Unfortunately, the great and near-great documents of both West and East were too often formed by the myopic vision of youth, specifically—in this long historical era—of young men, who are too easily wont to storm the gates of heaven. That the storming is its own, and only, reward we may see by the bizarre distortions visited on us by the organized followers of the stormers who, not vouchsafed even the brief glimpse of paradises claimed by their founders, must live and feed on shards of meaning refracted through mis-transcribed and mis-translated words, words, words.

Let me say that another way. People like Buddha and Jesus and Mohammed were young men when their visions came. They shared their experiences. Few among their followers were able to know what they had known. Adding to the problem was the inadvertant changes in those old written texts as scribe after scribe copied and re-copied the precious documents.

I don’t want to argue the merits or demerits of received religions (we can all see they do much good as well as much harm). I want only to suggest that the way to the temple, mosque, synagogue, and church is a bit more treacherous than it has to be.

Treacherous? Yes, because how unquestioningly we immerse ourselves in the world handed down to us by our culture, and, like actors losing themselves in their roles, we forget what we all knew as children:

that we are more than words,
that we are more than jobs,
that we are more than social players of parts,
that the world, for all its sorrow, is
a place of endless wonders.

But why, with the many rewards the world gives out, should this life be so treacherous?

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