Suggesting the world would be better off without religion takes a certain courage. Rosamund Burton meets a fearless seeker of the truth.

Imagine Jesus sitting in a Sydney cafe drinking a chai latte, and it gives you some of an idea of my first impressions on meeting Sankara Saranam. He has long brown hair with a few wisps of grey and a beard, and his loose fitting embroidered Indian style top adds to his Christ-like appearance. Despite the waiter adding three additional heaped teaspoons of chai mixture into the teapot, followed by much stirring, Sankara still finds his beverage "lacks guts".

But the man himself is certainly not someone who lacks guts. He is the author of recently published "God Without Religion: Questioning Centuries of Accepted Truths", which, as the title make clear, challenges all forms of religion. Sankara's basic premise is that all are based on stories or beliefs rather than on truth, due to those in power wanting to exercise and keep control.

Certainly in recent years, we are starting to see evidence of how Christianity has been shaped by those in power. For example, for two thousand years, Mary Magdalene was portrayed as a prostitute. But since the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels, she is increasingly likely to be seen as someone who was on an equal footing with the 12 disciples and, in all likelihood, the partner of Jesus. But I wondered if there are the same inconsistencies in other religions? "What about Tibetan Buddhism?" I ask.

"The whole lama tradition was started by monasteries in the 15th century," Sankara replies, "so they could maintain control and power." Those same control and power issues surrounding reincarnated lamas are still occurring today, between Tibetan religious leaders and the Chinese authorities. Never one to mind ruffling feathers, Sankara suggests His Holiness the Dalai Lama should be questioning the whole idea of reincarnation in this day and age.

The idea of a world without religion to me is like saying let's do away with history, because faith and culture are so interlinked. Perhaps that's why so many people today who are not active practitioners of a religion are still likely to label themselves Catholic or Anglican for example, or say they are Christian.

Sankara's own background is Jewish.

"The Jewish identity doesn't fall away," he claims. "It's deeply cultural. It took me less time to get rid of the Jewish religion than the Jewish culture." Both Sankara's parents are Iraqi Jews who were born in Baghdad. They were from wealthy and respected families, who coexisted well with the Muslim majority. But after World War Two, rifts opened between Jews and Muslims, with many families migrating to the new state of Israel. His mother's family actually migrated to the United States, but his father's side settled in Israel only to find themselves treated as second class citizens because they were Middle Eastern rather than European Jews.

"I learnt there was more divisiveness within religions than between them," says Sankara. "You think that sounds preposterous, but it isn't." He goes on to explain that when he lived in Israel for a couple of years in his late twenties he had no problem with people of other faiths, but did experience antagonism from Jews, because he was not adhering to the typical Jewish dress code.

Sankara was born in America. He went to a Hebrew school initially and then onto public school where he found himself a target of anti-Semitism. Both his family's and his own personal experiences, combined with his natural inclination to question aspects not only of Judaism but also of other religions, has led him to seek a spiritual path that goes that beyond the narrow confines of identity and faith.

Having excelled at science and maths at school, he went to engineering school with the intention of becoming a rocket scientist. Already diverging from that early goal, he studied classical guitar before, at the age of 23, entering a monastery in South Carolina founded by Paramahansa Yogananda, who started the Self-Realisation Fellowship.

Sankara had already been practising pranayama techniques which have been used by yogis for thousands of years to control the body and mind, but his practice was deepened and strengthened during his four years at the monastery.

He then spent two years in Israel studying Hebrew mysticism, and his first book, "Yoga and Judaism" revealed that the Hebrew prophets practised yogic methods of mysticism.

Returning to the US, he spent another two years studying comparative religion at Columbia University in New York. It was during this time that he founded the Pranayama Institute, and posted on his website the pranayama techniques he had learnt and been using over the years, to make them freely available to anyone who wanted to learn them.

"Prana" refers to nervous energy and "yama" means control, explains Sankara. "Getting in touch with the motion of prana in the body and brain helps us to better understand our existence, while controlling this motion by directing awareness inward can unite humanity in the shared experience of God by expanding the sense of self."

By the time he had finished his masters degree, he had developed a similar opinion about academia as he had about religion. He saw it as creating narrow identities and defending theories, rather than a quest for true knowledge. "It's about accreditation, not education," Sankara asserts.

In 1998, Sankara and his wife moved to New Mexico. She worked for the District Attorney's Office and took care of their day-to-day affairs, while for the next seven years Sankara devoted his time to study.

He posted over 5,000 pages of his findings on his website and received responses from people in over 70 countries. It is this interaction that forms the basis of "God Without Religion".

Originally, Sankara published the book himself, but it has subsequently been picked up by publishers in eight different countries, including India, Australia and, recently, the United States.

The book includes 17 techniques for the reader to discover and define God on their own, rather than accepting the interpretation of a particular religious doctrine. Methods include forming or joining a colloquium of people interested in spiritual matters, and asking questions and discussing issues. He also recommends the use of affirmations, what he calls "commonsense asceticism" which is the moderation of food, speech and sex, and pranayama techniques.

As he talks, it becomes apparent that it is not only religions that Sankara regards as holding power and control. It is also large corporations. In typical fearless style, he has set his sights on pharmaceutical companies as modern day "evils", closely followed by the petroleum giants. The decentralisation of power, he says, is central to his philosophy and his wife and he live with their two children on a 240 hectare property, where they rely on solar power and practise holistic land management and permaculture.

Sankara's strong views extend beyond religion and philosophy into the everyday realm of television - according to him, we should simply stop watching it. He also feels that women's power is taken from them, particularly in the Third World, by having too many babies. He looks at the impact of this, not only in terms of gender inequality, but also the detrimental effect that an ever increasing human population is likely to have on human beings and the planet as a whole. He believes that women are, in most instances, higher custodians of spiritual values than men, and has come up with the idea that women should be given the choice to undergo voluntary sterilisation in exchange for money, education, job security and priority when it comes to adoption. This is certainly a controversial idea and not one with which I personally agree. But he is adamant that this would not only help empower women, especially in countries where they are not on an equal footing with men, but would also help combat overpopulation.

"It's hard for women to sacrifice," he says, "but somebody has to sacrifice. If we are not willing to sacrifice, then what is going to happen? At least try to have them later in life, after 25, and extend the length of the generations. Also, we need to support policies that will enable the development of women in societies."

Certainly in Australia I think many people are questioning religion and looking for valid spiritual alternatives, and Sankara's book is a significant publication for anyone seeking spirituality without faith.

The author constantly emphasises the need to question. Instead of seeking to provide answers about God as organised religions do, he encourages people to explore their ideas of God by asking questions which he believes will ultimately expand their sense of identity. He calls this "an expanded sense of self" which, he says, "can expand to include all of humanity, regardless of nationality, beliefs, ethnicity, race, gender, or lifestyle. If a suburban Midwesterner could identify with an Iraqi farmer, a straight white southerner could relate to a gay African American couple...we wouldn't be able to propagate hatred and violence." In a challenge to new age spirituality, Sankara claims people are often only replacing one belief system with another, and the result may be the same as blindly following a strict religion. Too often, he says, new age spirituality fails to be progressive because it discourages sincere questioning.

Many prominent religious figures in the world today are espousing tolerance of other faiths, and there is increasing acceptance that the goal of God realisation can take many forms. Sankara has gone a step further and given people a path to experience God outside the framework of any particular religion or belief. "God Without Religion" will certainly have readers questioning both the ideas and the author, but I believe thinking along these lines is likely to become increasingly popular, and it is exciting to contemplate the effect this will have on spirituality throughout the world. And, such questioning is exactly that this iconoclastic spiritual thinker is seeking to encourage.