Choosing a religion..

Ramblings..

Images that the human memory ‘collect’ through sensory interaction in the ‘awake’ world form the platform of consciousness. We can assume this due to the nature of sleep and the process of ‘dreaming’. Our ‘selves’ are defined by the constant interaction of memory & reality, and the human brains capacity to delineate the two. In the awake state, we are geared towards sensory intake, but can draw on memory at will. We can ‘imagine’ at will. We can ‘think’ at will..
In the various states of sleep, the opposite is the case. Our world, while asleep, can be anything from total blackness (deep sleep) to sensory-heightened lucid dreaming. Basic physical & emotional attachments to images collected in the awake state are governing the course of our ‘dream world’; cooperating with the hormonal chemistry of the body & wether we are in pain or total physical comfort while asleep.
Within ‘dreaming’, there is a component of ‘compensation’ going on – the mind in ‘lets make sense of it all’ mode, which seems to be a self-preservation response. We seem to need sleep for the ’sorting and cataloguing’ process, the removal of the bad & the reinforcement of the pleasurable.
Our physical state of well-being or health is directly connected to how we feel. The ‘whole human package’ has evolved to include the brains capacity for ‘feedback correction’ while asleep. We can assume this easily through observation of what happens to the sleep deprived..
Buddhist monks & many others are able, through meditation, to consciously access their ‘memory’. They can, to some degree, control their ‘conscious levels’, & the contents within. Most disciplines rely on imagery of widely varying kinds, and the repetition of it so as to create emotional ‘nodes’.
And so how does the study of the ‘workings’ of the Human mind connect with religion? Well, when you look closely, they are essentially the same. Most ‘conventional’ religions appeal because they create order, control & meaning out of, what is for most, chaos. They provide the ‘centre of gravity’ that we all need, one way or another. The difference here, and the proposal, is that, given we have satisfied our basic human needs, we can create ‘internally’ what many religions aspire to.
The objectives are essentially the same. ‘Power’ over ones own life, and beyond..
So if I was to consciously choose a mode of study here, what should it be? I’m of the opinion that the closer an image, or group of images is to nature, the more fundamental & all encompassing it is. We can include ‘modern’ images like doorways, buildings & staircases, all fine allegorical images, but do they touch the root of our consciousness? After all, we’ve been around for thousands of years as a collective conscious entity – should we not take it ‘back to basics’?
The reason being that with ‘natural’ imagery, all man made complications are removed, all combinations & permutations are seen as ‘developments’ of natural imagery. The fact is that our ancestors connected what he saw with Light & Dark, High & Low, Evil & Good – all elements fundamental to us all..
Few fundamentally basic religions survive, as do few fundamentally basic societies.
The Australian Aboriginal ‘Dreamtime’ is one of the few truly basic ‘religions’ to survive more or less intact for millennia. We know it is ancient, possibly 50 times older than Christianity. It involves stories of images of creatures & landscapes that all humanity can comprehend. It is that fundamental..
So if I were to choose a religion, it would meditate in the Dreamtime, but with the discipline of Buddhism, probably with the logic & order of Siloism.