I spent a month in an ashram in india this year.
http://www.babajiashram.org/
These were the principles they tried to adhere to. Babaji just means father in hindi.
- Live life in Truth, Simplicity, and Love
- Keep your mind always concentrated on God's name
- Do selfless work and service to God
- Love and serve all humanity
- Let the Lord's grace set you free
It's up to the individual to interpret what God and Love is, i think it's not a bad place to start. Specifically the point was that there is no religion, just humanity and that god is a metaphor for the connection. It was not suggested that this person is god but that he was an incarnation of something divine. In the mornings at 7 every day there was 'arti', where people went to the temple and sang devotional songs. There were icons and images of this person around the temple as well as his disciples, with flowers and offerings.
There were some people who went to these arti, westerners and indians who prostrated themselves in front of all the icons. Some who didn't, like me and just sat there and sang the words. I have ingrained in me a refusal to adhere to anything, especially kneeling in front of icons but i went every day and learned the words to the songs. It was incredibly beautiful, to be part of the thing but i wasn't able to have faith in the idea that this person was reincarnated from some kind of 'life source'. I became cynical about it all and left because it seemed there wasn't enough to connect me. I refused to kneel before something.
Anyway, my point is that during this time i was at some kind of relative peace and had no thoughts of the bus, smoking or drinking or drug taking. I still had my ingrained shit to deal with. It just seemed to me a different kind of drug. Compared to prozac and diazepam and alcohol though, it was positive and not something that refused life. You can maybe choose your drugs to deal with it all, just better to chose something that helps and doesn't fuck you up perhaps. Nihilism is fine from a philosophical point of view but it doesn't help me live.
I used to think that religion was the opium of the masses and i think it still is. You can maybe at least choose your opium if it helps you live in peace. It's hard to do if you have not been brought up in a culture that encourages faith. I still think about the bus every day and have tried and failed but it's at least an interesting idea and can lead to discussion.