Is it not a tragedy that the English language is so bereft of words for love? The ancient Greeks fared far better as, in addition to eros, they talked of agape, caritas and philia. The last three of these correspond closely to the three Grand Principles of Freemasonry.
    Brotherly love – agape – is that unconditional and non-judgemental love that sees all humans as equal in the eyes of God and it reflects the love of God for all his children, irrespective of their faith.
    Caritas, or charity, is the caring and compassionate love that drives us to relieve suffering while philia represents that desire for association, for friendship and companionship, but particularly for an affiliation with truth and wisdom, as in philia-sophia – philosophy.
    Several letters in recent issues of Freemasonry Today have focused on the relationship between religion, spirituality and the Craft but I must confess that these have left me confused. One reason is that I have never been sure what is meant by the rather nebulous term spirituality. Also, this debate seems to miss the point entirely.
    In his widely publicised book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins states that he has no quarrel with what he calls the ‘Einsteinian religion’. This he sums up in Einstein’s own words, “To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.” The degrees of Masonry lead us, in the spirit of Einstein (and Dawkins, perhaps), to meditate on that great, awesome, incomprehensible and transcendental mystery behind all that exists.
    And yet this is only part of the truth. In a powerfully over-riding way, God is not beyond our understanding because, as mystics of all religions and in all ages have affirmed, God is Love. Tragically, though, despite powerful assertions of this fact by Jesus, St. John, Mohammed, Roger of Taizé and numerous others, many people have created in their minds a terrifying deity full of retribution.
    Frightened people can be vicious and this fearful state of mind has led to many of the conflicts and horrors of religion, and the prevalent belief in this petty and vindictive god is the great delusion that Richard Dawkins argues so passionately against.
    In total contrast, Isaac of Nineveh emphasises that God and Love are one and the same thing and, as such, all God can do is to love. He added that, “When we reach love, we have reached God; our own road is ended and we have crossed to the island which is beyond the world.” In like vein, in his first encyclical, entitled Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Pope Benedict XVI remarks that “… love promises infinity, eternity – a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence.”
    The great Sufi mystic-poet Jelalludin Rumi, also known as Mevlana, remarked that all love is a bridge to the love of God, that love is the only true religion and that all other aspects of religion are like cast off bandages. In one of his poems, which have a wonderful dream-like quality, Rumi states that “Love is the astrolabe that sights into the mystery of God.”
    He also affirms that love lifts us above the divisions of religion, “I enter the mosque, the synagogue, the church, the temple and I see but one altar.” Nearer to home, the 14th century English mystic Julian of Norwich, in her radiantly optimistic book Revelations of Divine Love, states that many people accept that God is all might and wisdom and can do all manner of things but that he is all love and will do all manner of things, there they fail. She affirms that, through the infinite power of love, God will make all manner of things well and that “in the end all shall be love.”
    Freemasonry transcends the boundaries of religion by emphasising that, in the words of John Lennon, “All you need is love.” Our Lodges could be likened to the shrine of Nizam-ud-din Auliya in Delhi, which was featured in a recent Channel 4 documentary entitled Sufi Soul. At this shrine, widely renowned as a meeting place for those of all faiths, one worshipper remarked, “What is nice about this place is no one is Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. All faiths pray together. I’ve found a lamp of love here for all religions. It’s like a beacon.”
    In the light of the source of our Masonic symbolism, these words lead on to another saying of Jelalludin Rumi, “The place that Solomon made to worship in, called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth, and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom and mystical conversation and compassionate action.”

John M. Grange