What is reli­gion? The Latin word reli­gio means to link back, to join togeth­er again. Reli­gion is in truth noth­ing other than man's con­nec­tion with God, with the divine. We might say that this is the reli­gion above reli­gions, the uni­ver­sal spir­itu­al path, and not one of those form­al­ity-reli­gions with which people so zeal­ously identi­fy them­selves, and which in fact divide them.

In the Near East a dis­pute has been going on for mil­len­nia. Each Abra­ham­ic reli­gion holds itself to be exclus­ive, wheth­er on the grounds of the mes­si­ah, or of the last proph­et, or of his­tor­icity. The Far East is more tol­er­ant, and there people see the vari­ety of spir­itu­al approaches and accept that the dif­fer­ent paths are mani­fest­a­tions of one and the same divine grace.

We must dis­tin­guish between faith, reli­gion and denom­in­a­tion. There are many denom­in­a­tions, fewer reli­gions, and only one faith. Who­ever thinks only in terms of denom­in­a­tion is forever clash­ing with oth­ers. Who­ever thinks on the level of reli­gions finds it easi­er to make him­self under­stood, but who­ever speaks the lan­guage of faith meets broth­ers and sis­ters every­where. We must seek an ever high­er con­cep­tion of reli­gion. Rel­igare – seek your con­nec­tion with the Supreme! Yoga – which also means con­nec­tion – is a high-level con­cep­tion.

In the course of his­tory, in many cul­tures, reli­gion has proved count­less times to be the guar­an­tee of soci­ety's integ­rity. In hard his­tor­ic­al times, under oppres­sion, reli­gious lead­ers can play a very import­ant role. Secur­ing soci­ety's integ­rity is import­ant, but there exists a more essen­tial side of reli­gion too. Undeni­ably, reli­gion has count­less known cul­tur­al aspects, and yet true reli­gion is not merely an art-his­tory excur­sion to Rome. And reli­gion is not mere theo­logy. What a strange expres­sion: God-sci­ence, God-lore. There is no end to the dog­mas, rules and recom­mend­a­tions that are part of theo­logy, yet God-lore is hardly the way to pick up God's trail. Nor can we agree with the old fan­at­ic­al view that the truth is ours, every­one else is wrong. For oth­ers, reli­gion is noth­ing more than an eth­ic­al code, a col­lec­tion of moral prin­ciples about what may and may not be done. A sys­tem of moral norms, how­ever, is largely a social mat­ter, not neces­sar­ily a tran­scend­ent­al one. The reli­gion above reli­gions is there­fore a meta-eth­ic­al sys­tem above moral norms, far bey­ond the norms, human and moral, gen­er­ally accep­ted today.

The new kind of spir­itu­al­ity that the whole world is seek­ing must be groun­ded in exper­i­en­cing. The tran­scend­ent lived exper­i­ence of God is the mys­tic­al path of per­son­al rev­el­a­tion, of which we exper­i­ence more or less, depend­ing on the degree of our own enlight­en­ment. If we have man­aged to come to exper­i­ence even some­thing of the divine truths, then we shall recog­nise them even when they show them­selves a little dif­fer­ently to oth­ers. From the lim­ited con­cep­tion of reli­gion, which for the most part sep­ar­ates people from one anoth­er, we ought to arrive at a high­er out­look, one that con­nects. Spir­itu­al­ity con­nects. Mys­tic­al exper­i­en­cing con­nects. True spir­itu­al­ity, then, is not form­al­ity but a divine, mys­tic­al spir­itu­al exper­i­ence.

For thou­sands of years reli­gions have nour­ished and nursed the soul of human­ity. Today psy­cho­logy is try­ing to take over this role, and so the new reli­gion of the post­mod­ern age is a kind of psy­cho­lo­gic­al bolt-hole. It may be that ultra-fan­at­ic­al fun­da­ment­al­ist bigotry does not help the soul of man, but rather leads to fresh anxi­et­ies, yet the ultra-free psy­cho-eso­ter­ic altern­at­ive also proves inef­fect­ive. The true spir­itu­al path must ori­gin­ate in the divine sphere, and those who prac­tise it must get bey­ond human lim­it­a­tions.

There­fore the renewed spir­itu­al­ity above reli­gions must be a coher­ent sys­tem based on a true recog­ni­tion of the fun­da­ment­al prin­ciples of exist­ence, con­scious­ness and bliss – a sys­tem foun­ded on man's highest intel­lec­tu­al fac­ulties, sup­por­ted by per­son­al insights and inner real­isa­tions, con­clus­ively con­firmed by its effect­ive applic­a­tion to the prac­tic­al needs of life, and in accord with the norms of the sac­red tra­di­tion.

Growth is known to have two dir­ec­tions: the hori­zont­al and the ver­tic­al. A pit can be widened, and it can be deepened. We can widen and deep­en our own way of see­ing as well. To find water, we must dig deep. And to dis­cov­er real spir­itu­al exper­i­ences, we must pen­et­rate to the depths of our prac­tices. Let the pit be big­ger! Let us go deep into our own spir­itu­al prac­tices, and at the same time widen our hori­zon. The call rings true: ‘Be faith­ful to your own con­vic­tions, and be open to see­ing the beauty of other pro­cesses, other insights too!’ Without deep roots, look­ing around is spir­itu­al pros­ti­tu­tion, and without a wide hori­zon, shut­ting one­self in is blind fan­at­icism. Let the pit be big­ger!