Sacred Readings Archive
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Readings from the World Religions on 'Life in God'
from the Rose Garden Web site
from: http://www.members.tripod.com/~Rose_Garden/worship.html

Invocation
Toward the One, the perfection of love harmony and Beauty the Only Being united with all the Illuminated Souls who form the embodiment of the Master the Spirit of Guidance.

Bhagavad Gita. Seventh discourse. v 28.
Those persons of pure deeds whose sin has come to an end, who are freed from the delusion of pains, they worship God with a firm resolve. .

The Dharmapada. Righteousness Ch11, v151
Even ornamented royal chariots wear out. So too the body reaches old age. But the dharma of good does not grow old. Thus do the good reveal it among the good. 

Gospel of Zarathustra; ch 63: v 2.
This Enlightened one calls Love's deeds fruitful, knowing that holy devotion is the true foundation of righteousness, and all these, O Lord, are fearless in Thy kingdom. They are Thy twins, Perfection and Immortality, indeed their food through the power of love, and their steady strength, grows great through Righteousness blended with Devotion. By such means O God, Thou indeed overcome those who hate thee. 

Tanakh: Psalms 86 v 11-13 A Prayer for David 
 Teach me Your way O Lord, I will walk in Your Truth Let my heart be undivided in reverence for Your name. I will praise You O Lord my God, with all my heart And pay honour to Your name forever. For your steadfast love toward me is great You have saved me from the depths of Sheol. 

The New Testament, John Ch1 v 1-5 
When all things began the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The word then was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be. No single thing was created without him. All that came to be was alive with his life and that life was the light of men. The light shines on in the dark and the darkness has never mastered it. 

The Holy Qur'an Sura xxix 62 
God enlarges the sustenance which He gives to whichever Of his servants he pleases And He similarly grants By strict measure as He pleases For God has full knowledge of all things. 

Readings from the Gayan 
 My soul is moved to dance by the charm of thy graceful movements And my heart beateth the rhythm of thy dancing steps. Life in God 
 

Excerpt from Sufi Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan; Life in God (Vol 3. P254) 

"In Him we live and move and have our being." This teaching of the Bible describes the nature of God:that God is the ocean, the waves of which are all its activities, small or great. The Qu'ran says in support of this that not a single atom moves, groups or scatters without the command of God. Rumi
explains it still more plainly: "Air, earth water and fire are God's servants; to us they seem lifeless but to God living." In those who are conscious of this knowledge, and to the extent of their realization of this truth, their arises the spirit of renunciation which may be called the spirit of God. 

One who wants anything becomes smaller than the thing they wants. One who gives away anything is greater than the thing they give. Therefore to a mystic each act of renunciation becomes a step toward perfection. Forced renunciation, whether forced by morality, religion, law, convention, or formality, is not necessarily renunciation. The real spirit of renunciation is willingness; and willing renunciation comes when one has risen above the thing one renounces. The value of each thing in life, wealth, power, position, possession, is according to our evolution. 

There is a time in life when toys are ones treasures, and there is a time when one puts them aside; there is a time when copper coins are everything, and there is another time when one can give away gold coins. There is a time in life when one values a cottage, and a time when one gives up a palace. 

Things have no value; their value is as one makes it; and at every step in one's evolution, one changes their value. Certainly there is no gain in leaving home, friends, and all affairs of life, and going to the forest and living the life of an ascetic; and yet who has the right to blame those who do so? How can the worldly person judge the one who renounces? Perhaps that which seems of greatest value to the worldly person is nothing to the one who has renounced.

The Sufis make no restrictions and has no principles of renunciation, nor do they teach renunciation. The Sufis believe that to sacrifice anything in life which one does not wish to sacrifice is of no use, but that renunciation is a natural thing, and grows in one with one's evolution. A child which cries for its toy at one stage of its childhood, comes to an age where it is quite willing to give away the toy it once cried for. 

There are three stages of morals. The first stage is the moral of reciprocity. This moral is natural to those who see the difference between themselves and others, who recognise each person as "such and such". 

The second stage is the law of beneficence, where one, recognising themselves as an entity separate from others and recognising others as distinct entities from themselves, nevertheless, see a cord of connection running through themselves and all, and find themselves as a dome, in which rises an echo of good and evil; and in order to have a good echo, they give good for good and they give good for evil. 

But the third stage is the moral of renunciation, where the difference of "mine" and "thine" and the distinction of "I" and "you" fade away in the realisation of the one Life that is within and without, beneath and beyond; and that is the meaning of the verse in the Bible, "In Him we live and move and have our being." 
 

Benediction

   "May the blessing of God rest upon you, May His peace abide with you, may His presence
                  illuminate your hearts, now and forever more. Amen"


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