To be religious means many things, because religion is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. First it means an egoless state -- first and foremost it means a deep acceptance of one's nobodiness. Religion is not a ladder that leads you higher than others. It is not trying to achieve some superiority but, on the contrary, it is relaxing into your ordinariness. A religious person neither feels inferior nor superior; in fact, he never compares himself with anybody else. He cannot compare -- his understanding makes it clear to him that comparison is not possible because there are no two persons similar. How can you compare people who are so dissimilar' You cannot compare Buddha to Krishna, Krishna to Christ, Christ to Mohammed, Mohammed to Kabir, Kabir to Nanak -- no, that is not possible. You cannot compare anybody with anybody else; everybody is unique.
But when I say everybody is unique, remember the word "everybody." I am not using the word "unique" in a comparative sense -- more unique than others, more unique than somebody else. EVERYBODY is unique! Uniqueness is an ordinary quality, the MOST ordinary quality. A religious person is utterly ordinary.
In India there is a tremendously beautiful treatise which contains only the names of God and nothing else: VISHNU SAHASRANAM, THE ONE THOUSAND NAMES OF GOD -- just names and nothing else. But those names are something unbelievably beautiful, showing different aspects of God. In those one thousand names there are two names: one is "God is the most ordinary" and the other is "God is the most extraordinary." Ordinary and extraordinary, both -- two names of God.
The religious person is ordinary, very ordinary. He lives a very simple, unpretentious life with no claim to extra-ordinariness. But that's what makes him extraordinary, so there is no contradiction in those two names.
To be extraordinary is a very ordinary desire. To be ordinary is not an ordinary desire; it is extraordinary. And to relax into one's ordinariness is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the world. The moment you relax into your ordinariness and you start enjoying the ordinary small things of life... in the early morning a cup of tea, a walk in the woods, a swim in the river, listening to the birds or just sitting under a tree -- "doing nothing, sitting silently, spring comes and the grass grows by itself" -- or cooking food or cleaning your house...
Religion is not concerned with what you do, it is concerned with the quality that you bring to your work. You may be praying in a church and there may be no religion in it, because the WAY you are doing it is irreligious.

A king and the high priest of the country were both praying early in the morning. It was still dark and they could not see in the temple. The king was saying, "My God, I am just dust under your feet. I am nobody. Have mercy on me!" And the priest said almost the same, maybe in different words but the same thing, "I am nobody. Have mercy on us!"
And then they both heard, with surprise, a third voice. By that time it was becoming a little light and they could see -- the poorest beggar of the town was also praying and he was saying, "God, I am dust under your feet. I am nobody. Have mercy on us!"
The king blinked his eyes, turned towards the priest and said, "Look who is saying that he is just ordinary, that he is nobody. Just look! Who is saying,'I am nobody'? Just a beggar! The king can say,'I am nobody,' the high priest can say,'I am nobody,' but a beggar? How egoistic! How pretentious!"

They both laughed at the idea of the beggar trying to be just like the king or the high priest. He was also bragging about being nobody. The king and the priest thought it insulting.
Of course, THEY can say they are nobody, because everybody knows they are not. Even God knows they are not! They are just being humble. But this poor beggar -- what humility is there? He is certainly nobody, and he is saying, "I am nobody." What is the point of saying it?
Remember, your so-called saints have tried to be humble before God, but just in order that they can be higher in the eyes of people. But a religious man does not even claim ordinariness -- he claims not. He is simply ordinary, whatsoever he is.