Swami Ashokananda Was A Brilliant

Seen Through The Eyes Of Faith, Religion's Future Is Secure. As Long As There Are Human Beings, There Will Be Religion For The Sufficient Reason That The Self Is A Theomorphic Creature - One Whose Morphe (form) Is Theos - God Encased Within It. Having Been Created In The Imago Dei, The Image God, All Human Beings Have A God-shaped Vacuum Built Into Their Hearts. Since Nature Abhors A Vacuum, People Keep Trying To Fill The One Inside Them.

The Word Translated, Koan, It Means A Problem. But It's A Very Special Problem. And To Strip It Down To The Way It Works, You Are Given A Problem Which Has No Rational Solution. There Is A Contradiction Built Into It. One Standard - One Is This Is The Sound Of Two Hands Clapping. What Is The Sound Of One Hand Clapping? And So On. All Right, So The First Thing Is That It Brings Your Rational Mind To An Impasse.

People Are Not Losing Their Religious Needs, But They Are Going To Three Places To Get Their Needs Met. One Is To Conservative Churches, Which, For All Their Social Benightedness, Nevertheless Do Present Their Congregations With A Different View Of Reality. Second, They Are Going To Asian Religions. Third, They Are Going To The New Age, Which When I'm Feeling Cynical I Refer To As "new Age Frivolity," Because Some Of It Is Rather Flaky.

Poetry Is A Special Use Of Language That Opens Onto The Real. The Business Of The Poet Is Truth Telling, Which Is Why In The Celtic Tradition No One Could Be A Teacher Unless He Or She Was A Poet.

The Sufis Say There Are Three Ways To Know Fire - By Hearing It Described, By Seeing It, Or By Being Burned.