great religions draw you not push

There was a man selling the Bhagavad Gita outside of the market today. When he attempted his sales routine I simply said that I had read it and I continued walking. My wife asked me what "sect" he was and I said he was a Krisna follower, part of Hinduism. She said 'why do people have to be this religion or that religion?' and I quipped that it allows them to know who to fight when the war comes.

I considered it as we walked on and as my wife went about buying the vegetables from the market I thought how good she was. She was born to a Buddhist family, but as the one family member who does not call herself a Buddhist, she certainly has the highest understanding of the Buddhas teachings. She has a firm understanding of the Dharma, the core message, but does not call herself Buddhist.

So one who truly understands Dharma is no Buddhist. No one who truly gets the Tao is a Taoist, no one who has grasped the teaching of Krisna would need to sell the Bhagavad Gita. All of these works and the teachings in them are of great importance, but the idea that one would need to carry the label once the teachings were understood is wrong.

For the Krisna seller, who sees suffering, he needs to re-read the book: To see that the deamons and the angels, the good and the bad are all Brahmans body seen through the mind and that to slay the mind, to reveal the non-changing, to see that we are that, would release him from his trap. The book he is trying to sell can set him free of the very need to save others.

The same for any religion I can think of, if you "get" the teachings, then there is no need, in fact it is a contradiction, to go about forcing it upon others.