Religions...

All creeds are but preliminaries for the masses, leading up to the real truth of the Self. The religions are not necessarily the highest expression or the highest wisdom of their founders, who had to consider the times in which they lived and the mental capacities of the people. The highest wisdom is too subtle for most minds, and so a whole scheme of worlds, gods, bodies, evolution etc. had to be given out because people seem to find it easier to believe all these things rather than believe the simple Truth of the one reality--Self. Thus, reincarnation, astral planes, survival after death, etc. are true but only from a lower standpoint. It is all a matter of standpoint. From the highest, that of the real Self, all else disappears as illusory and only the Reality remains. It is true that subtle astral bodies exist, because in order to function in the dream-world a body is necessary for that world; but it too is real only on its own plane whereas the One Self is always real, always and eternally existent, whether we are aware of it or not. Hence it is better to seek that, because the other self-bodies are only conditionally real.      - Ramana

from Conscious Immortality