Having accepted a measure of truth in all the religions discussed, and sometimes that the greater truth lies elsewhere than in present Christian conviction, this final chapter considers what implications might follow. The first section develops a model for revelation that parallels certain philosophical approaches to ethics and aesthetics, arguing that cultural constraints are enriching in the way they ensure beliefs arise at the most effective period and place. The central section discusses the two areas where eastern and western religions appear most opposed. The claim that the divine is both personal and impersonal is defended, while some challenges to the reality of the world within Christianity are found to parallel eastern ideas. A final section then contends that the history of religion can be seen to be concerned with creative transformations both in the past and in the future. As examples from the past Buddhism’s move from no-self to interdependence is considered, alongside Christianity’s from hierarchy to kenosis

The theology and spirituality of Meister Eckhart remains a source of wisdom and controversy. This chapter outlines his spirituality in light of his scholastic views on intellect, and then considers in detail his celebrated notion of detachment.

Continuing the investigations of Beckett’s posthumously published first novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women begun in the previous chapter, the third chapter probes in greater detail the family resemblances (in the Wittgensteinian sense) between Dream’s creative asylum and space of writing in the mind and Schopenhaurian Buddhist-infused philosophy and Christian mystical thought. Further examined, beginning with his first novel, are the forerunners of Beckett’s aesthetics of emptiness and creation from nothing. The chapter’s discussion of the 1933 short story ‘Echo’s Bones’, posthumously published in 2014 and the final story about the author's fictional persona Belacqua, uncovers the Buddhist allusions kept out of sight by the story’s burlesque drift. In contrast, the reading of Murphy in this chapter counters some early commentators’ Buddhist analysis of Beckett’s second novel. This chapter concludes the investigation of Beckett’s fiction of the 1930s in relation to Schopenhauer’s relay of Eastern thought.