When I look closely at other peoples’ beliefs, especially in the field of religion and spirituality, I realize that they almost invariably come from three sources. 1) Either they were raised with a particular belief system and have never seriously challenged it. For example, they were raised Catholic and they remain Catholic or they were raised in Shia Islam and they remain in Shia Islam until the end of their life, being convinced that this is the best, or the only possible, description of Ultimate Reality. Or 2) they converted and accepted the beliefs of their new found faith in toto. So now they are Wahhabbi Muslims or born-again Christians. Or 3) they have been conditioned by their academic training to think like secular materialists (in the philosophical sense), the primary belief system taught in our schools and universities. Then they believe in nothing and challenge everything except their own conditioning. Each of these three paths contains serious degrees of bias. This book is not intended for these three categories of people. It is aimed at the thinking person. I, myself, have throughout my path, made every attempt to see through these forms of conditioning. I challenged the belief systems of my Jewish upbringing, such as the exclusionist notion of the Chosen People and the refusal to recognize Jesus, from my earliest years as an independent thinker. After accepting Islam, I investigated carefully every one of its tenets and kept studying other religions all throughout my Islamic experience in order to see what extra understandings I could derive from them. As to the secular, materialistic approach, I never found it either satisfuing or convincing. It invariably seemed narrow and cynical to me. The only aspect of my educational conditioning that I do own is the need to objectively inquire and critically think through. This inquiry is much wider in scope than the contemporary scientific model would allow for.

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