Differences enrich us

by Chun ko Lin

When I was nine years old, during school holidays, I used to stroll around a sunny city with my favourite person. She was my grandmother's sister. She always had this warm aura of support towards me.

As we walked, she suddenly stopped and with a serious expression, she said, "I'm going to tell you something that you should remember for your whole life. You're still young, but I think you might understand what I'm trying to say. 

You see, on this planet where we live, there are many people who speak different languages, follow different religions, have different customs, or look different from us. Our differences are a good thing. They allow us to learn from each other and enrich our lives through collaboration and sharing experiences. 

However, among us, there are also people who criticize other cultures, languages, religions, customs, or races just because they're different. They want to elevate themselves above others, not realizing that everyone, whether they like it or not, has been raised in a culture and religion, and looks the way they as inherited from  parents. 

Some people even go to war against each other simply because they belong to different languages, cultures, religions, or races. 

But you, you will always know that it's a big mistake, and that all people belong here just as they are, with their cultures, languages, religions, and customs. We are all somehow connected because we woke up here and live in our own culture, whether we wanted it or not. 

Do you understand?" 

My response was, "Yes."

After many years

Many years passed, and the understanding I gained from that dear person continued to unfold within me.

Then, after several decades, another conversation on the same topic occurred with an old spiritual acquaintance. 

It was a spring day, as usual on Sundays, we sat together on our secluded bench in nature and talked about spiritual matters. He considered himself a dedicated spiritual person belonging to an almost unknown mystical religious group. 

However, he couldn't accept or understand any other religion on the planet except his very rare branch of fundamental Christianity. According to him, everything else was from the devil. But he was somehow different from others, and that was his personal perspective.

I tried to share my view too on the same topic with him by expressing a point of view that anyone who truly understands their own religion, culture, and customs can more easily accept and understand all other religions and spiritual paths that exist or have ever existed. 

I wanted to give him examples from a completely different religion to ease the presentation of a different perspective. 

Since I didn't identify with any specific religion, I tried to provide an example of an Islamic phrase and prayer: "La ilaha il Allah," which I believe applies to all known and unknown religions because it highlights the essence of religious and spiritual understanding.

There are several translations of this phrase and prayer from Arabic - La ilaha il Allah - , used as a prayer especially in the Zhikr among Sufis. 

The fundamental translation is: "There is no god but God." 

Allah is actually the Arabic word for God. Just as the Hungarian word for God is Isten, or the English God, or the German Gott, or the Slavic Bog, etc. Even Muslims from non-Arab countries have adopted this Arabic word for God into their languages. 

So, "La ilaha il Allah" translates to "There is no god but God" or "There is no deity but God." 

However, for me personally, this phrase and prayer mean: 

"There is nothing but God." 

Why and how, There is nothing but God? 

Well, if God created everything that exists, what did He make it from? 

Everything God created, and He created everything, is made from Himself. 

So, everything that exists is created from God and made from  God. 

Therefore, my individual perspective is - "There is nothing but God" or, let's say, "There is nothing but the mystery and magic of existence". 

In some other cultures and/or worldviews, it might fit well to say, "There is nothing but the TAO" or "There is nothing but Brahman" or Yahweh, etc. 

For those who grew up in one of the monotheistic cultures, "There is nothing but God" fits quite well because it infuses divine magnificence into every detail and every second of our lives. 

If everything is just God and there is nothing but God, then everything that exists is somehow magical and mysterious. Every atom and every cell of ours, every activity, every individual, every culture, every environment, and every moment of life is somehow divine and magical. 

Why is it good to remember that there is nothing but God? Because by remembering that, we become aware of the miracle of our existence and free ourselves from the internal mill of momentary problems and narrowed consciousness in the tunnel of our thoughts, images, feelings, and sensations. 

God is everything that exists at this moment, and some call it Nature, TAO, Brahman, or the Magic and Mystery of Existence, etc. 

At this moment, everything in existence is the way it is because it could only have arisen due to all the existing influences, circumstances, and laws that God, TAO, Brahma, Nature, or the Universe, etc., created. 

In accordance with that is also the acceptance of our entire life as it is, accepting every moment as it is, accepting other people and ourselves just as we are, and all the religions that existence has given humanity, etc. 

For some people, such a perspective is very hard to digest, just as it was for my conversation partner on the bench, who couldn't easily swallow it all. 

And one last thing

In the aforementioned conversation, I talked with a man who perceives life through the terminology and logic of God and monotheistic religion. 

With an atheist, I would probably present the same thing quite differently and wouldn't mention God or La ilaha il Allah; instead, I would discuss concepts like the laws of the universe and so on.

 But, in the end, it would all boil down to the same conclusions because the mystery of the origin of matter is unfathomable even for atheists. How many more subtle plans of existence beyond what we call matter exist is an even greater mystery. Astrophysics is slowly opening the doors to antimatter, dark matter, and dark energy, etc.

 Where and why did people on this planet build various religions and beliefs in God or nature, and so on? 

This was for people who were looking for some kind of definitive and simple answer to everything they don't know and don't understand. 

Some on the other side do not need God, but are satisfied with accepting Nature or the Universe or the Magic and Mystery of Existence.

Of course, some people do not seek a final answer to everything they don't know and don't understand. Such people, who are not searching for the unknown, live their lives from moment to moment as it unfolds and don't rack their brains over it. 

They are the way they are simply because they were made that way, whether they like it or not. The same goes for those who are in constant exploration of this magic and mystery of existence, as they too are made that way, whether they like it or not. 

Every person, whether he like it or not, is different from others. Life lives through us with all its laws at all levels of our physical-emotional-mental organism, whether we like it or not. Accepting this gives us a special quality of conscious groundedness in life. 

In the development of human life, among other challenges, there are frictions and even destructions among people. Survival on this planet is complex enough; we don't need additional unnecessary burdens just because someone has a different language, culture, religion, or racial characteristics. 

Because we were all born here on this cosmic spaceship and woke up one day and grew up just as we are, whether we wanted to or not. The richness of diversity is, in fact, just one more reason among others for cooperation and exchange of experiences for a better life on this magical sphere.