New Light: Finding Universal Truths Beyond Orthodox Religion
By: Erik Rittenberry
“The world knows many religions but nature has but one truth.”
—Manly P. Hall
“When people can't handle God anymore, they turn to religion.”
—Erich Fromm
I was brought up in the Baptist tradition from a very early age. Sweltering Sunday mornings in the south, a child I was, sitting in the cramped pews all dressed up, listening to the preacher man tell me how to live and what to believe and the daunting consequences that await if I waver from the Word.
Throughout my youth, I was taught to think of God as some omnipotent "entity" that we all are commanded to “believe” in. Or else.
The scriptures were taught to me through a literal lens. The mysteries of the divine were never entertained. It was all factual, exact, and unquestionable.
But in due time, my relentless curiosity and passion for reading helped me sift through the layers of my conditioning. Books have been instrumental in evolving my thoughts beyond the constricted viewpoints and moth-eaten doctrines that were force-fed to me on Sunday mornings.
After dedicating significant time delving deeply into the works of Joseph Campbell, Jung, Nietzsche, Emerson, Huxley, Krishnamurti, Huston Smith, the medieval mystics, and numerous others, I have gained a radically different perspective on what we term “God” and “religion.” More than anything, these wise spirits helped shed light on something I’ve felt intuitively for a long time.
Karen Armstrong once said, “We have domesticated God's transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus; but our ideas about Santa Claus change, mature and become more nuanced, whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.”
Our identities and perspectives are profoundly influenced by the era and the location into which we are born. The community, culture, and social norms of the place we live play a crucial role in shaping the values and perspectives we carry throughout our lives. In essence, our environment is fundamental in forming our beliefs.
If you had been born in ancient Athens during Plato’s time, long before Christ or Muhammad, the lens through which you see the world would be completely different from what you hold now. Our values and beliefs shift depending on when and where we enter this world. That’s not exactly groundbreaking.
Perhaps this is why I've always struggled with the idea that any one group or religion could claim to possess the ultimate truth. The notion that anyone who doesn't share my specific beliefs is doomed to eternal damnation has never resonated with my understanding.
Our world, with its 4.5 billion years of existence, is an intricate web of complexity, filled with countless perspectives shaped by time, place, and circumstance. Long before today's major religions took root, primordial humans walked the earth, and countless civilizations and empires—along with their religions—have crumbled to dust.
After years of slowly breaking free from the narrow confines of my religious upbringing, I began to grasp a deeper, more profound understanding of that mysterious word we call God. I no longer viewed God as some vengeful figure from the Old Testament, looming in the sky, ready to strike down anyone who didn’t take ancient scriptures literally, with all their contradictions and harsh decrees.
When I began exploring the world’s religious traditions, I found something that really opened my eyes: beneath all the surface differences, they all share some universal truths—the interconnectedness of all life, adherence to the Golden Rule, and a profound sense of oneness with the universe.
In Hindu philosophy, this is called Brahman—the ultimate reality underlying all phenomena. Jesus captured this essence when he said in the Gospel of Thomas: "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."
At its core, every religious tradition points to a transcendent reality that cuts through the illusions of the everyday world, revealing a deeper, more meaningful reality shared by all. They reflect a collective human desire to understand the nature of existence, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and to detach oneself from worldliness as a prerequisite to attaining a higher state of BEING.
As Joseph Campbell reminds us, “it does appear that anyone viewing with unprejudiced eye the religions of mankind must recognize mythic themes at every hand that are shared, though differently interpreted, among the peoples of this planet.”
That’s when it all started to click for me. Religion finally made sense, just not in the rigid, traditional theistic way many cling to.
Pursue no the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void, Be serene in the oneness of things, And dualism vanishes of itself.
God
When we talk about God today, we don’t know what we’re really talking about. Many of us were handed down a definition of God from the time we were toddlers, shaped by whatever tradition we happened to be born into. But that’s not God. As the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once said, the moment we try to define God, we’ve already lost the essence. God eludes any definition we try to pin down.
For me, the three-letter word GOD is a linguistic shorthand for an unseen wholeness. It’s the hidden power that holds all things together. It’s the mysterious force that weaves through the fabric of all life and cannot be measured or analyzed because it lies beyond all human logic. It’s God-without-form, as both Hindus and Christian mystics phrased it.
The poet W.H. Auden put it best with these nine simple words.
We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.
Emerson, too, understood this metaphysical mystery when he wrote his famous essay, The Over-Soul. He writes: “Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence… I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.”
God is the expression of the unknown and the unknowable aspects of the mind, encompassing both the profound depths of the psyche and the transcendent aspects of human experience. Carl Jung suggested that our concept of God evolves as we grow psychologically and spiritually, reflecting the ongoing dialogue between our conscious minds and the deeper, often hidden, realms of the unconscious.
As the theologian Paul Tillich proposed, God is the “Ground of Being” — the foundational reality upon which all existence depends. In this view, God is not a being among other beings but the very basis or "ground" that makes the being of all things possible.
“God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him.”
God simply IS.
Or, as Einstein put it, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
Religion and Faith
True religion, I’ve come to learn, has nothing to do with “beliefs” or the ego-induced fetish of trying to prove or disprove the existence of God. Religion, in the higher sense of the term, calls forth the soul to embark on the highest adventure.
Jiddu Krishnamurti reminded us that “the religious mind is entirely different from the mind that believes in religion. The religious mind is psychologically free from the culture of society; it is also free from any form of belief… Religion is the discovery of what is real, which means that you have to find, and not follow somebody who says he has found and wants to tell you about it. There must be a mind that receives that reality, not a mind that merely accepts reality verbally and conforms to that idea of reality in the hope of being secure.”
In the traditional sense of the definition, Faith is clinging to an answer for which one has no rational proof. It's the entry ticket into a congregation that claims a monopoly of a divine truth that leads to salvation.
Paul Tillich saw faith in a different light.
Faith, to Tillich, is all about what we’re “ultimately concerned” with. Faith isn’t just about “believing” in religious doctrines; it was something much deeper—a personal, existential commitment to whatever holds the most significant meaning in our lives.
In Tillich’s eyes, faith involves our entire being—not just our minds and emotions, but something that touches the core of who we are.
He believed that whatever we’re most deeply concerned with—whether it’s God, truth, purpose, or even something more worldly like success or power—that’s what becomes our "god," the thing we place our faith in. For Tillich, genuine faith is about aligning your life with what matters most to you.
In this sense, faith is more about trust and commitment than simply following a set of second-hand beliefs.
In the words of the great British poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson:
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
Cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith! Salvation
Salvation isn’t obtained through any belief system or the idolatry of historical figures and events. It’s not the promise of some future immortal paradise rewarded to those who’ve done good deeds and held proper beliefs.
True salvation comes to those who live in conformity with their inner light. It is an inner transformation that involves moving beyond the ego or the self-centered aspect of one’s personality, to realize a greater, all-encompassing identity.
Salvation is less about an external rescue and reward and more about a profound and transcendent journey that leads to a deep, abiding connection with the divine—the realization of the Oneness of Self.
As Carl Jung reminds us: “There is only one way and that is your way. There is only one salvation and that is your salvation... What is to come will be created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare. Do not measure. No other way is like yours...You must fulfill the way that is in you.”
Conclusion
Religion, as we encounter it today, has been diluted to suit the tastes of the masses—sweetened and simplified, promising celestial kingdoms for those who merely ‘believe.’ Yet, this simplification strays far from the core of what religion once was—a fiery, transformative force that seeks to ignite the human spirit.
As the ancients used to say: “If you die before you die, you won't die when you die.” Metaphorically understood, this points to a transformative experience where, while still physically alive, you undergo what feels like a spiritual death. This involves letting go of your superficial identity and all the trappings of materialism that come along with it.
You no longer live on the surface of yourself.
In this modern spectacle, belief has become a cage. As Krishnamurti pointed out, when religion becomes merely about belief, it shackles the mind, preventing it from soaring freely. Jung, too, was wary of “belief,” suggesting that organized religion often shields us from the raw, direct experience of the divine.
“People speak of belief when they have lost knowledge. Belief and disbelief in God are mere surrogates. The naive primitive doesn't believe, he knows, because the inner experience rightly means as much to him as the outer. He still has no theology and hasn't yet let himself be befuddled by boobytrap concepts.”
Our minds, crammed with stale dogmas and hollow idols, sever us from the sacred truths that throb deep within us. To some in this desanctified era of reductive materialism, this might sound like the ravings of a mystic. Still, the wisest minds of history—the ancient sages and philosophers—understood this well.
Religion, in its essence, speaks a language of the divine that whispers directly to the soul. The profound religious historian Mircea Eliade reminds us that “a religious symbol conveys its message even if it is no longer consciously understood in every part. For a symbol speaks to the whole human being and not only to the intelligence.”
Consider how Christ, responding to his disciples' desire for concrete answers, stated, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Like many today, his disciples overlooked the symbolic meaning and, instead, longed for literal solutions and a Messiah to free them from the confines of their own flesh.
The disciples often found it difficult to understand Jesus' teachings because he frequently used parables—stories filled with complex religious metaphors and allegories. “I will speak to you in allegories. I will reveal secrets that have been concealed since before the foundation of the world.”
His approach, akin to speaking in riddles, seemed intended to challenge his followers to think deeply. This method effectively separated those genuinely dedicated to his teachings, who would persist in seeking understanding, from those less committed, who might become discouraged and abandon their pursuit.
Like Jesus, the sages of Hinduism understood that what we’re all seeking lies in the depth of our being. Metaphors and parables, like in Christianity, were used to awaken us to the “realms of gold that are hidden in the depths of our being.”
Reading these ancient texts through a literal lens dethrones the deeper meaning of the message. By reading them in the proper light of poetry, symbolism, and metaphors, you understand how these stories are like maps and guides for our own psychological development.
“The imagery of myth,” Campbell writes, “is a language that expresses something basic about our deepest humanity.”
Religious language is deeply symbolic, and it's these symbols that both distinguish and connect different faiths. Each religion has its own unique set of symbols that define and differentiate it, shedding light on its distinct teachings while also creating boundaries.
Yet, at the same time, the universal nature of these symbols allows us to dive deep and touch the timeless essence of the divine. This shared symbolism helps us understand the underlying unity and purpose of religious experiences across different cultures and beliefs.
Ultimately, what we term a “religious experience” isn’t confined to a particular organized religious practice. It is a profoundly personal, mythic journey toward the realization of one’s life potential—a journey of becoming more alive, more conscious, and profoundly human.
Once you’ve plunged into the ocean, does it really matter whether or not you believe in water?
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For me, the only worthwhile religion is one that practices kindness and compassion for all living things, and poets throughout the ages have always known this. In "Tintern Abbey", Wordsworth talks specifically about those "little nameless acts of kindness and of love that have no small or trivial influence on the best portion of a good man's life." If that isn't the essence of real religion, it's not worth having.
I think our error was in turning faith into religion and religion into institutions