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THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

to get happiness, or Bliss. But your means are ridiculous. Because of your ignorance you do not know what will bring you to Bliss, the goal of happiness; so you think of killing yourself to get it.

So in one sense every one in the world is religious, inasmuch as every one is trying to get rid of want and pain, and gain Bliss. Every one is working for the same goal. But in a strict sense only a few in the world are religious, for only a few in the world, though they have the same goal as all others, know the most effective means for removing, for good, all pain or want—physical, mental, or spiritual—and gaining permanent Bliss.

You have to bid good-bye for a while to the rigidly narrow orthodox conception of Religion, though that conception is in a remote way connected with the conception I am bringing out. If for some time you do not go to church or temple, or attend some of its ceremonies or forms, meantime working toward religion in