My experience in India

In regard to what spirituality and religion is:

I came to India with more of a New Age and mystical Christian background more common in places like Coastal California of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s up to the present when I went there in 1985 and 1986 with my family for 4 months time.

However, I began to realize that (especially studying with Tibetan Lamas) that what I was experiencing was less what I would call religious and less New Age thinking and more logical rational and scientific.

More like A plus B equals C

Which is a different way of looking at things than you generally see in the U.S. in Christian or New Age Christian or Mystical Christian places or people.

So, I had to re-evaluate what we are taught often in the U.S. because it was in an entirely different cultural context then.

Also, people often in India especially poorer people tended then in 1985 and 1986 in what I would call "Magical Thinking" which was common then in India and might be common now as well.

But, my point of view about this is: "IF it ain't broke don't fix it!"

The point being that "magical Thinking" was actually working for a lot of people there for thousands and thousands of years.

It's true without medical care people often died on the streets alone at any age then and I saw some of this and thousands of Lepers at one location too which was hard to watch in the extreme with whole families with Leprocy without doctors or medicine and homeless.

However, somehow those that survive all these things also use often magical thinking which seems to work for them like I said for thousands of years now.

I could also imagine this being like this in the middle East during the time of Christ. We rented a horse cart driven by a man who dressed sort of like Jesus from 2000 years ago. One night after the kalachakra initiation was over that day he asked if he could drive us through where he lived. There was no electricity in the city he lived in and the only lights were like aladdin lamps and he stopped at an ancient store to buy grain for his horse (we were riding in a horse cart) to eat.

So, it was like being 2000 years ago maybe in Jeruselam in Israel maybe where it was a remarkable experience any way you look at it. also, the stars were out because there were no city lights there either.

So, not everyone lives like we do here in the U.S. or thinks like we do here too. And one cannot say that they are wrong to think the way that they do either because it has sort of worked for them for thousands of years already going back about 10,000 years or so.

However, until you experience something like this you might not really believe it could be like this either the dead bodies around or the amazing spiritual attitude of some of the people we found and how devoted they were to their beliefs whatever they were.

By God's Grace