Recently, I was pondering this quote:  “The Art of Peace is the religion that is not a religion; it perfects and completes all religions.” – Morihei Ueshiba

I love this idea because choosing Peace is one of the unifying thoughts behind all religious pursuits. Regardless of the spiritual tradition we embrace, we are typically drawn there in an endeavor to find peace, which has been absent in our everyday existence.

I have often said that the primary purpose of any religion is to help its participants cultivate their own unique experience of their Oneness with their higher power.  It is in this communion where profound Peace abides. 

A single encounter with the “peace which surpasses understanding” forever transforms ones experience of reality.  One moment spent in communion with Source, irrevocably alters our perception of what is “Real” and what has been merely accepted as real. Like the hermit crab, having outgrown its previously comfortable shell, we never quite fit into our old paradigm, once we have experienced Real Truth.

I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said: “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.”  Our Awareness is the same. Spending even a short time in the field of unconditional love, found in True Peace, expands our Awareness, making it nearly impossible to ever be satisfied, again, with the status quo.

It is the remembrance of this possibility, which leads us to seek religion in the first place.