Religiousness – the spontaneous heart,
That which precedes all conditioned thought,
That which sees all things, all persons
As though a butterfly were alighting on fresh flowers,
The sun delighting them, melting away the hours.
Religiousness – an invisible church everywhere
Or not at all, or better yet, a sacred sense
That senses in all their strange excellence,
And does not look with fault-finding eyes,
Wishing or wanting them to be otherwise.
Religion – the father of ceremony,
The father of artifice, hypocrisy,
The father of a certain morality,
The exacerbator of fears, the divider
Of groups and nations, the promoter
Of customs and hierarchy,
Hierarchy branching into abuses…
Religion – it happens when the spontaneous heart
Is forgotten or lost or buried deep.
It happens when the mind’s a tyrant, the spirit asleep.
Well crafted, one liberates the other enslaves.