I have spent a good part of my life studying spiritual belief systems and religious traditions, as well as psychology. As you might imagine, more has been said and written about these things than any one person could read in one lifetime. Even if a person did manage to read everything that might be read and closed the cover on the last book just as they breathed their last breath, they wouldn’t have had time to integrate what they had learned into any kind of organized system.

There is no shortage of people who are only too happy to take advantage of this truth. They try to sell us a prepackaged system of belief, and do so by hoping to convince us that theirs is the only true system. The funny thing is that when you start to examine all the different belief systems that people employ you discover that they agree more often than they disagree.

The short version is that we all need to find a way to make sense of our lives and our world. If the way we do that stops working for us, we need to change it. None of us need to share the same way of seeing the world, but if our view are too divergent from the great majority we may need to reevaluate our beliefs. The truth is that what we believe is far less important than that we believe. Anyone who tries to tell you something different is trying to manipulate you. Don’t listen to them.