Mysticism trumps orthodoxy
Most religions nowadays don’t call themselves orthodox but they are: they want you to take at least some element of scripture literally and make believe that by following certain rules, you can obtain salvation.
A lot of the time this leads to confusion and conflict.
Wisdom and awakening can never be the result of submission to some relative belief. They are the result of direct recognition of the absolute, achieved through openness and authentic engagement with what is real in this moment. In other words, they require a unitive experience, a certain level of mysticism.
In fact, one might argue that every prophet, including Jesus and the Buddha are likely to have been mystics, men who were deeply in touch with the absolute.
And the bible, while it is hopelessly inapplicable to our life today when read literally, becomes a book of wisdom, when it is reclaimed through a mystical lense of openness.
