"the whole universe together participates the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever." Summa Theologica (Part I, q. 47, a. 1)
Multiplicity is seen everywhere in nature, even in the experiences and expressions of human consciousness. The human mode of consciousness is part of a gradual process of the dynamics of the cosmos itself in the caring hands of God. The human mode is towards an inner-communion with the numinous mystery that also includes the mystery of human existence. The multiple forms of awareness and expression are seen although various spiritual disciplines, diverse forms of deities and worship, scriptures, mystical trends, and moral codes.
The interior awareness of the numinous were rather developed within the limits of particular geographical context, and the then available mode of consciousness. They were inspiring interpretations to respond to their context. They effectively guided a specific community to participate meaningfully in the numinous they recognised.
India had deep mystical and metaphysical developments which demanded a specific type of psychic intensity. Chinese traditions recognised a Great Mystery in the vast cosmological cycles in which human was also a functional presence. The Japanese nurtured a spiritual simplicity and spontaneity which they learned from their sense of the aesthetic expression of the numinous in the natural world. The native Americans were aware of a Great Spirit that is present throughout the natural world and in the human heart. The power of the word of the great patriarch cultivated the consciousnesses of all powerful Word among the Semitic religions and made them People of the Book.
In all these traditions they had the first phase as a recognition of the numinous in the nature, the primary revealing agent. Then their experiences were given narrative structures and handed down to next generation by word of mouth and shared rituals. Next phase was to take a written form of what was handed on orally. By now they received a more defined form. However, a classical authority given to the text restricts all kinds of rereading and interpretations.
The distinctive insights of each of these traditions were their deepest value. Only when they are seen in their relation to each other, a comprehensive vision or the complete beauty of the revelatory experience can be observed. In contents we may observe the differentiated forms of images, disciplines, liturgy etc, but in their mutual presence we may come to know the authentic revelatory process itself. It is important to see how a tradition brings the divine, the nature and the human to be present to each other. It is a revelatory nearness to each other.
Desire for uniformity can be apparently beautiful, but it is possible only within a closed community. if we opt to do that it can lead to a sterility in the religious process. Uniformity, of course, saves the challenge to meet differences, but it cuts off the tensions needed for creativity and openness needed for understanding the numinous being revealed in our time. Closed understanding and interpretation of a religious discipline, scripture, and ways of worship can only make divine human communication shrink. When we observe the wrongdoings within religions it is mainly because some individual began assuming this secluded vision of non-interacting and dominating vision of their religious traditions.
Rather, a healing can be experienced only by an openness which cannot be exhaustively understood or expressed in a single form. It is communion we all look for. Redemption, repentance, sanctification, reconciliation are all in one way or the other indicate to this communion aspect. Moving further from atonement patterns we can also imagine about a communion in personal and cosmic terms. The concepts like logos, mystical body ... also have deep potential to be open for this communion in differences.
Courtesy: Thomas Berry, "The Earth: The New Context for Religious Unity"
