As far back as we are able to delve in history, people have worshipped nature and connected it to a higher spiritual reality or divinity.
One hundred thousand years ago, Neanderthals used flowers in their burial ceremonies, and the earliest cave paintings suggest primitive people felt that animals, rocks and trees possessed spirits. A common thread running through all religions is a belief in a divine force of spirit that fashioned everything in nature. From the earliest times, people strove to connect with the sacred as a means of rising above mundane reality.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other ancient religions proposed that matter and material creation had to be transcended in order to attain union with the greater and truer Creation whose domain was true spirit.
Among the ancient Egyptians and other spiritual people we discover a common quest to integrate matter with spirit as a means of bringing heaven down to earth. The pursuit of spiritual perfection and self-purification was felt to hold the key to a better life.
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