Why it is important to cultivate your faith

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

I read What Do We Need a Spiritual Path For? by Kabir Helminski, one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world (according to a study in 2009).

I deeply agree with him when he explains why regular spiritual practice is so important.

His article also illustrates why religious teachers should communicate and “synchronize their ideas” with followers of other Holy Scriptures than their own. For people who have the vocation of teaching about God it is important to avoid standing on only one leg or speaking only one language. I’m not saying that we should mix all religions and start to cultivate a pot-pourri of them. But we should never forget that reality is much more complex than any Holy Scripture can reflect. We have an inner desire and yearning to be God-like (and I believe that this is good, not a sin), but we must not give in to the temptation of believing that we are God, or that “we” –and not “them”– have understood God in its fullness. As St. Augustine of Hippo says: “If you understood him, it would not be God.”