Email to a Muslim Friend

Tonight, I received an email form a Muslim friend. In it, she mentioned, she had watched a documentary on the crusades. This little note triggered the following email to her:

Dear Fatima,

  I am so embarrassed about the crusades! These were the the most horrible slaughtering wars in western history! And totally unprovoked! What amazes me is, how enlightened the Muslims of that time where. Tolerant, understanding, peace-loving. The "Christians" of that time were savages! Ignorant, blind, and ... well, just an embarrassment to human race!
  What makes me sad, though, is, that so many Muslims today are behaving like the Christians from then! Where has all the enlightenment gone, where is the love, the tolerance?

  Well, to be honest, it is not there in the hard-core "Christian" community either. If you just look at the intolerance towards gays and lesbians, the attitude towards women, or toward followers of other belief-systems, or at the prejudices they perpetuate and re-iterate!

  I think, the only hope for our planet is, that people in all parts of the world, make a transition from being "religious" to being "spiritual".

  Religiosity is full of threats, brain-washing, inconsistencies... and generally a doctrinal approach: you do what I tell you, or you'll roast in hell all eternity! Religion is applied, sometimes forced, from the outside. 

  Spirituality, on the other hand, is a very personal affair. It is about me pondering the question "What is my life all about?". Asking this question does not provide an excuse to kill anybody else! Pondering this topic does not provide anybody with a "right" to judge anybody else, or to force anybody else to do anything.

  Spirituality is built on enlightenment. Somebody, who understands what all the options are, and the consequences of these options, will make a good decision. I find, once we get to that point, where it is about sharing information, not proselytizing, suppressing, judging and pressuring others - that's when we shall start making progress. This progress first shows up in a widespread improvement of awareness of our role here (both as the human race, and as individual). Based on better understanding, there will be changes in priorities, and approaches.

  My Father once told me:

The result of any action that is motivated by love is always better
 than the result of an action motivated by hate or anger.

Heinz Hutegger

  I can see, that more understanding will help more of us to approach this creation and everything in it with love. Our approach towards other humans will be focused instead of dividing and separating, more on including and embracing. We shall understand it is not "me against the world", or "my [group] against the world" - where you can replace [group] with family, race, country, tribe, religious following, or any other kind of division of humanity. Instead we shall realize that it is "Me together with the world" and "the world together with me"!

  Also, there will me more concern about the rest of creation. Our current focus on "human" will widen to include all of creation. It is not anymore "Love your neighbor", but "Love creation"!

  Oh, Alia, let me stop ranting and raving... I get all excited when I see the potential of a "Spiritual Revolution" - the first revolution in humanity's history, that is not marred with bloodshed, does not include fighting at all, but that is happening peacefully, from within each individual person - brought forward only through inspired information and open-minded, non-judgmental pondering. 

A Revolution of Love!

Doesn't that sound just beautiful?

In that sense, all my love to you and yours! May life treat you kindly, and may you treat the creation kindly in return...