Tolerantly Intolerant

Taking public transport or sitting at Coffeebean can imbue one with valuable insights! I was at a Coffeebean the other day and was observing people on several tables ( basically just slacking off ). I "overheard" a group of friends having a chat about religion. It made me realise one thing... why is it that it is usually the MOST religious of people supposed to be well practiced in tolerance, harmony and love, are usually the most INTOLERANT of the lot?

Protestants claim the Catholics are practicing a corrupted form of the faith, even within the protestants there are disagreements! ( like the issues of speaking in tongues etc ) the Christians, Jews and Muslim are totally in disagreement although their "Holy Book" is derived from the same root lineage, the Buddhist Mahayanists say the Theravadin Vehicle is incomplete in its attainments, and vice versa many ( not all ) Theravadins criticise the Mahayanists for fabricating sutras, and totally do not accept the tantras. The Hindus claim that Vishnu incarnated to show humanity the "wrong" path to practice, and, and , and , and etc etc etc. ANd best part is EVERYONE thinks theirs is the ONLY TRUE WAY.

My thoughts are what if every path is the correct path, that all these paths DO NOT help us all reach the same peak, but instead help us climb a different mountain top. And at the top of THAT individual mountain one can see many other mountain tops, and they all touch the sky. At this point one will surely see how foolish one was to think of the Greater Divine as only capable of such limited vision and scope. At the foothills, one's vision is unclear, seeing only coarse stone, raw sand and shale, without realising there are other mountains and each mountain helps the individual reach for the stars. At the top... one sees everything with perfect clarity, whether its from the Himalayans, Kun-Lun mounts or even Olumpus!