There are two ways of arriving at the same place, one is like a ladder that one must climb and fall and the other is like discovering a hidden spring that bursts out of you heart. We are free to walk the one that feels best to us, but when we discover that which is eternal each person feels blessed. Of that there is no doubt. Is there a risk? Of that there is no doubt either.

Two Kinds of Intelligence There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid, and it doesn't move from outside to inside through conduits of plumbing-learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out. Poetry by Rumi

With love there is always a choice.

The choice you speak of gets negated by the numerous corporations exploiting it. By corporations I mean religions.

What does the church give you that you cannot attain with your family or your neighbors OR the network of friends you have. I think its disgusting how religion puts people in a trance and lets them justify mass murder.

If you're going to make rules, you should at least stick to them.

Originally posted by litterbaux
The choice you speak of gets negated by the numerous corporations exploiting it. By corporations I mean religions.

What does the church give you that you cannot attain with your family or your neighbors OR the network of friends you have. I think its disgusting how religion puts people in a trance and lets them justify mass murder.

If you're going to make rules, you should at least stick to them.

The power of the church now to limit you, and to cause you pain is small. If you are in the Western world than you have little to fear physically from rejecting every religion.

The negativity of the church is only as powerful as you let it be.

There are two paths here as well.

One is to recall all the evil the church does, and feel angry at the limitations they force on people. Relive all that pain, and wonder why they exist at all. Constantly remind yourself how bad they are, and how they have ruined a good thing. I wonder what does that achieve?

The second is to recognize that religion exists. It is a manifestation of the collective consciousness. Every person has the ability to live from fear and anger, or love and hope. Religions have many times become a collective creation of fear among people. It is what it is. I personally refuse to let it bother me. Why give something bad more power by getting angry at it?

Love life, and the spiritual potential within every human. Recognize religion as an attempt at spirituality gone awry. All the evils were lessons for someone, and mistakes that had to be made. Religion is only one more part of reality. It is up to you whether you let it have power to control your mindset.