God, Gemstones, and Elephants
by Guy Spiro

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Lately I have been having an ongoing email discussion on religion, spirituality and the nature of God with a young man of my acquaintance. This fellow is a committed, zealous Christian who strives with all his being not only to talk the talk but to walk the walk. I admire his devotion and it’s been a long time since I burned at the temperature that he does. I have nothing negative to say about his approach to the work, the depth of his experience or the light in his eyes. The main disagreement that I see between us is his single focus on one spiritual system, Christianity, which to me is too limited in scope for our time.

I have had this discussion with others. Tibetan Buddhist monks, yogis, sufi teachers, kabbalists, new thought Christian ministers, and representatives of other systems have all taken the position that it is best to decide on one path and walk it. If, with a gun to my head, I had to pick one system, it would be the new thought Christian. But my position is that as we progress into a new age, we are better served to pick and choose components from among the systems, as suits the needs of an individual at any given time. Those who disagree call this my smorgasbord approach and say that much less progress is made. Time will tell who is right, if indeed one side is more right than the other. In the meantime, if focusing on one system is working for someone, that’s great.

A few days ago, I wrote something to my young friend that I want to share with the rest of you. In a sense, I see Christianity as a facet on a gemstone. It is an important facet, but there are several others of equal beauty. In most times past, we only had access to the facet of the culture we were born into. That we now have the possibility to study the whole stone seems to me proof enough that that is the way of the now. The various religions and systems are all facets on the same stone. They are all attempts to understand God and the essential nature of reality. I say that it is the stone itself that is important, not the individual facet. It is the search for God that is important, not the path one walks. It is the depth of commitment and the service one offers up, not the team that you play on. I cannot conceive of God as confined to any one belief system.

All of this reminds me of the oft used but very apt story of the blind men studying the elephant. The one who felt a leg described it as a tree. The one who felt the tail thought it was a rope. The one who felt the trunk knew it to be a hose, and so on. None of them could understand the elephant by the part they were aware of. No one can do justice to a gemstone by looking at one facet. And God cannot be understood from any one viewpoint.