way of thinking was mainly down-to-earth, and the teachings of Confucius were down-to-earth, too. He simply would not be drawn into any discussion about what we call the soul of man, or life after death. He taught people how to be happy and good right here and now.

Then, the Chinese had always been great lovers of family: the love of parents for their children, the loving obedience of children toward their parents, the constant honouring of ancestors, and the feeling of the whole country as one large family, with the emperor as its father.

So, as a true man of his time, Confucius was actually voicing the deep-rooted instinct of the Chinese people themselves—and, as a man of great wisdom, he developed this into something of real dignity and nobility.

Taken together, they do not form a religion, but rather a set of rules for good behaviour under all possible human circumstances.

He explained that people were related to one another in five different ways: as husband and wife, parent and child, old and young, ruler and subject, friend and friend. In all of these relationships and at all times, he insisted that everybody must be loyal and truthful, polite and self-controlled, without ever going to extremes in anything, and that, above everything else, one should always be kind.

These rules applied to everyone without exception: to a parent as much as to a child, to the emperor as much as to the lowliest of his subjects. In fact, being a father or an emperor was by no means easy, because it was then your duty to give a perfect example of character and conduct 24 hours a day.

Confucius believed that people are all good to begin with, but that many of them become bad as time goes on, because they are not properly educated, or because they are following the example of an evil ruler. If a ruler wants his people to be honest, peaceable and happy, he must begin by being beyond reproach himself. And where there is goodness, there must be happiness. You cannot have one without the other.

This theme of the 'good life' ran right through the teachings of Confucius day after day, year after year, and at last, when one of his students asked him what he actually meant by goodness, this is how he answered:

'Behave when away from home as though you were in the presence of an important guest. Deal with the common people as if you were officiating at an important sacrifice. Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.'

And if you cannot have happiness without goodness, you cannot have goodness without love. So, naturally, Confucius enjoyed talking about love more than about almost anything else—not in a small, personal sense, but for instance, like this:

'The joy of doing something not for the prize one would get in the end but for the joy itself, that may be called love. To do good not because you are going to be rewarded for it, ... but because you enjoy doing good, that is to love good. Love is its own reward. Love makes all things look beautiful. Love offers peace .... A heart set on love can do no wrong'.

Lao Tzu—the Yin

But with all these beautiful thoughts about love, Confucius never went as far as did Lao Tzu, who insisted that we should return good for evil. No, said Confucius— reward good with good, and bring evil to justice. If you reward evil with good, how then do you reward good? Lao Tzu had a very simple answer for this:

'To those who are good to me, I am good. And to those who are not good to me, I am also good. And thus all get to be good.'

He insisted upon this most strongly. He said:

'Repay evil with good .... Heaven arms with love those it would not see destroyed.'

The meaning of this was clear enough, although Confucius never agreed with it. But there was much of what Lao Tzu said that Confucius could not even understand. We are told that once, after the two great men had met and talked together for a while, Confucius came out and said to some of his students:

'I know how the birds fly, how fish swim, and how animals run .... But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how it mounts on the wind through the clouds and rises to heaven. Today I have seen Lao Tzu, and I can only compare him to the dragon.'

Now, this seems a strange thing to have said, for a man as clever as Confucius. But then, Lao Tzu was what we call a mystic, and quite often he spoke with a kind of vision that had nothing to do with reason. Some people work things out step by step, like problems in mathematics; other people discover them suddenly, in flashes of inspiration. Reason belongs to the mind, but inspiration belongs to the spirit and is often experienced by mystics.

We know very little about the life of Lao Tzu, except that he was born into a poor family, and that, while he was still very young, he became Keeper of the Royal Archives in the city of Lo-yang. He very much enjoyed his work here, because of all the wonderful books in the Imperial Library which he was able to read and study.

As the years went by, he became one of the most learned among men, and well known throughout the province for the wisdom of his thoughts. It was now that people began to call him Lao Tzu, which meant Old Master, and it is by this name that he has been known ever since.

Life was very pleasant and peaceful for Lao Tzu, with his books and studies and thoughts. So much so that he would have liked it to go on like this for ever. But there was such corruption among those who were ruling the province that at last he began to feel bad about staying there. So, at the age of 90, he packed up a few modest belongings and set out, in a cart drawn by two oxen, to leave the province where he had lived all his life.

But when he came to the border, the gate-keeper recognised him, and asked him not to leave without first setting down in writing the thoughts and beliefs which had made him famous. Lao Tzu gladly did this, and by the end of a few days had written a small book filled with wonderful thoughts intermingled with such puzzling phrases that nobody could understand them. He then trundled away with his cart and oxen, and was never heard of again.

The book he wrote was called the Tao Te Ching, and became the Sacred Book of the religion Taoism. Taoism is so named because its great central idea is that Tao lies at the root of everything, and has absolute power. Tao is, of course, what we ourselves call God. It cannot possibly be described, because every description would take the form of something seen or heard or felt with our human senses, and this would limit Tao—yet the greatest truth about Tao is that it has no limits.

It is said that once, when Confucius asked Lao Tzu what Tao actually was, the old man answered:

'The heaven cannot help being high, the earth cannot help being wide, ... and all things of the creation cannot help but live and grow. Perhaps this is Tao. ... Fathomless, it is like the sea. Awe-inspiring, the cycle begins again when it ends. ... What gives life to all creation and is itself inexhaustible—that is Tao.'

The word Tao itself means a road or a way, but in the religious sense it means the way of life, and the only way to enjoy a good, happy and peaceful life is to carry the feeling of Tao within you, to trust it completely, and to do nothing for your own small self which might interfere with the working of Tao for the good of the whole world.

So once again it becomes clear that if everyone truly lived according to Taoism—or according to Buddhism, Judaism or any of the other great religions—we would have a world filled with kindness, understanding and love.

Certainly we could never have any quarrels or crimes, any selfishness, jealousy or wars.

But of course it is only a very few Taoists who really live their religion. And, unfortunately, there are great numbers of them who practise rites that seem rather like black magic. This is because they choose to ignore the many beautifully clear and simple truths in the Tao Te Ching, and explain the strange, difficult parts in foolish ways to suit themselves. They have come to feel that the greatest thing one can possibly achieve is to live for ever, right here on Earth. They believe that an island exists somewhere which gives immortality to anyone who finds it and walks upon it, and that there is a river which gives eternal youth to all who bathe in it. They also believe that there are goblins, devils, vampires, and many other bad spirits forever lying in wait to harm people, but that if these people keep carrying around with them certain charms and talismans, the bad spirits will not be able to hurt them.

Today there are about 30,000,000 Taoists in the world and if Lao Tzu could see what most of them are doing with his beautiful teachings, his heart might very well be broken.

But in the earliest centuries of Taoism, it was very different. Then, when it was linked with Confucianism in the moulding of Chinese thought, it dwelt upon the spirit of man while Confucianism dwelt upon his earthly experiences. It taught about the great wisdom and harmony of Tao while Confucianism taught how gentlemen should behave themselves. Taoism taught that there was a spiritual solution for all problems, while Confucianism taught that solutions could always be found in quiet reason and dignified conduct.

It is because of all this that we started by saying that Confucianism and Taoism could truly be considered as the Yang and the Yin—the body and the spirit—of traditional Chinese thought.

~~~~~~~

5 - The 'Kami Way' of Japan

----

[Insert pic p054]

----

Way back in the very beginning (according to Japanese folklore)—before anything else existed—there was the god of the Centre of Heaven, or Ame-no-minaka-nushi-no-kami. Then two other gods appeared: of birth and of growth.

Next, Izanagi-no-mikoto and Izanami-no-mikoto came down from the High Plain of Heaven and gave birth to everything there is, including the great Eight Islands (or Japan), and many gods (or kami) as well.

The most powerful of these was the Sun Goddess, kami of the High Plain of Heaven. Her brother was kami of the Earth, and the Moon Goddess was kami of the world of darkness.

But kami, although divine, are not always perfect, and long ago (in what we might call the Dreamtime of Japan) the Sun Goddess's brother behaved so badly toward her that she took refuge in a cave, high up in the heavens, and darkness fell upon the whole world.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Her brother was promptly cast out into the lower realms, while up in the heavens a host of kami—anxious and dismayed—tried their hardest to entice the Sun Goddess out again by dancing and playing music around the entrance of her cave.

Fortunately their efforts were not in vain. She at last relented and reappeared, whereupon light returned to the heavens and the earth.

Happily, things also went well for her brother. In exile, his good conduct was such that he won his way back into the good graces of the other kami, and one of his descendants (the kami of Izumo) ruled over the Eight Islands with great wisdom and kindness.

Next, Ninigi-no-mikoto (the Sun Goddess's grandson) was told that he must go down and become the ruler of Japan. And, as symbols of his power, he was given three special tokens: a mirror, a sword, and a string of gemstones.

Once down on Earth, he had friendly discourse with the kami of Izumo, who finally agreed to give over to him the rulership of the outer world while he himself took charge of that other world beyond human sight. He also promised to watch over and protect Ninigi-no-mikoto in every possible way.

Ninigi-no-mikoto governed Japan wisely and well, and eventually it was his great-grandson who, as the Emperor Jimmu, became the first mortal ruler of Japan.

Kami are never Strangers

Certainly this story goes back into the misty past, yet the kami of the Japanese people have never remained in the long-ago or far-away. Rather, they are everywhere and all the time. Kami are rocks, mountains, trees, rivers, animals, and everything else in the natural world. Kami are the stars, the sun and the moon. They are the spirits of noble ancestors and national heroes, also of thinkers and inventors who have done great works. They are the guardian spirits of certain groups or territories, and some of them can even be responsible for such things as the distribution of water and the making up of medicines.

Kami stand for order and justice, and for the happiness that comes when people live and work together peacefully.

Kami are also the spirits of ordinary human beings, of what we call 'the man and woman in the street'. And since kami are always thought of with feelings of reverence, this is probably the reason why most Japanese people are so generous and courteous.

No wonder that the great religion of Japan is called Shinto, which means 'the kami way'. And considering that the kami are as closely interwoven with Japan's history as they are with the daily experiences of its people right down to the present time, it seems only natural that Shinto was never begun or introduced by any one person.

There was Moses for Judaism, Mohammed for Islam, Jesus for Christianity, but generation after generation of Japanese people themselves for Shinto.

Neither are there any sacred scriptures for Shinto, explaining it or laying down its rules, nothing to which kami-worshippers can go for reference. So it is not surprising that there is much about Shinto that even the Japanese themselves do not clearly understand. Yet this is not particularly important, for it of ten happens that when we reason about a thing too much, we lose the spirit of it, whereas Shinto is something that the Japanese truly feel— in their daily lives, and in the world and the people around them.

We have already seen how Hindus worship many gods, whereas in reality the God of Hinduism is only One. And we might, in a sense, say the same thing about Shinto, although Shinto doesn't actually name any one supreme being, or creator. Instead, there is a realisation that harmony and goodwill among people, towards one another and the natural world, will somehow be reflected and rejoiced over among the kami. And out of such joyous harmony, creativeness arises. So we might say that Shinto recognises a state of harmony as the Creator.

The Shrines of Shinto

But of course, this does not prevent the people in general from doing homage to any number of separate kami for whom they might have special sentiment or affection. And the proper place to do such homage is a shrine. So, considering that kami are ever-present in the lives, thoughts and feelings of the Japanese people, it is to be expected that the shrines of Shinto should be part and parcel of the 'scenery' of Japan. As indeed they are. And a very beautiful part too, blending so perfectly with their surroundings that they often look as if they have actually grown there, just as the trees, the bamboo bushes, the mosses and the ferns have grown.

Ideally, a Shinto shrine is set in a forest or a grove— wherever Nature is at its loveliest—for it has always been well known that kami feel happiest and most 'at home' in such places.

Usually you have to climb long flights of steps to reach a shrine. And perhaps at the beginning of the steps, or farther away still, is a special gateway (or torii) telling whoever passes through it that this is now sacred ground, with the ordinary world left behind.

The shape of a torii is beautifully simple—two upright pillars with a beam across the top—and it is as much a part of Japan as are cherry-blossoms and fans.

Often you will see young men standing near a torii and throwing pebbles, hoping that one at least will settle on the top of it, for if it does, the meaning is 'great good luck'.

As well as little piles of pebbles on top, a torii usually has a heavy straw rope stretched across it, hung with zigzag paper strips. These are special reminders of the kami, and offerings to them as well.

All trees are cherished by the kami, and therefore also by the Japanese. But there is sometimes a particularly sacred one, perhaps actually the dwelling-place of a kami, and this will have an enclosure around it, and a straw-rope 'girdle' about its trunk with short strips of paper hanging from it. It may also have a tiny torii all to itself. It may be within the grounds of a shrine, or far away somewhere in the middle of a forest.

After you pass through the large temple torii, you will often find beautiful stone 'lanterns' placed on either side along the walkway. Sometimes these are covered with moss, and have been standing there for hundreds of years.

Often too, as special guardians, there are animal figures carved in stone: usually dogs and lions, looking rather ferocious to frighten off evil spirits. And sometimes there are monkeys, foxes, deer and horses, all ready to do service to the kami.

The Shinto Way of Praying

If you were a Japanese, you would probably be serving the kami in some way—by 'feeling' them, with reverence, in your innermost soul, and by making small daily offerings to them, just to prove your devotion.

Your gift might be quite simple, like rice, salt, fish, grain, cakes. It might be a piece of silk or cotton cloth, perhaps money or jewels, or simply a sprig of the sacred sakaki tree, or a bunch of flowers. You would place this in front of your own little household shrine, or else take it to a large public one.

Before approaching or worshipping the kami, however, you would 'purify' yourself by rinsing your mouth and fingertips.

Having made your offering, you would bow in front of the shrine, murmur words of praise to the kami, express gratitude or make some special request. You would also state who you are, and describe the gifts you have brought.

You would make sure of attracting the kami's attention by clapping your hands twice, or by ringing a bell if one should happen to be placed there, and you would leave only after again bowing and expressing your devotion and awe.

You might then buy a printed prophecy of your future, and after reading this carefully, you would fold it lengthwise and twist it around a twig or a piece of wire meshing nearby, as a means of asking the kami to fulfil the prophecy if it is good, or to protect you if it is bad. And, since so many thousands of people do this, the wire-netting enclosures, as well as any small trees and bushes around public shrines, look as if they are covered with pure-white blossom, or with snow.

The Essence of Shinto

Unless you were an actual attendant at the shrine, you wouldn't normally enter its inner sanctuary. But if you did, you would find that one of the most sacred objects there was a mirror—doubtless in memory of the mirror that Ninigi-no-mikoto brought down with him from the High Plain of Heaven.

It is said that this original mirror used to be held in the central shrine in the grounds of the emperor's palace, Then, centuries later, it was moved to the inner shrine at Ise. So naturally, this shrine at Ise is the most sacred in all Japan. It is dedicated not only to the great Sun Goddess, but to the feeling of respect for the emperor, and to the whole history, ancestry and culture of the Japanese nation.

There are many Buddhist images and temples in Japan, and many thousands of Japanese Buddhists. But whereas Buddhism is a 'travelling' religion which has found its way into many countries, Shinto is wholly Japanese, with more than 60 000 000 followers. In a very real sense, Shinto is Japan, and it would be hard to imagine it anywhere else.

Also, it would be difficult to find anyone who could clearly explain Shinto, for it is not learnt so much as felt. You feel it in the beauty of Nature, which gives you a sense of closeness with the kami. You feel it in the thrill of approaching a shrine, and in the mystic rites that you perform there. You feel it in the goodness and harmony of the whole world, protected as it is by the unlimited blessings of the kami.

Bad things do happen in the world, to be sure, but these do not come from man or from any other part of the natural world. Whatever form they may take—accidents, disasters, pollution, war—they are evil (or maga) and are caused by evil spirits (or magatsuhi) which came from the world of darkness and must somehow be sent back there.

Man himself is a child of the kami (in the same way that Christianity refers to people as 'children of God')—and if he is tempted into behaving badly, this again is something which has come from outside his own true self, for his true self is wholly good.

In fact, the entire world is, in reality, good, since the kami are everything and everywhere: living things as well as non-living, matter as well as spirit. But if man is actually to experience them in his life, he himself must do something about it.

He must constantly recognise the presence of the kami or, as other religions would say, Brahman, Allah, Jehovah, God. He must constantly realise his own oneness with them, and work toward harmony, brotherhood and peace. In this way he will be able to keep maga where it belongs—in the world of darkness. And he will truly be able to experience Heaven on Earth.

~~~~~~~

6 - The Story of the Jews

----

[Insert pic p062]

----

Way back about 4000 years ago, where the facts of history and the shadows of legend merge together, so that sometimes they can scarcely be told apart, there lived a man named Terah. He lived in the city of Ur (at the top of the Gulf of Iran) with his wife and three sons. And while his sons spent their days out in the pasture-lands tending large flocks of sheep, he himself made idols for the people to worship. His sons also were idol-makers, as well as shepherds, and as fast as they carved or moulded these strange little figures, the people of Ur eagerly bought them. Some of them were even purchased for the palace of the king, Nimrod.

Many pleasant, easeful years passed by, until suddenly one of Terah's sons, called Abraham, realised how absurd it was worshipping bits of stone and clay which he himself, or some other man, had shaped. Why, they might just as well all stand around and worship the loaves of bread that women baked, or pitchers, or sandals, or anything else fashioned by human hands.

There is a legend which tells that Abraham went one day into a hall of idols in the royal palace and, while nobody was looking, attacked them with an axe. He hacked all of the idols to bits except one, then he carefully fixed the axe into the hands of this one.

When the king realised what had happened, he was extremely angry with Abraham. When Abraham pointed out that obviously one of the idols had destroyed all the others, since this one was still standing there holding the axe, the king grew even angrier, and accused the young man of lying as well as of blasphemy.

Then Abraham, in a very strong voice, condemned all idols as worthless. He condemned them before the king and all the other people present with him. He said, 'They have eyes but cannot see, they have ears but cannot hear, they have hands but cannot move'. And finally he declared that there was One God and one only, who saw and knew everything while Himself being unseen.

The king, in a great fury, had Abraham thrown into prison, and ordered that he should stay there for a whole year without food or drink. But God sent the angel Gabriel to him every day, with nourishing foods and drinks, so that by the end of the year, when he should have been long since dead from starvation, Abraham walked out of prison in radiant health.

The Endless Journeyings Begin

This miracle should certainly have convinced the king and his^ advisers of the great power of Abraham's God, and perhaps they were convinced in their hearts. But as they would not admit to it, it was no longer safe for Abraham the breaker-of-idols or for any of his family to remain in that realm.

So eventually they took flight from it, one and all— father, mother, sons, even distant relatives and servants— several hundreds of them, together with their flocks and herds. And thus began the journey ings of the people we call the Jews.

The whole of Jewish history seems to have been one long story of settling and unsettling, of leaving one home and wandering the Earth in search of another, of fleeing from endless hardships in one form or another, and seeking peace.

The first journey brought Terah and his family to Haran. Some time afterwards they went on farther, to the land of Canaan, where the people were friendly enough, and allowed them to settle. The Canaanites were curious about them as well as friendly. They called them Ibris (or those who had come across, over a long distance). And this name (we pronounce it Hebrews) has clung to the Jews ever since.

It was in Canaan that Abraham's two sons were born— first Ishmael, and then Isaac. Isaac had a son Jacob, who was also called Israel. When Jacob grew up and had twelve sons of his own, these were naturally called the Children of Israel, or Israelites, and this name, also, has clung to the Jewish people ever since. Hebrews, and Israelites or the Children of Israel. And they, all of them, worshipped only One God.

Now, these twelve sons, and their children, and their children's children, might have gone on living in Canaan quite happily for ever after, only for the coming of a terrible famine, which lasted for so long that finally there seemed only one thing to do: pack up their belongings and leave, in search of a land of plenty. This was the second great flight of the Jews.

No doubt they hoped to find a land not only of plenty, but also of friendly people. And it seemed that this hope was fulfilled when they came to the rich land of Egypt, fed by .the waters of the Nile. The Egyptians made them welcome, and allowed them to settle in a part of their lands called Goshen.

Here they lived happily for many years, but the Egyptians did not altogether take to them, for they themselves were great idol-worshippers, and the Hebrews, of course, were not. This was all very well while the Hebrews were small in numbers, but when their numbers grew, the Egyptians began to fear that they might rise up against them, destroying their idols and conquering their people. So they, the Egyptians, got in first. They swooped down on the Hebrews and carried them off as slaves. And to make doubly sure of things, they passed a law that every Hebrew baby boy must be drowned.

At this time a baby boy was born to a Hebrew woman who, instead of drowning him, placed him in a little basket and set this drifting off down the Nile. She stood watching it as it disappeared into the distance, hoping with all her heart that it would be found by some kind Egyptian family who might take pity on the tiny baby asleep inside it, and raise him to manhood. She could not for a moment have imagined what actually did happen— that the Pharaoh's (king's) own daughter would find him only a few hours later, when she went down to the river to bathe.

The Pharaoh loved his daughter so much that when she begged to be allowed to keep the baby, he could not refuse her, even though the child was a Hebrew. So little Moses (for that was his name) grew up to young manhood in the king's palace, surrounded by affection and luxury.

But there came the time when he began to realise that he was not like the rest of the Pharaoh's household, either in the way he looked or in the way he felt. He wondered about this a great deal, and asked questions, and finally learned that he was not an Egyptian, but a Hebrew, Now he understood why it was that he had always been saddened and angered by the cruel way in which the Hebrew slaves were treated. One day, when he saw one of the many slave-drivers mercilessly beating some of them, he rushed at the man in a rage, and killed him.

Now, of course, his own life was in danger, and he took flight into the desert. He travelled far from the great, wonderful city of the Pharaohs, which was the only home he had ever known, and at last came to an oasis. Here there was a fine home in which a priest named Jethro lived, with his daughter Zipporah. Jethro offered shelter to Moses and, soon realising that he was a truly great man, offered him his daughter in marriage.

So, for a while, Moses enjoyed a happy family life in the home of Jethro. Day after day he tended flocks of sheep as they grazed over rich pastures, and the quietness and peace of this simple life filled his heart with contentment, after all the pomp of the Pharaoh's court and the noises of the great city.

The Exodus and the Ten Commandments

But his happiness did not last for long, because, when he thought of the city, he thought also of his enslaved kinsmen, and as day after day passed, he realised that he would never be able to rest until he had freed them from their cruel masters.

So—risking his own life—he went back into the land of Egypt and into the Pharaoh's palace, and demanded that the Hebrews be set free. He demanded this in the name of the One God. But the king did not believe that this God had any authority. Besides, the Hebrews were such useful slaves that he had no intention of parting with them so lightly.

However, the story tells that the God of Moses caused one plague after another to come down upon Egypt: toads, vermin, flies, water running blood—each more terrible than the last—and finally the death of the first-born child in every Egyptian family. Then, but only then, did the Pharaoh give permission for the Hebrews to leave his kingdom, and this was the beginning of the great Exodus of about 700,000 people, the greatest that the world remembers.

Once again the Jewish people set out on foot, to wander across deserts in search of a peaceful home, and it was 40 long years before they finally reached it.

Soon after their departure from Egypt, the Pharaoh changed his mind about letting them go, and sent his armies to bring them back again. But the waters of the Red Sea are said to have closed in over those armies, drowning them to the last man, and the Children of Israel continued on their way.

A few months later, Moses went away by himself for a few days, hoping that in the silence of his aloneness God would speak to him, giving him the strength and wisdom that he needed as the leader of a whole race of people. He climbed into the rocky heights of Mount Sinai, and it was there that the inspired words of the Ten Commandments came to him.

Nine of these commandments were to do with people's lawful conduct towards one another, but the first and most important of them was: 'I am Jehovah thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: thou shalt have no other gods before me.'

It was this one commandment which made the Hebrews different from any other tribes wandering in the deserts. Theirs was a stern, just God, demanding complete obedience and absolute loyalty—'Thou shalt have no other gods'—and He in turn was their guardian and protector. They were His 'chosen people', and He was their Jehovah.

But whereas other people had gods—or idols— that they could see and touch, Jehovah was invisible, and it was sometimes very difficult for the people to keep that first commandment, very difficult for them to keep worshipping and believing in a God whom they could not see. Even while Moses was away from them for a few days on Mt Sinai, they got busy and turned all of their jewellery into a golden calf, then flocked around worshipping it; and several other times through their earlier history the Hebrews had been tempted by the easier worship of idols.

Perhaps it was because of this that Moses ordered an ark to be built, which he called the Ark of the Covenant. He had it covered with a mantle of gold and silver, and carried with the Children of Israel wherever they went. In it were a few sacred relics and the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written. But also it was said to hold the spirit of the Lord Jehovah, and in this way the many who could not believe without seeing were given something to see. The Ark of the Covenant kept reminding them that their God was continually in their midst.

----

[Insert pic p069]

----

The knowledge of this gave them strength and courage. With Jehovah on their side, they went forward knowing that none could stand against them. And indeed, this was the way it happened, when finally they came and took possession of their Promised Land, which again was Canaan, or Palestine. Now at last it seemed that their long travels were at an end. This was their home, where they would live in peace and plenty for ever after.

The Ten Commandments had been their code of law in the desert. Now more than ever they were the Law in the forming of their kingdom. For the Children of Israel, their history and their religion were one. The commandments of their Jehovah were also the law of their land.

A Kingdom—and the Prophets

For 300 years they were ruled by groups of men known as the Judges. Then, all their different tribes (there were 12 of them) merged together into a kingdom. Their first king was Saul, their second was David who wrote the Psalms, their third was Solomon, famed for his great wisdom and for building the first Temple of God. But then, after this, bitter arguments arose, and the kingdom separated into two parts. That in the north was called Israel, and that in the south Judah.

The people of Israel were wealthier than those of Judah. They also had, adjoining them, the Canaanites who worshipped the god Baal, and gradually, many of the Israelites started worshipping him too. But the people of Judah remained faithful to Jehovah.

Naturally, a divided race of people is much weaker than a united one, and the Hebrews were now divided. The Assyrians swooped down upon Israel and conquered it in 722 B.C.—and its people have never been heard of since.

These are the mysterious Ten Lost Tribes. Then, about 140 years later, Judah was overrun by the Babylonians, and its people were taken off to Babylonia as prisoners. There, surrounded by idols and idol-worshipping, many of them weakened, and started believing in the gods of those who had conquered them. Not only could these other gods be seen and touched, but they had obviously brought victory to those who worshipped them, whereas the Hebrews, with their loyalty to Jehovah, had all too often been plagued by sufferings.

However, deep in their hearts they knew that these arguments were false, that their God was indeed only One. And it was this inner voice of the people themselves that sounded outwardly in the words of the Prophets.

The Prophets were men of great moral courage who seemed to arise from the Hebrew people whenever those people became overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, or of doubt, or of attraction toward evil. The Prophets spoke bravely exactly what they thought, without worrying about their own safety or about the fact that no one particularly liked them. After all, nobody enjoys hearing unpleasant truths—and these were what the Prophets made a practice of voicing. Wherever they saw evil— whether in priests or rulers or among the ordinary people—they loudly condemned it.

But they did far more than rant against evil. They also raised the crushed spirit of the Hebrews, and reminded them of their purpose in life, as those through whom the One God would bless all mankind. They preached the love and mercy and forgiveness of God, rather than His harshness and anger which the people had feared through the years of their desert wanderings. And the Prophets also told them about the one who would save them, at long last, from their sorrows and hardships. 'For unto us a child is born,' declared Isaiah—and that child would be the Messiah, the Prince of Peace.

The voices of the Prophets were voices that no Hebrew could ignore, for they spoke his own innermost thoughts and longings. Now, too, it was realised that God was not only kind and merciful, but that he was also everywhere at the same time. If he was the God of the Hebrews and the Hebrews were scattered far and wide, then God must be far and wide too. And in just such a simple way, the Hebrews early realised what we call 'omnipresence'—that is, the presence of God everywhere and at all times.

With and Without a Homeland

About 50 years after the Babylonians conquered Judah, the Persians conquered Babylonia—and this was the beginning of quite a happy period for the Hebrews, because the Persians were kind to them. They called them Jehudis, since they had come from Judah, and it is from this that we get our word Jews. So now they had three names—Jews, Hebrews, and the Children of Israel or Israelites.

The Persians also allowed them to return to Judah and settle there as they had before. Solomon's wonderful Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, but now the Jews built a new one, and it seemed once again that they might live on there, happily ever after.

In their gratitude for this kind treatment, they took a particular interest in the Persians' way of life, and in their religion. At this time the religion of the Persians was very much influenced by the teachings of a man called Zarethusa, or Zoroaster, and the Hebrews not only studied these, but accepted some of them into their own religion.

It was from Zoroaster that the Jews learned about Heaven and Hell. It was also from him that they gained a broader idea of the Messiah. True, he would still be born as one of their race, but instead of being their saviour and theirs alone, he would come as the saviour of all men throughout the entire world—and even of animals.

----

[Insert pic p073]

----

Once again, we see the religion of the Jews growing hand-in-hand with their history.

But less than 700 years after they had resettled in their own land and rebuilt their wonderful Temple, they were once again overrun by enemies and scattered abroad, and their Temple was once again destroyed. First they were conquered by Alexander the Great, then by the Syrians, and finally by the Romans. Not much more than a hundred years after the birth of Jesus, the Jews no longer had any homeland that they could call their own. They spread, wandering through the countries of the Near East and Europe, settling wherever they could—not as welcome newcomers, however, but as strangers distrusted and despised.

One of the saddest facts about human beings is that they tend to condemn anything or anyone different from themselves; anyone with a different colour, a different type of living, a different way of thinking. And so it was that the Jews were disliked wherever they went. They were hunted out of one place after another, and whatever they wanted to do seemed to be forbidden. So, whether they liked it or not, they were forced to cluster together into separate little communities or ghettoes, and keep entirely to themselves.

But ghetto after ghetto was wiped out by people who hated them. This began centuries before Christ, and has been going on ever since, right into our own twentieth century.

Yet, after the horrors of World War II, a rather remarkable thing happened: For the first time in about 19 hundred years, the Jews actually returned to their old homeland. There, in 1948, they established the State of Israel. And although it sometimes seems as if peace will never settle upon that troubled land, surely a time of peace must eventually come.

The Jews and their Religion

Now what, in reality, are these strange people who have had such a tormented history? What is a Jew? This question is often asked, and it is difficult to answer, for a Jew is neither a race nor a religion, but perhaps a mixture of the two. His religion and his history have grown together. The Jew's way of thinking has been one of the main reasons for the things that have happened to him. In their turn, the things that have happened to him have made gradual changes in his way of thinking.

But the most important part of his religion has always been the belief in One God, whole and undivided, and having all power. Right from the beginning, thousands of years ago, it was this which made Judaism completely different from any other religion on earth.

Its turning away from 'other gods' has been so strict that its churches (or synagogues) have no paintings or images in them (even of men such as Abraham, Moses or the Prophets) for fear that the people might start worshipping them as idols.

The highest point and the very hallmark of Judaism are the words 'The Lord our God, the Lord is One'. This phrase has come ringing and echoing through the long ages of Jewish history. More than a mere phrase, it is a prayer, and it accompanies a Jew from earliest childhood to the moment of his death. He should say it every morning and every evening, and keep the feeling of it with him always.

The Jew recognises God not as the greatest among many gods, but as the One and Only- always, at every moment of the day and night. And since he thinks of man as God's image, then man must also be continuously one. He cannot be a creature divided into different parts like body and soul. He should do manual work or follow his profession as much with his soul as with his body, and he should worship God as much with his body as with his soul. His comings and goings in the affairs of every day should be the same as a prayer, and his home should be no different from his church.

To remind him of this, every Jew should keep, just outside his front door, a tiny box containing a few verses from the Holy Scriptures. Seeing this, he then enters a temple as well as his home.

But it is not enough to recognise 'The Lord our God, the Lord is One'. A Jew must also love God absolutely—'with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might'.

And of course, since man has been made in God's image, the Jews learn that they cannot love God without also loving their fellow man. This is beautifully worded in one of their sacred books, Leviticus:

'Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment.... Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. ... Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ... And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him ... thou shalt love him as thyself. In fact, a good Jew considers the doing of good deeds (known as mitzvah) as one of his most important duties.

The Torah and the Talmud

This, then—loving the One God with your whole being, and your neighbour as yourself—is the very core of Judaism. This, in a few words, is the Jewish religion. But surrounding this central idea there are even more rules for correct behaviour under all circumstances than there are in Confucianism. The Old Testament of the Bible is filled with them, and the great body of literature known as the Talmud is filled with them.

As with most of the other great religions, the ideas and history of Judaism were spoken among the Hebrew people for hundreds of years before they were written down. In fact, they were not collected into written form until the Jews returned to Israel and rebuilt it, under the protection of the Persians. The whole work, when finished, became known not as the Old Testament, of course (that was a name given to it much later) but as the Torah. It was made up of five books said to have been composed by Moses— Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—also King David's beautiful Psalms, and the teachings of the Prophets.

These writings—the Torah—were all looked upon as the word of God, made known to the Hebrews as his chosen people. And as they were the word of God, it became a Hebrew's first and noblest duty to understand every smallest detail of them.

A few years before the birth of Jesus, a learned man named Hillel spoke very much the same as Confucius might have spoken, about the virtues of study. 'He who refuses to learn, merits extinction,' he said—and also, 'more Torah, more life; more study, more wisdom ... more righteousness, more peace'.

Those who studied most and understood most clearly were looked upon with great honour as both scholars and teachers, and were called Rabbis.

For many hundreds of years, all this learning, this enormous mass of detailed study and explanation, was kept to the spoken word. But finally, in the sixth century A.D., it was written down, and became known as the Talmud, which means 'study'.

This Talmud is a truly remarkable work, filled with information and instructions on an amazing variety of subjects—on everything from folklore, astronomy, legal matters and taxation, to the way in which one should pray, and give charity, and prepare food. To the Jew, good conduct in everyday affairs is a matter of religion. The food he eats, the clothes he wears, his life in the community, the bringing-up of his children, his feelings toward his wife—all these are part of his religion.

As do the teachings of Buddha and Confucius, the Talmud tells the Jew to avoid all extremes, either of pleasure or of suffering—and if he is an earnest Jew, he avoids them. 'The Law may be likened to two roads, one of fire, the other of snow. To follow the one is to perish by fire; to follow the other is to die of the cold. The middle path alone is safe'.

The Talmud tells him to 'Love thy wife as thyself, and honour her more than thyself—and, if he is an earnest Jew, he does.

The Talmud tells him every detail of how he should conduct himself on the Sabbath, which begins on the evening of Friday and ends on the evening of Saturday, and every detail of all the other holy days and festivals throughout the year. There are special rules and ceremonies for every one of them—and also, of course, special names.

Festivals—and the Dream of Peace

The Jewish New Year, for instance, which comes in September or October, is called Rosh Hashanah. Close to it is a particularly holy day called Yom Kippur—a very quiet and thoughtful time, for remembering one's true relationship with God. Then there is the eight-day festival of Hanukkah, celebrating an ancient victory over the Syrians. This comes near to Christmas, and is a happy time of games and singing and the giving of gifts.

There are many other festivals as well, but one of the most important is the Passover, which comes in March or April, somewhere near the Christian Easter. This is in remembrance of the time when Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, but only after the Angel of Death had visited the first-born child in every Egyptian family—and 'passed over' all Hebrew families without touching them.

At the feast of the Passover, matzot is eaten. This is thin, flaky 'unrisen' bread, because the Hebrews fled from ancient Egypt so hurriedly that they could not even spare the time for their bread to rise into proper loaves. Also, at the Passover feast, an extra glass of wine is placed on the table, and the door is left open, because there is an old belief that the prophet Elijah will return one year, during this time, to announce the coming of the world's Saviour, or Messiah.

So many rules—so many festivals—so many traditions and ceremonies. And millions of Jewish people practise these, throughout the world, without stopping to understand their meaning any more than other people understand the meaning of other religions. In Judaism— because it is a religion and a history all in one—the meanings are particularly varied, colourful, and individual. But they are, after all, only the outer garments of the religion. Right in deep, at its heart, Judaism is very quiet and simple—and here, at this level, no other great religion of the world could be hostile to it, for at the heart of every great religion there is love.

As Judaism expresses it, this love is for the One and Only God, and for the whole of his creation. And, with the coming of the Messiah, there will also come perfect peace—the Kingdom of God on Earth. In the words of one of the greatest Hebrew prophets, Isaiah:

'They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.' And—'They [the nations] shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more'.

~~~~~~~

7 - Mohammed and his Sword

----

[Insert pic p080]

----

Most of the bad times in human history have an important thing in common: that sooner or later somebody comes along with enough courage and enough persistence to remedy them. For instance, we have seen how, in times of greatest trouble, the Hebrews had their Prophets. And certainly, when Mohammed began his great work, he was exactly what Arabia most needed. But this is starting in the middle of the story instead of at its beginning.

In the beginning of Jewish history, there was Abraham—and in the beginning of Arabian history, there was also Abraham. This is how it happened:

Abraham had two wives. One of them was named Sarah, and she was the mother of Isaac, from whom the whole of the Jewish race is said to be descended. His other wife was named Hagar, and she was the mother of a boy called Ishmael. These two wives did not get along very well together, and there came the time when Sarah—who was Abraham's favourite—begged him to turn Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert.

Abraham was very reluctant about this, but then it seemed to him that God spoke telling him that indeed it would be the right thing to do, as he intended that Ishmael should give rise to a whole, entirely different nation of people. So Abraham obediently sent Hagar and the young boy from his house, after supplying them with plenty of water and bread. But these supplies did not last very long in the heat of the desert, and at last Hagar felt sure that they must both soon die.

She left the boy lying in the sparse shade of a desert shrub, and went off a short distance to pray. As he lay there, exhausted almost to the point of unconsciousness, Ishmael also prayed—to the One God of his fathers—and suddenly, quite near him, a spring of clear, cool water bubbled out of the hot sands.

The Arabs and their Mecca

A story is told that when Abraham heard of this wonderful happening, he hurried out across the desert and built a temple near to the miraculous well. In one corner of this temple, named the Kaaba, he placed a sacred Black Stone which he believed had come down to him from Adam, who was supposed to have carried it with him when he and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.

Here in this temple, Hagar and Ishmael lived happily. When Ishmael grew to manhood, he journeyed into Egypt, where he chose a wife. With her, he returned to his home in the wilderness, and there they raised a large family. All of his children also had large families, and this was the beginning of the proud race of Arabs. As they grew in numbers, they erected more and more houses and more and more large buildings, so that a great city gradually rose up around the temple Kaaba, and the name of this city was Mecca—ever since, for many millions of people, one of the most sacred places on Earth.

Naturally the Arabs worshipped Ishmael, and their original father Abraham, who had smashed idols and declared that there was only One God. But they also worshipped certain things in Nature, especially the sun and the moon, and as time went on they took to worshipping other idols as well, until they had 360 of them—one for every day of the Arabian year. Certainly they also worshipped Allah Taala as the great Lord over all—but He seemed rather distant and unapproachable. He received very little attention by comparison with the idols.

Since Mecca was such a very holy city with its sacred temple and its sacred well, pilgrims came to it from far and wide, as the centuries passed by, and at last the merchants began to realise that they could make a lot of money out of these pilgrims, by charging them for the right to drink from the well. And certainly they did make a lot of money in this way, but they also destroyed people's feeling of the sacredness of the well, for no truly sacred thing can be bought with money, as everyone knows in his heart of hearts.

Then the question arose—if Ishmael's well is not sacred, what is? Perhaps nothing is.

----

[Insert pic p083]

----

But man must put his faith in something, so the Arabs placed more and more of theirs in the stars and the winds, in rocks and pebbles, in 'magical' signs, and in all manner of worthless things. Gradually they developed into a race of gamblers, drinkers and fortune-tellers, without ideals and without a God. It was into this state of affairs that Mohammed was born in A.D. 570.

The Young Mohammed

As far as anyone knew, he was just an ordinary little boy, born into one of Mecca's more important families. His name, to begin with, was Ubu'l-Kassim. It was only years later that he became Mohammed (or 'Praised One').

His parents both died when he was six years old, and after this he was brought up by one of his uncles, who saw to it that the lad made early use of himself as a shepherd, and later as a camel-driver.

It was only years afterwards that marvellous stories began to be told about Mohammed's birth and childhood. It was said that when he was a baby, anyone who wished to look at him had to wear a face-veil so as not to be blinded by the radiance that came from the tiny child. It was also said that a glorious star shone over Mecca at the hour of his birth, and that everything in Nature danced and sang for joy—fish, birds, trees, even mountains. All through his childhood angels waited upon him, and whenever he tended sheep or rode in the desert, a cloud hung over him to shield him from the sun's fierce heat.

There was no end to such stories—afterwards. But for just now he was only a young man of powerful build, with flashing eyes, pure-white teeth and a mass of curly black hair.

He did so well as a camel-driver and a leader of trading caravans that he was hired to lead a caravan and to trade goods for a rich widow named Kadijah. He and Kadijah did not meet until he returned from this trip and went to deliver his report to her—but from the moment they first saw each other, they fell in love. Mohammed was only 25 at the time, and she was 40. But she was very beautiful, and soon after their first meeting they were married.

For 15 years Mohammed lived on in Mecca, comfortably and happily. His affection for Kadijah never wavered, nor did hers for him, and he became one of the most important merchants in the city. But also, he was a very thoughtful and intelligent man, who grasped at every opportunity to learn about the ways and beliefs of other people. Travellers to Mecca sometimes had much to tell about two great, wonderful religions called Judaism and Christianity which taught that there was but One, ever-present God— the ruler and creator of all. Mohammed listened with the keenest attention to every word that the strangers had to say. He asked them endless questions, and sometimes kept them answering and explaining for hours at a time.

Mohammed and the Angel

He compared the nobility of Judaism and Christianity with the degraded ways of living and thinking that he saw everywhere around him. As time went on, he thought about this more and more. He took to wandering out alone, across the desert and among the nearby hills, thinking about it in the silence. And once, during the month called Ramadan, when he returned home from one of these lonely walks, he told Kadijah with great excitement that the angel Gabriel had come to him out there in the hills, and had announced to him that he was the last and greatest Prophet of the One God (whom, of course, he called Allah), and that he had been chosen to lead the Arabs out of idolatry and into the worship of that One true God.

Kadijah did not doubt for a moment that all of this was true. She encouraged Mohammed to go out into the hills again, and receive any further instructions that Gabriel might wish to give him. She also encouraged him to start spreading his great message among the people.

He did both of these things, but whereas his contacts with Gabriel were always joyous, his speeches among the people were far from successful. With a new fluency which he had never known before, he spoke of the glories of Allah. But the people shrugged their shoulders and walked away. To them, the delights of drinking and gambling were far greater.

With words that swept forward like mighty storm-clouds before the winds of Heaven, he told about the sounding of the Last Trumpet on the Day of Judgment, when all who had believed in Allah would be rewarded with everlasting bliss, while those who had not believed would be condemned to the fires of Hell. But the people only scoffed and jeered at him.

In a blaze of anger he shouted against the evils of idolatry and against the evils of the most powerful men in Mecca, with their making of profits out of the pilgrims who came to visit the sacred Kaaba and the Well of Ishmael. And now at last he was taken a little notice of— by those who were making the profits. They angrily threatened him against any more such preaching, and they passed a law that anyone who followed him would be driven out of Mecca.

Mohammed replied: 'Not even if you set the sun against me on my right hand, and the moon on my left hand, would I abandon my mission!' And his actions were as brave as his words, for he went on preaching louder than ever. But even those who might have liked to join him were afraid to because of the law against them, so it seemed as if his work was all in vain. Even after three years he had only 13 followers—and these, of course, followed him only in secret.

Then his beloved wife Kadijah died, and Mohammed was bowed down with sorrow. Finally, in the year A.D. 622, he learned of a plot to murder him, and on the very night of the plot he took flight to the city of Yathrib.

The Beginning of Islam

Today, Mohammed's millions of followers celebrate this flight (or Hegira) with as much joy as that with which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, and they count it as the first year in their calendar, for it was then that their religion had its true beginning.

Mohammed fled to Yathrib because he had learnt that great numbers of people there were ready to accept his teachings. And indeed, when he arrived it seemed as if they had been eagerly awaiting him. He was immediately hailed as the Prophet of Allah, and the leader of their city. The city was renamed Medina, meaning the City of the Prophet, and the new religion was now ready to become a great power in the world. Its name was Islam, meaning submission (in this case, submission to the will of Allah) and those who followed it were called Moslems, meaning those who submit.

Just as Lao Tzu had taught that people should submit their individual wills to Tao—and just as Judaism teaches that one should strive, throughout life, to understand and obey the will of God—so Mohammed taught that the first duty of every Moslem was to praise Allah and serve him. A Moslem's faith is as important in his life, and as closely interwoven with his everyday affairs, as is that of the Jews.

At the time of his triumph in Medina, Mohammed was 52 years old. This was the beginning of his leadership and also the beginning of his real problems, for the Meccans soon heard of his success and were determined to destroy both him and his city.

They sent out armies against him again and again, so that Mohammed had to organise an army too—to defend not so much himself personally, or even his city, but the new religion, Islam. And in order to keep his army well paid and fed, the angel Gabriel instructed him (or so he thought) to waylay any of the trading caravans laden with goods, which made their way from Mecca to other cities, across the desert. So, feeling quite sure that Allah was on their side, he and his armies set out over and over again with such confidence and daring that their raids were always successful.

Now, the rulers of Mecca were more than ever anxious to see Mohammed killed, and a long series of battles followed, involving practically all of the many Arabian tribes scattered through the desert. But these battles were always unequal, for the enemies of Mohammed were all fighting for material things, and for the continued worship of idols, whereas Mohammed and his armies were fighting for the recognition of the One God, and this noble purpose gave them almost superhuman strength.

One after another the various desert tribes were conquered and became converted to Islam. Then, eight years after his flight from Mecca, Mohammed returned there with a large army, for he knew that this holiest of cities in Arabia must be saved from the evils of idolatry. And he took possession of it without a drop of blood being shed.

When the Meccans heard that he was marching upon them, they fled in terror, and watched to see what would happen from the safety of the encircling hills. So the great army of Mohammed entered a silent and empty city.

We are told that, with Mohammed himself leading them, they marched straight to the Kaaba, which was surrounded with 360 large, gaudy idols. Mohammed pointed to the first of these and declared, 'Truth is come, and falsehood is fled away.' Then some of his soldiers came forward, dragged it down and broke it to bits. The same happened for the next, and the next, until not a single idol was left standing.

But here the destruction ended. No harm was done to any person or to any property, and the people of Mecca, returning to their homes at last, seemed only too happy to accept Mohammed and his religion.

The Teachings of Islam

Within a few years the whole of Arabia had become Islamic—and also united as it had never been in the past. Before the teachings of Mohammed, it had been divided into many small, embittered, warring tribes. Now, there was this bond of Islam joining them together into one great nation of brothers, their small differences appearing as nothing in the light of the five important rules which they all must follow.

There was nothing vague or difficult about these rules. They were perfectly simple and clear-cut: 1. The daily repetition of the words 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.' 2. Prayer five times a day, kneeling and facing Mecca, with forehead on the ground. 3. The giving of alms, with true love and compassion for those less fortunate than oneself. 4. Fasting from food and drink between dawn and sunset on every day of the holy month called Ramadan. 5. The making of a pilgrimage to Mecca and the sacred Kaaba at least once in a lifetime.

----

[Insert pic p090]

----

Mohammed's teachings were as direct as his methods. He came not meekly but with a sword, and he taught his soldiers that a wonderful heaven awaited those who died in battle for Allah. Heaven for an Eskimo would, one supposes, be a place filled with warm sunshine, but for the desert-dwelling Arabians it is a cool, green garden filled with streams of cold water, and with lovely ladies, and never-ending peace. This was what Mohammed promised to those who believed. But to those who did not believe, he promised a hell of raging, everlasting fires.

There are no priests in Islam. Every Moslem goes to God directly, on his own, through his own life and his own prayers. And Mohammed made sure that Islam was not a religion merely for churches or mosques, but for everyday living. Again and again he declared that nobody could truly call himself a Moslem if he were selfish or greedy, if he gave short measure to those buying from him, if he spoke evil things about other people, if he did not keep promises, if he were wasteful, unkind to women or cruel to slaves, if he gambled or became drunk, if he did not honour his parents or help the poor.

So that once again, if everyone had truly obeyed the rules of Islam, we would already today have a completely peaceful and happy world—just as we would have if everyone truly followed the teachings of Christianity, or Judaism, or Confucianism and Taoism, or Buddhism, or the real Hinduism or Shinto. A true Moslem would be one of the kindest and most upright people on Earth. But of course it does not always work out like this with Islam, or with any other religion.

The Practice of Islam

For instance, Mohammed said, 'Lo, those who believe, and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabaeans— whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right—surely their reward is with the Lord, and there shall be no fear come upon them, neither shall they grieve.' And he urged all Moslems to say, 'We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the Prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.' Yet in reality, there is little friendship between Moslems and Christians.

The Moslems do, however, practise the various 'forms' of their religion faithfully, and these forms are important as the expressions of noble ideals. For instance, the great pilgrimage   to   Mecca   expresses   the   brotherhood   of Moslems, since they must all go wearing the same flowing white robes, whether they be masters or servants, rich or poor. And they must do no harm to anything alive— human, animal or vegetable.

Their first duty in Mecca is to visit the Holy Temple or Kaaba, with its sacred Black Stone. And their last duty, when all the other activities are finished, is to climb the Mount of Mercy and stay there communing with Allah from midday to sunset. This is the highest point of their whole pilgrimage—a period of stillness and of inner silence, and of a great lifting of the spirit. 

Then, the fast throughout the holy month of Ramadan is more than a fasting from food and drink, but also from any selfish or dishonest action, and from any unkind word or thought.

The thought of God should be so constantly in a Moslem's mind that he should never begin anything, great or small, without first saying, 'In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful!' If he said this with real understanding, he could not then—in the name of Allah— do anything wrong.

The 'Koran'—and Mohammed's Character

This phrase is also repeated at the beginning of every chapter except one in the Bible of Islam, named the Koran, and there are 114 chapters in it.

The Koran is a remarkable book for many reasons. It is one of the loveliest pieces of writing in the Arabian language. Also, it is one of the most widely read books in the world. And, strangest of all, it was entirely the work of Mohammed himself; yet we are told that he could neither read nor write. But then, we are also told that the Koran came to him, over the years, as inspiration.

He would go off on one of his lonely walks, across the sands or into the hills, and the angel Gabriel would come to him, telling him the word of God, then Mohammed would return and tell it to the people, in a flow of beautiful language. While he spoke, one of his most faithful followers would write down the inspired words. It is all of these lessons, gathered together, which form the Koran.

Like the Jewish Talmud, it is a book which covers a great range of subjects—history and legends, rules for proper conduct in all kinds of human affairs, and of course every possible detail about religion. It lays down rules for running a business, for making judgments in a court of law, and for governing a nation as well as governing oneself.

So naturally, the Moslems regard their Koran with the greatest reverence, certain that it expresses the will of Allah to the last possible detail. And for this reason they also feel the greatest reverence for Mohammed as the mouthpiece of Allah.

They do not think of him as a god (Mohammed himself made very sure that his followers would never worship him in this way) but they do think of him as the last and greatest of all the prophets: a man infinitely kind, yet who came with a sword against evil.

In one part of the Koran, Allah—speaking to Mohammed—tells him, 'Therefore the orphan oppress not, therefore the beggar turn not away'. And indeed, he was never known to do either of these things. A seat was always kept outside his house, and anybody who sat there was given food and clothing. He particularly loved children, and had endless patience with them. Even when he became the most powerful man in Arabia, he remained humble in his own person, insisted upon sharing in the menial tasks of his soldiers, and always treated his servants with gentle kindness.

So it is not surprising to find that much good came from the teachings of such a man.

What Islam has Achieved

Mohammed died only two years after he conquered Mecca and even by that time tribal warfare had ceased, and Arabia was a united nation, worshipping One God. No longer was there any gambling or drunkenness or immorality.

Before the coming of Islam, Arabian women were treated as slaves, and were considered so unimportant that girl babies were often killed at birth. Mohammed completely stopped this terrible practice, and taught a new respect for women.

Also, of course, by the time he died there was no more idolatry among his millions of followers. There is a story told which shows how strongly Mohammed opposed the worship of idols. It is said that when he conquered Mecca, he was presented with a handsome bow decorated with the picture of an eagle. Fearing that even this picture might suggest an idol, Mohammed placed his hand over it. It immediately came to life and flew away, and only then did he happily accept the bow.

As time went on, the churches of Islam, or mosques, became more and more lavish in design and decoration, but they have never contained a single statue or picture— not even of Mohammed.

From the night of Hegira, Islam spread among the Arab tribes with the blaze and speed of a grass fire and continued to do so after Mohammed's death. His closest disciple, Abu Bekr, who recorded his teachings in writing (the Koran) became the first Caliph (or 'Shadow of God on Earth') after the prophet's death, and sent armies out to conquer Persia, Syria and north Africa.

Islam's holy wars went on for many years, under following Caliphs, and the victories were nearly always for Islam. Only in Europe were the Moslems turned back at last. Today after 1300 years they are still a great united group, despite their many different sects, and they are still spreading.

The countries in which Islam is strongest are Arabia, Africa, Indonesia, Iran and parts of Russia, China and India, and it is followed by almost 540,000,000 people.

It is a religion which arose among a rough, violent, divided race, and because of it, that race became one of the world's greatest civilisations. It made people understand Allah as a God of Infinite power, of wisdom and of justice, whose rewards are as splendid as his punishments are terrible. And finally, it brought a new sense of brotherhood and mercy. This is because, above every thing else, Allah is known to be kind. In his own words, as revealed to Mohammed, 'Verily my love overcometh my anger.'

If this alone were the case throughout the whole race of man, our world would be a heaven of everlasting peace.

~~~~~~~

8 - The Birth of Christianity

----

[Insert pic p096]

----

One of the most interesting things about human life is the element of surprise it contains. Nothing is too strange or unexpected to happen. You cannot look at a newborn child, for instance, and know exactly what it will grow into, the way you can when you look at a flower bud, or the chrysalis of a butterfly. The son of a labourer may grow up to become the president of his country. The child of uneducated parents may become a university professor. Even in this book, we have seen how a prince could become a beggar, and an ordinary merchant the founder of a great religion. And certainly, when a little boy named Jesus lived and played in the small, quiet town of Nazareth, no one could have imagined that he would some day be worshipped by millions of people as 'the Light of the World'. 

The Boyhood of Jesus

We know very little about Jesus's childhood, but we do know that at Christmas time we are celebrating his birth. And such a humble birth it was, too—more humble than for almost any other baby of those parts and times, for, as we know, he was born in a stable at Bethlehem. Yet we are told that the most wonderful star shone over this humble birth, that the air was filled with the singing of angels, and that many people came to worship there: three wise kings from a far-off land, as well as poor shepherds from the nearby hills.

But reigning over Judea (the new name for Judah) at this time was Herod, one of the most evil kings in history. It came to his ear that a baby recently born in Bethlehem was rumoured to be the long-awaited Messiah—saviour of the world, and King of the Jews—and Herod decided to destroy, right away, anyone who might possibly, some day, sit upon his throne. So he ordered that every little boy in Bethlehem under the age of two should be killed.

But a kind man named Joseph, who had become the protector of baby Jesus and his mother Mary, dreamed about this, and the dream was so vivid that he felt sure it was a warning from God. So he took Jesus and Mary far away from Bethlehem to Egypt, where they remained until after King Herod died. Then they returned and settled in a little hidden-away town called Nazareth, where all the houses were built of white stone.

They lived here quietly for many years—a family little different from most other families in Nazareth—poor in worldly goods, but rich in their love for one another and in their reverence for the religion of Moses and the Prophets.

The most learned rabbis of this religion lived in Jerusalem, 80 kilometres away, and nearly all of the richer families in the outlying towns sent their sons there to study. But Joseph and Mary could not afford to send Jesus to Jerusalem, so they taught him what they could themselves—the Ten Commandments, and the great stories of the Torah (or as we call it, the Old Testament), and a few simple prayers. Also, he heard much about all this in the little synagogue every Sabbath, and he listened with rapt attention, especially when there was talk about the coming of the Messiah.

This was always spoken of in hushed voices, and with great hope and longing, for the Jewish people were now suffering more than ever under the rule of the Romans, and they felt that now, surely, must be the time when their Redeemer would come.

When Jesus was 12, Mary and Joseph took him to Jerusalem for the great feast of the Passover. As they were poor people who could not afford a donkey, they had to walk every step of those 80 kilometres, both there and back.

Going, Jesus was continually happy and excited. He had heard so much about Jerusalem, the City of God, and doubtless he had created glorious visions of it in the wonderment of his child mind. Now, for the first time in his life, he was actually going to see it. But when at last he walked along its streets and came to its Temple, he was bitterly disappointed, for he found that the City of God was a noisy, bustling marketplace filled with shouting, greed, money-changing, and Roman soldiers. Even the Temple itself was a marketplace, where animals were being sold for sacrifice. After the Passover, the way home to Nazareth seemed long indeed, for now there was sorrow instead of gladness in the heart of Jesus.

For years after this, life went on quietly in the little white town of Nazareth. Joseph taught Jesus his own trade (that of a carpenter), and every Sabbath, there was the synagogue. Then Joseph died, and Mary and Jesus moved to Cana, where again life went on quietly for a while. During the week Jesus would work as a carpenter, and again every Sabbath he would go to the synagogue, and take part in the learned discussions of the rabbis.

But the words of Jesus were different from those of anybody else. The rabbis read and re-read their Torah, trying to explain the exact meaning of every smallest detail, whereas Jesus spoke new words and new ideas so simple that even a child could have understood them. Sometimes, listening to him, one might almost have forgotten that the Torah existed, and of course the rabbis did not altogether like this. They wanted to keep their old familiar Sabbath just as it had always been, generation after generation.

Others, however, did like what Jesus had to say. They listened to his words with close attention, and accepted him as their teacher.

Jesus the Master

News now reached Cana that a man named John the Baptist had arrived in Judea, and was preaching there, particularly about the coming of the Messiah, and that he was also baptising all who came to him in the River Jordan. Jesus decided to go and meet him, partly because he was distantly related to him, but mainly because he wanted to hear all that John the Baptist had to say about the Messiah.

When he reached the banks of the River Jordan, he greeted John and asked to be baptised by him. But John did so only after Jesus asked a second time, for he recognised in this young man The One Who Is To Come, and he felt unworthy to baptise him.

Jesus was now 30 years old and, upon leaving John, he walked not straight home, but into the desert, where he remained for 40 days and 40 nights, thinking, meditating. During this time he must have been gloriously happy for long periods, with his whole heart and mind attuned to God, but also there must have been times when he just felt hungry, thirsty, tired, and alone. It was at these times that he heard the voice of the Evil One, tempting him to use his great powers merely to comfort or to glorify himself. But, one after another, Jesus turned away from each of these temptations—and when at last he emerged from the desert, he entered the world of men again as a great teacher.

In fact, ask any thoughtful person today which man in the whole history of mankind has had the greatest influence over the minds and affairs of men, during a period of 2000 years, and he will tell you 'Jesus of Nazareth'.

Now, once again, it was the time of the Passover, and Jesus again journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate it—and there, as before, was all the noise and bustle of buying and selling, especially around the Temple itself, where pilgrims were congregating from far and wide.

This was the sight which had bewildered and saddened Jesus when he was a child. Now it angered him as well. Taking a whip, he strode among the merchants and the money-changers, overturning their tables, scattering their goods, driving them out of the Temple, and commanding them, 'Make not God's house a marketplace!'.

This, of course, set many people against him, right at the beginning of his work as a teacher. The merchants turned against him; so did the established leaders of religion. And the Roman soldiers regarded him with suspicion, for a man who would take such liberties with the affairs of the Temple, might some day even raise a rebellion against the government of Rome. On the other hand, the courage that Jesus had shown, and the nobility of his purpose, won him many friends.

Back home in Cana, however, when he started preaching to groups of people in the streets, it was very different from when he had taken part, with others, in discussions in the synagogue. The people, who had for so long been awaiting their Messiah, felt quite sure that, when the time came, he would be carried down to Earth in a winged chariot, or alight upon the top of the world's highest mountain in a blaze of glory. It seemed quite unreasonable that he should be just an ordinary carpenter who had lived and worked among them for years.

So he left Cana and travelled to the little town of Capernaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. There, he met two brothers named Peter and Andrew. These, like himself, followed a humble form of work, for they were fishermen. But such was their purity of heart that they were quick to recognise the true nature of Jesus—the Christ—and to devote their lives to following his teachings.

Gradually more and more people came to listen to him as he spoke.

He spoke to them gently about the need for kindness and love among men, and about the unfailing love, mercy and forgiveness of God. He often gave his teachings in the form of parables or little stories, so that everyone could easily understand them, learning great truths while listening to simple tales.

Once, when he had been saying that everyone must love his neighbour as himself, a lawyer asked him whom he meant by 'neighbour'—and this is how Jesus answered:

'A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite. ... But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed ... had compassion on him, ... and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him ....

'Which now of these three ... was neighbour unto him that fell among thieves?'

And when the lawyer replied, correctly, that it was the Samaritan, Jesus told him, 'Go, and do thou likewise'.

In those days, Jesus often spoke to gatherings of people around the shores of the Sea of Galilee. At first they were just the fisherfolk, and other people who lived and worked nearby. But then, as his fame spread far and wide, people came from more and more distant places. Also, wonderful stories began to be told about him—that he had turned water into wine, and healed those who were sick, even those who were crippled and blind. So, of course, people with all manner of ailments came to him, their hearts filled with hope.

Then one day, when a crowd larger than ever had gathered to hear his teachings, on a hillside near Capernaum, he spoke some of the most inspired words ever to come from the lips of man. They are known to us today as the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer, and the whole of the teachings of Christianity are contained within them. They are beautifully simple, and filled with peace and comfort and love. But those who followed the oldest form of the Hebrew religion did not like them.

These people were called Pharisees. In the days of Jesus they were very powerful, and they stood with all their strength against any change whatever. The God in whom they believed had no loving kindness as taught by the later Prophets, but was like a harsh dictator, quick to anger and to seek vengeance.

Jesus taught that this was entirely wrong, that the Pharisees did not understand the scriptures, or Torah, and that in reality the One and Only God was a God of forgiveness—of everlasting mercy and love—the Father waiting with open arms for the return of his prodigal son.

The old law of Moses was in many ways a law of revenge—of 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'. But Jesus told his followers that they must not hit back against anyone who attacked them.

According to the Pharisees, it was just as good to hate your enemy as it was to love your friend. But Jesus said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you'. And he insisted that 'whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them'.

It seems impossible that anyone should have wanted to destroy such a man—a man who did good wherever he went, who brought peace and comfort and joy to all who came near him, who carried love and forgiveness toward the whole human race. Yet there were many who did want to destroy him, especially when he next visited Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, three years after his meeting with John the Baptist.

This time he entered the city surrounded by a great crowd singing, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!' And many who had not known of him until now, eagerly joined those who were thronging to pay homage to him as the Messiah.

When he reached the Temple and found it, as before, filled with merchants and money-changers, Jesus once again drove them out. The Pharisees, as well as the merchants and money-changers themselves, were furious.

They had been extremely angry when Jesus drove them out the first time, but now that he obviously had the support of so many people, his enemies decided that he was a threat to their whole way of life, and because of this they also decided that, in one way or another, they must destroy him.

Jesus knew this, because he knew the hearts and minds of men. So, while everybody else was happily looking forward to the Passover, Jesus was sorrowful because of the terrible things that lay ahead for him.

The Sad Ending

Finally, on the evening before Passover, while he sat at supper with his twelve apostles, the occasion became, not a happy gathering of friends, but a sad farewell; for Jesus now told them that he had only a very little while longer to stay with them.

The apostles had grown so close to Jesus during his years of teaching, and they loved him so dearly, that these words now filled their hearts with sorrow. But when he told them, a few minutes later, that one of the apostles themselves would betray him to his enemies, they were stunned with horror and disbelief.

It was during this last supper that Jesus divided a loaf of bread into small pieces which he gave to his apostles with the words, 'Take, eat, this is my body'. Then he blessed the wine, and told them, 'Take, drink, this is my blood'. But, of course, he did not mean that the apostles should think of these as his material body and blood; rather, that they should fill their minds and hearts with the spirit of the Christ, which is love. He told them gently:

'A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you shall love one another.' Then he rose from the table, and left the house.

He wandered out into the night (after the heat of the day, the air was fresh and cool) and at last he came to a sort of public garden, called Gethsemane.

Right through his life, Jesus had enjoyed short periods of silence and aloneness, but tonight, his apostles walked with him—all of them except Judas Iscariot—and somehow, he was glad that they did.

In Gethsemane, they all sat down to rest, for they were tired after their walk, and the hot day, and their sorrowful supper. Soon, one after another, the apostles fell asleep, while Jesus thought and prayed.

It was after midnight when the silence of the garden was shattered by the noise of Roman soldiers, following where Judas Iscariot led them. Exactly as Jesus had foretold, Judas—one of his closest friends—had betrayed him.

Without a word of protest, he went with the Roman soldiers, and then before Pontius Pilate of Jerusalem and Herod Antipas of Galilee, he was tried for plotting against the Roman government and for mocking the name of God.

Despite the fact that there could never have been the slightest proof of either of these things his enemies were determined to destroy Jesus, and they went about rousing so many people against him that at last Pontius Pilate satisfied the shouting, raging mob who wanted to see him killed. Even though he himself could find no fault in Jesus, he agreed that the people should have their way with him.

The Romans of that time had many brutal ways, and particularly enjoyed watching other people suffer. Just as we watch football and cricket matches today, the Romans of those days watched gladiators killing one another, and people being eaten by lions. And their executions often took the form of crucifixion—tying or nailing the 'criminal' to a wooden cross.

Jesus was condemned to die in this terrible way, and his enemies were sure that this would put an end to his strange, 'disturbing' influence. But nobody could ever have made a greater mistake, for the Christ was not a mere body that could be made to suffer and die. It was—and is— 'from everlasting to everlasting'.

Jesus was born a Jew, as the prophecies had said, of the house of David. Since there are always differences among people, many of the Jews in Jesus's time did not believe that he was indeed their promised Messiah, just as today many millions of them feel that he is yet to come. But there were so many others who did accept him, and follow him, that the Roman soldiers nailed a roughly printed notice at the top of his cross, 'Jesus of Nazareth—the King of the Jews'.

We are told that while he hung, dying, on the cross, a great darkness fell upon the world, and that, finally, the earth quaked, and 'the veil of the temple was rent in twain'.

There was, in Arimathea, a wealthy and a very good man named Joseph, who now came forward and asked Pontius Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus down from the cross. Pilate allowed him to do this, and so it was that the body which had suffered so greatly was now lovingly and reverently handled. Joseph wrapped it in fine white linen, and laid it to rest in the stone tomb which was to have been his own. Then a great rock was rolled into the opening of the tomb, and a guard of Roman soldiers took up position around it, so that none of Jesus's friends would be able to steal his body, then pretend that he had risen from the dead. No doubt, also, the Romans feared that the death of their leader might cause an uprising among the followers of Jesus.

But there was no trouble—only a deep, despairing sorrow—until, three days later, the stone was found rolled away, and the tomb empty.

What had happened? Who had rolled away that heavy stone despite the constant presence of the Roman soldiers? Where was the wounded, lifeless body of Jesus? For many people these questions were never properly answered. But there were others who did know the one glorious answer— that Jesus was no longer dead, that he had risen, even from the tomb. They knew this because they actually saw him and talked with him, just as in those wonderful days when he had lived among them. And any of his followers who might secretly have doubted him before, now knew beyond all question that he was the Christ, victorious over everything—even death. And, being the Christ, he was victorious not by government order or by force of arms, but through the wonderful, radiant power of love.

Those who followed him became known as Christians. Today, after nearly 2000 years, Christianity has more followers than has any other religion—about 950000000—and these are to be found in almost every country in the world.

Through the centuries, it has been a guiding light in the hearts of countless millions, it has inspired some of the world's most glorious literature, painting, sculpture, architecture and music. There can be no doubt that even the greatest of our problems, here on Earth, would dissolve away if everyone truly lived Christianity, just as they would if everyone truly lived the other great religions. For we have seen that the root and essence of them all is exactly the same—pure and absolute love.

~~~~~~~

9 - The Growth of Christianity

----

[Insert pic p108]

----

Christianity, together with Buddhism and Islam, is one of the world's three most widespread religions. Jesus told his apostles that they must 'go forth', carrying the message of love and forgiveness far and wide, and they obeyed him immediately. Only a few weeks after the crucifixion, they were already moving out among people telling them the glad tidings that the Messiah had indeed come, and had brought healing, joy, and life eternal for all who would follow him. And not only that he had come, but that he was with them even now, and would be forever. I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,' he had said.

At first the apostles—all of whom were Jews—moved about and spread the word only among other Jews. But then Simon Peter, who was the leader of the apostles, and who had been the first one to recognise the Christ in Jesus, had a vision in which he was told that he should go out also among the non-Jews, or Gentiles. He obeyed this command, and so began the real missionary work of the Christians, which, through the centuries, has taken them into the farthest and strangest corners of the globe. It is a work that has brought great joy, but also hardship, danger, and even death.

The first of the Christian martyrs was a man called Stephen, who was stoned to death because of his faith. But this was only the beginning. Countless numbers of Christians were cruelly persecuted and put to death for more than 300 years. Yet the harder the Roman authorities and the Pharisees tried to stamp them out, the greater their numbers grew.

Paul of Tarsus

Perhaps there was no one person more determined to see them wiped out than a man who lived in the Cilician city of Tarsus. This man belonged to a Jewish family, but was also a Roman citizen, so he was known by both his Jewish name, Saul, and his Roman name, Paul. He was an exceptionally clever and studious man, well versed in the learning of his day, and in every detail of Hebrew law.

Not long after the crucifixion, the Pharisees of Jerusalem sent a message to Paul, asking him to come and help destroy a troublesome group of people who called themselves Christians, and who were openly defying the law of their forefathers.

Eager to help, Paul set out for Jerusalem, and there hunted down the Christians with terrifying thoroughness and cruelty. Then, learning that their numbers were also increasing in Damascus, he set out to destroy them there as well.

But a strange thing happened to him on the way. A vision of the Christ confronted him with such power and radiance that he fell from his horse, blinded, and when he rose to his feet again, he did so not as the persecutor of Christ's followers, but as their champion and mouthpiece—one of the greatest in the whole history of Christianity.

While Simon Peter founded the first Christian Church, and carried the words of Jesus and the spirit of Christ throughout all the lands nearby, Paul of Tarsus carried them much farther, even crossing the seas into foreign countries. Wherever he went he organised the Christians into groups or churches, renewed their courage and their strength, and greatly increased their numbers with his inspiring words.

Jesus's teaching was, above all, a teaching of love—and love became the very fabric of the talks and writings of Paul.

'Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not love! ... I am nothing,' he wrote.

He spoke untiringly about God's love for his children, the human race:

Tor I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers ... shall be able to separate us from the love of God'—nor from our birthright as 'heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ'.

And just as untiringly he repeated Jesus's teachings that we should never do harm to anyone, not even to our bitterest enemies:

'Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not ... if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. ... Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good'.

And he established churches with such genius that he transformed Christianity from a hope and a dream into a practical reality—into a great, organised religion. More important, he established it as a religion not just for one race of people but for all races—a truly 'catholic' religion.

But of course he did not do this unopposed. As the greatest of the Christian leaders, he was also one of the most persecuted. He was imprisoned, starved, beaten, stoned, and again and again he narrowly escaped death, until finally in A.D. 65, in a frightful massacre of Christians in Rome, he and the great apostle Simon Peter were both brutally executed. For this, unhappily, was the way in which the human race first welcomed the teachings of Christ:

'A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you shall love one another.'

Christians of East and West

About three centuries of continued persecution then passed. But when Constantine, the Roman Emperor, became a converted Christian, the whole story changed. Christianity was now the official religion of the Roman Empire and its followers, at last, were safe from wholesale persecution.

But the moment they were freed from outside enemies, they began disagreeing among themselves. They quarrelled about all sorts of things, mainly about whether Jesus was a man or God Himself. Then, when the sacred writings were translated from Greek into Latin, many meanings were slightly changed, and these slight changes led to huge arguments.

From having been the religion that Jesus taught, for the comfort of the downtrodden, for the uplifting of the humble—a glowing inner faith and hope for the poor, the sorrowful and the sick—Christianity became the religion of the upper classes, a rather gaudy showpiece of high society. And it also became the subject for loud quarrels between the leaders of its churches.

No wonder that many people turned aside from all of this noise and wrangling, in an effort to find peace within themselves. They left their homes in the cities, and all of their belongings except the most humble necessities. They lived alone in the surrounding deserts, and were actually the first of the Christian monks.

Christianity was already a very widespread religion, governed by many bishops; and above the bishops were five church leaders, called Patriarchs, or Popes. Of these, the Popes of Constantinople and of Rome were the most important, and perhaps for this very reason they were unfriendly towards each other.

As Constantinople was now the capital of the Roman Empire, its Pope felt that he should have greater authority than the Pope of Rome. And the Pope of Rome felt that he should have greater authority because Rome had been the scene of so much early Christian history, and so many of the martyrs had met their deaths there.

As the centuries passed, one thing after another seemed to widen the gap between these two sections of the Christian Church—Constantinople in the east and Rome in the west. Finally, in the middle of the eleventh century, after a disagreement about certain doctrines and practices, the Pope of Rome excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople and all of his followers, and the Patriarch retaliated by excommunicating the Pope. 'Excommunication' means that a person is expelled from the church and is no longer allowed to take part in its rites and ceremonies; a very serious thing to do to a Pope or Patriarch!

Then, in the 12th century, the Moslems invaded Jerusalem and conquered it, feeling that it was even more sacred to them than to the Jews or the Christians. This was a great tragedy, because armies of soldiers set out from various Christian countries to win it back again. These were known as the Crusaders.

The first of them were a noble band of men, inspired by high motives. But as the years passed and wave after wave of Crusaders marched across Europe, their motives became mixed, and were often bad rather than good. Many young men joined up just for the thrill and adventure of it, others with the idea of loot, still others because they believed that by becoming Crusaders they would be forgiven any crime or sin. And in the long run, they behaved so badly that history has scarcely a good word to say for them.

The worst thing they did was to complete the break between east and west, apparently beyond repair. They swooped down upon their fellow Christians in Constantinople, demanding to be housed and fed by them, trying to crush the authority of their Church under the heel of Rome, and in general treating them with such contempt that it seemed as if their real aim must have been to overthrow the Christians of the east rather than the Moslems.

Bitterness led to more bitterness, and the passing centuries brought no relief. The Christian Church in the east—now known as the Eastern Orthodox—had always been a power under the State, certainly not over it or equal to it—and so it has remained to the present day. That of the west, however, with its centre at Rome, gradually became a great political power which ruled over emperors as well as over the common people.

Certainly this position was not relished by kings and nobles, who wished to hold absolute control over material matters. But the Church argued that the things of the spirit must, by their very nature, be more powerful than those of the body. In 1077, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated King Henry IV of Germany and the king, begging to be taken back again into the Church, was kept waiting barefooted in the snow for three days before the Pope would listen to him. So now, it seemed that there could be no further argument about which held the greater power. Yet the argument did continue, together with many other troubles, embittering the passing years.

The picture was not completely dark, however, for about that time—in the 12th and 13th centuries—lived Francis of Assisi, one of the greatest of all Christian saints, the friend of everything in God's creation, no matter how grand or small, beautiful or ugly, healthy or diseased. There were great numbers of people who followed him in his wonderful way of life, and these—called the Franciscan Friars—became known everywhere for their goodness and charity. Yet at the same time terrible things were happening in the 'Christian' world.

The strange thing about evil is that it can sometimes come about when people are most strongly upholding righteousness. This, in a way, explains the Inquisition— one of the most feared and hated names in history. It began in the 13th century, and lasted for about 200 years. It acted as a kind of court, inquiring into the lives and thoughts of anyone suspected of heresy (views about Christianity different from those of the 'official' Church) and those whom it found guilty, it usually tortured to death.

It condemned all who were not Christians, and any Christian who criticised the Church, or the infallibility of the Pope. Of course, this 'infallibility', or perfection, did not refer to the Pope as a man, but to the idea that he stood for—the idea of Christianity itself, taught by Jesus, and first organised into a Church by Simon Peter. When confusion arose, and the man himself was thought of as infallible, it was only natural for many people to object, because at that time, there were some very bad Popes indeed.

No doubt, when the officers of the Inquisition ordered such people to be tortured and killed, they felt sure that they were stamping out evil. But also, in their zeal, they were forgetting the words of Jesus himself—'Neither do I condemn thee'.

In the earliest days, the followers of Christianity were martyrised by the Romans and Pharisees. Now, they were martyrising one another. However, those who lost their lives did not lose them in vain, for nothing speaks louder than the blood of martyrs, and at last, towards the beginning of the 16th century, changes began to take place throughout the Christian world.

The Coming of Protestantism

In England, Christianity had been known from the early centuries. But in A.D. 597 a branch of the Roman Catholic Church was established there by Augustine, acting on the instructions of the Pope. A few centuries later, a stirring of unrest began to be felt in the English Church, whose leaders could not see why they must always look to Rome for leadership. In the early part of the 16th century, they broke away altogether. The beliefs and rituals of the English Church remained the same as those of the Roman Catholic one, but it declared itself independent of Rome— the Church of England.

Then, here and there in other countries as well, there arose whole groups of people openly protesting against the way in which the Church at that time was acting—just as if Christ had never walked the Earth, preaching love, humility, forgiveness, and the giving-over of worldly goods.

A wealthy man in France, called Peter Waldo, gave all of his own riches away to the poor, and dedicated himself to living as well as preaching the words of Jesus. And, even in spite of cruel persecutions, a great many people became his followers.

John Wyclif, in England, also objected strongly to certain Church practices. He wanted the services to be read in English instead of in Latin, so that even uneducated people could understand them. And he strongly denied the infallibility of the Pope.

On the last day of October in 1517, a history-making event took place. A German monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed a long sheet of writing to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. First, a small number of people stopped to read it in passing; then more and more of them came in a steadily swelling stream, and the practice of Christianity was never quite the same again.

On that sheet of paper, Martin Luther had written a bitter protest against the 'un-Christianly' actions of the Church in those days, including one known as the sale of indulgences. This began, and lasted for a time, in the 16th century. It started with the worthy practice of giving money to the Church, but it led to the unfortunate belief that these gifts of money would compensate for any wrong that the giver might have done, and Luther just would not agree that the favour of God could be bought.

There were many people inside the Church itself who realised that the time for big changes had come, in this and in many other ways, but Luther's drastic actions angered them. The Pope ruled that he was no longer a monk of the Christian Church, and forbade all Christians from reading any of his works.

When a copy of this order was sent to Luther himself, he defiantly burned it in public. For the rest of his life, he wrote and preached continuously against the Roman Church. He translated the Bible into German, and he organised many churches which, though Christian, had no contacts with Rome. These churches were made up of thousands of people who, like Luther, Waldo and Wyclif, 'protested' against Roman practices. So it was that Protestantism began.

Just when Martin Luther was nailing his famous protest on the door of a church in Germany, there was an eight-year-old boy in France called John Calvin—a very bright boy for whom everyone predicted a most promising future. Of course no one, at that time, could have guessed that his name would some day be among the greatest in the Protestant movement. Yet only 18 years later, he had already written a book called Institutes of the Christian Religion, which established him as a true leader in that movement. Fortunately for him, he went to Switzerland to write it, since in the France of those days people were burnt at the stake for being Protestants.

His teachings (called Calvinism) spread rapidly throughout Europe, and even became the basis of Presbyterianism in Scotland. John Knox, the great Scottish Protestant who later founded that religion, met Calvin in Switzerland and accepted many Calvinistic ideas among his own.

But although Protestantism began in a blaze of righteousness, it did not continue in the same way. A Swiss by the name of Ulrich Zwingli fought ardently for many years to separate the Church from the State, making it a purely spiritual power without political interests. He also insisted that all statues should be removed from Christian churches, since people tended to worship them as idols, and he had many other ideas which were so extreme that even Luther could not accept them, so that when these two great Protestants met, they quarrelled violently.

Also in Switzerland, a group of people known as the Anabaptists had arisen, with many ideas of their own, especially regarding baptism. They believed that people should be baptised when they were adults and could understand the meaning of this event, not when they were newborn babies. There were many followers for this movement, which finally gave rise to the Baptists, Quakers and Congregationalists. But they were persecuted so savagely by the other Protestants that even the Catholic Inquisition could not have treated them more cruelly.

Over 2000 of them were killed within 13 years at the beginning of the 16th century.

And afterwards, the Quakers were hunted down with just as much bitterness, despite the quiet and loving attitudes which led to their being called the Society of Friends.

But over a period of about two centuries, the ferocity of religious persecutions and wars seemed to have spent itself, so that Methodism came into being fairly peacefully toward the middle of the 18th century, under the leadership of John Wesley.

Christianity Today

Today, nearly 2000 years after the birth of Jesus, enormous strides are being made at last toward the true practice of Christianity—toward understanding and love. Just after the middle of this century, Pope John opened his arms to all Christian churches, whether Eastern or Protestant, and to all mankind, whether black or white, rich or poor. And in a great work called Pacem in Terns (Peace on Earth) he put into writing a step-by-step, practical approach to a vision of world peace.

Following him, Pope Paul broke with tradition by moving out into the world in person, far and wide.

His friendly meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury—in 1966, overwatched by Michelangelo's inspired paintings in the Sistine Chapel—helped to melt away the hatreds of centuries. And his expressions of deep respect toward great religions other than Christianity will, it is to be hoped, become a pattern for all time.

Meanwhile, the Protestants also are working toward Church unity through what is known as the World Council of Churches. The idea is that all of the Protestant religions—and also, now, many of the Orthodox churches—should set aside their differences of opinion and work together for the good of the world—feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, helping refugees, furthering education.

It may not seem too difficult for the various Protestant churches to work together, but for Catholic and Protestant ones to unite in any way has always appeared impossible. Now, however, even that is gradually taking place, to the extent that, in recent years, the heads of many Protestant churches (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist) have travelled to Rome and met with the Pope, not as strangers, but as fellow Christians.

In the world and in the human heart today, things are happening which have never happened before. In the past, one or two separate people here and there may have realised the good in other people's religions, and dreamt— without really hoping—of a time when barriers would be broken down and mankind would unite as the one affectionate family. Certainly not a family all thinking in exactly the same way, but respecting one another's different outlooks and loving one another no less because of them. Today, not mere individuals, but whole great organisations are dreaming the same thing, and seeing some hope of the dream coming true. And when it does come true, it will bring with it the wonderful blessing of world peace.

THERE is no reason to imagine that centuries will be needed to wipe out so many past centuries of bitterness. Just as the Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem nearly 2000 years ago, there may be a rebirth within the whole world of human feeling tomorrow, next week, next year. Already the way has been prepared for it by the teachings of all the great religions, by thousands of smaller ones, and by the advanced thinking of millions of individuals.

There is a new religion called Baha'i, which arose in Persia during the 19th century, and has since travelled around the world. It is truly a belief for today and for today's problems, for it welcomes every other religion into its beautiful temples, and looks upon the whole of mankind as one great brotherhood.

There is a movement called Moral Rearmament, which aims at bettering the world by developing the highest standards in every individual—absolute unselfishness, purity, honesty and love.

There is a religion called Christian Science, which focuses attention on the Christ spirit of healing.

There are the mystical teachings of Joel Goldsmith, who saw the kingdom of God now and forever within us, waiting only for us to realise and accept it.

~~~~~~~

There are other movements and other people too numerous to mention, all working and thinking along these same lines of unity, brotherhood and selflessness. Many of them we may never even hear of, yet their work is vastly important. Whether they be Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Shintoist, Taoist, Hebrew, Buddhist or Christian—the aspiration is always the same. It is the highest point of all religions, the brightest star in the heaven of human experience. It is perfect love, and with it perfect peace— Millennium, Nirvana, Paradise.

~~~~~~~

End