Few people take their religion ‘seriously’. It reduces down to a few ‘oughts’ that standardise beliefs and behaviours. Let the rich get richer in peacetime and let the poor be the cannon fodder during wars. There is no truth, only propaganda!
Underpinning ‘Religion’ is a ‘spiritual’ or ‘mystical’ way of extra-ordinary thinking. Let us call it Eot so we don’t have to use the confusing language of myth and magic.
Arguably the Eot is hardwired into the human brain but it is not normally switched on. But when it does get switched on the changed mind is the same no matter the cultural time and place of the thinker (Eoter). The Eot is in essence a psychology of perception and it can be triggered in people who make time to sit still (ie to meditate). The process can be catalysed by hallucigenic drugs.
Eoters come to realise that ‘reality’ is mind made. They can thus become peacefully unattached to their given cultural world view for they know that ‘the reality that can be described is not the real reality’. Enlightenment, liberation, release
Eoters also come to include the idea of self or ego amongst the unreal. When there is no self there is no problem. The thinking power of the unconscious can be harnessed in a state of ‘flow’ which is non-egoic and outside of space and time.
Meditate and flow – the easy way to go.
Recommended reading:
- William James (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience
- Joseph Campbell (1949) The hero with a thousand faces
- Aldous Huxley (1954) The doors of perception
- Huston Smith (1958) The world’s religions – our great wisdom traditions
- Pascal Boyer (2001) religion explained – the human instincts that fashion gods, spirits and ancestors
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