Religious Journey IV

Now in my sophomore year of college (1971), I've experienced war first hand. Though I've rejected my Christian concept of God, I still am fascinated and have a passion for the religious experience. I read William James The Varieties of Religious Experience , re- read the Bhagavad gita, then all the Evans-Wentz books on Tibetan Buddhism: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation. I studied Theosophy and the writings of Madame Blavatsky. I went to yoga classes, and did Kundalini yoga for a year. There are two paths of Tibetan Buddhism that I remember, the Hinayana or Lesser Path, and Mahayana or Greater (or Upper) Path. No value, greater or lesser path, they are just the kind of path one chooses to follow. I followed the Mahayana, that's were I found the writers and teachers that appealed to me the most. The core beliefs of Buddhism are the "Four Noble Truths": You should know sufferings, You should abandon the origins of suffering, You should attain cessations, You should practice the Path. Distilling this down, we are born and all is suffering and you must know and understand your suffering. Abandon the origins of suffering, we should not give in to anger, fear, all these delusions, and we must control them. Attaining cessations, health for example is the absence of illness, but we'll be ill again. All things are in cycles, including our lives, so we have reincarnation, and that cycle of lives must be broken too. Finally, if you practice the Path, you will break the cycles. The Path of Mahayana is to become a Bodhisattva, and return in a higher state of consciousness and help others reach Nirvana, until all sentient beings have achieved enlightenment. This is the Noble Eightfold Path, which is an inner path to enlightenment. While doing this I studied the Tao te Ching (and still use it) and all the other various forms of Eastern mystical traditions. I was a believer of Buddhism until 1980. God had other plans.