The Spokes of a Wheel

I recently read Dying To Be Me, by Anita Moorjani. It's about her NDE (near death experience) when she had stage 4 cancer. Not only did she have an NDE, within 6 weeks of that experience, her cancer was gone. It's a fabulous account and is full of wonderful wisdom gleaned from the other side. This book is definitely worth a read.

In her story, she discusses her childhood in Hong Kong. Of Indian descent, she was raised in the Hindu traditions, yet her early education was in a Catholic school run by nuns. She talks about an instance when a classmate of hers asked why she and her family didn't attend church on Sundays. When she replied that her family is Hindu, he said, "You need to tell your parents to take you to church to pray to God every Sunday, otherwise you won't get to heaven when you die."  When Anita got home, the following dialogue occurred with her mother:

"Mama, my friends and the Sisters at my school say that I have to go to church on Sundays, and I have to study the Bible if i want to go to heaven when I die."

Her mother replied: "You don't have to worry about that. Just tell everyone at school that we're Hindus; and when you're a little older, you'll study our scriptures, the Vedas. People from different places have different faiths. You'll come to learn that after we die, we're reincarnated into other circumstances."

Anita: "I don't think the kids in my school are going to buy that, And I'm scared. What if they're right? They can't all be wrong. How can the Sisters be wrong?"

(My favorite part) My mother pulled me close and said, "Don't be scared, Beta. no one really knows the truth - not even Sister Mary. Religion is just a  path for finding truth. Religion is not truth. it is just a path. And different people follow different paths. "

Anita came to realize the truth of this statement during her time on the other side. There is no one religion where we go after we die. She learned many other truths as well and shares them with others, as she experienced them, in her book as well as in speaking engagements.

I once heard the comparison of a bicycle wheel and religion. God/Source/Creator is the wheel and the many spokes are the different religions. Different spokes, same wheel. Instead of spending our energy trying to convince others that our spoke/religion is better or is the only way to Source, we should be directing that energy to actually getting to know Source, the God within and the God without. Religion is a tool, a path - it is not the end all, be all. We're all on our own paths, our own journeys - but no matter the path they all lead us back to the same space.

Love, Adrienne :)