It now seems to me that religion is to spirituality what landscaping is to gardening. Religion imprisons the erotic nature of the contemplative experience much as landscaping attempts to contain and limit the wild and unpredictable nature of being immersed in plants. It tries to restrict the essence of gardening.
Religion holds the spiritual experience at a distance by attempting to contain it in forms that people have developed and imagined. Landscaping does something similar, imposing a contrived order on the vital and energetic nature of plants. It is only by letting go and putting my trust in the unpredictable, uncertain spiritual experience that I can enter into what the mind and body can really do.
I want to trust my nature, as I trust the nature of the plants in my garden.
Just like my mind and body, plants have great potential and are free to show their deepest radiance and joyful nature when allowed the freedom to be outside the forms I might try to impose on them.
I trust my mind and awareness to know what is best and possible. I try to garden with a similar abandon and minimal control.