For many people, religion is a kind of trance. We are taught to say the same words over and over, and, to further claim that those words are what we “believe”. Faith, then, is holding onto those beliefs without any other evidence but the approval of the people who taught us.

Most Americans have never read one page of scripture from any other world religion. If they hear a new idea, one not included in the words they have memorized, they consider it wrong by definition. So, an entire ocean of shared wisdom lies untapped.

There is also a religion that is based on breaking our trances. This religion calls us to honest awareness, and intimate relationship. This religion is extremely rare. It is the religion of Einstein and Schweitzer. It is the meeting place of mystic and skeptic alike. It is the one true religion: love.