Can West Meet East?

Lately I've been reading some sacred writings of eastern religions:  the Tao Te Ching (Taoism) and the Bhagavad-Gita (Hinduism), as well as some more contemporary writings of a Zen Buddhist priest.   When I compare the spiritual concepts in these writings with those of  the Judeo-Christian writings I am struck by the intrinsic differences in basic spiritual concepts.

Jews and Christians, are concerned with sin and atonement, reward and punishment.   Both Jews and Christians embrace the rather savage and primitive concept of blood sacrifice as being necessary for the "remission of sins" or "atonement."   The Jews sacrificed lambs.   The Christians view Jesus as their "sacrificial lamb."   Intrinsic to both traditions is the idea that we are all bad people (sinners) and God requires a blood sacrifice to expunge those sins  Good deeds are rewarded and  bad deeds are punished -- unless you offer to God a blood sacrifice or invoke Jesus' sacrifice of His own blood.

This concept of sin and atonement is nonexistent in eastern spirituality. While Christians believe in original sin (Jews, apparently, do not) with consequent universal need for redemption, Hindus believe in original goodness:  As one commentary on the Bhagavad-gita puts it:  "No one needs to acquire goodness or compassion; they are already there.   All that is necessary is to remove the selfish habits that hide them."
The whole paradigm is completely different.

 Another way the difference between eastern and Judeo-Christian spirituality is exemplified is in the treatment of one's 'enemies.'   Ancient Hebrews (precursors to Jews)  slaughtered their enemies, whom they viewed as heathen and beyond the pale.  Christians are admonished to love their enemies.  But in eastern spirituality, there is no such thing as an 'enemy' because separateness is an illusion:  To call someone your enemy would be like calling your foot your enemy; it makes no sense.  A more contemporary reference to the inseparable oneness of all beings is found in the book Zen Prayers for Repairing Your Life by Buddhist priest Tai Sheridan:

I open myself

to ethical conduct

based on realizing

that all people

are my own

Buddha body

and true being

This concept of the oneness of all beings and all things fascinates me.  It informs the eastern mystics' attempts to transcend the world of discrete beings and things and experience the oneness, the unity of all, and then transcend that and Know God as the source of that unity.  What is fascinating about this is that quantum physics is now demonstrating that separateness IS an illusion, something Buddhists and Hindus knew thousands of years ago.  

So is there anything that bridges the gap between east and west?   Perhaps one element of common ground between Judaism and Hinduism can be found in these quotes:

In the Pentateuch, the ancient Hebrews are admonished to   "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

And in the Bhagavad-gita Krishna -- "Lord Krishna", since He, too, is God incarnate -- says:  "Whatever you do, make it an offering to me."

I think it is logical to infer that if you "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might," then "whatever you do" will be an "offering" to that Lord.   So there is a common idea.

For Christians, Jesus adds this to the Hebrew injunction:   "love thy neighbor as thyself."

Christians are generally taught that this means you should love your neighbor as you love yourself (which leads to the less admirable idea:  you gotta love yourself first before you can love your neighbor, which fits neatly into the contemporary  philosophies of "me first' and self love).  I don't know what the original Hebrew or Aramaic word is that has been translated as "as", but in English "as"  can be used as a preposition meaning  "in the role, function or status of."  (dictionary.com).  One could thus rephrase "love thy neighbor as thyself" to be "Love thy neighbor for s/he is thyself."  Here we find oneness between east and west in the oneness of all persons.

 I'll close with a passage from the Tao Te Ching:

"These Things from the ancient times come from the one:

The sky is whole and clear because of being of the one

The earth is whole and firm because of being of the one

The spirit is whole and complete because of being of the one

The ten thousand things are whole because of the one

Kings and rulers are whole and the land is kept whole

All these things are virtuous from being in the one

The one being the Tao."

Namaste