Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…
© Mahabodhi Burton
20 minute read
This excerpt is drawn from the chapter titled ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science, and Politics.’ It delves into the intricate dynamics of the creative process, revealing its three distinct facets: the initial act of creation, often incubated in solitude; the custodians or gatekeepers of the tradition who serve as its public ambassadors; and its eventual integration into mainstream culture. This framework is applicable across various domains, spanning the realms of arts, religion, and science.
The Nature of Religion
There is no real consensus on what Religion is, although we could generalize and say that religion refers to humanity’s relationship to ‘patterns in the universe’ that are seen as transcendent, sometimes but not always supernatural, and which thus are believed to provide ethical guidance and give meaning to life.[1] To help votaries remain mindful of these patterns, each religion will establish certain places, rituals and narratives as sacred: and thus worthy of reverence; it is through such mindfulness that the religious practitioner believes their life will gain meaning: allowing them to ultimately resolve the existential problems in life: such as old age, sickness and death.
Huston Smith is widely regarded as the most eloquent and accessible contemporary authority on the history of religions. In his book The World’s Religions he colourfully outlines the difference between the values purported by religions and how those values often ‘manifest’ on the ground:
‘Perhaps someday someone will write a book about the great religions that roots them to their social settings. This, though, is a book I shall read, not write. … This book is not a balanced account of its subject. The warning is important. I wince to think of the shock if the reader were to close the chapter on Hinduism and step directly into the Hinduism described by Nehru as “a religion that enslaves you”: its Kali Temple in Calcutta, the curse of her caste system, her two million cows revered to the point of nuisance, her fakirs offering their bodies as sacrifice to bedbugs. Or what if the reader were transported to Bali, with its theaters named the Vishnu—Hollywood and its bookstores that do brisk business in Klasik Comics, in which Hindu gods and goddesses mow down hosts of unsightly demons with cosmic ray guns? I know the contrast. I sense it sharply between what I have written of Taoism and the Taoism that surrounded me as a boy in China: its almost complete submergence in augury, necromancy, and superstition. It is like the contrast between the Silent Christ and the Grand Inquisitor, or between the stillness of Bethlehem and department stores blaring “Silent Night” to promote Christmas shopping. The full story of religion is not rose-coloured; often it is crude. Wisdom and charity are intermittent, and the net result is profoundly ambiguous. A balanced view of religion would include human sacrifice and scapegoating, fanaticism and persecution, the Christian Crusades and the holy wars of Islam. It would include witch hunts in Massachusetts, monkey trials in Tennessee, and snake worship in the Ozarks. The list would have no end. Why then are these things not included in the pages that follow? My answer is so simple that it may sound ingenuous. This is a book about values. Probably as much bad music as good has been composed in the course of human history, but we do not expect courses in music appreciation to give it equal attention.’[2]
Smith is concerned with religions at their best, however he acknowledges that their vitality can be drained by institutionalization:
‘Others will be interested in trying to determine if religion in its entirety has been a blessing or a curse. That has not been my concern. Having said what my concern is the world’s religions at their best—let me say what I take that best to be, beginning with what it is not. Lincoln Steffens has a fable of a man who climbed to the top of a mountain and, standing on tiptoe, seized hold of the Truth. Satan, suspecting mischief from this upstart, had directed one of his underlings to tail him; but when the demon reported with alarm the man’s success—that he had seized hold of the Truth—Satan was unperturbed. “Don’t worry,” he yawned. “I’ll tempt him to institutionalize it.”‘[3]
The Systems Model of Creativity
Of course, there is nothing wrong with institutionalization per se, in his Systems Model of Creativity Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi sees it as one of the three components in the creative process. The process of Creativity (with a capital C) can only be said to be complete once the creative work, idea, or cultural or religious innovation is established within the culture. Csikszentmihalyi thinks of Creativity in terms of the interaction between three systems: ‘person,’ ‘field’ and ‘domain.’
It is important to realize that the relationships shown in the figure[4], is a dynamic linking of circular causality. In other words, each of the three main systems—person, field, and domain—affects the others and is affected by them in turn:[5]
‘The individual takes some information provided by the culture and transforms it, and if the change is deemed valuable by society, it will be included in the domain, thus providing a new starting point for the next generation of persons.’[6]
For instance, take Van Gogh as an example: he painted ‘Sunflowers’, but never sold it (person😉 luckily, the painting of the picture is not the end of the creative process: it next needs to interact with the field by being critically accepted by the ‘gatekeepers’ in the Visual Arts (the gallery owners and critics:) finally it needs to be assimilated into the broader mainstream culture: once Sunflowers was valued at nearly $40 million and was hung in the United Kingdom’s National Gallery (domain,) the process of Creativity could be said to be complete. Likewise, technology goes through a similar creative process: the smartphone was a) invented, b) mass produced, and c) widely adopted.
The Axial Age
To be motivated to introduce novelty into any field: for instance, to innovate a new or revitalize an old religion or philosophy, the individual creative must first be dissatisfied with the status quo:[7] as no doubt happened during the period 800-200 BCE, which Karl Jaspers called the ‘axial age:’ claiming this as the time when individuality first emerged in the human race:
‘The most extraordinary events are concentrated in this period. Confucius and Lao-Tse were living in China, all the schools of Chinese philosophy came into being, including those of Mo-Ti, Chuang-Tse, Lieh-Tsu and a host of others; India produced the Upanishads and Buddha and, like China, ran the whole gamut of philosophical possibilities down to scepticism, to materialism, sophism and nihilism; in Iran Zarathustra taught a challenging view of the world as a struggle between good and evil; in Palestine the prophets made their appearance, from Elijah, by way of Isaiah and Jeremiah to Deutero-Isaiah; Greece witnessed the appearance of Homer, of the philosophers–Parmenides, Heraclitus and Plato–of the tragedians, Thucydides and Archimedes. Everything implied by these names developed during these few centuries almost simultaneously in China, India, and the West, without any one of these regions knowing of the others […]’[8]
These innovative individuals, and others who followed: most notably Jesus Christ and the prophet Mohammed, shape the basis for world’s religious and philosophical life today: their inspirations and revelations, often gorged in isolation and under challenging circumstances, have over time been fashioned into institutions and become the fabric of the Cultural System: the culture has selected for them because they work. Smith expands on the theme of institutionalization:
‘[Lincoln Steffen’s fable] helps to separate the best from the ambiguous in religion. The empowering theological and metaphysical truths of the world’s religions are, this book is prepared to argue, inspired. Institutions—religious institutions emphatically included are another story. Constituted as they are of people with their inbuilt frailties, institutions are built of vices as well as virtues. When the vices in-group versus out-group loyalties, for example—get compounded by numbers, the results can be horrifying to the point of suggesting (as some wag has) that the biggest mistake religion ever made was to get mixed up with people.’ [9]
Of course, the abiding ‘sin’ of institutions—in any of Csikszentmihalyi’s fields–is that their tendency is to ossify; and their message degrade; all fields need to be regularly replenished by vitality and inspiration coming from those creative individuals who are still connected to the creative source; Csikszentmihalyi indicates a middle way in gatekeeping: gatekeepers too need to be intelligent and responsive:
‘If gatekeepers are too rigid, the domain become starved for new ideas and eventually declines. But the domain can be destroyed just as well by gatekeepers who are too open to novelty and who, by admitting every fad, destroy the integrity of the domain.’[10]
Reginald Ray’s Threefold Model
The same principles behind Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model of Creativity are expressed by Reginald Ray in his analysis of trends within Buddhism in his book Buddhist Saints in India: a study in Buddhist values and orientations.[11]
Ray proposes that the Buddhist tradition consists not—as it is traditionally understood to exist—in a two-fold division between the monastics and the laity, but instead in a three-fold division between the ‘Forest Renunciant,’ the ‘Settled Monastic’ and the ‘Lay Practitioner.’ Subhuti explores this idea in his second series of talks on the theme of ‘What is the Order?: in those talks he identifies the ‘Forest Renunciant’ not only with the retreatant in the forest, but with any other individual who works alone and through their work benefits the community: the artist; the poet; the scholar; and so on.
In 2010 Vajragupta gave a talk entitled ‘Being Radical: 40 Years of the New Society‘:[12] which looked at how radical the Triratna Buddhist Community was today and he encouraged his audience to think more along radical lines. Towards the end of his talk Vajragupta explored Ray’s categories but renamed them as ‘Solitary Retreatant,’ ‘Sangha Builder’[13] and ‘Social Activist.’
Being a scholar / thinker I had identified with the Forest Renunciant / Solitary Retreatant category since I had been present at Subhuti’s talks in the early 1990s and so, in 2010, I delivered my own talk on the subject at the Manchester Buddhist Centre: entitled ‘Work as Spiritual Practice:’[14] exploring these ‘three modes’ of being a Buddhist.
Temperamentally, a person might prefer to be a lone creative; work for a Buddhist institution; or be a Buddhist working in the world raising a family; but within their lifestyle choice they may have periods where they are on solitary retreat; teach at a Buddhist Centre; or donate to a host Buddhist institution. Ideally, an effective Buddhist would have some sort of balance of all three in their life.
Forest Renunciant / Solitary Retreatant
This is the equivalent of Csikszentmihalyi’s creative individual (the ‘person’.) Generally, the creative individual gains inspiration in solitude, as this often provides the best conditions for reflection. The principle behind solitude is it strips life back to its essentials: the essentials thus being better revealed. Tom Hanks’ character–Chuck Noland–in the film Cast Away brings the experience to popular attention; Noland is a conscientious FedX employee stranded on an uninhabited desert island when the cargo plane he is travelling in goes off course in a storm and crashes into the sea. Among the many FedEx packages washed up onto the beach is one with golden angel wings printed upon it; Noland eventually opens most of the packages, finding items he uses to improve his living conditions, but for some reason he leaves that package unopened.
Thrown back on his deficient experience, Noland inevitably makes mistakes: he learns the unforgiving nature of reality as, attempting to reach a passing ship in a life raft, a strong tide dashes his raft onto a coral reef, and he badly gashes his leg. This and similar experiences eventually ‘school’ Noland in survival; he takes less for granted and becomes gradually more resourceful. We could say that a practical wisdom emerges, not only concerning what is pragmatically essential, but emotionally: Nolan’s relationship to himself becomes softer. The thread of conscientiousness running through Noland’s character—developed as a systems analyst used to troubleshooting problems–was no doubt crucial to his adaptation and consequent survival.
When he is rescued, four years on, and returns home, he finds that his family and friends have declared him dead; his fiancé Kelly has since married and has had a daughter, and while there is still love between Kelly and Noland, after a heart-felt bonding for the last time, they do the responsible thing and go their separate ways. Noland delivers the angel-winged package to its owner, but when no-one is home, he leaves it with a note, saying how the package had saved his life. Driving away Noland comes to a crossroads and a woman named Bettina Peterson driving a pickup truck gives him directions; as she drives away he notices two angel wings painted on the tailgate of her truck. Noland looks down each road, trying to decide which way to go; the final moment of the film sees him looking down the road leading back to Bettina’s ranch with a smile.[15] For a consideration of themes around loneliness and solitude, I recommend Sarvananda’s Solitude and Loneliness: a Buddhist View.[16]
Ratnaguna recounts his earliest memory of the arising of self-awareness: he was five years old and at a birthday party; having retired from the noise of the party to the relative quiet of the bathroom,
‘The sudden contrast — from being absorbed in the fun and games of the party to being alone in the quiet — shocked me into self-awareness, and I remember thinking, ‘I am me.’ I may even have said it out loud. … I realised my separateness, and I felt a sort of serene but mysterious excitement: mysterious because there was something strange and slightly scary in being alive, alone, and separate. Why it felt so serene I am unable to say.
‘ … [the memory] has always held a fascination, a sense of significance, and I think of it as my axial moment. It was the dawning of self-consciousness or reflexive self-awareness, the moment when I became aware not just of my senses and surroundings, but aware of being aware — what Nabokov termed ‘being aware of being aware of being’. This is the seed of individuality.[17]
The Forest Renunciant / Solitary Retreatant can be the religious recluse, teacher, meditator, artist, musician, writer, scholar or philosopher: or in fact anyone in the phase of refreshing themselves by withdrawing–even temporarily–from life’s hurly-burly into a reflective space; and it is the condition of being by oneself—we do need to do this, at least from time-to-time–that is of premier importance.
It is through that contact with oneself; and the deliberate putting aside of new input from ordinary life, that one is—finally—able to process what has happened to oneself in the past: a fundamental reason for meditation; but also to focus on the ‘concomitants’ of one’s life: what makes up one’s ‘personal mandala.’[18] Faced vividly with those concomitants and realizing how we feel about them, we become, we could say, ‘obliged’ to address whether we wish to maintain possession of them. This principle applies equally to our mental states and viewpoint, which in solitude we might seek to completely revise, to the extent that it is unsuitable: thus, often, when a Buddhist has held a significant responsibility within a situation, they will take a longish solitary retreat before they embark upon, or even decide about, whatever they are going to do next.
Solitude for the religious recluse, teacher, meditator, artist, musician, writer, scholar or philosopher means they can focus fully on their passion: whether it is to develop positive and insightful mental states; dwell more deeply on a chosen religious deity; create inspiring aesthetic forms or expressive narratives; or clearly elucidate philosophical or religious truths. It is only in the fires of isolation that a certain purity of vision is honed, including the simple but profound goal of learning how to be a better human being.
When the renunciant or creative later emerges from their isolation and reconnects with the community, that community is enlivened by what the creative has discovered: in their changed person; their creative work; or in the clarity of their intellectual insight.
The wilderness
The place where religious inspiration often arises–or is refreshed–is in the wilderness; the place of solitude gives a person the opportunity for undistracted focus: the Buddha strove for and attained Nirvana in the forest; and later, outside of the rainy season, he lived with his disciples there, only coming into the village to collect alms.
We can see a common theme among the world’s religions of spiritual inspiration arising, or being fortified, in places of solitude.
Moses and the Israelites
Moses led the Israelites to freedom through a 40-year wilderness sojourn: in this case the wilderness is symbolic of lack of faith: God had promised the land of Canaan to the Israelites, yet they feared to enter the Promised Land because they felt those living there were stronger: God therefore banished them for forty years to the desert for lack of faith.[19]
Islam
The origin of the word Islam is interesting,
‘The proper name of [Muhammad’s] religion is Islam. Derive from the root, s-l-m, which means primarily “peace” but in a secondary sense “surrender”, its full connotation is “the peace that comes from when one’s life is surrendered to God.” This makes Islam – together with Buddhism, from budh, awakening – one of the two religions that is named after the attribute it seeks to cultivate; in Islam’s case, life’s total surrender to God. Those who adhere to Islam are known as Muslims.[20]
As Huston Smith points out, it is important to note that the central focus of Islam is God: Muslims believe it was God who founded the religion, not Muhammad; Muhammad is simply his mouthpiece.[21] Muhammad lived in the latter half of the sixth century AD: in Arabia at that time, people only respected tribal loyalties; ‘scarcity made brigandage a regional institution and the proof of virility;’[22] drunkenness and gaming were commonplace and ‘the collapse of the magistrate in the leading city of Mecca aggravated this generally chaotic situation:’[23] at the same time ‘the prevailing religion watched from the sidelines, providing no check. Best described as an animistic polytheism, it peopled the sandy wastes … with … demons. Fantastic personifications of desert terrors, they inspired neither exalted sentiment nor moral restraint.’[24]
Needing solitude from the chaos, Muhammad frequented a cave on Mount Hira, on the outskirts of Mecca. ‘Unable to accept the crudeness, superstition, and fratricide that were accepted as normal,’[25] he went there regularly, reflecting on ethics and reaching out for God. Allah was worshiped amongst the Meccans, but as one God among others: however, Muhammad joined a group of contemplatives who worshipped Allah exclusively. ‘Allah’s reality became for Muhammad increasingly evident and awesome.’[26] Eventually he came to view Allah as the God: the One and only, without rival. As he lay on the floor of the cave in deepest contemplation, an angel appeared to him in the form of a man telling him to ‘proclaim’ his realization: however Muhammad denied himself a prophet, ‘whereupon, as Muhammad was himself to report, “the Angel took me and whelmed me in his embrace until he had reached the limit of my endurance.’ This happened a second and a third time: finally, the Angel spoke some verse which ‘went in,’ and:
‘Arousing from his trance, Muhammad felt as if the words he had heard were branded on his soul.’
From there on he fulfilled his mission as Allah’s prophet: proclaiming Allah as the One God. Again, we have transformation taking place in solitude.[27]
Christianity
Jesus, too, had his time in the wilderness: he began his public ministry only after being tested there for 40 days. In Christianity, the idea of ‘Spirit’ is very important: Huston Smith writes:
‘In what has proved to be one of our century’s most durable books about religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James tells us that “in its broadest terms, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.’[28]
Smith comments that ‘the biblical tradition in which Jesus stood can only be read as a continuous, sustained and demanding dialogue of the Hebrew people with the unseen order that William James emphasizes.’[29]
‘They call that order Spirit (as in the opening verses of the Bible, where Spirit plays over primordial waters to create the world) and, sensing it is intensely alive, they populated it with being such as angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim. Its centre, however, was Yahweh … Though Spirit was typically pictured as being above the earth that was only to stress its distinctness from, and superiority over, the mundane world. The two were not spatially separated, and were in continuous interaction. … Not only was Spirit not spatially removed; though invisible, it could be known. Often it would take the initiative and announce itself. It did this supremely to Moses on Mount Sinai, … Concurrently, human beings could take the initiative in contacting it. Fasting and solitude were means for doing so, and Jews who felt the call would periodically remove themselves from the world’s distractions to commune with the divine through these aids. It will not be amiss to think of them as soaking themselves in Spirit during these vigils, for when they return to the world they often give evidence of having almost palpably absorbed something: Spirit and its attendant power.
‘That Jesus stood in the Jewish tradition of Spirit-filled mediators is the most important fact for understanding his historical career. His immediate predecessor in this tradition was John the Baptist; and it is a testament to his spiritual power that it was his initiation (baptism) of Jesus that opened his third or spiritual eye, as Asians would say, causing him to see “the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove.” Having descended, the Spirit “drove” Jesus into the wilderness where, during forty days of prayer and fasting, he consolidated the Spirit that had entered him. Having done so he re-entered the world, empowered.’[30]
Having founded a religion, or having proclaimed God to have founded it–in Muhammad’s case, the religious teacher will come down from the proverbial mountain and teach it to others: thus, specific religious institutions come into being.
Settled Monastic / Sangha Builder
This is the equivalent of Csikszentmihalyi’s social system (field;) it is where we encounter the religious or other kind of institution and the person living and / or working in it. In Triratna, the ‘Sangha Builder’ might be an order member teaching at or helping to run a Buddhist Centre; in Asia they would be the monk.
The institution presents the public face of whatever the field is: Buddhism; Triratna Buddhism; Theravada Buddhism; Catholicism; Protestantism; Islam; Contemporary Art; A Field of Scholarship; and so on. As such it will be the gatekeeper for that field, defining what is presented to the general public. Among other things, people only need to be given teachings when they are ready for them: there needs to be a sense of care and guidance. Someone has to decide what the public sees of, say, Triratna Buddhism and whether the teaching being delivered is appropriate: that is the trustees of the Triratna Charity. In the wider Order, the College of Public Preceptors decides who gets ordained; and so on: there is thus a need for lineage and hierarchy within any institution.
But as we saw earlier, institutions can decay; as Vajragupta says, they can settle down into habit.
Lay Practitioner / Social Activist
The third category—the Lay Practitioner—is the equivalent of Csikszentmihalyi’s cultural system (domain;) this is where the field meets the world.
The Lay Practitioner predominantly lives and works in the world: with all the stresses and strains entailed. They likely will have a job, perhaps a family; and will devote the greater part of their attention to those concerns; may hold significant responsibilities and commitments in the world. If they are a Buddhist they will probably attend classes or groups at the Buddhist Centre; fit a meditation practice into their busy schedule; express their ethical commitments within their work-life context; and offer financial and logistical support for their local Buddhist Centre, while perhaps acting as a trustee. In the East, the Lay Practitioner supports the monks with alms.
As with Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model of Creativity, the vitality of the Buddhist, or other, tradition depends on the creative unfolding and interaction of all three types: the Forest Renunciant maintains the vitality of the institutions through attending to that in their own practice; the Settled Monastic displays the field: say Buddhism, to the world via the activities of the Buddhist Centre; and the Lay Practitioner maintains the institutions with logistical support, as well as perfuming the world with their Buddhist practice. Smith concludes:
‘Actually, [that the biggest mistake religion made was to get mixed up with people] is not true, however, for to hold aloof from people would have resulted in leaving no mark on history. Given the choice—to remain aloof as disembodied insights or to establish traction in history by institutionalizing those insights religion chose the wiser course. This book honors that choice without following its story—I have already said that it is not a book about religious history. It adopts what in ways is the easier course of skimming off the cream of that history: the truths that religious institutions preserve, and which in turn empower those institutions. When religions are sifted for those truths, a different, cleaner side appears. They become the world’s wisdom traditions. (“Where is the knowledge that is lost in information? Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?”—T. S. Eliot.) They begin to look like data banks that house the winnowed wisdom of the human race. As this book concentrates on those wisdom deposits, it could have been titled alternatively “The World’s Great Wisdom Traditions.”‘[31]
The chapter proceeds to explore the hierarchy among religions and how a common thread is love, see Kindness As Constructive Imagination
[1] ‘Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviours and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith, a supernatural being or supernatural beings or “some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life”. Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities and/or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred scriptures, and symbols and holy places, that aim mostly to give a meaning to life. Religions may contain symbolic stories, which are sometimes said by followers to be true, that may also attempt to explain the origin of life, the universe, and other phenomena. Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has been considered a source of religious beliefs.’ Religion. Wikipedia.
[2] Huston Smith. (1991) The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. HarperSanFrancisco. p4.
[3] Ibid. p5.
[4] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (1999) The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. p315.
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[5] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (2015) The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Springer Netherlands. p51.
[6] Ibid p52.
[7] Ibid p119.
[8] Karl Jaspers. The Origin and Goal of History (Routledge Classics), Ch.1, The Axial Period. This quote was suggested by Ratnaguna’s article, ‘Tribes.’ Apramada. 30 November 2021.
[9] The World’s Religions. p5.
[10] The Systems Model of Creativity. p248.
[11] Reginald A. Ray (1994) Buddhist Saints in India: a study in Buddhist values and orientations. Oxford University Press.
[12] Vajragupta. ‘Being Radical—40 Years of the New Society’ Free Buddhist Audio. The relevant section is from 46.30 mins onwards.
https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details?num=LOC334
[13] The Sangha is the community of Buddhists, the Sangha Builder therefore works within the Buddhist Institutions.
[14] Mahabodhi. ‘Work As Practice: Reginald Ray’s Threefold Model.’ Manchester Buddhist Centre.
[15] Cast Away. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_Away
[16] Sarvananda. (2012) Solitude and Loneliness: a Buddhist View. Windhorse.
[17] Ratnaguna. ‘Individuals.’ Apramada. 8 February 2022.
https://apramada.org/articles/individuals See Ratnaguna (Gary Hennessey.) (2010) The Art of Reflection. Windhorse. p41.
[18] A personal mandala is a geometric arrangement of the relationship of the different fields of interest in one’s life: work, family, spirituality, friendships, self-care, etc., with the more prominent in the centre; it demonstrates one’s current priorities.
[19] ‘Why was Israel cursed with forty years of wilderness wandering?‘ Got Questions. https://www.gotquestions.org/wilderness-wandering.html
[20] The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. p222.
[21] Ibid. p221-2.
[22] Ibid. p223.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid. p225.
[27] Ibid. p223-6.
[28] Ibid. p319.
[29] Ibid. p319.
[30] Ibid. p319-20.
[31] The World’s Religions. p5.
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