...the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.

Modernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it - life begins in slime and ends in intelligence - whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its superiors. As the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins put the matter: We are the only people who assume that we have ascended from apes. Everybody else take it for granted that they are descended from gods.

...the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.

In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.

I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.

If you are drilling for water, it's better to drill one 60-foot well than 10 6-foot wells.

The Sufis say there are three ways to know fire - by hearing it described, by seeing it, or by being burned.