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A lot of people over the years have told me that “GOD” will be a whole lot better if there weren’t any religion. There argument is basically that God wouldn’t have so many disbelievers if these religions wouldn’t ruin the main perspective of God. No one has actually told me WHAT this perspective is but, I kind of understand what they mean. A lot of people also think that there argument, it cannot be answered because for so and so reasons. I wanted to post what my view of religion is and why we need it and what it does for US.
What is Religion?
A huge locomotive has rushed on over the line and a small worm that was creeping upon one of the rails saved its life by crawling out of the path of the locomotive. Yet this little worm, so insignificant that it can be crushed in a moment, is a living something, while this locomotive, so huge, so immense, is only an engine, a machine. You say the one has life and the other is only dead matter and all its powers and strength and speed are only those of a dead machine, a mechanical contrivance. Yet the poor little worm which moved upon the rail and which the least touch of the engine would have deprived of its life is a majestic being compared to that huge locomotive. It is a small part of the Infinite and, therefore, it is greater than this powerful engine. Why should that be so? How do we know the living from the dead? The machine mechanically performs all the movements its maker made it to perform, its movements are not those of life. How can we make the distinction between the living and the dead, then? In the living there is freedom, there is intelligence; in the dead all is bound and no freedom is possible, because there is no intelligence. This freedom that distinguishes us from mere machines is what we are all striving for. To be more free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection. This effort to attain freedom underlies all forms of worship, whether we know it or not.
If we were to examine the various sorts of worship all over the world, we would see that the rudest of mankind are worshipping ghosts, demons, and the spirits of their forefathers — serpent worship, worship of tribal gods, and worship of the departed ones. Why do they do this? Because they feel that in some unknown way these beings are greater, more powerful than themselves, and limit their freedom. They, therefore, seek to propitiate these beings in order to prevent them from molesting them, in other words, to get more freedom. They also seek to win favour from these superior beings, to get by gift of the gods what ought to be earned by personal effort.
On the whole, this shows that the world is expecting a miracle. This expectation never leaves us, and however we may try, we are all running after the miraculous and extraordinary. What is mind but that ceaseless inquiry into the meaning and mystery of life? We may say that only uncultivated people are going after all these things, but the question still is there: Why should it be so? The Jews were asking for a miracle. The whole world has been asking for the same these thousands of years. There is, again, the universal dissatisfaction. We make an ideal but we have rushed only half the way after it when we make a newer one. We struggle hard to attain to some goal and then discover we do not want it. This dissatisfaction we are having time after time, and what is there in the mind if there is to be only dissatisfaction? What is the meaning of this universal dissatisfaction? It is because freedom is every man’s goal. He seeks it ever, his whole life is a struggle after it. The child rebels against law as soon as it is born. Its first utterance is a cry, a protest against the bondage in which it finds itself. This longing for freedom produces the idea of a Being who is absolutely free. The concept of God is a fundamental element in the human constitution. In the Vedanta, Sat-chit-ânanda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) is the highest concept of God possible to the mind. It is the essence of knowledge and is by its nature the essence of bliss. We have been stifling that inner voice long enough, seeking to follow law and quiet the human nature, but there is that human instinct to rebel against nature’s laws. We may not understand what the meaning is, but there is that unconscious struggle of the human with the spiritual, of the lower with the higher mind, and the struggle attempts to preserve one’s separate life, what we call our “individuality”.
(Cont…PART 2 SOON)
So, when each man stands and says “My Prophet is the only true Prophet,” he is not correct — he knows not the alpha of religion. Religion is neither talk, nor theory, nor intellectual consent. It is realisation in the heart of our hearts; it is touching God; it is feeling, realising that I am a spirit in relation with the Universal Spirit and all Its great manifestations. If you have really entered the house of the Father, how can you have seen His children and not known them? And if you do not recognise them, you have not entered the house of the Father. The mother recognises her child in any dress and knows him however disguised. Recognise all the great, spiritual men and women in every age and country, and see that they are not really at variance with one another. Wherever there has been actual religion — this touch of the Divine, the soul coming in direct sense-contact with the Divine — there has always been a broadening of the mind which enables it to see the light everywhere. Now, some Mohammedans are the crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watchword is: “There is one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet.” Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith; at a moment’s notice, every man or woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that does not belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that teaches any thing else must be burnt. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for five hundred years blood ran all over the world. That is Mohammedanism!
Bread may be one of man’s first priorities, but it is a peculiarity of the human mind that he is not satisfied with merely getting enough to eat. He wants many more things, material and non-material. He wants, for instance, love and affection. In fact it is this urge to acquire more and more things for his physical and mental comfort which has provided the incentive for the stupendous progress he has made in terms of civilisation and culture. All his discoveries and invention stem from this urge. He already knows much about the world in which he live, but he is not satisfied with what he knows and he is constantly trying to probe more and more into the mystery that surrounds it. He not only wants to know more but wants also to use the knowledge to make thins world a better place to live in. In his early days, he was helpless against Nature; now She is largely under his control.
It is a paradoxical situation that, despite all that knowledge that man now possesses and all the good things he has created for himself through that knowledge, he himself is no better than he was before. His problem now is he himself. He has no control over himself. He knows what is good for him, but when he acts, he hardly shows any sign that he knows it. He acts blindly, foolishly, as if driven by some invisible force. He does not trust anybody, he does not even trust those who are very close to him, but the main thing is that he does not trust himself either. He hates himself and is hated by others. he is unhappy as ever. All his achievements seem to mock at him.
Indeed, the basic fact is that while man is much too busy improving his environment, he is doing nothing or very little to improve himself. It is said that he is still the savage that he was in the beginning of the history. He is as wicked, as selfish, as unscrupulous as before. He has of course came along way since he first appeared on earth, but the change that has came over him is more apparent than real. That is to say, the evil in him remains the same, though he does not express in the way he did before. He is more subtle and more secretive now and is on that account more dangerous, more destructive.
A distinction has to be made between individuals and groups. An individual may be good or bad, but that cannot make much of a difference so long as he does not occupy an important position. But a nation may be dangerous when it follows the policy of self-interest to the exclusion of all norms of equity and justice. If civilisation is to be saved, like individuals, nations have to commit themselves to ethical principles. The test of a nation’s strength is to be judged not so much in terms of arms and weapons, but more in terms of whether it can use them judiciously or avoid using them altogether. Man’s progress todays has reached a point when the question that has become more pressing is whether it would have not been better of there had been no progress at all, since this progress has made man morally more and more vunerable. This has to be corrected by placing adequate emphasis on man’s moral uplift. He has to assert his supremacy by taking control of the forces within himself, that is, he has to conquer himself, else his conquest of nature qill only bring his doom.
Is poverty a pre-condition of religion? The biblical saying that a rich man can never enter the kingdom of God seems to point to that. There are people who say that it is only that it is only the poor who are interested in religion. The argument seems to be that rich people don’t need religion, for they have a fair amount of things they want and are able to ignore religion altogether. Poor people, on the other hand, have to have the solace that religion can give them in the absence of material goods they need but do not at the moment possess. The argument seems to imply that really speaking, religion is only a hoax, but poor people imagine that religion will give them nobler things than material goods, though what these nobler things are remain rather vague.
If somebody is poor by choice, no one can object to it. For instance, a scholar may say that to him the first priority is knowledge and not money. He is happy if he has the bare necessities of life in order that he may concentrate on his intellectual pursuits. Similarly, a religious man also may spurn wealth if he finds it is a hindrance to what he has set heart on-moral and spiritual perfection. But can money stand in one’s way to God? It may, for money is such a thing that it can become an obsession with a person. Just as having no money is a problem, having too much of it is also a problem. In this sense, the saying that no rich man can enter heaven presents only one side of the picture. A poor man also cannot the kingdom of god if he is a person whose interest in religion is only to the extent that it may help overcome his financial problems. Such a man will invariably turn his back on religion as soon as he has enough money not to have to depend upon the mercy on the that mysterious power called God.
Does it them mean that no rich man can be religious? Is wealth incompatible with religion? It is wrong to think that one has to be poor to be religious. Anybody in distress, rich or poor, can clutch at religion for support, but if a person turns to religion only from a sense of helplessness, it is only likely that he will reject religion as soon as his condition improves. Religion is for everybody, not necessarily for the poor only or for those who are in distress. A truly religious man love God not for money or relief from trouble, but just because he cannot help loving him, like one cannot help loving one’s parents. It is not that God has to prove that he is capable of helping man in order that people may pray for Him. The purpose of prayer, in fact of religion itself, is not to get something but to be something.
What is that something? It is being perfect, in other words, being in the kingdom of God. Rich or poor, everybody can enter the Kingdom of God, given that he fulfills the conditions. Love of God is the essence of those conditions. Where there is Love of God, there is less love for money, less love for one’s self, less love for sense-pleasure. When Christ praises poverty, he praises not the state in which you have no money, but the state in which you care less for money and more for God. A beggar is not necessarily a religious man. Destitution is no hallmark of a saint. A true saint may or may not have money, but he loves God above everything else.
-Poverty, born out of love of God, is a virtue; otherwise a dubious distinction-
We see then that a congregational religion can never be. The real work of religion must be one’s own concern. I have an idea of my own, I must keep it sacred and secret, because it need not to be your idea. Secondly, why should I create a disturbance by wanting to tell everyone what my idea is? Other people would come and fight me. They cannot do so if I don’t tell them, but if I go about telling them what my ideas are, they will oppose me. So what is the use of talking about them? This Ishta should be kep secret, it is between you and God.
All theoreticalo portions of religion can be preached in public and made congregational, but higher religion cannot be made public. I cannot get my religious feelings at a moment’s notice. What is the result of this mummery and mockery? It is making a joke of religion, the worst of blasphemy. The result is what you find in the churches of present day. How can human being stand this religious drilling? It is like soldiers in a barrack. Shoulder arms, kneel down, take a book, all regulated exactly. Five minutes of reason, five minutes of prayer, all arranged beforehand. These mummeries have driven out religion.
Let the Churches preach doctrines, theories, philosophies to their heart’s content, but when it comes to worship, the real practical part of religion, it should be as Jesus says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret.”
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