Posts Tagged: world religion

November 9, 2009

The Sacred Literature of Sanatana Dharma

Hindu

A myriad of spiritual paths crisscross over the terra firma of the Indian subcontinent. A few of these paths could be called unified systems; Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, for example, are properly unified systems. The majority of these paths, however, can be called neither unified, nor systematic. The paths are simply too diverse to be legitimately categorized under one proper and unifying name. In spite of this fact, the Indian subcontinent’s colorful spiritual variety is usually lumped together under the name Hinduism. To make matters even more interesting, the name “Hinduism” wasn’t coined by indigenous people; it was originally derived from a term that was applied by foreigners and it was enforced in the nineteenth century by British colonial power. In spite of all of this, the everyday reality of the Indian subcontinent is built upon religious and spiritual diversity. Read more…

November 8, 2009

The Sacred Stories of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

The Sacred Stories of Indigenous People

If God camps with the oppressed, downtrodden, and spiritually humble, then God’s tent must be perpetually pitched with the world’s indigenous peoples. Many of the ancient and sacred ways of indigenous people endure to this day, but only because many indigenous people choose to continue to live off of the earth in non-industrial, simple, scaled-down cultures. There are more, however, who have decided to leave the non-industrial, simple lifestyles to their ancient ancestors. These people have been assimilated into developing culture(s) where they still spiritually adhere to aspects of their tribe’s traditional lifestyles, but only from within a very big shadow cast by industrialized and large-scale societies. Additionally, ancient indigenous people have endured and survived genocide, colonialism, mechanistic materialism, coerced conversions by missionaries from global religions, and the systematic destruction of their natural environments by those driven only by capitalistic economics and consumption. Given all of the above, it is amazing that indigenous people have survived at all. Surely, Divinity has smiled and continues to smile upon these tribes of simple, earth-based, and sacred people. They are, after all, close to God’s heart.

Indigenous people also have blessed the world with wonderful spiritual stories. Stories are an important part of all of our meaning making processes; we all create stories, universally speaking. Ignoring stories that have been written by our brothers and sisters the globe over is not a spiritual strength; it is spiritual weakness (pride). So, if you are not familiar with other people’s spiritual stories, here are a few sacred stories from a few of the planet’s indigenous tribes for your spiritual enlightenment. Read more…