All honey

For a couple of years now I've been going from studying one religion to the next. I have always done this since I was a child, but it is only recently that I have done it in a very different way.

In the past I studied religions to understand history or politics. Or to find clues connected to conspiracy theories. Or to discover significant bits that goes hand in hand with alternative spiritual paths... with esoteric paths in general. I have also studied religions out of a simple interest. At times I have studied them out of hate and disgust.

In the last few years I have studied all the religions out of devotion.

Since I am born in a Christian part of the world, and since the Bible was my first encounter with such texts, I know the most about this religion. So yes I am a Christian.

I am also a Muslim. I have always been interested in the underdog and in counter-culture. A silly example would be that if the whole world likes to use PC I got use Apple (this was before Apple was mainstream).

What can be more rebellious than to be a white man with blue eyes in the West and praise Allah? Of course most people do not understand that Islam is nothing without its most meaningful and mystical path of Sufism.

Same with Christianity. The way to "see it" is to study the Gnostics.

Buddhism has always been close to my heart, and in my religion-hating period I always gave Buddhism a pass.

In the last year I have gone way deep into Hinduism. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Krishna Krishna. Hare Hare. Hare Rama. Hare Rama. Rama Rama. Hare Hare.

Of course Shamanism, which is not really a specific religion, is a blanket that wraps all the other ones up in a bundle. Shamanism is more a word that describes a certain world-view and a way to see reality and manage it. There is Shamanism at the core of all religions, because it is from Shamanism that all religions were born in a sense.

There are many other religions as well and I dip into them too. The only ones that I find of little interest are the more recent ones that has come out of the United States. The Mormons (1820), Jehovah's Witnesses (1870), Scientology (1954) and The Flying Spaghetti Monster (2005).

Although these American religions still have a core similar to all the other religions, even if that core is extremely watered down and corrupted.

It is worth to remember that all the religions have been organised and put together in written form by men with, as Buddha says, chattering monkey minds. It is not advised to read or study, or worship, any of the religions of this world if you place a lot of value on these matters.

It is like honey. You do not necessarily place value on the beekeeper who gathered it. Or on the glassblower who put together the jar. Certainly not on the designer who created the label. And especially not on the owner of the store where you bought it. All these people have faults and agendas of various sorts.

But the honey, once it is placed in your mouth... is so sweet... regardless...

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