We are not given to understand. Katerina Korin

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СКАЧАТЬ Because it is about our worldly life. All Christian parables tell stories of material world, real events. And Zen Buddhism claims there is no reality, so I ended up with it at the top. One religion does not continue another, they go in parallel, like two sides of the same coin.

      The same can be said about other religions: Islam, Hinduism. They are all at the bottom because they are talking about material things. Islam is practically Christianity with a few changes. Hinduism, of course, hovers above Christianity a little. It is passionate. It’s like, let’s say, a fabulous religion. Various branches of Christianity also show us, tell us about life in the material world.

      Different religions, each telling in its own way about material life prove to me that the world is one. There cannot be a hundred religions and a hundred worlds. But when, for example, the orthodox say that their faith is the truth, it stirs up my resentment. This seems untrue to me. Their faith reflects the picture of the world as their community sees it. These are all cultural aspects that reduce everyone to one single world, and people tell about it under the influence of cultural differences. There can only be one world. At least the other world is not shown to us yet.

      Just like about a struggle for power, I am sceptical about the disagreement between the conceptual Orthodox and Catholics, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and Christians. We all live in the only common world. We all turn to God, albeit calling it by different names, different words. How many people enthusiastically delve into the word sense? Etymology is an extremely interesting field, it tells us where certain words come from, what they mean. Take, for example, the word «Lord’. This word has another meaning – ruler. We perceive God as ruler. In our language, God is a ruler. And the ruler is the one whom people obey and serve. But this is actually a lie. God gives us so many freedoms! Therefore, for myself, I gave up on the word «Lord’. I feel God as my friend, I listen to him, but I do not want to obey God like a slave, meekly, without understanding. Here is another phrase – «servant of God’ – which I stay off.

      I do not consider myself equal to God, God is above everything. I believe in God, I firmly believe that there is Something that leads us through life. This is my religion, it may be wrong. But God should be called by some other word, which shows if not particularly equal, but good neighbourly relations. Or some word that shows that God is not our ruler, that He leads us, helps us. But He is not our lord. That’s what I think.

      What Do I Think of When I Look at the Mother of God?

      Countless times have you seen a woman holding the body of her murdered son in her arms. We look at her in hushed silence and feel all the heaviness of the weight in her hands. She devotes herself to him – a mother mourns her son. Still, we look at icons, frescoes, statues, and we know that She is the Mother of God. She has the King of Heaven in her arms. She is the Queen of Heaven. On any icons, even the most ancient ones, you will not find Her look otherwise than royal. She is always young and queenlike. He is always young and kinglike.

      However, not long ago, I saw this scene in a very different way. I saw and understood for the first time with all my soul that the Mother of God is, first of all, a mother. She was his mom. And her son was killed. He died in terrible suffering, before her eyes. I saw that this well-known story is a real tragedy. I looked at the Virgin Mary and saw a woman, a mother whose son had died. Her child, her boy was killed. This struck me to the core.

      I felt the human maternal pain of the Mother of God. I involuntarily imagined what a nightmare it would be if this happened to me. What a terrible thought.

      Who Was Jesus?

      It is believed that Jesus got his cosmic consciousness by way of trial. And here I am asking a question: was He a man, that is, a human with special powers, or was He a different essence? It is known that for thirty-three years, Jesus stayed in the form of a man and possessed powers and abilities. Because He, for example, could feed five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fishes. That is what a parable from the Gospel of John tells us. But, on the other hand, all His abilities may turn out to be a myth, a metaphor. Or they may not. We don’t know. And we’ll never know it because it happened a long time ago. We can only trust the Bible and say that since it is written in the book, it really was the case.

      But is it really so?

      I understand the story of Jesus not as a myth. I might be wrong. But when I read the Bible, I have the feeling that if He was a man, He was very different from how they describe Him. Or is Jesus a spiritual person? The God? British philosopher, writer and lecturer Alan Watts believes that Jesus was a man who actually lived. That is, it is not a myth. At the same time, Alan Watts is not a Christian believer. The main thing, in my opinion, is that Jesus gave humanity a lot. All the parables about Jesus are amazing, brilliant. It doesn’t matter who made them up. It is important that parables exist, that they are absolutely right and help us live.

      When I come to confession, I always say the same thing – about my week faith, and how sceptical I am. Weak faith is my ordeal. I don’t truly believe in Jesus Christ the way He is described in the Bible, in the three-day resurrection. The concept of resurrection confuses me. I don’t believe that He rose on the third day. But, on the other hand, maybe we are talking here about reincarnation? Maybe this is the way the Bible introduces us to reincarnation?

      When I say «week faith’, I’m talking about the lack of faith in the Christian sense; I don’t believe enough in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in His existence. I have doubts. When I confess my lack of faith, priests always answer me: «That’s okay. Almost everyone has doubts, because no one knows the truth, no one has seen how it really was’.

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