True Teachings​—Where Can You Find Them?

A MAN in Tibet spins a prayer wheel, a drum containing written prayers. He believes that his petitions are repeated with each turn of the wheel. In a spacious home in India, a small room is set aside for doing puja​—worship that may include making offerings of incense, flowers, and other things to images of various gods and goddesses. Thousands of miles away in Italy, a woman in an ornate church kneels before an image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and prays while holding a string of rosary beads.

Perhaps you have seen for yourself the influence of religion on the lives of people. “Religion . . . has been and continues to be the lifeblood of societies all over the world,” states the book The World’s Religions​—Understanding the Living Faiths. In the book God​—A Brief History, author John Bowker observes: “There has never been any human society in which God has not been a part, usually a controlling and creative part. That is true even of those societies that set out to be deliberately secular.”

Indeed, religion has influenced the lives of millions of people. Is this not strong evidence that man has a spiritual need and yearning? In his book The Undiscovered Self, the eminent psychologist Dr. Carl G. Jung refers to man’s need to worship a higher power and says that “its manifestations can be followed all through human history.”

Yet, many people neither profess belief in God nor have any interest in religion. Some  who doubt or deny that God exists do so primarily because the religions that they are familiar with have failed to meet their spiritual need. Religion has been defined as “devotion to some principle; strict fidelity or faithfulness; conscientiousness; pious affection or attachment.” By this definition, nearly everyone displays some form of religious devotion in his life. That even includes atheists.

During the thousands of years of human history, man’s attempts to satisfy his spiritual need have led him down many pathways. The result is the enormous diversity of religious views found worldwide. For example, though nearly all religions promote a belief in a higher power, they have different concepts of who or what that is. Most faiths also stress the importance of salvation or liberation. But their teachings differ as to what salvation is and how it is attained. Out of the vast array of beliefs, how can we identify true teachings that please God?