The first columnist, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, startled me by expressing some basic beliefs that are very close to mine, beliefs which I thought made me an outlier in the world of spiritual thought. For instance, someone asked "If you weren't born Jewish, would you choose to be Jewish?" He replied (in part) "I suspect that I would find Judaism too complicated, tribal, and political for my taste. I don't think I would join any religion, but rather immerse myself in the wisdom and contemplative practices of all of them, and weave my own spiritual path from them." I'm guessing this is pretty much what he has done, though he still wears a yarmulke and calls himself rabbi. My objections to the Southern Baptist faith I was raised in are different, but the path I've found sounds like it's much the same as his.
On the afterlife, he says: "...You and I are unique, temporary wavings of an infinite and undying 'ocean' we call God. When we die, we don't go anywhere; we simply return to the 'ocean' that waves us." In my writings, I've called it a big ball of spiritual energy, or I've suggested we are pieces pinched off of a big ball of spiritual play-doh. The idea is that we continue to exist after death, by being reintegrated into the One Spirit; any individuals born or reborn later will be a mixture of the spiritual energies we've all contributed to this 'ocean'.
One reader says "you seem to be so open-minded as to be almost empty-headed. What do you stand for?" Shapiro then describes himself as a Jewish practitioner of Perennial Wisdom, and goes on to list the 4 common traits of this wisdom (or philosophy,) pretty much the way I have paraphrased them in my own writings.
Finally, I loved this answer in the July/August issue (the first I've received as a subscriber):
Can you recommend a guru I can follow? "Any of the Hasbro egg-shaped Weebles will do. 'Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down' is their core teaching, and you would do well to embrace it..."
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