Religious practice
"It is not what you believe that is important. It is what you serve, what you study, what you reinforce within yourself and encourage in others. That is your religious practice, you see. And all religious practices, no matter how simple or extravagant they might seem, are all to prepare you, in essence, to be able to live like this." [1]
Metaphors
"Ritual and ideology are valuable, however, in setting a precedent or a pathway. People need this to get started and to use it to help them balance their lives, to give them structure and orientation. It is like preparing to fly, preparing to fly the aircraft. You have to study first. You have to become oriented first. You have to learn about the physics, the environment, the winds and aviation before you can take the helm of the aircraft. This is what ritual and ideology are for, to orient you, to prepare you for flight.
But the experience of flying is a different matter. Here you step beyond the boundaries of intellectual understanding and enter into the Mystery—the Mystery that is pure and uncontaminated by the world, the Mystery that is not governed by magic or romance and the search for power. This is the pure Mystery. This is the pure religion because here you are engaging with God directly in ways that are essential and elemental to you.[2]
References
- ↑ Buddha and the New Message from God (November 14, 2014)
- ↑ The Pure Religion, Chapter 1: The Pure Religion