My studies continue, and I find that the pillars of the Hindu faith (if faith is the right word) also hold no fears whatever for me. There is an encapsulation of wisdom in this most ancient religious tradition that is echoed in much of Judeao-Christian teachings, sometimes more intensely, sometimes less.
What is it in the religious mindset that requires such distinctions to be observed like hostile national borders? Maybe it's simply down to the tribal instinct, like sports teams, or inter-village punch-ups on warm and beery summer nights in England. And this tribal 'not-me' instinct somehow becomes elevated over time into some brilliant conceptual superstructure that our philosophers and theologians spend their lives developing and maintaining, slicing ever more thinly for closer scrutiny, nuancing further and further, imagining that in this way they arrive more closely to truth, or to God.
Truly the old saying makes sense; the mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it (Sri Nisgardatta).