To live we need good food.

We need spiritual food as well as physical food.

Spiritual food is as vital to our well-being as physical food.

But how can we learn to recognize our common humanity and unite?

The answer lies in realizing that there are many paths, but only one summit. The mystical teachers in particular from the great wisdom traditions have taught the same set of core truths. To them in particular in this wonderful age we can have spread before us a great banquet of mystical nourishment, and we can find access to the true inner teachings.

Through the writings and lives of several great mystical teachers I climb via many paths toward the one summit.

For example through the Christian mystics I am a Christian.

Through Rumi and Ibn Al-Arabi I am a Moslem.

Through the Dalai Lama I am a Buddhist.

Through the chanting of a translation of the Bhagavad Gita I am a Hindu. The translation is here;

http://atmajyoti.org/gi_bhagavad_gita_intro.asp )

It is chanted here,

http://www.spiritual-happiness.com/sanskritscriptures.html

by Kumuda/Sharon Janis,

Through the teachings and life of Abdu'l-Baha I am a Baha'i.

And through the great mystical poetic philosophy of Abraham Joshua Heschel I am a Jew.

It was Heschel who marched at Selma with MLK. He is possibly the greatest of all writers in answer to the most important of all questions; "What is it to be positively & fully human?"

I will gradually develop this section but I start in honor of Heschel, by lising a few of his myriad, exquisitely-insightful sayings:

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme.

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardour.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

The road to the sacred leads through the secular.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotlely, for something supreme.

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

The road to the sacred leads through the secular.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

You can find many more sources of spiritual food by exploring my blog People Development Matters - SEE the foot of any page on this site for a live link.