“…religion shall not become a theologic shelter to which you may flee in fear of facing the rugged realities of spiritual progress and idealistic adventure; but rather shall your religion become the fact of real experience which testifies that God has found you, idealized, ennobled, and spiritualized you, and that you have enlisted in the eternal adventure of finding the God who has thus found and sonshipped you.”  [UB 155:6]

Teacher: “Have you tasted genuine religion?  Have you experienced that life-changing moment when the Divine starts unlocking the best in you?  Or are you merely ‘practicing’ religion as a spiritual obligation that pays your dues for the insurance policy of your survivors’ benefits beyond this life?

“Your God is as personal to you as it gets, the reason being that you are a unique and unduplicable facet of His Magnificent Self.  How then can you ever satisfy your innermost longings by merely going through the repetitive and quite mechanical moves of rituals?  Such a “religion-by-rote” cannot yield extraordinary outcomes.

“Indeed, to this day, many religions are still riddled with fear-based superstitions—not that far removed from the olden ceremonies where trancelike chanting and its associated gestures were performed to avert the supposed divine wrath.

“It is at the Antipodes of the religion of the heart depicted by Jesus in the above statement—a testimony of His religious encounter with the Divine.  Indeed, God had found, idealized, ennobled, and spiritualized Him. 

“Just as you find yourself searching for the Divine, God has been, is, and forever will be on a quest to dwell within you as your eternal Soul Mate.  Can you fathom such divine longing and commitment that focus on you—each one of you?  Doesn’t it boost your sense of personal value? 

“Why would God place so much trust in you?  Because He knows of the fantastic potentials He has seeded within your personality; because He is a Visionary and already sees you in your perfection, eager to take you there—a place of unprecedented communion with His living Spirit and a far cry from what most experience in their feeble attempts to find Him.

“Why settle for a mediocre and unsatisfying ‘religious’ experience while so much more is within your reach?  All that it takes is to make the resolve to find the God who indwells you—the God of your Heart and Soul.”