*First Draft

YT

I say there are only two religions.  But there is only one, of works. "True religion is visiting the sick etc".  What then is false, or at least not-true, religion?  Selfishness?  Rituals?  Self-advancement, including meditation unto enlightenment?  These are certainly not "visiting the sick".  The other religion  is not of works, but grace, and isn't a religion.  It has nothing to do with psychology, psuche, soul, enlightenment, nirvana.

I say there are two religions, but there's really only one: the advancement of the soul (psuche, nephesh, animus, prana, chi -- not  exact cognates, but all referring to that perfectible essence that concerns mystics, ascetics, monks, religionists).  By this meaning, there are true and false religions, in that some methods advance and some  inhibit soulish growth: religion as an edification to the world, or as a means of power and selfishness.  Inward or outward, selfish or selfless.  It's still all pretty much the same -- all about gaining advantage in the world.  Moslem and Hindu and Buddhist -- well, fill in the list.  Shinto. Christian. Orthodox/Roman Catholic/Protestant.  Calvinism.  Methodism.   Just ways of acting or thinking that affect the soul.  Methods and beliefs that are personal to the individual, and which  differ only in efficaciousness.

Then there's the religion that is not a religion, because it is not about the advancement of the soul.  It's the only one that is not about works and goals, and self. It has nothing to do with the world.  It is entirely about a relationship with God, the only means of transcending, extending out of the universe.  That relationship is spiritual, not soulish.  Soulish enlightenment may come with the relationship, but it may not. 

Enlightenment -- a process, a goal, a relationship with the world -- is not the point; rather, reviving a dead spirit -- salvation, as Jesus taught it.  Saved not from a benighted soul, false ideas, an excess of desire,  bad breathing habits.  Saved from a cut-off, a dead spirit.  Separated not from the timeless sea of nonbeing, the eternal cloud of unknowing, but from the transcendent source of life, rather than the natural physics of life. 

So, there are only two religions, of soul, and of spirit.  Soul is about works and experience in the universe -- a process, and all religions are true.  Spirit is not about anything -- it's a relationship that reaches God, by grace.  No one saves themselves by believing and keeping the laws of Moses, the Pillars of Islam, the Paths of Buddhism, the credos of Christendom.  There is no way to save yourself.  Again, two religions, of saving yourself, or of not being able to save yourself. 

J