20              The Gaj of Religion             

In short, the within-without duality characterizing our perceptions of Gaj is inevitable: To speak of Gaj is to envision Gaj as an “other” (just as to speak of oneself is to imagine, quite implausibly, oneself as an “other” of which one can be fully objective). Some might argue that this dual understanding of Gaj is merely a practical matter, noting that conduits such as messengers, texts, rituals, alters, cathedrals, and so on are needed to focus one’s attention on Gaj. The tragedy, however, is that this separation of Gaj from the individual has become not a means of recognizing, experiencing, and living in accordance with the pantheism allowed for in the various religions but a means of denying pantheism altogether. How else understand the Christian Crusades by the powers of Europe to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims (as though Gaj resided there)? How account for the Spanish Inquisition (which denied the Gajhood of Jews, homosexuals, and “heretics,” sadly putting them to death)? How explain why Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, and Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan, and Christians and Muslims in parts of North Africa, and Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and Shi’ah Muslims and Sunni Muslims in Iraq so readily deny one another their Gajhood whenever they kill each other in the name of Gaj?

Clearly, murderous war (under any pretence) does not represent the highest of human ideals. Our religions, however, particularly those of the West, cannot sustain these ideals because they have not yet fully embraced a conception of Gaj that allows for a truly