@dyslexia,
Quote:In my view, the Oriental religions are no better than Christianity (itself of Oriental origin, of course) or Islam; all of them tend to divorce men and women from the earth, from other forms of life, by their mystical emphasis upon the general, the abstract, the invisible, and by their psychological tendency, in prayer and meditation, to turn the mind inward, toward self-love, self-importance, self-obsession. Salvation. Satori. Union with God, union with the All-Source, union with The One. (Which one? ) Of course, the devotees of these mystical rites claim the opposite"that they are engaged in self-transcendence. I think they delude themselves; rather than escaping the self, they are wallowing, luxuriating, in a most enormous vanity.
I'd say that every single one of us has any number of delusions that we cling to.
As for the claim that looking inwards = enormous vanity - my thought is that you can only say that if you've never done that enough to know who you are at a deep level...I found that doing so brings greater acceptance of the world, peoples imperfections, my own imperfections, faults and weaknesses. I've found it leads to greater understanding of why I, and other people get angry, and leads to both calmess, and a desire to grow.
Mind you, that 'looking inwards' wasn't from any religious teaching per se (I'd say I'm agnostic), but many of the paths towards understanding yourself better have religious connections (if you read much of pyschology today, it's becoming more and more mystical)
