Religion
The word "religion" comes from the latin "re-ligare," which means to reconnect
Connecting again with something greater is the core of religion. When you do it properly, you loose yourself in the proces.
The understanding of religion is much easier when you seperate the dogmatic and the mystical part
Dogma is about creating stories en declaring they are the absolute truth. Though this seems a bit silly, it has served an important role in mankinds cultural evolution. From before we were apes, being in a hierarchical group was crucial for our survival. Shared stories greatly promote the sense of being a group and belonging together. Groups with a strong sense of community were more likely to survive, where groups without such a sense were probibly more easily defeated in fights and even more likely, would easily disperse into other groups. When you state that your group is unique, the more likely that your groups stays an unique group. So on the rare encouter with another group, the group stays intact. Though very usefull in the past, dogma's cannot keep there value in a multicultural world, with easy communications around the globe. When you hear hundreds of people and groups claim that their view on reality is the only right one, you must start questioning your own convictions (or be very ignorent). In our globalized world, its very difficult tot remain a separate group with completely different believes. So it's no wonder that the power of dogma is rapidly declining.
Mysticism is about experiencing the re-union with something greater than yourself. This that can be called God, but is called Tao here. The concept of God has suffered a lot from the personalizing stories of dogma, so it's difficult to loose all preconceptions and focus on experience only. Mysticism is about this experience. As the mystical experience seems to be a general human state, all different religions have their own mystical traditions, And where dogma's stress the difference with other dogma's again because of the value for groupcohesion, mystical traditions across different religions seem to be very much alike on the level of what the experience is like. When you are immersed in a religious culture, it's probibly wise to follow the mystical tradition of that religion, because you can more easily understand the language and comprenhed the meaning behind the words. When you don't have a dogma, you can choose the method that you think will serve you best. Preferably you may choose a method that isn't strongly built on a dogma, because dogma's are silly. And that is where alchemy comes in handy. Alchemy is only a method . Psychedelics are only a method. They don't tell you what the experience means, they just tell you how to have the experience.
Connecting again with something greater is the core of religion. When you do it properly, you loose yourself in the proces.
The understanding of religion is much easier when you seperate the dogmatic and the mystical part
Dogma is about creating stories en declaring they are the absolute truth. Though this seems a bit silly, it has served an important role in mankinds cultural evolution. From before we were apes, being in a hierarchical group was crucial for our survival. Shared stories greatly promote the sense of being a group and belonging together. Groups with a strong sense of community were more likely to survive, where groups without such a sense were probibly more easily defeated in fights and even more likely, would easily disperse into other groups. When you state that your group is unique, the more likely that your groups stays an unique group. So on the rare encouter with another group, the group stays intact. Though very usefull in the past, dogma's cannot keep there value in a multicultural world, with easy communications around the globe. When you hear hundreds of people and groups claim that their view on reality is the only right one, you must start questioning your own convictions (or be very ignorent). In our globalized world, its very difficult tot remain a separate group with completely different believes. So it's no wonder that the power of dogma is rapidly declining.
Mysticism is about experiencing the re-union with something greater than yourself. This that can be called God, but is called Tao here. The concept of God has suffered a lot from the personalizing stories of dogma, so it's difficult to loose all preconceptions and focus on experience only. Mysticism is about this experience. As the mystical experience seems to be a general human state, all different religions have their own mystical traditions, And where dogma's stress the difference with other dogma's again because of the value for groupcohesion, mystical traditions across different religions seem to be very much alike on the level of what the experience is like. When you are immersed in a religious culture, it's probibly wise to follow the mystical tradition of that religion, because you can more easily understand the language and comprenhed the meaning behind the words. When you don't have a dogma, you can choose the method that you think will serve you best. Preferably you may choose a method that isn't strongly built on a dogma, because dogma's are silly. And that is where alchemy comes in handy. Alchemy is only a method . Psychedelics are only a method. They don't tell you what the experience means, they just tell you how to have the experience.