When confronted with information that is unfamiliar to us we go through several processes, with greater or lesser success in determining the validity of the content. If we are open minded and open-hearted, we examine it within the body of knowledge and experience we possess, to see if it comports with what we have already absorbed as Truth, at least for us. Then, to the extent it is in harmony with our existing Truth, we incorporate the new information and synthesize an expanded version of Truth for us.
When we are close minded and close-hearted, the process dies aborning, as they used to say when literacy was all the rage. Our Truth is not a springboard to explore the depths of Greater Truth but instead becomes an impermeable barrier, a limit beyond which we will not allow ourselves to roam. That provides a sense of egoic security, but it cheats us of the joy of personal growth in understanding.
What is religion to YOU? How would you characterize a religious revelation? The manner in which you answer these questions determines to what extent you are able to open to Truth in a way more reflective of WHO YOU ARE rather than who you think you should be, were told you should be, or are coerced into being.
We hold that true religion is not a badge like Chevy Silverado or Toyota Prism. Those are just different ways to be carried about, depending on how much baggage you want to take with you. But the underlying utility is the same.
People get lost in doctrinal differences that were arrived at in ecclesiastical bodies often centuries after the spiritual founder of a religion gave out their Truth. Those who come after will at times burn others at the stake for not sharing their vision of the truth. They claim leadership but themselves are hopelessly lost.
Instead, Establishment of Religion offers an alternative. As we wrote at the opening of this website: Consider a Different Way. Within an environment of non-coercive process, you are free to explore the creative potential that is uniquely yours while allowing others the same freedom of exploration and discovery. This is a religion that truly binds each and every believer to something greater than herself or himself, no matter how we conceive that greater Whole to be.
If you follow the Three Tests what you get for free is stillness, a connection to Spirit. Non-coercion is a stillness method as certain as any other method ever brought forth by sages. Once you have acted in agreement with not harming others or allowing yourself to be harmed, your higher Self naturally appears to inform you of what else you get as part of the process.
This should not be confused with tolerating chaotic or destructive behavior from others that impacts our life. Our path is not one that embraces passivity or pacifism. While we always want to offer goodwill and accommodation wherever possible, we fully accept that Reasonable Compulsion is not only permitted but required by the teachings in response to impermissible coercion by others of us or those we are duty-bound to protect.
And what to say of religious revelation? Do you conceive of it as something that arrives in a blinding light, peals of thunder and physical impact, delivering an all-encompassing vision of higher truth in one Divine Download?
If so, how would you explain the revelations of Jacob Boehme, one of Christianity's greatest mystics? He reported that his visions would be seen like a landscape during a flash of lightening; it would take him ten years to unravel what the meaning of it was.
Gautama Buddha tried a variety of ascetic practices before realizing that physical austerities did not lead to Enlightenment. Only after he was prepared by his disappointment with the paths others said he must tread did he discover under the Bodhi tree his way of The Noble Eightfold Path.
Is it possible that within you is Truth, a revelation that is your unique gift to the world at this moment? Why would that not be so?
Would it be worth refining yourself in such a way as to make your individual revelation a reality? If you answered "yes", consider the teachings placed before you here.