The Western approach to God is external, whereas the Eastern approach is internal. Western man is conditioned to believe that he is insignificant, next to nothing, or as kierkegaard puts it, "Before God, man is always wrong." By fear, penance, promises, submission, self-abasement, good deed and praise he propitiates the Great Power which he believes to be totally 'outside' himself.

The Eastern approach, particularly the Buddhist, feels compassion for the 'lower' spiritual stage wherein, believing himself to be separate from the Source of all life and consciousness (Dharmakaya), man tortures his imagination with a belief in absolute gods, and worries about 'sin'. The Buddha saw concepts of gods as nothing but the illusion woven by man's unenlightened mind. Archetypal thought forms which do indeed have a psychic reality.

To find Dharma (Reality, Truth) he turns within in solitude by meditation, which is not to be confused with contemplation. It is interesting to note that, before their ministries, Moses went up onto the mountain, the Buddha into the forest, Jesus into the wilderness, and Muhammad into a cave in a mountain. To anyone familiar with meditation it is impossible to believe that they did not meditate in order to break through the barriers of physical illusion and achieve spiritual union with the God within.

The true essence of man is all important, it is the all-pervading Power, the One, the Universal Mind, The Dharmakaya, the Source.... God. All existence emanated from it, and all existence dissolves back into it, like the waves unto the ocean. The East would have no difficulty in believing that the body returns to the earth and the spirit returns to the Source. But if we were to use a different label and say "the spirit returns to God", the Buddhist would ask, "which God?" "There is only one God." The Westerner would reply. "Do you mean the one God of the Muslims, Allah? Or do you mean the Supreme God of the Hindus, Brahman?"

All are correct. The label may be different, but the truth remains unaffected. if we would realise that God is not a single form. but the Creator of all forms which are contained within God and are never separate from 'Him' except in illusion, we might not be so intolerant of other religions approach to God.

Because we cannot be separated from God, we already have Divine Grace. We were born in a state of Divine Grace and we will die in a state of Divine Grace. What we do in the physical illusion cannot remove us from that Grace. We will, however, cause much suffering by our denial of it; not only in ourselves but in all other beings.

Spiritual pride is manifested be all people who believe that only their religion has the truth, and in the case of 'Christian self-assertiveness, all others, unless they convert, are in for the loving God's eternal damnation.