The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to this propensity by soft-pedaling Hinduism's, Buddhism's, Sufism's rules.

The faith I was born into formed me.

Plato described ordinary life as unthinking, lived in a dim cave of shadowy reflections, but said that it is possible to leave the cave and see things in sunlit clarity as they actually are.

Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.

We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery.

It is commonly said and known that each civilization has its own religion. Now my claim is that if we look deeper, the different civilizations were brought into being by the different revelations.

...but with my clamoring ego solidly in place, I considered the title, 'Memories of a Failed Nobody'.