Religion can be used to justify actions that run the range from sacrificial love to murderous rage. Like all interpretations of reality, whether science, medicine, psychology, economics, art, etc., religion can be used to affirm and enhance life or diminish and destroy life and because religion tries to explain all of reality it is even more powerful and combustible. We would like to believe that there is a necessary correlation between moral and spiritual development but actually they are different aptitudes and so one can be spiritually tone deaf and morally evolved (Bertrand Russell) and by the same token one can have spiritual experiences and be morally repulsive (Osama bin Laden). And then there are those few individuals who are at the highest levels morally and who are spiritually profoundly developed like the Dalai Lama and those who, throughout the ages, we have called prophets and mystics.

At this highest level, I do think that all religions carry the same basic message but most of us do not live at the highest level. We are simply trying to find our way and so we need to remember that religions are all maps and maps are not the territory. Maps read incorrectly or carelessly can lead us into an abyss. Maps used with teachers, like the Dalai Lama, who are more developed than we are (meaning they clearly possess greater wisdom and compassion) and maps used while regularly and honestly asking ourselves whether the map we are using is indeed helping us become more wise and compassionate, can indeed make any religion a powerful carrier of a message and method of love, compassion and forgiveness.