Ramana Maharshi

This passage talked a lot about God already being there for a person. To have God is as simple as having him. People always make things so much more difficult than they really are. I think the section that explained the whole passage was the one that said..."God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirst, or that water feels thirsty." God's grace and love is everywhere. We don’t need to look for it because we have it. We don’t need to yearn for it, it is there. We don’t need fancy words and teachings to obtain it, because we already have it.

The Upanishads

I truly liked this reading. My favorite thing was the unknowing and how even if you try to understand you can’t, but you can. Isn’t that how we live our lives? There is just so much we don’t understand and we strive to get it. Some times the things we know best are the things we both don’t understand and can’t explain. It’s like being so deeply passionate about something because you feel its right even though you could never explain it nor could you begin to understand it. The part that states “Eye cannot see it, tongue cannot utter it, mind cannot grasp it. There is no way to learn it or teach it. It is different from the known, beyond the unknown. That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue-that alone is God, not what people worship." Basically what I got from this reading was to worship God and truly understand God is not to. It’s just allowing it to happen, for you to feel not think. For you to just know not to understand.

Chief Seattle

This speech really made me think. Here was a man who had come to the conclusion that his people were going to completely disappear from this earth because of the white man and still he referred to them as his brother. He does touch on the differences, but ultimately states even if they wipe out his people in life they will never really be gone for their dead people will always be around. I thought this was so powerful no matter what was said or done to his people they will still stay strong even if it is only in death.

SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA

While reading this passage I could tell that the chief was very nice in his delivery in asking the man to leave. I felt he had honestly listened to the missionary as he probably did the many before him. It seamed like everything the white man told his people was a lie or ended badly. Now this missionary was telling him, “All your lives have been in great errors and darkness.” Who was this man to tell the chief not only was he wrong to believe in what was passed down through generations to him, but if he didn’t follow the teachings passed down generations to the missionary he would “not be happy hereafter.” The chief felt he was happy, just as his forefathers were and his children now. He explained to the missionary that his people will continue to follow the teaching they have been and will “Be grateful for all the favors we receive, to love one another, and to be united."

I believe religion teachings boil down to what the chief was saying. We need to be grateful for all the favors we receive, to love one another, and to be united.