The Spiritual Failure of Tristan

Tristan & Isolde is a great opera, one of the very greatest. The Act 1 Prelude, Isolde's Narrative and Curse, the Love Duet in Act 2 and the concluding Liebstod in which Isolde sings ecstatically of a transcendent union with Tristan after death are some of the most extraordinary moments in Western music. The impact of this opera was profound on late 19th century consciousness and marked all serious music subsequently. Countless writings testify to its enormous influence, and not just on composers but artists across the creative spectrum.

The music is extraordinary, and yet the message of this opera as it comes through in the libretto is one of spiritual decadence and death. Tristan, originally a solar hero, is undone by infatuation with a woman and consequently becomes a weak, pitiful figure whose inner sense of wholeness and integrity is completely undermined by his obsession. He seeks to shun the day and be absorbed in night, and this represents the overcoming of the spiritual strength of the sun by lunar forces which is essentially the overcoming of spirit by matter. 

That is the very reverse of the true spiritual path, especially the masculine path, in which the self is raised to godlike potency through conscious alignment with divine reality. Instead, Tristan seeks to be merged back into the chaos of pre-creation from whence his soul emerged. Overcome by his sensual passions and losing control of his inner centre, he seeks a return to the emasculating arms of the primeval matriarchy and a pantheistic dissolution instead of following the path of becoming a radiant centre of light himself. 

In this path he could still have loved Isolde but would not have let that love overwhelm his spiritual integrity. He would have been master of it although, in the context of the story, he would not have acted on it since she was betrothed to another man so he not only betrayed his oath of loyalty to the King, as related in King Mark's desolate lament, in my view the spiritual heart of the opera, but he also violated the sanctity of marriage.

This does not form part of Wagner's treatment of the legend but the story serves as an illustration of a test for an initiate (Tristan was a hero so at a high level of spiritual development) which he failed. There is no sense of this in the opera which is a straight paean to romantic love which, although ending in tragedy from the worldly point of view, sees the two protagonists finding their fulfilment in death with the implication they have moved onto a higher plane. But have they really or have they succumbed to idolatry? Real spiritual attainment only comes when the soul turns away from seeking fulfilment in creation, any aspect of creation, even a lover as soulmate, and looks for it in the Creator. Then the soul can turn back to creation and move in its confines without attachment or suffering.

Love is an excuse for anything runs the Romantic creed, a creed we have largely adopted today. But this is an illusion. There is love and then there is love. Jesus said that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends. Tristan and Isolde lay down their lives but not as acts of personal sacrifice. They are seeking the delights of heaven not renouncing these delights for the love of God. Only those who are prepared to sacrifice heaven for others are worthy to enter it.

There is a close parallel with that other Arthurian story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Here too sexual obsession and infidelity are the cause of spiritual failure and destroy an ideal kingdom. Lancelot was the greatest of knights but he proved unworthy at the final test, and, because he was the greatest, his downfall impacted the whole world in which he lived. Arthur's kingdom was destroyed. But unlike Tristan, Lancelot worked out his fault through renunciation and repentance as he lived the rest of his life as a monk just as Guinevere, his adulterous lover, became a nun in contrition for her part in the sin. Love does not justify everything. At least, what is called love does not do so. There are higher values which even love must obey.

Wagner's words may carry a misleading spiritual message because his metaphysical understanding was limited. He adopted Schopenhauer's misconception of Nirvana as non-being as Tristan's credo, and saw that as the peak of spiritual realisation. However, in Tristan & Isolde his musical understanding and power of expression exceed his intellectual and philosophical grasp as they also did in Parsifal which is a curious and unsatisfactory mish-mash of Christianity and Buddhism from the story point of view but contains music in the Prelude and Good Friday section that is amongst the most spiritually profound of anything heard in this world. Tristan & Isolde also has music that reaches further into the higher planes than practically any other, but one can see why some people have problems with Wagner. The music can seem too intense while the themes of some of his operas, and Tristan especially, do have something spiritually self-indulgent about them. Nonetheless, Wagner was clearly used by the powers that be to bring through something entirely new and open up higher levels of reality to the physical plane. He was certainly not a saint but then how many saints are creative artists of genius?

Good and Bad Seeds

 I have used the analogy of human beings in this world as comparable to seeds planted in the earth before. Given that the same patterns repeat themselves at all levels of creation, the basis of symbolism and a key to deeper understanding, this seems reasonable. We are gods but gods in potential just as seeds are plants but only potentially so. The dark earth is this dark (spiritually considered) Earth, and the light of the sun to which the seeds grow upwards through their equivalent of aspiration is like the light of God to which the human soul should aspire. 

But this comparison contains a warning. Not all seeds germinate. 

I have just looked up the factors that might prevent germination. Here are some.

• • Dormancy:

  Many seeds naturally enter a dormant state to protect themselves from unfavorable conditions like cold, drought, or predation. 

  • Seed Viability:

  Seeds can degrade over time, losing their ability to germinate. Factors like storage conditions, temperature, and humidity can affect seed viability. 

  • Environmental Factors:

  Even viable seeds require specific conditions for germination, including moisture, oxygen, temperature, and sometimes light or dark. Some seeds may not germinate if planted too deep or shallow, or if the soil temperature is not optimal. 

  • Internal Factors:

  Some seeds may have internal factors, such as a thick seed coat or chemical inhibitors, that prevent germination until those factors are overcome. 

  
  

   It is not hard to equate some of these with human barriers to spiritual development. For instance, dormancy. In many people the spiritual sense does lie dormant. The stuff of which they are made is not robust enough to overcome world conditions. In others there can be a degradation of the soul as the lower self allows itself to be caught up in sin. Environmental factors must also be taken into consideration, and internal factors such as the intrinsic quality of the soul in the first place cannot be ignored.

  
  

  However, human beings are different to seeds in that we have free will. We can, if we set our minds to it, overcome obstacles. A particular environment might hinder but it cannot prevent. 

  
  

  A natural question to ask would be what percentage of seeds germinate, and the answer is it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on weather conditions and it depends on the time of planting. Modern science tells us that human beings all belong to the same species, and biologically we may do even if there are different categories within that species. But spiritually we may not. It is an unsubstantiated assumption that because we are all children of God we are all the same sort of children. We might well have different spiritual origins, and even where there is similarity of origin we know that the same parents can have quite different children. The weather conditions relate to the spiritual climate when we are alive. It may be fair as in some periods of history or it may be foul as now though if we are born at a foul time there will be a reason for that. A hardier strain might be produced by inclement weather.

  
  

  Then there is the time of planting. Most traditions would agree that we are not now in spring. Indeed, most would say we are deep in winter. It may be that the harvest is not great at such a time but this analogy should not be pushed too far. If we are alive now it is because the greater difficulties can produce a more intense growing season. What is lost in terms of quantity may be gained qualitatively speaking. The seeds that do sprout might produce a better crop. Those that don't might be held back for another season.

  
  

  There is good seed and bad seed. Both can germinate but the good seed is more likely to do so. What makes a good seed is love of God. This produces the pushing up through the earth towards the light of the sun. A bad seed can be characterised by rejection of God, a very bad seed by hatred of God. It seems that few people today love the Good. The Good is the same as God. God is Being which is a transcendental thing. That means it is beyond this world. If you do not look for the meaning of life beyond this world you are rejecting God and, ipso facto, rejecting the Good. That is why personal goodness, or goodness as the world judges it, is less important than the orientation of the soul. A conventionally good person who does not seek to strive upwards through the earth to the sun is not aware of the true Good and is therefore is on the wrong side when it comes to spiritual good and evil. His seed will not sprout. He may claim to love God but if he gives precedence to any worldly conception of good then his claim is false. He doesn't love God but an imagined idol of his own making.

  
  

  We live in an egalitarian culture which believes everyone will be saved because everyone is basically good. There is no bad seed, all is good. However, egalitarianism is a poisonous doctrine because it sacrifices truth for a perversion of love. Without hierarchy there is no higher or lower, no better or worse, and this means that everything sinks to the same level. The vertical collapses to the horizontal. It is clear that the egalitarian ethos has been put through by the dark forces to shut mankind out from the spiritual heights. It is a justification for resentment, making a vice into a virtue, and a major contributory factor to the degradation of seeds.

  Note: I could have described this in terms of healthy and poor quality seeds to remove the sense of moral judgement. But there is moral judgment involved when you are speaking in human terms. Healthy is good, spiritually speaking.

From Whitefield to Yercaud

During our time in Whitefield Michael, who was a great animal lover, bought a strange looking creature in the Bangalore bazaar. Obviously some sort of primate, this is what it looked like.

I think you'll agree this is not a thing of beauty, but Michael bought it to save it. Despite the Hindu reverence for the cow and the doctrine of ahimsa (non-violence and respect for all living things), Indians do not treat animals particularly well. This one had been captured from a tree and was being used as an object of sport in the bazaar. Michael paid a few rupees to rescue it from its captors, and then decided to keep it as a pet. This was probably unwise as it was a wild animal but it seemed harmless enough. We fed it bits of fruit and rice, and Michael bought an old bird cage to keep it in at night. During the day it ran around the house except when Michael went out to the local shops when he took it with him wrapped round the back of his neck. The sight of an eccentric Englishman bicycling around the village with a furry scarf soon became a source of amusement for the locals, but it was affectionate amusement because Michael was a popular figure there.

This carried on for a while and in that time we learned that Montrose, as Michael called him, was a slender loris which is an arboreal primate that is, as one might have guessed from the eyes, nocturnal. And that became a problem. During the night Montrose would whistle constantly so we let him out to roam around the house. I was having severe doubts about keeping him and wanted to release him back into the wild but Michael had grown attached to him. Then things got worse. Montrose discovered that he was a carnivore. He caught insects and that changed his character. From being quite mild and gentle he became aggressive and would bite. Not me because I was now fed up with him and left him alone but he bit Michael enough to draw blood and shortly afterwards Michael became quite ill. I decided enough was enough and took Montrose into the jungle where I put him in a tree, back where he belonged. Some South African Sai Baba devotees who lived locally showed a forgiving spirit and brought Michael restorative soup to get him back on his feet. I say they were forgiving because I had met one of them a short while before and, not realising he was a devotee, had spoken critically of Sai Baba. When I finished he calmly told me that he was a devotee, a lesson in think before you open your mouth I have subsequently learned.  But, as I said in a previous post, the devotees were all good people even if, in my estimation, they were spiritually naive.

When Michael had recovered we were invited to dinner by an Anglo-Indian ex-army officer who lived in Whitefield with his family. Whitefield had originally been set up as a retirement colony, so-called, for Anglo-Indians who worked on the railways as many of them did in British times. We had first met this person through some rather extraordinary ladies we had known in Bangalore. These were four Parsee sisters, probably in their seventies, who lived in a beautiful but rundown old bungalow in Grant Road near the Bombay Ananda Bhavan, the guesthouse that we had stayed in for several weeks before moving to Whitefield. There was something a bit Miss Havisham-like about these sisters. They were all spinsters, very aristocratic with pale paper thin skin covering boney features. They lived surrounded by the souvenirs of yesteryear with an equally elderly servant looking after them. Their father had been a rich lawyer and probably they had not married because there was no one of their caste and class and religion available in Bangalore. But they were very sweet and kind, and Michael and I were often invited to tea, on one occasion meeting the ex-army officer who now had invited us to his house.

Colonel De Souza turned out to be the solution to our problem about what to do after our attempt to buy a property in Whitefield fell through. He asked us if we had heard of Yercaud, a hill station in Tamil Nadu about 150 miles south of Bangalore. At 5,000 feet of elevation he thought it offered an ideal climate for Europeans and also presented opportunities to run a guesthouse as people went there in the summer to escape the heat of the plains. He knew of it because he had been to school there at Montfort, a Catholic private school, and he gave us the name of a couple of contacts. A week later Michael went off on a reconnaissance trip. I stayed behind in Whitefield because I was helping some visiting Christian missionaries redecorate their little chapel. They had come to our house because we were the only Westerners in Whitefield who were not Sai Baba devotees. They soon realised we were not going to be converted to their brand of Christianity but we remained friendly.

When Michael came back from Yercaud he was full of enthusiasm. He liked the town and its surroundings and had actually found a house to rent. I was happy to go along with this because the time felt right to move on, and Yercaud seemed a good place for us to go, both climate and area wise. We started to make arrangements to pack up and move.

 Before we did move though we had to find someone to take up the lease on the house we had rented for a 6 month period, all paid for in advance. We had only been there for 4 months and assumed the landlord would reimburse us the 2 months outstanding if we found someone to take up the lease. We soon did through the devotees we knew and arranged to meet the landlord with the new tenants to sign the relevant documents. The landlord accepted a cheque from the new people which included payment for the 2 months at the end of our tenancy but then, having given us to understand he would reimburse us those 2 months, declined to do so. The incoming tenants were embarrassed and we were angry but there was nothing to be done. This was not our last bad experience of Indian business practices but there was no use fussing over what could not be changed so a couple of days later we loaded everything we possessed into a small truck and headed south to Yercaud. 

The Test of the End Times

 In the End Times all institutions will be controlled, either directly or indirectly, by demonic intelligence. They will ostensibly function as before but their influence and effect will be spiritually corrosive. In few cases will the reality behind that influence be obvious to the ordinary person but it will be apparent to anyone whose spiritual eyes are open. Every individual serving those institutions will be serving the dark forces though most will be unaware of that fact. But they will have made compromises to get to positions of authority, and those compromises will have stained their souls. They will be the whited sepulchres spoken of by Jesus. Beautiful or virtuous or honourable on the outside, but rotten within. These are hard words but we live in unprecedented times. It's not like the end of Rome. There may be similarities because the same patterns do inevitably repeat themselves, but the situation today is of an order of magnitude different to any time we know of in the past. The scale of our spiritual destitution is unparalleled even though it is disguised by improvements on the materialistic humanitarian level. The bread alone level. 

You might ask, where is God in all this? Why does he allow the sheep to be led astray by wolves? Where are the shepherds? The analogy makes the point. We are not sheep, not anymore. God requires us to be spiritually responsible these days. No longer obedient followers but able to develop our own spiritual insight and make our own spiritual decisions. If the outer is corrupt it means we must go to the inner. Souls are being tested for their intrinsic quality. It's easy to make the grade when everything is in your favour but your true orientation only comes out when it manifests in spite of outer circumstances. God has planted seeds in a ground in which only the hardiest will survive and grow. But this is how he determines what is the best seed and what will just turn into weeds or not grow at all. One of the most dangerous doctrines is that God loves us. Of course, God does love us but what does that actually mean? Does this love disregard what we actually are or does it mean that God wants the best for us? We may all have the image of the divine within us but that image does not come alive unless we make it so. If we are equal because of that image within us it is only potentially so because the image must be developed.

The good seed will grow into a beautiful flower but not all seed is good. In fact, if we look at nature most seeds just get recycled back into the earth. That is a sobering thought for these end times and should alert us to the need to aspire towards the light and not remain trapped in the darkness, comforting darkness though it may seem to some, of the earth.

Fate and Free Will

A flaw of Christianity is its refusal to accept the pre-existence of the soul. There may be a reason for this. By focusing entirely on just this one life, you can potentially speed up spiritual development for the more passive form of consciousness that most human beings possessed before the expansion of egoic self-awareness undergone over the last few centuries. Also, the West had a specific path to tread, one that involved that expansion and the full development of individuality. The knowledge that you have a vast period of time to get things right could well lead to spiritual and worldly stagnation as it did in India. There is no sense of urgency.

Nonetheless, though it may be spiritually advantageous to believe this is your only life, it is false. It is also mistaken to think that the 'you' you seem to be now is the real you. Your current self is a composite of several things. We would all accept the genetic element inherited from our parents. There is also the strong influence from time and space, the when and where of our birth. Our experiences mould us in a certain way, and many people would accept the influence from the planets at the time of our birth, though influence is the wrong word to describe the subtle interchange between what is out there in the heavens when we are born and what already exists in our soul as a developmental pattern for the new life.

Behind all these, standing as the light of consciousness which they colour and make into a certain form, is the soul. These influences construct our personality for a particular life but this is not our true and real self. It is what the true self acts through for a period in order to learn the lessons it needs to learn and express itself through service of some kind or creativity or whatever. 

You might imagine it in this way. The soul remains in the spiritual world but sends down a portion of itself to experience life in the material plane. That portion is clothed with the particular characteristics it requires to best develop from where it currently is. Remember, though, that souls are at different stages of development and that they come from different spiritual backgrounds. It is a facile truism to say that humanity is one. Life may be one but it is also very different in its myriad forms, and the same is true for human beings. Souls that are born here come from many different sources. That is one reason we often find it hard to get along.

Our fate is written in our horoscope. The horoscope is not determinant but it is descriptive. It is a collection of symbols, and these symbols can work out or be worked out in various ways. It may be true to say that the less conscious you are, the more your birth chart will describe you accurately and the more it will predict what happens to you. Take someone with Mars transiting their natal Sun. This describes an infusion of energy but whether that energy works in a constructive or destructive way depends on the subject and the degree to which he has mastered the forces within him. If he controls these forces he may be able to channel this energy in a positive fashion. If he is unconscious of them he is at their mercy, and this combination may work out as anger or even externalise itself in the form of an accident. 

The point is that our astrology is our fate but we have the free will to determine what particular form that fate might take. You cannot escape your character nor can you escape your destiny, but within certain parameters you can mould the raw material into any form you wish. You can also choose how to respond to what you are or what happens to you. You are at all times free even if your freedom cannot be expressed absolutely. A materialist might claim that even your freedom is predetermined in that what you choose is dictated by what you are, but that is to misunderstand freedom. Your freedom comes from a deeper level than any character trait or destiny. It is inviolable. Although it cannot always be expressed absolutely, it is absolute.

The birth chart is a formulation of archetypes that describe both your character (for this life, not the quality of your soul) and your destiny, and you will inevitably be an expression of it. That is unavoidable. However, you can express this chart however you wish. Everything has a positive and negative side, and the free will comes in as to how the chart is expressed. Even bad fate can be avoided or certainly mitigated if one is fully conscious of the self through which one operates. The essential point is to know oneself.

Spirituality is a False Path

"I'm not religious but I am spiritual". This has been a popular way to present your authentic spiritual credentials for some time. It is supposed to say I am a sensitive, caring person in touch with the deeper aspects of life and able to expand my consciousness beyond the limitations of a materialistic worldview, but I am not restricted by dogma or authority.

Well, that's fine as far as it goes, but there are problems. It is true that all religions are, to a greater or lesser extent, moribund now. They have run their course, and we have entered into a new phase of human evolutionary development. But it is also true that you can only go beyond something when you have fully absorbed it, and most spiritual but not religious people have not absorbed the lessons of religion. What they are really saying is, I want the benefits of religion but I am not prepared to pay the price. I want the rewards without making the sacrifice. I want the elevation without first going through the abasement.

Far too many spiritual but not religious people think of spirituality in terms of their feelings. But spirituality has nothing to do with your feelings. It has to do with feeling but not your feelings because it is not to do with feeding your soul but getting your soul right with God with no expectation of reward, no selfish motive. Only those who turn to God for love of God rather than the hope to get something in the exchange will find what they are looking for. The rest will follow paths lit with false light to the land of illusion. Religion is there to protect these foolish wanderers from going astray. By eschewing its firm guidance many souls will fall into spiritual darkness, even if to begin with this darkness has a glow to it.

When you die all that matters is the orientation of your will. Whether it be towards God or towards self. Your spirituality counts for nothing since spiritual beliefs can be just as ego-centred as materialistic ones if they are directed towards the satisfaction of the ego. Religion may be limiting in many ways to the developing soul, but just as the embryo needs the protective shell of the egg in which to grow safely so the soul needs the structure of religion. Eventually the soul must, as it were, hatch and go beyond this structure but only when it has developed to the point at which it can safely do so, and the safety here refers to threats to its integrity both internal coming from the ego and external coming from the dark powers, the blacks as they have been called, those forces which stand ever ready to lead souls astray, always preying on their weakest points.

If spirituality means unstructured chasing after feeling satisfaction, it is a tool of the blacks. If it means dedication to God and to serving his will then it has learnt the lessons of religion and the individual can proceed with confidence. But so often these days to be spiritual but not religious simply means to be a taker not a giver. Many people over-estimate their position on the spiritual path, imagining they are closer to the goal than they are. If you reject religion and think you can do better on your own or by following one of the many replacements for/imitations of religion that have sprung up over the last 100 years, you had better make sure your motivation is right. If it's not, you are liable to fall into darkness and illusion.

Islam in the West

History tells us that Islam cannot co-exist with Christianity or anything else for that matter. It must either dominate or it must work towards dominating. This has been forgotten by most secular governments in the West over the last few decades but it is becoming a matter of increasing significance so I reproduce here what was going to be a chapter in my forthcoming book A Survival Guide to the End Times. I cut it out due to its peripheral relevance to the theme of the book but it is hardly irrelevant in terms of where we are today in the Western world. Some of it has already featured here in previous posts but here it is all in one place.

I was flipping through The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis recently, a book I first read many years ago and had forgotten about. It's a short work, based on lectures he gave in 1943 and is not overtly religious in theme even though it is in essence. What it does is defend universal spiritual values against the contemporary assault on them, specifically in the field of education, which denied that moral and aesthetic values were grounded in something objective. It was the beginning of the moral relativism, now so firmly established, which dismisses the idea that there are universal truths which are rooted in an absolute reality. 

Lewis argues for what he calls in this book the Tao which for him is something like Ma'at in ancient Egypt or just objective reality, the foundation truth of the universe and of being in general. The Tao is not provable by materialistic, rational, intellectual, logical or scientific means because it derives from a ground much deeper than can be accessed by these on their own. It is recognised, known, accepted, seen (or not by the spiritually blind), but it is not verifiable by empirical evidence as that phrase is normally understood. It should be self-evident but cannot be proved by any of the ways materialists demand proof. 

At the end of these lectures Lewis provides a compendium of sayings illustrative of Natural Law drawn from many different sources and traditions ranging from Egyptian, Roman, Greek and Chinese to Christian, Hindu and Jewish to Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Babylonian, Native American and even Australian Aborigine. But there is nothing from Islam.

This might seem a strange oversight, but it reminded me of the time I first became interested in spiritual matters and studied scriptures from all the main traditions. I knew the Bible reasonably well but reread the Gospels in the light of my new-found interests and beliefs. I read Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, Plato, the classics of Taoism and Zen and some collections of wise words like Lewis's compendium. All these spoke of mystical understanding, perhaps in different ways and on different levels and some more than others but they all had an insight into higher reality. Then I read the Qur’an expecting to find more of the same. 

What a disappointment. There was nothing here that approached the profundity of other scriptures. It barely reached the level of Old Testament spiritual understanding, never mind the New Testament. It was clear that the compiler of this text, which seemed rather like a New Age type channelling, albeit in the context of its time and place, was nowhere near the spiritual level of the founders of other religions.

Now, maybe these teachings were a step forward for the people of that time and place but they have little to say to us today unlike other scriptures which can transcend time and place and still speak to us across the centuries. It is often said that the three monotheistic religions worship the same God. However, they approach him in such different ways that this is hard to maintain in any seriousness. For the Christian, God is a loving Father, but the God depicted in this holy book demands total allegiance as a despot does from a slave. He may be a benign despot if you obey him, but he leaves no room for you as a free individual.

I'm not disputing there have been many pious worshippers of God in this religion but there are also encouragements to violence and, though these are often glossed over and excused by believers, they are plainly there in the source texts and recorded sayings of its founder who was a war leader as much as he was a prophet. Not all Muslims are active extremists, of course, but the extremism in Islam is fundamental to it. It is not a distortion of it but an integral part. The West used to know that, and from hard-won experience.

If the modernist ethos of relativism, as described by C.S. Lewis, is one way of abolishing man so too is an absolutist religion which gives all power to the deity and leaves no freedom for the individual human soul. It must obey. It must submit. It's in the name, after all. But God does not want obedience. He wants love.

If Islam were just a religion, it would still be a simplification of more profound teachings but it would not be a problem for those outside the circle of the faithful. However, it is not just a religion. It aims to encompass every aspect of life leaving nothing to the individual human being whose only task is to submit. As a result, there is no separation between religion and politics. There is not a religious version of this religion and a political one. These are two aspects of the same thing. Christ said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's", drawing a clear distinction between the spiritual and temporal aspects of life, but for the Muslim God is Caesar and the effect of that is to reduce the human to nothing, stripping him of proper agency, creative potential and freedom.

Islam must dominate every single aspect of the life of its believers, not just the spiritual but the political and social too. It even forbids certain forms of artistic expression which you might think a good idea seeing where complete freedom in that regard has got us to in the West over the last century, but the result in this case has been spiritually crippling not ennobling. To be sure, Islam has produced some beautiful architecture and design and poetry, but these are often in spite of it not inspired by it. The fact that it is forbidden to show the human form is very revealing. It demonstrates that humanity is effectively banned. For the Christian, God is revealed in the human form but in Islam he remains totally transcendent and cannot be approached except in a servile way.

The Muslim faithful are under instruction to convert everyone to their cause and not to rest until they have done so. Islam is not willing to share power and will accommodate itself to its perceived rivals in the short term only for long term advantage. That has been demonstrated historically repeatedly. Muslims are even authorised to lie and deceive to this end if that is to the unbeliever. That is regarded as a virtuous act and history shows that they will go along with their hosts when in a minority only to enforce their will when their numbers are sufficient. It is naive to ignore this reality and yet that is just what the West has been doing.

What is the solution to this problem, since problem it is and one that will get worse? From the point of view of the West, it is to recognise the reality of the situation. These believers believe in their religion, and they will obey its diktats so we should know what these are. For the believers themselves the way forward is through religious reform. Their focus on prayer is commendable but they must abandon those aspects of their religion that may have been appropriate 1300 years ago but are not now. Actually, they weren’t then either. If you have any understanding of the way God works you will know that his aim is to bring us up, not to crystallise us in ways of the past but to spiritualise our understanding. Therefore, these believers need to pay attention to the mystical path of their religion, to Sufism, for God has sent them this to remedy foundational mistakes. The letter kills but the spirit gives life. This is the primary lesson the followers of Islam need to learn.

If the modern world demonstrates the tragic results of banishing God from the world and giving supreme power and authority to man, then Islam has the opposite problem. That may tempt some people to see it as a solution to the problems of modernity. In fact, as opposites reflect each other, it is equally flawed, just in a different way. The only real solution is to see God and man as partners working together creatively though God, of course, remains God. And where do we see this brought to perfection? In Christ, God made man.

Some people would say that any religion is better than none. Any acknowledgement of God is better than rejecting him. I would say, it depends. For one thing it depends on what sort of God you follow. What are his demands and expectations, how does he frame the good? There are many excellent practices in Islam such as faith in God, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage, the 5 pillars. These are undoubtedly beneficial to the soul, turning it away from worldly preoccupation and towards the spiritual world. But in the form in which they are presented and followed they are good for souls who need strict external guidance. They become restrictive for souls who are beginning to take spiritual responsibility for themselves. Sufism was provided for such souls but it never really established itself other than on the peripheries of the Muslim world, and was often condemned by the mainstream as heretical, the strong influence of Vedanta being too much to accept.

If Islam is to become a positive force in the world it must change. It remains too intellectually and morally one-dimensional and can only function as a rigid system for people who have not yet separated from the herd. Then it must renounce its political and territorial ambitions and its religious exclusivism. Like Marxism, it is a totalitarian ideology that demands complete control and absolute authority. It has sought to propagate itself through violence but must abandon that aspect of its supposed mission and stick to the 5 pillars. But even these 5 pillars must be seen in a different light, as signposts to inner understanding rather than rules and regulations to be followed without thought. In religion there is an outer path and an inner path. Islam has always given the outer path even more importance than most other religions, and goodness knows this is a fault common to them all.

Islam was born in warfare and spread through the sword. This aspect of its heritage must be renounced if it is to serve the will of God which will be difficult because it will mean a radical reinterpretation of its core beliefs and an acceptance that its prophet was not the perfect image of a man they say he was. Jesus may have said he did not come to bring peace but a sword but quite obviously he meant by this the sword of truth which separates truth from lies, good from evil, love from hate. He also said those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Unfortunately, it is the second usage that Islam has followed.

In the days when I studied the various mystical traditions, I found Sufism one of the most interesting, full of insight and including many souls of great spiritual authority. Sufism contains the inner principles behind Islam and interprets the simplistic injunctions of the Qur’an on a genuinely spiritual level. Muslims who wish to be closer to the guiding impulse behind their faith should explore Sufi teachings more deeply. They should also know that Islam is not and never was intended for the West. Those who try to enforce it on Western countries are not doing the will of God but going directly against it. The principles of Islam are opposed to those of the West which are to do with freedom and individuality. Freedom and individuality in God, but freedom and individuality all the same. Islam denies both. It certainly cannot save the West.

I was recently asked why Christianity is better than Islam by a young man, some of whose friends had decided that if they were going to follow a religion then Islam seemed a more attractive proposition than Christianity as it had a greater sense of where it stood on issues and didn't prevaricate or sentimentalise which Christianity in its official forms now does. On the face of it, it's hard to disagree with this view. Islam is firm in its beliefs and doesn't seek to accommodate itself to the secular world which modern Christianity often does as its leaders try to justify their existence by pandering to social changes. Also, Islam has not become feminised which Christianity along with the whole Western world has, and this appeals to younger men who see in feminism a civilisation destroying influence.

However, whilst it is true that many Christian churches have succumbed to the world and replaced the spiritual with the anodyne charms of secular humanism, Islam never had much connection with the spiritual to begin with. It has a view of God based on primitive conceptions of the deity and is unable to open itself up to higher dimensions of being. Its virtue that it doesn't change is also a major weakness. It is stuck in the past, unable to evolve as consciousness does. This inflexibility might be regarded as a positive, but the rights and wrongs of inflexibility depend on what refuses to change. Islam may have been a corrective for polytheistic pagans in a 7th century of warring tribes but it has nothing to say to a 21st century consciousness.

But the best answer to this question is to rephrase it and ask why is Christ better than Muhammad? And even a casual look at the lives of these two teachers shows the gulf between them in terms of spiritual understanding. They both spoke of the one God but for Jesus he was a loving father while for Muhammad he was more like an over-promoted tribal deity who demanded absolute allegiance, and so, while Christianity is based on love, Islam is based on law. Further, as we have already pointed out, Christianity is grounded in freedom whereas Islam demands obedience. This is illustrated in the postures for prayer of the two religions. A Christian kneels in humility but his back is straight. The full prostration of a Muslim in prayer also shows humility but it is more that of a slave before its master than a free individual.

I have not even spoken of the fact that Jesus was the Son of God who healed the spiritual damage caused by the Fall while Muhammad, even in the eyes of his own followers, was no more than a prophet, and one who just mixed and matched from Jewish and Christian sources. He brought nothing new whereas Jesus showed us the way to become sons of God ourselves - see John 14:12 "Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these." At best, Muhammad was a messenger while Jesus was a window into heaven. In fact, not just a window. He was and is a doorway.

Mentioning heaven brings us to another critical difference. Is the Muslim paradise the same as the Christian heaven? Hardly, since one is the perfection of earthly existence while the other is the total transformation of being. When you understand that the next world has many planes of existence you see that the paradise of Islam is what is known as the wish fulfilment plane where all your desires are fulfilled but only to the extent that allows for the exteriorisation of your earthly wishes without the impediment of matter. Your mind can create palaces and gardens insofar as you conceive of such things, but this is still no more than this world brought to what you think of as an ideal state. You remain limited by the narrowness of your own vision whereas in the true heaven of Christ you are freed from the boundaries of your circumscribed self. The Islamic paradise gives the lower self what it wants but Heaven is entry into the glorified existence of higher being. Doubtless many nominal Christians will go to a place that is a Christian version of paradise on the astral plane, as the psychic world is also known, but that is due to their deficiencies not those of their religion. The fact is Jesus and Muhammed promised their followers completely different destinations. They spoke from completely different spiritual perspectives.