World religions: major traditions and beliefs

World Religions

Religious experience is a foundational aspect of human development and various people around the world have different and yet similar religious and spiritual experiences that make them a part of humanity. Many profound works of intimate individual experiences have been written that anecdotally express the experience of spirituality, across world religions and cultures. Regardless of the diversity of the person experiencing spiritual understanding, even if it is significantly different than your own a reader can find universal ideals and messages. In the three works, Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mahatma Gandhi, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by John Neihardt, and the Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom are three completely different cultures, representing three separate regions and faiths in the world, all with frequently divergent dogmatic expression but all with similar messages of hope and redemption. Each work expresses humility as a personal standard, faith as a steadfast individual character trait, express belief in the inherent good of humanity, and the need to make personal sacrifices for the good of others. This work will analyze, through the words of these three writers the universality of these character traits across their faiths and regions.

Each of these works requires at least a brief introduction. Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, is the profound story of the struggles and endurance of the famed resistance leader Mahatma Gandhi who strove to unite his native culture, despite their differences. Gandhi was a student of the Hindu faith and stressed non-violent civil disobedience as the first step in unity and resistance to tyranny. He worked in India as well as in South Africa but his messages have been heard all over the world. His autobiography is a fascinating insight into his life and intentions as much has been written about his personal actions from an outsider's view and seeing his own impetus is an essential aspect of understanding his divergent and similar spiritual experience. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, is a biographical sketch of Black Elk's of the Oglala Sioux nation in the United States. In the work the biographer attempts to elevate the words of Black Elk by simply stating them, thematically, rather than by heavy interpretation, which was common form of white writing at the time (1937). The work expresses spirituality through all the main thematic interpretations mentioned in the analysis and offers many diametric answers to enduring questions about spirituality and the Native American population. Lastly, the work the Hiding Place is a biographical work about a Christian Woman and her family, who sheltered many Jews and other innocent fugitives during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Corrie Ten Boom is an unsung hero, with a rather mundane life full of family and community works, her "adventure" into sheltering fugitives ended with her family's imprisonment, leading to the death of her father and sister, her only remaining relatives. The personal sacrifice that is evident within the work is astounding and reflective of the kind of resistance that is expressive of faith and spirituality, in extreme times.

Contrast:

As a point of entry into the topic it is important to understand that the flow of each of these works is entirely different, each uses a completely different style and language structure and of coarse each is reflective of a different religion and culture. Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth reads as a narrative history, straightforward and expressive of facts, as they were seen by the primary character.

Much as I wish that I had not to write this chapter, I know that I shall have to swallow many such bitter draughts in the course of this narrative. And I cannot do otherwise, if I claim to be a worshipper of Truth. It is my painful duty to have to record here my marriage at the age of thirteen. As I see the youngsters of the same age about me who are under my care, and think of my own marriage, I am inclined to pity myself and to congratulate them on having escaped my lot. I can see no moral argument in support of such a preposterously early marriage.

Though the work is clearly peppered with messages of social reform and humanity it is also demonstrative of a book of historical facts, wound through the context of Gandhi's colorful, yet ordinary life. Gandhi, in the passage above speaks of the fact that there are things in the lives of every person that they are not proud to have known and yet he contends that he is a messenger of truth and therefore he must express just that. His work is reflective of his spiritual beliefs in tone as well as in style and this makes the work flow differently than the other two works.

Comparatively, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux is filled with language and ceremony that represents the ideas and the life of Black Elk. In one of the opening scenes of the work, as Black Elk agrees to tell his story to Neihardt the tone of the work can be gleaned:

So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any man alone, I will first make an offering and send a voice to the Spirit of the World, that it may help me to be true. See, I fill this sacred pipe with the bark of the red willow; but before we smoke it, you must see how it is made and what it means. These four ribbons hanging here on the stem are the four quarters of the universe. The black one is for the west where the thunder beings live to send us rain; the white one for the north, whence comes the great white cleansing wind; the red one for the east, whence springs the light and where the morning star lives to give men wisdom; the yellow for the south, whence come the summer and the power to grow.

The work is a reiteration of the stilted and yet moving words of Black Elk as he transmits his life story through the oral tradition to Neihardt and it has a completely different feel than the other two works as a result.

The last work to be discussed the Hiding Place, represents a book that reads as much like a novel as a biography. The work opens on a very auspicious day, the hundred year anniversary of the watch store that the Ten Boom family owns in Holland. The writer Corrie walks the reader through the day, as she and her now small family prepare for the party, foretelling the events of her and her family's near future with one simple statement.

It was a day for memories. A day for calling up the past. How could we have guessed as we sat there-two middle aged spinsters and an old man -- that in place of memories we were about to be given adventure such as we had never dreamed of? Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know.

The ordinary tone of the work, as Corrie discusses the memories of her family, the color of the dress she chose for the party, the manner her father used when he walked into the dining room every morning at 8:10 AM is foundational to the very narrative nature of the loving and tender story she tells. The foreshadowing of the intensity of her future lived experiences, even from the viewpoint of a woman looking back at a tragedy does not harbor anger, and only a minimal amount of regret. Ten Boom writes as if she is recalling the providence of a miraculous group of events that occurred as a result of the actions of an ordinary family. Corrie asks, "Was it possible that this-all of this that seemed so wasteful and so needless-this war, Scheveningen prison, this very cell, none of it was unforeseen or accidental?" And she asks the Lord to protect her loved ones. "Those I love, Lord," I would say. "You know them. You see them. Oh-bless them all!" Living the life now of an incarcerated enemy of the state, she spent her time thinking of her faith and expressing it through her narrative words.

Comparison:

Gandhi's Autobiography demonstrates the ideals of humility through its frank expression of Gandhi, expressing the nature of mistakes he had made through his life. He discusses the nature of tragedy and how his own actions and choices contributed to tragedy.

This latter friendship I regard as a tragedy in my life....I knew his weaknesses, but I regarded him as a faithful friend. My mother, my eldest brother, and my wife warned me that I was in bad company. I was too proud to heed my wife's warning. But I dared not go against the opinion of my mother and my eldest brother. Nevertheless I pleaded with them saying, 'I know he has the weaknesses you attribute to him, but you do not know his virtues. He cannot lead me astray, as my association with him is meant to reform him. For I am sure that if he reforms his ways, he will be a splendid man. I beg you not to be anxious on my account. 'I do not think this satisfied them, but they accepted my explanation and let me go my way. I have seen since that I had calculated wrongly. A reformer cannot afford to have close intimacy with him whom he seeks to reform.

Through this simple example Gandhi expresses his own humility, for accepting a friendship that he was warned against, accepting his own fault in doing so, and lastly expressing his belief in the reforming value of human nature. He also attests to the idea that personal sacrifices, for others are essential to human goodness, and yet there can be tragedy in this sacrifice. He is also very well-known for fasting as a political statement, to resolve conflicts and social wrongs.

Black Elk Speaks also demonstrates these same universal expression, humility, faith, the good of humanity and the need for personal sacrifice. The opening remarks by Black Elk demonstrate a case for humility, as it takes a long time for the researcher to convince Black Elk to tell his story, and when he does so he says he is telling the story of many men, not just his own. He simplifies his life to an extreme that is very representative of humility.

MY friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills.It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit.

He then invokes the ceremony of the pipe, as was described in the earlier quote and proceeds to tell the story of the interconnected nature of life and man.