Religion, surely, is the uncovering of reality. Religion is not belief. Religion is not the search for truth. The search for truth is merely the fulfilment of belief. Religion is the understanding of the thinker; for what the thinker is, that he creates. Without understanding the process of the thinker and the thought, merely to be caught in a dogma is surely not the uncovering of the beauty of life, of existence, of truth. If you seek truth, then you already know truth. If you go out seeking something, the implication is that you have lost it, which means you already know what it is. What you do know is belief; and belief is not truth. No amount of belief, no amount of tradition, none of the religious ceremonies in which there are so many preconceptions of truth, lead to religion, Nor is religion the belief, the God of the irreligious, of the believer who does not believe.

Religion, surely, is allowing truth to come into being, whatever that truth is - not the truth that you want, for then it is merely the gratification of a particular desire which you call belief. So, it is necessary to have a mind that is capable of receiving whatever the truth is; and such a mind is possible only when you listen passively. Passive awareness comes into being when there is no effort, no suppression or sublimation; because, after all, to receive, there must be a mind that is not burdened with opinion or busy with its own chatter. Out of an opinion or a belief the mind can project an idea or an image of God; but it is a projection of itself, of its own chatter, of its own fabrication, and therefore it is not real. The real cannot be projected or invited, but can come into being only when the mind, the thinker, understands himself. Without understanding the thought and the thinker, there is no possibility of receiving truth, because the maker of effort is the thought, which is the thinker. Without thought, there is no thinker; and the thinker, seeking further security, takes refuge in an idea which he calls God, religion. But that is not religion, that is merely an extension of his own egotism, a projection of himself. It is a projected righteousness, a projected respectability; and this respectability cannot receive that which is truth. Most of us are very respectable, in the political, economic, or religious sense. We want to be something, here or in another world. The desire for different form, is still self-projection, it is still the worship of oneself; and such a projection is surely not religion. Religion is something much wider, much deeper than the projections of the self; and after all, your belief is a projection. Your ideals are self-projections, whether national or religious, and the following of such projections is obviously the gratification of the self, and therefore the enclosing of the mind within a belief; therefore it is not real.

Reality comes into being only when the mind is still, not made still. Therefore, there must be no disciplining of the mind to be still. When you discipline yourself, it is merely a projected desire to be in a particular state. Such a state is not the state of passivity. Religion is the understanding of the thinker and the thought, which means the understanding of action in relationship. The understanding of action in conduct is religion, not the worship of some idea, however gratifying, however traditional, whoever has said it. Religion is understanding the beauty, the depth, the extensive significance of action in relationship. Because, after all, life is relationship; to be, is to be related - otherwise you have no existence. You cannot live in isolation. You are related to your friends, to your family, to those with whom you work. Even though you withdraw to a mountain, you are related to the man who brings food; you are related to an idea which you have projected. Existence implies being, which is relationship; and if we do not understand that relationship, there is no understanding of reality. But because relationship is painful, disturbing, constantly changing in its demands, we escape from it to what we call God, which we think is the pursuit of reality. The pursuer cannot pursue the real. He can only pursue his own ideal, which is self-projected. So, our relationship and the understanding of it is true religion and nothing else is, because in that relationship is contained the whole significance of existence. In relationship, whether with people, with nature, with the trees, with the stars, with ideas, with the State - in that relationship is the whole uncovering of the thinker and the thought, which is man, which is mind. The self comes into being through the focus of conflict; the focussing of conflict gives self-consciousness to the mind. Otherwise there is no self; and though you may place that self on a high level, it is still the self of gratification.