/lit/ - Literature

I come from a christian (orthodox) upbringing but after reading Bhikku Bodhi's book and translation of the MN, buddhism makes much more sense. However I feel guilt when I think about leaving the religion I was raised in, in case all of it is actually true. Which books can help me choose the right way?
I know this subject is inherently inflammatory but please keep the shitposting to a minimum, I really am asking for books

>>18055264
>so far it's all nonsense
Keep doing it, dream analysis is hard but you'll see that some symbols keep coming back.
Record as much as you can.
>at the moment I'm very stressed out from external factors
Detach yourself as much as you realistically can. No use being affected that much by things outside of our control.

Keep at it, fren.

>>17308984
Thanks for the detailed answer.
You're agnostic, not atheist: you can't prove God's existence nor can you disprove it.
"God manifesting itself" is not something you should expect.

>I can't see christian or any other religion or metaphysical explanation as anything other than apes trying to describe the vastness of the universe with general ideas.
That is because most religious text—especially the bible—have been stripped of their esoteric meaning, all that remains is the exoteric.
Take Genesis 1:27, where Adam, or "him", was created... it's a horrible translation.
Adam was an androgynous being, until Eve was made out of him—he wasn't created male.
To explain the esoteric, it is to say that the perfect being—in the image of God, remember—is Androgynous, containing both feminine and masculine aspect, and also that the union between these two aspects is extremely powerful.
Someone else could explain it better than me, but the point remains that a lot has been stripped down.

A book I've taken a liking to recently is "The Perennial Philosophy" by Aldous Huxley. It's about the underlying traditions and teachings of religions, and how those teachings are beyond history.
There are other books, but this one is a good introduction, albeit a bit long and condensed.
You could also start meditating, or take psychedelics without any biased idea as to what would happen.

Finally, faith is something peculiar, we'll never understand God's ways nor the Truth.
And no, I don't mean "GoD WoRKs in MySTeRiOus WAys."
That's a scapegoat some cringe Christian use, the very people who can only see the exoteric.

tl;dr
read about the similarities between all religions, and you'll start realizing things.

What's with this 'oneness' all these authors are talking about?

>Percy Shelley
>A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not.

>David Foster Wallace
> It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

>Spinoza
>PROP. IV. The idea of God, from which an infinite number of things follow in infinite ways, can only be one.

What are these authors talking about? I've noticed it a hundred more times, but I can't seem to recall any of them, which is ironic, considering.