Religion Starts With The Perception That Something

Even Before 9/11 I Was Gripped By A Sense Of Dread: Our Lack Of Criticism About What We Were Doing In The Middle East - The Slagging Off Of A Whole Religious Tradition.

Myth Was Regarded As Primary; It Was Concerned With What Was Thought To Be Timeless And Constant In Our Existence. Myth Looked Back To The Origins Of Life, To The Foundations Of Culture, And To The Deepest Levels Of The Human Mind. Myth Was Not Concerned With Practical Matters, But With Meaning. Unless We Find Some Significance In Our Lives, We Mortal Men And Women Fall Very Easily Into Despair. The Mythos Of A Society Provided People With A Context That Made Sense Of Their Day-to-day Lives; It Directed Their Attention To The Eternal And The Universal.

And Sometimes It's The Very Otherness Of A Stranger, Someone Who Doesn't Belong To Our Ethnic Or Ideological Or Religious Group, An Otherness That Can Repel Us Initially, But Which Can Jerk Us Out Of Our Habitual Selfishness, And Give Us Intonations Of That Sacred Otherness, Which Is God.

A Mode Of Knowledge Rooted In Silence And Intuitive Insight Which Gives Meaning To Life But Which Cannot Be Explained In Rational Terms.

Religions Have Found That If You Behave In A Certain Way, If You Sort Of Perform Certain Rituals That Expand Your Mind And Make You Realize That Will Make You Realize And Help You To Seguey Into Transcendence And Perform Certain Acts, Adopt A Certain Lifestyle, You Develop New Capacities Of Mind And Heart, Just Like The Dancer, Or The Athlete That Make You Into A Whole Human Being And Principle After One Of These Disciplines Right Across The Board In All Of The Faiths Is Compassion, The Ability To Feel With The Other Person.