Imperfect People on Imperfect Roads

I make myself tired sometimes with all my ranting about politics and religion, which probably explains why I love Cindy Alexander’s song, “Sick of Myself”. Every once in a while I encounter some real wisdom, as opposed to the wisdom-of-the-hour for which the blogosphere is simultaneously famous and infamous, and it slows me down and makes me contemplate different things, or the same things on a different level.

The following quote from Mahatma Gandhi is a piece of such wisdom. He says:

“Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? I believe that all religions of the world are true more or less. I say "more or less" because I believe that everything the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect.”

Everything the human hand touches is thereafter imbued with the imperfection that is endemic to all humanity throughout its history. Every religion, every political party, every organization and institution – indeed, every culture and civilization is marked by the human hand and is therefore imperfect. Imperfection is one of the things that every person and every group of people have in common.

What would the world be like if every one of us spoke and acted like we were consistently aware of our own imperfection? People who speak and write about the imperfections of others, as I often do here, would be prepared to acknowledge in the same breath – “I could be wrong about this; I’m certainly wrong about something because, heaven knows, I’m far from perfect.”

What would the world be like if every one of us acknowledged that all we know is our personal opinion; all we see is our personal perspective; all we hear is sifted through our personal filters; and, as a result, none of us can proclaim to have a firm grasp on reality? It’s often questionable whether we even have a tenuous grasp on reality. Rather, the world we experience is a world of our own making – a world imbued with our imperfection.

On the subject of religion in particular, note that Gandhi does not make his statement about every little sect and denomination that has come from the hand of man or woman. He refers to the “religions of the world”, and I take that to mean religions that have persevered through time and have a worldwide reach and sphere of influence – Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and a small number of others.

Isn’t it possible that these religions of the world have survived and thrived through time because they all have a sufficient claim to a sufficient amount of truth to serve as a meaningful guide for countless men and women who travel on different roads to the same destination – heaven, salvation, liberation, nirvana, enlightenment, whatever the eternal and transcendent release from the trials and tribulations of our imperfect lives may be called by the individual traveler.

“What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal” – it doesn’t matter. Obviously that statement assumes that we’re all pursuing the same goal, which, ultimately, I think we are. If we took the time to carefully boil down the mixture in each beaker of world religion, I believe that we’d find the same precipitate. I’ll call it peace – peace in our hearts and minds; peace in our homes; peace in our nations and our world; and peace with God.

We all seek a perfect peace. May we all find the awareness and wisdom to get us down our individual road to that end.

As Helen Keller said, “I do not want the ‘peace that passeth understanding’; I want the understanding that brings peace.”