ONE RIVER, MANY WELLS: WISDOM SPRINGING FROM WORLD FAITHS
Matthew Fox
In this book I try to go to the core of human religious traditions as we know them to find the spirituality that is there. It is clear that once we return to the depth or core of religion we find much more than dogmas, concepts, institutions, commands. We find a striving for experience of the Divine, however that be spoken of, we find both form and formlessness, male and female, experience and practice. We also find that in their core and depth we do not encounter many different religions so much as one experience that is expressed variously and with great diversity and color flowing in the name of different traditions and cultures.
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"The African universe is conceived as a unified spiritual totality….all being within it is organically interrelated and interdependent." Dona Richards, African-American philosopher
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"Mechtild of Magdeburg said: 'God is not only fatherly. God is also mother who lifts her loved child from the ground to her knee.'"
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"Each beautiful thing, a flower, the song of a bird, awakens in our soul the memory of our origin. Learn how to listen to the voice of beautiful things, to make us understand the voice of the soul." The Mevlevi Dervishes
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"All men of wisdom have one religion; they all have one caste; they all behold the face of the One!" Dadu, 16th century Indian saint-poet
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"There is one underground river – but there are many wells into that river: an African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a Goddess well, a Christian well, and aboriginal wells. Many wells but one river."
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"There is a fundamental structure of interrelatedness and interdependability inherent in all living things, at microscopic levels of existence and in human society….The origin and goal of community, therefore, is the Mind of God, which is coming to Itself in time." Walter E. Fluker
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"In the Gospel of John, the Christ says: 'I am the true vine. I am the resurrection. I am the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the light of the world….I am the bread of life."
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"God is a pure, clear One who is separate from all twoness." Meister Eckhart
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"Instant by instant the unvierse creates itself as a bonded community. To hear how omnipresent community is in the universe is to encourage our own difficult steps in community-building. The effort at community is an effort to imitate the universe. Therefore, it is a good effort. Therefore, it cannot fail."
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"The seven principles that form the basis of Kwanza celebration all center around community. They include the following: self-determination for the community; collective work and responsibility; cooperative economics; the collective vocation of building the community; and creativity whose purpose is 'to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.'"
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"Self-sacrificing and forgiving compassion are the ultimate fulfillment of person-in-community and the ultimate revelation of the character of God." Martin Luther King
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"Isness is God." Meister Eckhart
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"God is one, his glory multiplying in many forms." Raimundo Panikkar, 'The Vedic Experience'
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"The Spirit is the supreme abode wherein dwells all that moves and breathes and sees….His radiance illumines all Creation." Mundaka Upanishad
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"The truth is that interdependence exists at the microcosmic and macrocosmic and psychic levels of existence."
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"The Celts all considered themselves children of a Great Mother Goddess."
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"From this beautiful One beauty comes to be in all beings." Thomas Aquinas
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"All Creation is on fire with sacredness; the Buddha nature and the Cosmic Christ and the image of God reside in the very light (photons) present in every atom in the universe."
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"Beautiful you rise, O eternal living god! You are radiant, lovely, powerful. Your love is great, all-encompassing." Egyptian hymn, ca. 1550 bce
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"God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop." Meister Eckhart
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"My neighbor and I have the same origins; we have the same life-experience and a common destiny; we are the obverse and reverse sides of one entity; we are unchanging equals; we are the faces which see themselves in each other." The Zulu Personal Declaration of 1825
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"The Shahadah is the Islamic prayer of unity: 'La illaha illa Ilah hu' (Nothing exists save God). It is like the Jewish prayer: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One.'"
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"The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature." Marija Gimbutas, 'The Language of the Goddess'
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"Your own Mind shines forth, unobscured, for all living beings. Your own Mind is originally pure and clear as the sky. Your original wisdom is as continuous and unstoppable as the current of a mighty river. To know whether or not this is true, look inside your own Mind." Pahmasambhava, Buddhist writer
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"Your existence, my dear, O love my dear, has been sealed and marked 'too sacred', 'too sacred', by the Beloved – to ever end! Indeed, God has written a thousand promises all over your heart that say, Life, life, life is far too sacred to ever end." Hafiz, 'God's Bucket'
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