Sadly, funny man and social commentator George Carlin has passed away. Last September I did a blog post on him and featured his video skits on Religion and the Ten Commandments. Today, everyone is replaying his popular skit,  "Religion is bullshit."

Recently over the past few weeks I’ve been seeing more and moe intelligent people saying that religion is nonsense. But they are missing something. What they usually are referring to is the facts that many religious dogmas are fictitious creations. They also commonly object to the "meaning" behind various religious ceremonies and so forth which do have a positive function in society. But let’s put that aside.

What they cannot negate is the fact that if you take the religious coverings away from spiritual paths — whether from Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and so forth — there still is a cultivation path, there still are cultivation results, you still can cultivate gong-fu and attain samadhi and possibly the Tao. That is for sure. Whether you believe in religion or not, this is the true part you cannot negate. Whether there is a physical person called God, whether he wrote a contract with the Hebrews or whether Jesus was his son, whether this, whether that, … those are items of dogma that have little to do with the self-proof of spiritual cultivation.

The self-proof of spiritual cutlivation means this: just as Buddha said, if you do this then that will happen, if you achieve this sateg then expect this, if that stage then expect that, etc. and so on. In other words, you can prove the stages and results yourself just from personal practice and no dependence on any dogma whatsoever. The basis of practice is cessation-contemplation, and mindfulness of emptiness at each and every stage of attainment. That’s it.

When a teacher reveals the particulars of the spiritual path, it’s usually free of religious coverings but later generations wrap everything with religion and thereby play a positive role in keeping a tradition alive. Most people are not wise, so they cannot accept the highest cultivation truths no matter what religion reveals them; the masses like simple messages like sinple foods to digest. Over time the deep cultivation content and cultivation message of most religions is lost, and the wrapper becomes the real thing for converts and adherents when that isn’t the message at all. The lowest common denominator usually wins, just as bad money drives out good money in  the long run. Most intelligent people, after reviewing what’s become of the whole  mess over time, then object to the wrapper and  criticize religion in general and religious functionaries. That’s the general pattern.

But remember, even if there is truth in the criticism of modern religion, there is also much good in the ethical training and social cohesiveness religions provide for society. Furthermore, amd most importantly, no one can deny that:

* there is a cultivation path within religions, even if you don’t believe in them, that leads to supernormal mental-spiritual states
* cultivating that path successfully does lead to gong-fu, and physical changes in the body and sometimes special abilities; the cultivation does involve the chi and empty, calm, quiet mental states of "letting go"
* people can and do cultivate  samadhi and sometimes achieve enlightenment regardless of whether you do or don’t believe in religion
* saints, sages, gurus, prophets, masters, etc. when they are genuine, are pople who have succeeded in either cultivating some stage of samadhi or the Tao (enlightenment) from that path, but they are few and far between
* what they teach is often just a remedy for the times, expedient skillful means and not absolute rules of conduct to last forever

So you can criticize religion, but that doesn’t mean all the content is fictitious. The big thing to remember is that there is a cultivation trail, there are genuine cultivation methods, they do produce results, you can and should prove cultivation to yourself because that’s what religionis about, but if you do think that religion is about the dogmas and ceremonies then yes, you are lost.

And so we can laugh at George Carlin’s words when we are firm in our own knowledge of cultivation — what it is, and what it is all about.