Community

 I suspect that the only real religious community, a group that is truly One, is a community of persons all of whom have had religious experiences, that is, one on one encounters with God, no intermediary of dogma or ritual.  Once you have this experience you feel a sense of Oneness with everyone regardless of outside differences like language and skin color and economic status.  Otherwise you look for a group who seems most like you in all your prejudices and narrowness.  You look for some comfort zone of people who think like you in your flavor of dogma and rituals.  Such homogenous parishes feel like they are close to God, but not so close as to have to change beyond a certain comfort zone.  Even in a monastery we are not all so homogenous.  And that is good.  How can one grow if everyone around you agrees with your imperfect self?