onsciousness, one so compelling as to endow the sincere
with "a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind".(8) A vast
literature, to which all religious cultures have contributed, records the
experience of transcendence reported by generations of seekers. Down the
millennia, the lives of those who responded to intimations of the Divine
have inspired breathtaking achievements in music, architecture, and the
other arts, endlessly replicating the soul's experience for millions of
their fellow believers. No other force in existence has been able to
elicit from people comparable qualities of heroism, self-sacrifice and
self-discipline. At the social level, the resulting moral principles have
repeatedly translated themselves into universal codes of law, regulating
and elevating human relationships. Viewed in perspective, the major
religions emerge as the primary driving forces of the civilizing process.
To argue otherwise is surely to ignore the evidence of history.

Why, then, does this immensely rich heritage not serve as the central
stage for today's reawakening of spiritual quest? On the periphery,
earnest attempts are being made to reformulate the teachings that gave
rise to the respective faiths, in the hope of imbuing them with new
appeal, but the greater part of the search for meaning is diffused,
individualistic and incoherent in character. The scriptures have not
changed; the moral principles they contain have lost none of their
validity. No one who sincerely poses questions to Heaven, if he persists,
will fail to detect an answering voice in the Psalms or in the Upanishads.
Anyone with some intimation of the Reality that transcends this material
one will be touched to the heart by the words in which Jesus or Buddha
speaks so intimately of it. The Qur'an's apocalyptic visions continue to
provide compelling assurance to its readers that the realization of
justice is central to the Divine purpose. Nor, in their essential
features, do the lives of heroes and saints seem any less meaningful than
they did when those lives were lived centuries ago. For many religious
people, therefore, the most painful aspect of the current crisis of
civilization is that the search for truth has not turned with confidence
into religion's familiar avenues.

The problem is, of course, twofold. The rational soul does not merely
occupy a private sphere, but is an active participant in a social order.
Although the received truths of the