If we consider the dominant approaches to tackling life’s big questions there are three that we use most often – Religion, Philosophy and Science.

Some people are more focussed on religion, some on philosophy, some on science and some use a combination of all three. However, it is rare to see a simultaneous combination of each. In fact, in some circles this unification is frowned on and discouraged.

So let’s explore this a bit more.

The traditional religious approach interprets a given scripture for guidance on the challenge or task at hand. Universal Medicine pioneers a different approach.

Like religion, the philosophical one asks us to contemplate our current lives through a range of existing models proposed by past authors and thinkers (Plato, Goethe, Nietzsche etc). Universal Medicine pioneers a different approach.

The scientific approach focusses on evidence and fostering understanding by reducing a topic to its component parts. This reductionist system asks us to look for the definable, the measurable, the experimentally repeatable, even if we have to segregate life into multiple compartments to achieve this. Universal Medicine pioneers a different approach.

Each traditional approach seems to lead to an oppositional standpoint and people are encouraged to fight for what is right, different, or better (in their view). The result is that each approach has become a separate study in its own right and we have become reliant on the ‘learned ones’ (clergy, professors of philosophy or scientists) to help us to fully understand what is meant.

The result is that people become disempowered and end up talking (and at times arguing) about the same issues but use such different language and constructs that the likelihood of finding an agreement is minimal.

The other outcome is that people become subservient to those with ‘greater knowledge’. More often than not, these people with ‘greater knowledge’ are not living examples of what they share but examples of someone with a good memory.

This is where the approach of Universal Medicine becomes so distinct.

How can groups of anywhere between 150-300 people from different religions, different levels of formal education, different professions, different cultural backgrounds, even different levels of competence with English meet and over the course of a day come to some strong alignment on matters of religion, philosophy and science?

This seems crazy to consider but this is a normal experience at a Universal Medicine workshop.

This begs the question “how does Universal Medicine work with religion, philosophy and science that enables this unification to occur?”

For Universal Medicine the religious approach is less about interpreting and recalling theological text and more about a discussion about what does and doesn’t leave us feeling connected to that which is sacred and equal within all.

As such, any discussion about religion is not about the past but about what does, and doesn’t, honour that sacred part within all, right now. In this way it is always current and with the times.

For Universal Medicine, the philosophical approach starts with the possibility of this sacredness and asks us to ponder in a very practical way a broader outlook on life.

In a recent example, a group explored the concept of time and how we put the past behind us and prepare for the future ahead. We place it in a straight line. Yet ponder for a moment if life might be more cyclical than it is lineal.

Do we not have day/night on endless loop; is this not complemented by seasons cycling around each year; do we not move with the cycle of the planet around the sun or the moon around the earth? If we consider reincarnation, then are we also not on an endless loop of birth, death and re-birth?

If this is possible, the philosophical and religious question becomes why have we turned life into a straight line, what cycles are we continuously repeating and are they there to show us about what is sacred within?

For Universal Medicine, the scientific approach is about YOU as a living science. The fact is that you experience life daily and can test any concept, theory or philosophy and verify its value almost immediately.

When we do this one of four things will happen. We will:

(1) confirm if an approach works for us

(2) force an approach to work for us until it fails

(3) confirm it doesn’t work or

(4) deny its value until such time that it presents to us once again to consider.

There are no winners, no losers, just all of us on the same path of learning with and from each other.

And so, here is the magic, the discussion about religion, philosophy and science all happening at the same time so we can talk about that sacred aspect of ourselves and the endless loop of learning we are presented with.

Then we can study ourselves as a science and see firsthand what we are learning, what we are forcing, what we are dismissing and what we are avoiding.

With absolute responsibility we can consider that we will be presented with the same lessons until we learn what is there to learn.

The religious debate is not about if we pray on a Saturday or Sunday, the philosophical debate is not if we exist at all and the scientific debate is not about disconnecting life from the sum of its parts.

It turns out that we need religion, philosophy and science to more fully understand life, but we need them without the dogma and we need them simultaneously and not compartmentalised – but truly lived.

by Joel Levin

Further Reading:
Esoteric Teachings and Revelations – A New Study for Mankind
Religion
The Way of the Livingness: Understanding True Religion