Pope Francis was interviewed by Eugenio Scalfari (not to define him, but an outspoken atheist) for Repubblica. The Pope’s answers to some questions are nothing short of amazing.

The meeting with Pope Francis took place last Tuesday at his home in Santa Marta, in a small bare room with a table and five or six chairs and a painting on the wall. It had been preceded by a phone call I will never forget as long as I live.
It was half past two in the afternoon. My phone rings and in a somewhat shaky voice my secretary tells me: “I have the Pope on the line. I’ll put him through immediately.”

I was still stunned when I heard the voice of His Holiness on the other end of a the line saying, “Hello, this is Pope Francis.” “Hello Your Holiness”, I say and then, “I am shocked I did not expect you to call me.” “Why so surprised? You wrote me a letter asking to meet me in person. I had the same wish, so I’m calling to fix an appointment. Let me look at my diary: I can’t do Wednesday, nor Monday, would Tuesday suit you?”
I answer, that’s fine.

My friends think it is you want to convert me?
He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”

Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?
“Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.”

Yes, I know what Agape is.
“It is love of others, as our Lord preached. It is not proselytizing, it is love. Love for one’s neighbor, that leavening that serves the common good.”

Jesus in his preaching said that agape, love for others, is the only way to love God. Correct me if I’m wrong.
“You’re not wrong. The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.”

Many church leaders have been.
“You know what I think about this? Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.”

You heard your calling at a young age?
“No, not very young. My family wanted me to have a different profession, to work, earn some money. I went to university. I also had a teacher for whom I had a lot of respect and developed a friendship and who was a fervent communist. She often read Communist Party texts to me and gave them to me to read. So I also got to know that very materialistic conception. I remember that she also gave me the statement from the American Communists in defense of the Rosenbergs, who had been sentenced to death. The woman I’m talking about was later arrested, tortured and killed by the dictatorship then ruling in Argentina.”

You explained the importance of Paul and the role he played, but I want to know which of those you named feels closer to your soul?
“You’re asking me for a ranking, but classifications are for sports or things like that. I could tell you the name of the best footballers in Argentina. But the saints…”

And you think that mystics have been important for the Church?
“They have been fundamental. A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”

Has that ever happened to you?
“Rarely. For example, when the conclave elected me Pope. Before I accepted I asked if I could spend a few minutes in the room next to the one with the balcony overlooking the square. My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go way and relax I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear, even the thought of refusing to accept the position, as the liturgical procedure allows. I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point I was filled with a great light. It lasted a moment, but to me it seemed very long. Then the light faded, I got up suddenly and walked into the room where the cardinals were waiting and the table on which was the act of acceptance. I signed it, the Cardinal Camerlengo countersigned it and then on the balcony there was the ‘”Habemus Papam”.

Do you feel touched by grace?
“No one can know that. Grace is not part of consciousness, it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason. Even you, without knowing it, could be touched by grace.”

And St. Francis?
“He’s great because he is everything. He is a man who wants to do things, wants to build, he founded an order and its rules, he is an itinerant and a missionary, a poet and a prophet, he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it out. He loved nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying in the sky. But above all he loved people, children, old people, women. He is the most shining example of that agape we talked about earlier.”

You Christians are now a minority. Even in Italy, which is known as the pope’s backyard. Practicing Catholics, according to some polls, are between 8 and 15 percent. Those who say they are Catholic but in fact are not very are about 20%. In the world, there are a billion Catholics or more, and with other Christian churches there are over a billion and a half, but the population of the planet is 6 or 7 billion people. There are certainly many of you, especially in Africa and Latin America, but you are a minority.
“We always have been but the issue today is not that. Personally I think that being a minority is actually a strength. We have to be a leavening of life and love and the leavening is infinitely smaller than the mass of fruits, flowers and trees that are born out of it. I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.”

I am grateful for this question. The answer is this: I believe in Being, that is in the tissue from which forms, bodies arise.
“And I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being. Do you think we are very far apart?”

(Scalfari gives the pope his view on the world.)

“All right. I did not want you to give me a summary of your philosophy and what you have told me is enough for me. From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us. In the letter I wrote to you, you will remember I said that our species will end but the light of God will not end and at that point it will invade all souls and it will all be in everyone.”

All excerpts are courtesy of Repubblica. Read the full interview — here.

Image via Google Commons 

What in the art of Buddhist startup naming is going on?

It’s not so hard to figure. Startups have dealt with the dwindling supply of short Web addresses by removing vowels and creating compound words for years. Zen, meanwhile, provides a short building block and communicates the idea of simplicity and focus, a good thing if you’re selling the promise to make life easier for your customers.

“In business, zen is often a synonym for ordinary nothingness,” blogged Nancy Friedman, a corporate copywriter who consults with businesses on naming and verbal branding:

Interesting question here. If you remove the ego, spreading the good word of any of the great teachers (Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad….) doesn’t have to be looked at as negative. It just is. The Catholic Church has made a lot of money and built incredible buildings based off of Jesus’ love and message. They have also shared the love and inspired so many people. It seems that naming a company with a prefix of “Zen” or another religious word is in a way a major complement to the Higher cause and maybe an example of “pay it forward?”

What are your thoughts?

Excerpts above via Bloomberg. 

Image via Google Commons

Lucid Practice Notes on The 5 People You Meet In Heaven

While traveling China, I found The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom on a hostel bookshelf. *Side note: Isn’t it funny the books that you find in hostels while traveling?

Paz and I had enjoyed Albom’s beautiful short book, Tuesdays with Morrie so I decided to read this book as well. When reading, I like to take notes so I can go back years later and essentially reread each book. I had found that it was difficult to remember all concepts and themes of books unless I diligently took notes and made a habit of going back every few months to reread. Do you utilize this practice while reading books?

Lucid Practice Notes on The 5 People You Meet In Heaven:

• Heaven is where you get to make sense of your yesterdays. Make your yesterday’s count.
• Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.
• All lives intersect in heaven.
• Heaven is where you spend and live your life. You cross paths with people you affected.
• Always forgive.
• Life has to end. Love doesn’t.

Certainly interesting and beautiful concepts. What did you learn from reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven? Let’s discuss the book in the comments section below.

Everyday someone or something tells me “you need this” or “you need that.” I am guilty of getting caught up looking at flashy possessions thinking, “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice.”

Deep inside I know. I have been blessed enough to travel parts of this world. I know that almost half of the world lives off less than $2.50 a day. I know that thousands do not have what I “need.” If a doctor from Bangladesh doesn’t have that fancy tablet, why do I “need it?” Do I have an ego? He’s the one saving lives.

I know that material desires take away desire for Love. They take away a desire to meet and understand Him.

Looking back on life, I don’t remember many of the possessions. Granted some events I attended were great to attend. Some of the “things” were great to own. What I really remember is time spent with family and friends. The people that surrounded those events and possessions. Whether it was holidays, athletic games, chillin around the house, or chillin at school, my mind remembers Love.

-BL

“I traveled throughout India trying to find someone who knew God. Such souls are rare. All the teachers I met told me about their beliefs. In spiritual matters I was determined to never be satisfied with words about God. I wanted to experience Him. What I am told has no meaning for me unless I experience it.

Once I was talking with a friend of mine, a broker, about the saints of India. He did not share my enthusiasm. “All these so called saints are fakes,” he said. “They don’t know God.”

I didn’t argue, I changed the subject, and we started to talk about the brokerage business. When he had told me quite a great deal about it, I said smoothly “Do you know there is not a single reliable broker in Calcutta? They are all dishonest.”

“What do you know about brokers?” he retorted angrily.

“Exactly,” I replied. “What do you know about Saints?” He couldn’t answer. “Don’t dispute what you don’t know about” I went on good naturedly. “I know nothing about the brokerage business, and you don’t know anything about saints.”

….Most people become self-satisfied about what they read of Truth, without ever having experienced it. In India, we do not seek spiritual guidance from someone just because he has a theological degree, nor do we seek from those who have studied the scriptures without experiencing their truths. We are taught to recognize the difference between a man’s sermon and his life; he must demonstrate that he has experienced what he has learned.”

-Paramahansa Yogananda

Life is meant to be loved.

Happiness is attainable.

Living a life of truth can be a reality.

In daily life, if you happen to tell a lie, ask yourself, “Why did I really lie?” Did you lie for social gain or ego purposes? Did you lie to create a false reality to make yourself feel better? Did you do it to benefit another person you care a lot about? Ask yourself after you tell your next small lie.

Consciousness of Gods Presence

The secret is to see God in everything and to not become attached to anything. Answer to God.

Be conscious each day. If you had a great day, acknowledge God. If you had a terrible day, acknowledge God. God is the reason why we are here. Your heart is God. We all are God.

One who sees God will not “sweat the small stuff” because he or she is free and willing to be happy.

-BL

In India there is a popular story about Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. They were boasting among themselves about their tremendous might. Suddenly a little boy came up and said to Brahma, “What do you create?” “Everything,” Brahma replied grandly. The boy asked the other two gods what their work was. “We preserve and destroy everything,” they answered.

The young visitor was holding in his hand a single piece of straw about the size of a toothpick. Placing it in front of Brahma, he asked, “Can you create a piece of straw like this?” After prodigious effort, Brahma found to his astonishment that he could not. The lad then turned to Vishnu and asked him to save the straw, which was slowly starting to dissolve under the boy’s steady gaze. Vishnu’s efforts to hold it together were fruitless. Finally, the little stranger produced the piece of straw again and asked Shiva to destroy it. But try as Shiva would to annihilate it, the tiny straw remained intact.

The little boy turned again to Brahma: “Did you create me?” he asked. Brahma thought and thought; he could not remember ever having created this amazing child. Suddenly the boy vanished. The three gods awoke from their delusion and remembered that behind their power is a Greater Power.

Via Paramahansa Yogananda’s book Man’s Eternal Quest