Deus non alligatur. God is not bound. Nibbanam paramam sukham. Unbinding is the Highest Happiness. The Heart is Divinity. God is the primal radiance of Divinity. Nature is the primal manifestation of Divinity. The Buddha is the primal realization of Divinity. La ilaha il Allah. Allah is Complete Wholeness.

06 December 2007

Credo Hridayam

The first creed defined by an ecumenical council of Christian Churches is the Nicene creed, which in Latin begins:
Credo in unum Deum,
Patrem omnipoténtem,
factórem cæli et terræ,
visibílium ómnium et invisibílium.
(I believe in one God,
almighty Father,
maker of sky and earth,
all things in-sight and out-of-sight.)
The key word, the initial word, is "credo", "I believe". "Credo" is related to the English word for "heart" (which is, in Latin, "cor" or "cordis"; in Greek, "kardia"; in Sanskrit, "hridaya"). To say "credo" in Latin is to say that you take something to Heart, not simply or primarily intellectually, but to the deepest part of one's being.

Likewise, the English word "believe" derives from an Indo-European root "leubh", meaning "to care, to desire, to love". The intellect is a useful tool, but it isn't the medium of true care, true love. "Belief", then, is not centered on rational agreement with certain conceptual arguments. Rather, belief is the heart-felt love-care of a person, whether human, animal, plant, otherwise-organic, or otherwise-inorganic. To believe in a creed is to care from the Heart for that which the creed symbolizes.

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