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Religion as a whole is about communion with the divine, communication of the finite individual with the whole, the holy. The term religion means something like the term yoga: to bind the individual to the divine, to open up a channel of communication between the temporal and absolute, or to break down the karmic, or habitual, accretions that interfere with this communion.

Particular religions are cosmologies, forms for understanding the mechanics of the life of spirit. And based on those paradigms, religions develop lifestyle strategies, and rituals, traditions, ways to talk to and get closer to "the most high."

Religions have insides and outsides, and come in "isms."

The ism that best describes my religion is animism. I believe, and often perceive, that consciousness and spirit are pervasive, and like sea or space, have currents that form personalities, flowing at various rates. But just as the personality has no absolute or permanent boundaries, animism isn't my only religion.

I wouldn't list the big 3, the monotheist religions, Christianity, Islam or Judaism, because those terms imply a political form of religion. In each case, they have an inner, mystery school version, with which I would identify. I am a Rosicrucian, Sufi and Cabalist. These schools, although distinct, with traditions and forms, ultimately lead to the same end.

My university degree was in Comparative Religions. But the course of study was more than academic. Noel King was my teacher in and beyond school. Another teacher and friend, Amber Jayanti, teaches what she calls Universal Qabala, which incorporates truths from all traditions freely, syncretically, although using a traditional Kabalistic framework as the organizing principal.

Buddhism has always been useful and important to me. Some say Buddhism is not really a religion, but more a system of psychological tools. Some call Buddhism atheistic. But for me there is no contradiction between emptiness and God.

God, the divine, for me, is best understood the way Lao Tzu described the Tao. The God that can be talked about is not God. God, divinity, is ubiquitous, beyond duality, and therefore even to say that "all is one," which is God, or that reality is empty, are just terms for where the sidewalk of language ends. Yet, that said, God is absolutely active, intelligent, loving, and graceful. God is the absolute, and in every detail. This is no different or more mysterious than our own experienced awareness.

The important part of religion is not

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