Buddhist Romanticism

12) Another way to cultivate a receptivity to the infinite is to develop a
tolerance of all religious expressions, viewing them as finite expressions of a
feeling for the infinite, without giving authority to any of them. This point
parallels Schlegel’s instructions on how to empathize with the
authors of literary works, and has two implications. The first is that it
makes the study of religious texts a branch of the study of literature.
The second is that one’s empathy and tolerance contain an element of
irony: One sympathizes with the feeling-source that one is able to
identify in the expression, but maintains one’s distance from the
expression itself.
13) In fact, the greatest religious texts, if granted too much authority, are
actually harmful to genuine religion.
The final seven points deal with the results of the religious experience.
14) Because the mind is an organic part of the creatively expressive
infinite, it, too, is creatively expressive, so its natural response to a feeling of
the infinite is to want to express it.
15) However, because the mind is finite, any attempt to describe the
experience of the infinite is limited by one’s finite mode of thought, and also
by one’s temperament and culture. Thus, religious statements and texts are
not descriptive of reality, but simply expressions of the effect of that reality
on a particular person’s individual nature. As expressions of feelings,
religious statements do not need to be clear or consistent. They should be
read as poetry and myths, pointing to the inexpressible infinite and speaking
primarily to the feelings.
16) Because religious teachings are expressive only of one individual’s
feelings, they have no authority over any other person’s expression of his or
her feelings. The truth of each individual’s experience lies in the purely
subjective directness of that experience, and does not carry over to
any expression of it.
17) Although a religious feeling may inspire a desire to formulate rules of
behavior, those rules carry no authority, and are actually unnecessary. When
one sees all of humanity as holy and One—and oneself as an organic part of
that holy Oneness—there is no need for rules to govern one’s interactions
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