What drives me.

          I guess you could say that I have a mission.  My mission is to be part of the natural reform of religion that is taking place as parts of the world become better educated.  This is quite a natural process, as information becomes more and more easily available to more and more people, more complete understandings of the big picture become available.  Through this, those that seek truth are able to piece together a theory of everything from the work of countless scholars, writers and thinkers who have come before us, making all this possible like it has never been before in known and recorded history.  Therefore, I have decided to offer my contribution to this process, both because I wish to serve, and because it is ingrained in my soul, I cannot not do it, I feel compelled deep inside to be a part of this.
          Religion appears to me (and many others like myself) to be a topic that contains so much beauty, yet so much that is ugly, so much peace, bliss, compassion and love, yet so much fear, hate, anger and intolerance.  I like to use the phrase "poison candy" to describe the current state of religion.  I believe the rock band Karnivool said it well with these lyrics: "Politics - Religion, you paint us, as both a cancer and a cure....".  This state of affairs is most obvious with the three Abrahamic faiths, but also apparent in countless other religions such as Hinduism (despite my deep love for it) for a good example, and particularly so amongst many of the indigenous religious traditions.  Therefore it seems quite natural and logical that one would seek to reform religion, keeping the baby but throwing out the bathwater.  There are clearly many who agree with me, hence the growing popularity over the past 100 or so years of Spirituality removed from Religion, and the many religions built more upon reform of previously existing traditions then entirely new revelations (I may offend some here is stating Buddhism & the Sikh faith are clearly wonderful reforms of Hinduism).
          I see myself as a Perennialist, that is I believe that there is of course one absolute, objective, spiritual reality of which all beings are ultimately subject, but that reality is so vast that there are virtually infinite ways in which reality can be constricted to give the impression of diverse realities.  Essentially this is traditional Indian mysticism, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are so close to identical in their philosophical inner cores, understandable as they all are essentially built around the direct perception of Reality through deep meditation.  These truths however are not exclusive to India, they have been discovered by people of all ages and nations through various spiritual practices, however here is an important factor often overlooked: In many of these cases the direct perception of Reality is seen through the lens of religious and cultural conditioning.  Few are they who ever really get fully beyond their own conditioning.  I do not however belief that all religions are founded upon perception of truth, I think all students of religion would do well to listen to some of the arguments put forth by the so-called "New Atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and my favorite; Sam Harris).  In fact, I think some of the clearest thinking on religion comes from people that do not believe in it at all in any form.
         It is this last element that I believe the New Age movement is falling a little short of the mark in it's attempt at establishing a Perennial religion and attaining harmony amongst followers of diverse faiths.  Most followers of eastern religion and the New Age movement make little if any attempt at resovling the difficult and often mutually exclusive elements of different faiths, and this has left a big gaping hole through which critics have been able to deride such attempts.  This appears to be changing, as I am seeing more and more people let go of the "soft" approach and harden up against those perpetuating religious dogma.  It is ironic that many accuse perenialism of being soft and wishy washy when in fact many of its proponents have been amongst the most ardent scholars of comparative religion as well as being the most sincere practitioners of the spiritual path; for example: Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell etc.
          There are of course many reasons why spiritual Perennialism is not generally accepted as a worldview by the general public, many of which originate with either the religious right.  It is really quite interesting to see the depth to which critics will stoop to defame perennialism and defend their own ideologies; twisted logic, selective presentation of facts, semantics and endless strawman arguments are just the beginning.  Therefeore, I decided to immerse myself into the world of comparative religion to offer a way through for interested parties.  There is a vast twisted web of conflicting arguments in these fields that make it quite difficult for anyone to see clearly the light that shines through the topic of religion.  Thus, I have made an attempt at unweaving this web, both as it was something I felt compelled to do for myself, and to also offer it to others.

Hari Om