Losing My Religion

the recognition that "past lives" may likely be true has been the greatest driver in my life as to what I "look to"

as my Religion . . . I am a Religious person, hard-core (vocabulary not withstanding hahaha) and have sought out Religious TRUTH

as opposed to a more open-ended (perhaps) spiritual understanding

translation: I would like to go to some nice church somewhere with others holding a common, shared vision

I miss this and have had lots of sadness over the years (and frustration) because I can never "find"

. . . my "church"

I have test-driven all the major religions at one-time or another, considered each of them (in turn) and typically discarded them based on two core concepts that were "deal breakers" for me

(a) did they acknowledge the "truth" of reincarnation and (b) did they see men and women as "equal"

I believe the desire for a shared Religious vision, and personal connection to this shared "wisdom"

is a human desire old as time itself

one of the tragedies of the Age (to me) is that those of us who feel "comfortable" in this approach to Spirituality, yet hold views at odds with the watered-down fear-based judgmental God "currently sold"

as "the way"

wander sort of "out there" by ourselves a bit -- with no comfortable hook on which to hang our cloak

not all of my past lifetimes were soldiers on horseback or wild-child femme fatales

I think the greatest number of lifetimes have been ones in which I held a "religious vocation" -- rabbi, monk, "holy man" etc etc

and at some point I expect to track down several lifetimes as "revolutionary rabbis" in Eastern Europe who stirred things up a bit

so the mystical side of Judaism "clangs my bell"; so too Sufism, so too Russian Orthodoxy

and all the old Middle Eastern religions from past millennia

I seek this "Religion" perhaps as it, too, seeks me
​
but, so far . . . I just cannot find it