What we call the religious attitude is an x that is expressible only in poetic and visual symbols. This x experience has been articulated in various concepts which have varied in accordance with the social organization of a particular cultural period. In the Near East, x was expressed in the concept of a supreme tribal chief, or king, and thus „God“ became the supreme concept of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which were rooted in the social structures of that area. In India, Buddhism could express x in different forms, so that no concept of God as a supreme ruler was necessary. ― (1966a: You Shall Be as Gods. A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition, New York (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) 1966, pp. 226f.)
More specifically, the x attitude can be described in the following terms: a letting go of one’s „ego,“ one’s greed, and with it, of one’s fears; a giving up the wish to hold onto the „ego“ as if it were an indestructible, separate entity; a making oneself empty in order to be able to fill oneself with the world, to respond to it, to become one with it, to love it. To make oneself empty does not express passivity but openness. Indeed, if one cannot make oneself empty, how can one respond to the world? How can one see, hear, feel, love, if one is filled with one’s ego, if one is driven by greed? ― (1966a: You Shall Be as Gods. A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition, New York (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) 1966, p. 59.)