Pope Benedict’s Speech of Communal Truth of Wisdom

K.S. Chow

Introduction

Pope Benedict’s April visit to the United Unites was strategically orchestrated to fulfill his sacred and dear agendas of diffusing peace and truth. His U.S official visit was welcome personally by the American President and his family members. His mission to U.S was to promote and foster global peace and the communal truth of wisdom. The communal truth of wisdom is applicable not only to the Catholics but also universally applicable to all people in our currently imperilled world. The tensions and turmoils in our currently imperilled world have resulted from the clashes of civilizations and also from the severe oil and food crisis plaging the world.

 As a former university professor elevating into a Pope venerated in the world of Catholics, he is evidently adept to speak the right things in the right places to the right people. The enthusiastic and cheering devotees and audiences elevated his spirit and engendered his gentle smiles. He indeed delivered appropriately to edify and awaken the world to the communal truth of wisdom by which the spiritually retarded world can be improved and saved.

The key message of the speech, uttered by Pope Benedict to inter-faith religious leaders, was two-fold. Firstly, religious leaders are advised  to promote and foster peace and harmony among their followers, devotees or adherents. Secondly, they are  to discover and unveil the communal truth of wisdom by which religious believers ought to live in to strengthen the ties of solidarity among fellows of different faiths. It is not sufficient or fulfilling if the religious leaders preach only the exoteric or outward dimension of their respective religions – the universal or communal moral values or ethics. Most importantly, the communal or identical esoteric, eternal Truth should be unveiled, promoted and fostered. The communal esoteric, eternal truth is the obliteration of illusive self-centric ego to realize salvation. The obliteration of self-centric ego unveils further the esoteric Truth that the world is illusion and only God is real.  It must be emphasized that God is none other than the eternal truth of Unity or Non-duality expressed in term of ‘One in many ; many in One’. The underlying Truth of the relationship between the world and God ought to be unveiled and made lucid and comprehensible to the religious adherents. The communal Truth of wisdom constructs bridges between different religions.

It does not matter how the Absolute or God is designated by different religions. Though dissimilar religions are designated dissimilarly, the same communal truth of Unity or Non-duality of all beings (the oneness of the world) is propagated. The eternal truth of Unity or Non-duality is ineffable. It  cannot be described and designated actually. It is actually nameless. What is nameless is real ; what can be named is unreal. The nameless is God or Tao (right Path).

When the identical Truth is unveiled, religious and racial discrimination will automatically vanish from human relationships in a plural society. Consequently, the universal brotherhood of humanity is discerned. This universality of brotherhood of mankind ought to be vigorously promoted and fostered to encourage the alliances of civilizations everywhere locally, nationally and internationally. The identical truth of Unity or Non-duality is universal. The promotion and fostering of the communal truth of the intrinsic Unity of all beings unite people of diverge races, religions and beliefs. It also promotes and fosters friendliness towards the natural environment.

The eternal truth that all living and non-living beings in the world are innately interdependent and interrelated should be highlighted. Intrinsically, we are one and not separate. If human beings act to divide themselves, the intrinsic unity of all being or the innate universal principle of interdependence is violated. Dependently co-arisen interrelationship and interconnectedness constitutes the natural order of equilibrium called Tao in Taoism. Disrupting this divine equilibrium or Tao is tantamount to opposing the spirit of God or truth of Dharma. Such perverse behaviour is catastrophic. The trouble with the ignorant worldlings is that they do not perceive this intrinsic divine mutual dependence of all beings in the world. The worldlings perceive different individuals as discrete entities separate from one another. Individuation or separation is mere illusion. Self-centred egoism expressed in terms of ‘I’ and ‘You’ is evoked from this erroneous perception of individualism of all things. This Truth should be unveiled, highlighted and expounded by all religious teachers or leaders.

Not only we are not separate from all human beings, we are also not separate from the natural environment. We must love both mankind and natural environment to experience lasting peace and security. For instance, we must be awakened to the truth that global warming and climate change are serious threats to the protection of our natural environment. Global warming and climate change lead to natural catastrophes such as severe floods, cyclones, forest fires and so forth. Global warming has been identified by environment scientists as the negative effect of irresponsible human behaviour of not loving their natural environment. Human beings are the ones who produce the green-house gases which warm our natural environment and cause excessive climate change. Human beings are parts of the totality of natural environment. When we do not protect the natural environment, we do not protect ourselves. Being nice to others is being nice to oneself.

Extreme cyclone is believed to be caused by global warming and climate change. The recent Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar was the most deadly in the history of that country. Thousands of victims were killed and missing. Some villages were almost totally devastated ; vast rice-growing acreas were wiped out ; many huge trees were even blown down damaging homes and structures. When the natural environment cries, the victims also cry.

Pope Benedict asserted that it is the duty and obligation of the religious leaders to highlight the identical communal truth of wisdom so that it is constantly reflected or contemplated upon in our daily prayers or meditation. When the common esoteric truth is realized, the apparent differences of the exoteric or external dimensions of dissimilar religions will thus be apprehended as the variations of pedagogy or teaching-learning strategies. When esotericism is understood, the varying exotericism will be respected. In this way, diverge people of a plural society will respect the different beliefs and religious practices of others. This mutual respect enhances civic life and protects religious freedom. Inter-faith understanding obliterates discrimination and fosters goodwill, harmony and unity.

When the communal Truth of the illusive nature of self or ego is discerned, there is no reason to fear others. ‘I’ and “you’ do not exist in the ultimate analysis. It is sheer folly to fight the shadows which do not exist. This is the Truth conveyed by all religious masters of dissimilar religious denominations. Whoever perceives the Truth loves his or her neighbours like loving himself or herself. They even can love their enemies as the enemies are also parts of the Totality in which we live together. Any conflict with the enemies will disturb the intrinsic divine Unity. If we can not love their enemies, minimally, we ought to  forgive and tolerate the  fallibilities of our  enemies for the sake of preserving the innate divine unity among all beings.

Pope Benedict admonished the world populace that the communalities ought to be discovered through inter-faith understanding to invigorate the Truth. He added that differences ought to be discussed with calmness and clarity. He further advised that a common set of values ought to be identified and their ultimate foundation is probed and ascertained. This attitude of openness helps build solid foundation for peace and security. Having discovered the Truth, we naturally seek out the path of peace, that is, we live in the communal knowledge of Truth.

Pope Benedict extolled initiatives, such as inter-religious dialogues, cross cultural dialogues, religious freedom and faith-based or inter-faith education. He praised that these are practical strategies for promoting and fostering peace and security. Religious leaders must co-operate and collaborate to offer humanitarian aids in kind or in spirit to the needy in society in order to promote and foster alliances of civilizations. Such initiatives avert the clashes of civilizations. International sports meets, such as the Olympic Games and World Cup Soccer  transcend racial and religious barriers and gather human family. They are alliances of civilizations between the west and the east. They are to be encouraged and preserved.

The Truth illuminates the mind and dispels the darkness of ignorance and perversion. It is heartening and praiseworthy that the enterprise or the hidden agenda of Bodhi Journal and Deer Park is consistent with the religious aspiration of Pope Benedict. It also fulfills the urgent psychological needs of the world. Therefore, we wish that Pope Benedict could be scheduled to make more visits to various portions of the globe to edify and awaken the world at large with ‘sermons’ of esoteric wisdom of communal Truth. As a world leader, the Eminent should not be confined to only delivering exoteric sermons to the Catholics.

Likewise, we also wish that other world religious leaders in Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam are also given equal opportunities to address the world with the communal Truth of wisdom to promote and foster interfaith understanding. Such initiatives build confidence in interfaith dialogues.