1
The religious life, if earnestly followed and
conscientiously sustained, carries the devotee only part of the way towards
worship of, and communion with, God. It is only a preparatory school. For both
morally and intellectually it is a kind of compromise, yielding to a certain
degree of the lower nature's rule and accepting beliefs that violate reason.
This satisfies him only because he has not made perfect purity and perfect truth
his standards.
2
To deny the immense value of the ordinary religion
in its own place and to those who have yet to gain its rewards would be to break
off the lower rungs of the ladder whereby men must climb to what is the ultimate
goal of all religion.
3
The general line of inner development for the human
race is in the first stage right action, which includes duty, service,
responsibility. In the second stage religious devotion appears. This engenders
worship of the higher power, moral improvement, holy communion. The third stage
is mystical and involves practice of meditation to get a more intimate
communion. The fourth stage is the awakening of need to understand truth and
know reality. Its completed product is the sage, who includes in himself the
civilized man, the religionist, the mystic, and the philosopher.(P)
4
Organizations are for most people the only way of
receiving religious help or acquiring religious belief. This, however, does not
mean that they will always remain so, for a time comes when they are seen for
what they are - elementary stages usually, intermediary stages sometimes.
5
When a man comes to the attitude that it is not
sufficient for him to receive religion at second hand as a creed or a
conviction, when he must receive it directly as an actual experience in his own
life, when he can pray with Flemish Thomas à Kempis, "Let it not be Moses or the
Prophets that speak to me, but speak thyself," he is ready to move up from the
first and lowest grade to the second and middle one. Such a one will then put
himself in a position - which he did not occupy before - of being able to move
forward to the central point of all religion, which is the personal revelation
of the Overself, God's Deputy, in the heart of the individual man.
6
The sceptic, the anthropologist, and the philosopher
of Bertrand Russell's type say that religion arose because primitive man was
terrified by the destructive powers of Nature and endeavoured to propitiate them
or their personifications by worship and prayer. They say further that civilized
man, having achieved some measure of control over natural forces, feels far less
in need of religious practices. This is an erroneous view. Religions were
instituted by sages who saw their need as a preparatory means of educating men's
minds for the higher truths of science and philosophy.(P)
7
Codified religion is not the final truth. It is but
the vestibule of Mysticism, which is the vestibule of Philosophy, which is the
vestibule of Truth. He who tarries in any vestibule is a sluggard, unfit for
entrance into the innermost chamber where Truth's treasure lies.
8
Religion as popularly organized, with priesthoods
and hierarchs, vestments and incense, ceremonials and rites, liturgies and
scriptures, churches and temples, is an excellent first step for most people but
not for all people.
9
The religious path is only a way leading at its end
to the still higher mystical path. It does not bring its followers directly into
the presence of God, as they believe, but rather to the beginning of a further
way which alone can do so.
10
Yet the worship that is given by the multitude to
an imagined God is not without value. It is an initiation, a preparation, and a
training for the worship that will one day be given to the real God. It is an
archway through which they pass on their way to philosophic worship.
11
The ancient division of men into three grades of
spiritual development was expressed variously in different countries. In India,
the Bhagavad Gita placed lowest the man whose mentality was inert and
dull, next the man whose understanding was coloured by emotion or distorted by
passion, and highest the man of clear and balanced intelligence.
12
The ceremonies and beliefs of institutional
religions are useful, even necessary, on the level of consciousness for which
those religions have been created; but they do not assist the mind to rise to
the higher levels of metaphysical and, especially, philosophical religion. For
these are concerned with a far higher quality.
13
The Ultimate meaning and social significance of
religion will be hidden from us so long as we do not understand that it
represents the appeal to the first of the three stages of growth in human
mentality. The latter begins with the primitive, arrives at the civilized, and
finishes with the philosophic stage. We have only to study the fruits of
anthropological research to become aware of this truth. Ultimate truth being
beyond the intellectual range of savage society, its wiser leaders unfolded a
faith suited to their followers' capacity and needs, a faith which worked
perfectly well and was indeed the best faith for such people. It ill becomes us
to sneer at their superstitions, therefore, merely because we are totally unable
to place ourselves into sympathetic relationship with their primitive
environment. Their beliefs became superstitions only when those who led them did
not realize that capacity for change and growth must be allowed for when the
tribes had outgrown their first faith. Therefore, such esotericism does not mean
that the masses are condemned to wear forever the badge of intellectual
backwardness.
14
A man on the second level will not be able to
accept the ideas or practices of a man who lives higher up on the third one. It
would be unreasonable to expect such acceptance.
15
It is as erroneous to take the popular form of a
religion as being all there is to it, as to take the symbolic statements of that
form in a literal sense. Deeper than this form is a mystical layer and deeper
still a philosophic lore.
16
The mission of religion is to take mankind through
the first stage of the road to spiritual self-fulfilment. It can succeed in this
mission only as it leads its adherents to regard religion more and more as a
personal matter, less and less as a corporate one.
17
It is not enough for one's religious faith to be
fervent; it ought also be intelligent.
18
Simple minds can be taught to accept the symbols
of religion as realities and the metaphors of its dogmas as truths, but
cultivated minds submit with difficulty.
19
All religion rests ultimately in some kind of
revelation - that is, on the appeal to faith. The first impulsive reply of
modern man must be to doubt.
20
The reality in religion is true, but what too
often passes for religion may be quite untrue. Doubt of what is false in it may
be faith in, and consequent upon worship of, the real Deity.
21
The capacity to defy religious superstition is
needed if a man is to discover religious truth.
22
The abatement of faith in a particular sacerdotal
organization is not alarming in itself, but the abatement of faith in the
Supreme Power which works for righteousness is indeed alarming. How many people
have forsaken institutionalized religion not because they have lost faith in the
existence of the Supreme Power but because they have lost faith in the
representative character of the institution itself, not because they do not feel
the need of religion but because they feel the need of a purer and better
religion? If they have not found any other creed to replace the one they have
outgrown, they may still turn for inward solace directly to the Supreme Power
itself.
23
One may have truly religious feelings yet still be
critical of a religious environment which practises hypocrisy or supports
superstition.
24
Although organized religion is rendering a great
and necessary service to the mass of people, there are still a few individuals
who need a somewhat deeper understanding of the truth which such religion is
teaching. If they pursue their enquiries they will not only be able to gain this
understanding but also be rewarded by inner peace.
25
At a certain distance along the way, the
institution or organization which may have helped him in the past now bars his
way. Instead of serving his highest purpose it arouses questions, doubts,
criticisms.
26
If he is sufficiently developed as a human being,
he finds himself wondering at this existence of his and of his world. And if he
becomes serious enough to look around for the answers which others have given to
his questions, he can easily become bewildered by the contradictory results.
27
The traditional ancient historical religion into
which a man is born, and which he accepts unquestioningly, is comforting and
secure in his young days. But with adult maturity and the intellect coming more
into play, his faith may become disturbed.
28
Questions about the assumptions of religion,
uncertainties about its fulfilment of promises, doubts, and distresses may cause
him many a pang during this difficult period.
29
The religious devotee does not care to trouble
himself with such questions but all the same he cannot keep them out for all
time. The human mind is so constructed that under the pressure of experience or
the nurturings of evolution it desires, nay even demands, to know. Both desire
and demand may be feeble at first and limited in extent. But they will emerge as
inevitably as bud and leaf emerge, and find troubling utterance.
30
Those whose hearts could receive a nobler faith,
whose heads could absorb a truer one, need not remain captives to an inferior
one.
31
A philosophically based religion would give all
its worshippers a chance to move up higher whenever they wished, felt ready, or
began to express doubts.
32
There are two ways open: either advance into
another religion or sect, or sink a shaft into the religion already held and go
down deeper and deeper until its ultimate Source is found.
33
The type of religion which seeks to frighten men
by the ever-burning fires of hell is for the naïve. Tradition supports it but
education destroys it. By education we do not here mean the memorizing of
opinions but the unfolding of the capacity to think rightly.
34
As man's intelligence develops he needs to be fed
with religious nutriment beyond the simpler forms and faiths of popular
religion. If this is not offered he becomes indifferent or atheist.
35
When religious faith is shattered by some
distressing event of the personal life, this very loss may lead to gain. For it
may be a prelude to a deepening and enriching of that faith.
36
People seek to escape from the soul's solitariness
by keeping close to mass organizations, including even the religious ones of
traditional churches. Here they find shelter and gregarious comfort. But a day
comes when crisis crashes through the one and disturbs the other. Once again
they are left alone with the soul.
37
He must look upon the elaborate ceremonials and
simple dogmas as a cradle where his growth began, his limbs first extended
themselves. But he cannot stay in the cradle forever if he is to become a youth
and an adult.
38
Religious devotion, worship, aspiration, start a
man on the way by occupying his feelings. But a time may come when he may wish
also to know and understand more about the mysterious object of his devotion. It
is then that he must prepare to get into deep waters, must hold his breath and
take the plunge into philosophic thought.
39
There is no need for anyone to leave his own
religion, but there is a need for him to go deeper into it.
40
The human being cannot be kept forever in the
child state, neither physically nor mentally, neither in the home nor in the
church. This must be recognized if society is to have fewer problems, less
friction, more understanding, and more harmony.
41
The concrete image for worship was originally
given for all those who needed something physically visible and touchable to
hold their attention and keep it fixed on the idea of God. It was a means of
fostering concentration. The masses were helped thereby. For others it was a
useful reminder. But more developed minds who are able to grasp a metaphysical
or abstract idea, as well as those who feel quite cool to external rites and
constantly repeated ceremonies, need not let the less developed ones tyrannize
over them and make them hypocritically worship, or take part in, what bores them
utterly. They may claim their freedom and replace the idol by the sacred Idea,
substitute for the rite an inner reverence for the Higher Power.
42
When a movement's inner life hardens into an
organization, when its teaching petrifies into a formulated dogmatic creed, when
its advocates and elders and guides become parasites on all the others, it may
be time to quit.
43
We may give up hollow religious rites, if they
have become meaningless and repugnant to us, and yet we need not give up
religion itself. The two are distinct.
44
It is better to go one's own spiritual way and
walk at one's own private pace than to tread the path of an organized church in
steps set for us by professional priests.
45
To insist on primitive forms of religion being
offered to, and honoured by, those who have reached the threshold of mental
maturity, is like insisting on grown-up men playing with toys or grown women
with dolls.
46
When the questions concern the spiritual meaning
of life, the spiritual techniques of communion, or the spiritual nature of man,
and when they are strongly and earnestly felt, it is the pressure of the answer
itself working upon the mind from within that is forcing the questions into the
focus of attention. It may take years before the man can unite the two, however.
47
Those who go to church for reasons of social
conformity or self-interest, not for reasons of inner need, are on a lower level
of evolution than those who refuse to go to church at all because their
intellect cannot bring itself to believe in what is taught there.
48
Whether to conform to orthodox religion or make an
open break with it must depend partly on the prompting he intuitively feels and
partly on his family, social, and business circumstances. If a rupture might do
external harm and create great friction, and if he does not feel a strong urge
to make a break, then why do so? In that case it would not be hypocrisy to
conform but simple prudence. The world being what it is, it is not possible to
live in it and yet achieve complete independence. On the other hand, if the
intuitive leading takes him away from obedience to these practices then he
should obey conscience.
49
The legal, official, and conventional nature of
established churches mesmerizes the great mass of people into the belief that
here only is the truth, and that outside them lies false religion. The man who
is beginning to hear the call of his higher self may often need to resist the
power of this mass-suggestion.
50
Few men can accept their traditional religion in
its entirety; they accept it only in part.
51
So far as established religion limits the
evil-doing of its followers, it renders a useful social service. But this does
not help those who, so far from needing such bounds set upon their deeds, are
positively active in doing good. Still less does it help the few who have felt
the urge to seek the Spirit's absolute truth above all the things of this world.
52
We may accept much that is given out by a man, a
religion, or a teaching without sanctioning everything else that comes from the
same source. All of it is not necessarily wisdom and virtue.
53
That which appears as enlightening Truth to one
man appears as dangerous heresy to another man. These are not mere differences
of opinion but of evolutionary growth.
54
Those who venture beyond the boundaries of
established orthodoxy are justified in their exodus if they feel insufficiently
or improperly nourished within those boundaries.
55
The free man will not take kindly to rigidly
binding dogmas, may even come to feel spiritually suffocated by them.
56
The masses have their ready-made religion; the
seeker must form his own.
57
Doubt has shaken the belief in a merciful and
benevolent Deity but has not much shaken belief in the Deity's existence.
58
The rise to a higher level from a hollow, merely
formal and outward religious life to a simple childlike trust in, and inward
devotion to, God is excellent. But those who are unable to put aside their
intellects so easily may ask for something more.
59
The Christian who has outgrown conceptions of an
elementary nature and needs more substantial spiritual food is faced with his
own special situation and religious difficulties. He must begin to get for
himself some glimpse of the True Self by way of personal experience.
60
It is no sin on the part of any man but rather an
intellectual duty critically to investigate for himself the formalized systems
of unyielding dogma which, in the name of tradition, claim his belief.
61
It was a Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, Mr. O.W. Holmes, who wrote in a private letter with reference to the
orthodox religious doctrines which had been inculcated in him in his
mid-nineteenth-century childhood: "But how can one pretend to believe what seems
to him childish and devoid alike of historical and rational foundations?" The
intellectual eminence which had brought this man to such a high position brought
him also to such a questioning.
62
The religious individualist who is unwilling to
put his mind under the yoke of any organization, who is unaffiliated with any
group, has at least as much chance to find truth as the members of such
organizations and groups and, as history shows, most probably a better one.
63
We must distinguish between the ritualistic forms
of outward religion and the mental and transmental states, the emotional and
intuitional experiences of inward religion.
64
People who turn away from religion, even if they
believe vaguely that there is a God, because the distance between both is
immeasurable, may be startled to learn that God is also very near, is indeed
within themselves.
65
True Spirituality is an inward state; mere
religiosity an outward one.
66
Enshrined in the secrecy of everyman's Holy of
Holies, hidden in the depths of his heart, there is a point where he may find
his indestructible link with God.
67
The kind of religious worship which is expressed
through outer things, through physical rituals, objects, sounds and processions
and movements, is intended chiefly for those people who cannot practise the
inner worship of silent moveless meditation. The first is easier but the other
is superior.
68
The only value of theology is a negative but still
useful one: to tell the student to ascend higher and give himself up to the
practice of advanced thought-free mystical meditation.
69
The public demonstration of one's religion in
church or temple does not appeal to all temperaments. Some can find holiest
feelings only in private. Those in the first group should not attempt to impose
their will on the others. Those in the second group should not despise the
followers of conventional communion. More understanding between the two may be
hard to arrive at, but more tolerance would be a sign that the personal
religious feeling is authentic.(P)
70
Men who imagine that if they take part in the
ritual of a cult they have done their religious duty are dangerously
self-illusioned. By attaching such a narrow meaning to such a noble word, they
degrade religion. We have progressed in religion to the extent that whereas
ancient man sacrificed the animal outside him upon the altar of
God-worship, modern man understands that he has to sacrifice the animal
inside him. The external forms of religion are not its final forms. Jesus
ordered one convert to worship "in spirit and in truth," that is,
internally. The two phases of worship - external and internal - are not
on the same level; one is a higher development of the other.(P)
71
A fourteenth-century German churchman, John
Tauler, said: "Let the common people run about and hear all they can, that they
may not fall into despair or unbelief; but know that all who would be God's,
inwardly and outwardly, turn to themselves and retire within."
72
There is a vast difference between the man for
whom religion means an organization, a numbered group, attendance at a formal
ceremony, a set of creedal beliefs, and an official authority on matters of
right or wrong - and the man for whom it means a vivid inner experience,
enlightening and pacifying, joyous and gracious.
73
A man must find holiness in his own mind before he
can find it in any place, be it church, ashram, monastery, or temple. He must
love it so much that he constantly thinks about it, or thinks about it so much
that he begins to love it, before he can find its real quality anywhere.
74
Set forms of prayer, fixed formulas, and
ready-worded phrases are for the multitudes who have little capacity for
creating their own. It makes the going easier for them when they are told or
taught what to say. But those who have more capacity should not feel themselves
bound so rigidly: they should feel themselves free to express their devotional
feelings in their own way and own words.
75
In the deep stillness we learn no creed, are
taught no dogma. Only outside it, only among quarrelling men, are we saddled
with the one and strapped down with the other.
76
So long as they look for the sources of religious
truth, power, hope, and goodness outside themselves, so long will they have to
suffer from the imperfections and limitations of such sources.
77
The man who wants something broader than the
pettiness of most religious creeds, nobler than most religious ethics, truer
than most religious teaching, will have to step out of every religious cage and
look where Jesus told him to look - within himself.
78
Those who formerly could not bring themselves to
believe that God exists are dumbfounded when they discover that He not only
exists but even exists within themselves.
79
Men go on pilgrimage to this or that holy place,
city, man, or monastery. But in the end, after all these outer journeys, they
will have to make the inner journey to the divine deputy dwelling in their own
hearts.
80
Too often religion amounts to coddling the ego of
the believers and worshippers, both in its existence in this world and in the
next one. This merely creates illusions that will later have to be struggled
against for release.
81
The man who accepts doctrines, obeys commandments,
follows blindly, shifts responsibility to the organization of which he is a
member. But his attempt fails. The karma is not only collective but personal.
The man as an individual cannot escape.
82
No religion today can claim to be the sole and
true inheritor of its Prophet's message. There is no unity in any of them; there
is plenty of dissension and sectarianism when it comes to definitions, creeds,
and observances. This really means that the individual follower, in relying on
tradition to support him here, is trying to push off - unconsciously perhaps -
his personal responsibility for his acceptance of it. But it remains there
still!
83
When he no longer looks only to the established
tradition offered him by others but also and more deeply into his own inner
consciousness, he is then following the way pointed to by Jesus and Buddha and
Lao Tzu. For this is how and where the soul reveals itself.
84
If many like to share their religious emotions
with others in full public view, they are entitled to do so. But if this
activity is done with the desire to be seen, to be admired in approval, to this
extent the emotion is adulterated and rendered worthless, because it is
ego-worshipping instead of God-worshipping.
85
Those who believe they honour a religion by
attending its services and ceremonies are not seldom deceiving themselves. It is
they themselves who are honoured by the contact.
86
Men and women go to church, mosque, synagogue, or
temple, ostensibly to worship the higher power; but what is the good, if when
they are there their thoughts are preoccupied with their personal affairs and
are thus not really in the church or holy building, but in their egos? They
might as well have stayed at home if they don't intend to make an effort to let
go and to look up.
87
It is nonsense to assert that people who come
together for worship touch a stronger holiness than those who pray alone. What
happens is that two forces are at work: first, the power of society, of public
opinion, and the crowd to incite and shame them into attending open services
where they see and are seen; second, a central place or building reserved for
such visible worship and heard prayer suggests that divine influence is
active there.
88
The way in which some people flock to join
organized groups is often an indication on their part of some unconscious or
unexpressed doubt, for it is an indication of their need to strengthen their
faith by getting the support of numbers. But this is only a spurious support
because the faith is inside them, whereas the group is outside!
89
We can truly worship God without ever entering a
religious building, opening a religious book, or professing a religious
membership.
90
Prayer which is private and individual is superior
in quality and sincerer in tone than prayer which is public and collective.
91
Religion will gain in honesty and lose in
hypocrisy, society will gain in peaceableness and lose in quarrelsomeness, when
religion itself becomes a private affair - so private that even two friends of
different faiths will ordinarily neither display their interest in nor talk
about them. Their reverence will then express itself just as well and even more
sincerely in private religion than in public worship.
92
If prayers are merely said by rote, mechanically
or perfunctorily, little or nothing need be expected from them.
93
The dogma, ritual, creed, and sacramental worship
of religion exist only to lead up to this inner phase: they are not ends in
themselves.
94
The beautifully carved figure which was to have
acted as a symbol to men of their higher possibilities and as a reminder of
their duty to realize them, becomes over-worshipped, its correct use forgotten
and true place misconceived. In this manner materialism penetrates religion, as
it does in several other ways.
95
Whether a man accords his allegiance to Salt Lake
City or to Rome, to the Mormon revelation or the Catholic credo, is really of
more importance to the institutions involved than to the man himself. For in the
end his salvation depends on what he is rather than on what the institution is.
96
When Jesus said, "Knock and it shall be opened to
you," he meant knock at the door within yourself. No amount of knocking at the
doors of organizations outside yourself will bring this result.
97
The altar at which he humbly prays is deep within
his mind; the god to which he gives reverent homage is there.
98
Too many people have been mistaught by religion to
evade their obligations and to deny their responsibilities by trying to put them
into God's hands merely because it is unpleasant or uncomfortable to the ego to
deal with them themselves.
99
The more importance is placed upon the inner life
by a religion, the less is development given to ritualism.
100
If you depend too much on the external, you will
become weaker to the same extent internally.
101
It has been observed that most religious hymns
are about ourselves, few only are about God.
102
They worship their own ego and call it God!
103
It is only by relegating religion from being a
public to being a private affair that those two typical religious nuisances -
intolerance of other beliefs and interference with other people's lives - can be
got rid of.
104
We must take a higher position than ordinary
religion offers and come face to face with the mystery that is Mentalism. The
nonbeing of the universe, the nonduality even of the soul may be too
mathematical a conclusion for our finite minds; but that this matterless world
and all that happens in it is like a dream is something to be received and
remembered at all times. We are important only to ourselves, not to God. All our
whining and praying, chanting and praising, gathering together and imagining
that this or that duty is required of us is mere theatre-play: Mind makes it
all. In this discovery we roll up the stage and return to the paradox of what we
really are - Consciousness!
105
Mysticism is religion come to flower. The
yearning for security against fears, which religious belief and ceremony satisfy
in an elementary way, is still further and much more fully satisfied by mystical
experience in an advanced way.
106
When religion is of the socially visible,
publicly attended kind, it serves the people in a limited way. When it is of an
extremely private, quiet silent meditative kind, it penetrates their mystical
essence.
107
Faith in the soul is the first step and is
provided by religion. Knowledge of the soul is the second step, and is provided
by mysticism.
108
The religionist has a vague intuitive feeling
that there is something higher than the daily round, someone behind the
universe, and some kind of existence after death. The mystic has developed this
intuition into definite insight into his own relation to this mystery: he knows
he has a soul.
109
Religion was devised to assist the masses.
Mysticism was designed to assist the individual. When religion has led a man to
the threshold of deeper truths behind its own, its task is done. Its real value
is attained in mysticism. Henceforth, the practice of mystical exercises can
alone assure his further spiritual progress. For mysticism does not rest upon
the shifting sands of faith or the uncertain gravel of argument, but upon the
solid rock of experience. The first great move forward in his spiritual life
occurs when he moves from religion to mysticism, when he no longer has to go
into some stone building or to some paid mediator to feel reverential towards
God, but into himself. Mysticism is for the man who is not in a hurry, who is
willing to work persistently and to wait patiently for consciousness of his
divine soul. The others who have not the time for this and who therefore resort
to religion must live by faith, not by consciousness. The man who wishes to rise
from sincere faith and traditional belief in the soul to practical demonstration
and personal experience of it must rise from religion to mysticism. Mysticism
seeks to establish direct contact with the divine soul, without the mediation of
any man and without the use of any external instrument. Hence it must seek
inward and nowhere else. Hence, too, the ordinary forms and methods of religion
are not necessary to it and must be dropped. When the mystic finds the divine
presence enlightening and strengthening him from within, he cannot be blamed for
placing little value upon sacramental ceremonies which claim to achieve this
from without. Nor is he censurable if he comes to regard church attendance as
unnecessary and sacramental salvation as illusory. If a man can find within
himself the divine presence, divine inspiration, and divine guidance, what need
has he of church organization? It can be useful only to one who lacks them.(P)
110
If the transition from religion to mysticism is
to be conveniently made, it must be gradually made. But this can be done only if
the teachers of religion themselves approve and promote the transition. But if
they do not, if they want to keep religion imprisoned in ecclesiastic
jail-irons, if they persist in a patriarchal attitude which indiscriminately
regards every member of their flock as an intellectual infant who never grows
up, the transition will happen all the same. Only it will then happen abruptly
and after religion itself has been discarded either for cynical atheism or for
bewildered apathy.(P)
111
Religion brings the truth to him only in
part and, too often, in symbol - only from outside himself and by secondhand
revelation. Mysticism brings him to the truth from inside himself and by
personal experience.
112
Without this mystical dimension, religion lies
at its most elementary level.
113
Under the half-dead conservatism of religious
tradition and dogmas there lie concealed a group of profound truths and ulterior
meanings. They are needed today much more than those relics are needed. Yet the
irony is that the men who teach those traditions have all the prestige of great
institutions to support them whereas the mystic who perceives those undisclosed
truths stands alone and has little or no prestige. So the masses continue to
echo the empty babble of their religious leaders, or else repudiate religion
altogether and become either indifferent or hostile to it.
114
Valuable and respected as the Catholic mystics
were as guides to mystical knowledge and practice, most of them still remain
biased and unscientific guides. Allowance must be made for this difference of
attitude with which they approach the subject, from that with which a modern
mind - freed from prejudice, superstition, and organizational ties - approaches
it. Even so outstanding and leading a mystic as Saint John of the Cross, who is
considered to have reached the goal of complete union, limited his reading to
four or five books, of which one was Contra Haereses, and confined his
writing by his proclaimed intention "not to depart from the sound sense and
doctrine of our Holy Mother the Catholic Church."
115
Mysticism is not to be confused with any
religion. Mysticism can drop all the religions from its hold and yet be
unaffected. No religion can help the true mystic, but he can help any religion
with which he cares to establish contact. His presence alone inside any fold
will give it more than a momentary grandeur and cause men to look on an old
Church with new respect. This is why mysticism can stand on its own feet, and
why it does not need the doubtful legends and theatrical liturgies of
institutional religion.
116
When a man has outgrown the tutelage of religion
and tired of the barren negative period of agnosticism which succeeds it, he is
ripe for the tutelage of mysticism.
117
A sincere Church would do everything to
encourage, and nothing to hinder, its members taking to the mystical quest. For
this would be the best sign that it honestly sought to consummate its own work
for the individual benefit rather than its own.
118
The assertion that, in certain cases, heresy can
be true religion and orthodoxy false, may seem incredible to those who have not
the necessary evidence to prove it. Yet Buddha and Jesus and Muhammed were, in
their time, heretics. How many others have died unknown, canonized as saints or
revered as sages in the minds and remembrances of only a small number of
persons? And how many of them, had it been their mission to declare themselves
openly, would have been rejected, calumniated, or persecuted?
119
Mysticism is larger than religion and ought not
to be confounded with it; yet paradoxically it takes in religion and does not
deny it. It fulfils and consummates religion and does not retard it.
120
We must not confuse the truly mystical life with
either a religious one or an ethical one. The latter two are merely elementary
and preparatory to the former.
121
More than three hundred years ago, a wonderful
little woman took the Galilean at his word. She put all her emotional strength
into aspiration and meditation and succeeded in achieving an exalted state by
practising a simple method. When her own heavenly peace was sufficiently
stabilized, she began to think of others, of how she could help them attain it
too. She was not so selfish as to be satisfied with her own satisfaction alone.
So she journeyed from city to city and from village to village in religious yet
religionless France, lighting the candles of human faith with a divine taper.
Such was the spiritual darkness of the time that her success was immediate, and
such was her own Christlike power that it was amazing. Crowds flocked gladly to
her side, listened eagerly to her words, and endeavoured faithfully to follow
her instructions. Her doctrine came to be called "Quietism" because she showed
people how to quieten their personal thoughts and emotions and thus become aware
of the impersonal heaven behind them, the kingdom within. She was no heretic.
She drew frequently from Jesus' own recorded words to explain or illustrate her
teaching. Yet she did not speak from dead pulpits in churches but from living
ones in the fields. The clergy became seriously alarmed. Such activities could
not be countenanced, they said. They petitioned the authorities against her, as
the Jewish priests had once petitioned the Roman authorities against Jesus. She
was thrown into prison and the jailer turned his key on her dismal abode, where
she was shut in for a long period of years. Such was the story of poor Madame
Guyon.
She was also denounced by the Church, as were her followers, for having fallen into the sin of spiritual pride. This was because of the assertion that outward practices and ritualistic acts were no longer needed by those who could find inspiration within. This teaching is quite correct but politically wrong. Out of respect for, or fear of, the Church's great power in those times, as well as out of consideration for the mass of people who were still unable to rise above their dependence on such outward ceremonies, Madame Guyon could have worked longer if she had worked quietly and privately, not openly and publicly. She could have instructed her followers, first, not to talk about the teaching to any person who was not ready for it, and second, not to communicate it even to those who were ready without the safeguard of complete secrecy.
Do you wish to penetrate to the essence of this episode? Here it is. A bishop of that time naïvely let the cat out of his theological bag! He said: "This woman may teach primitive Christianity - but if people find God everywhere what is to become of us?"
"What is to become of us?" Six short words but what a tremendous commentary they contain! When religion was about to become a living actuality in the lives of common people whose hearts were moved by the enlightening words of Mme. Guyon through personal realization of its loftiest truth, when it was ready to inspire them from hour to hour with inward peace and outward nobility, the official exponents of Christianity interfered and prevented it because of their selfish fears! They did not see and perceive the ultimate danger to themselves, and the immediate shame on their teaching, of such a situation. Well may the thinker have repeated the poet's lines about the mills of the Gods grinding slow but exceedingly small, for when the French Revolution broke out and spread its ugly malignant fury over the land, when the so-called Goddess of Reason was set up on her throne in the very midst of Notre Dame Cathedral, and when all France was rocking in the great upheaval which retributive destiny and rebellious demagogues had conspired to bring upon her, fifty thousand French priests fled from persecution, imprisonment, and even death. To appear on the streets of Paris in those days wearing the cleric's garb was to court the punishment of death itself.
122
The mystical phase is to be acquired without
dropping the religious phase, although he may wish to modify it.
123
If religion is to save what is best in itself,
it must not only set its house in order but must admit the mystical practices
into its system of instruction. It must become less exteriorized and more
interiorized, more mystical. Stone-built sanctuaries are many in every town and
village of the land. But those that truly light the mind are few. Yet there is
one with doors wide open to all, great enough to include every city in the
country yet narrow enough to exclude the dull materialist, the ruthlessly cruel,
and the poisonously selfish. This is the sanctuary of the inner Self. From this
mystical standpoint the institutional side of every religion is its least
important side. To understand a religion in this way we must first become
heretics; we must cast off conventional views which blind the mind's eyes. We
need no longer worry ourselves over the hotly debated question of whether or not
Christ was born of a virgin mother, for instance, but we do need to give our
time and thought to finding that which Christ represents within ourselves.
Christ can live again within our hearts, as he himself taught, which means we
must look for him inside ourselves much more than inside a Church building.
124
The disuse of outward sacraments and the
distaste for church organization which mark the life-history of several mystics,
come from the vigour and independence with which they must shield the growing
plant of inner life, and from the reorientation of trust with which they turn
from all man-made things to God alone.
125
When spiritual yearnings become more insistent
but perhaps more indefinable, it may be that the mystical depths of religion are
calling him away from its shallow surfaces.
126
The mystic unfolds his higher individuality. The
more he does so, the more he tends to draw away from the organization which acts
as custodian of his outer religion.
127
Fanatical religion killed Hypatia, conventional
religion lynched Pythagoras, respectable religion poisoned Socrates,
authority-worshipping religion crucified Jesus.
128
It is historical fact that a number of those who
successfully deepen their spiritual life by contemplation practice may develop
anti-ritualistic attitudes. This is why mystics have been tolerated, even
venerated, and alternately treated as heretics and persecuted.
129
Ecclesiastic hierarchies do not welcome, even
discourage, the claim to personal inspiration in their own times. A fresh
revelation of deific power is regarded as a fresh danger. For the new voice may
be listened to in place of the old parrot-like repetitions!
130
Because time brings to instituted religions
growth, and that brings power, success, wealth, and prestige - with all their
corruptions and infidelities - all religions' principles need to be periodically
re-established. This is why contemporary mystics and prophets are always needed
and why they should be given a hearing.
131
So long as so many of the authorized guardians
of religion fail to appreciate the fact that mysticism is the very core of their
doctrine, so long will they lack the glowing inspiration, the broadening view,
and the beneficial strength which religion at its best can and ought to give.
132
What the religious man feels by instinct or
faith, the mystical man knows by experience or revelation.
133
It remains a historical fact that the man who
has discovered truth finds more opposition within the formal established church
of his religion than outside it, more who will accept it among laymen than among
professional ministers and theologians. This is regrettable, because the latter
ought to be the first to welcome his discovery. But organizational ego, plus
personal timidity or cowardice, get in the way.
134
So long as people are overwhelmed by the
official prestige of established churches and overawed by their historic
tradition, so long will it be futile to expect wide recognition of, and proper
honour for, the authentic revelations of a true contemporary mystic.
135
The individual mystic's lack of status is
regrettable but expectable. For it is the penalty he must pay for refusing to be
overawed by the dogmas current in his time and the traditions inherited from his
people's past. What chance has this teaching when its adherents form only a
small unrecognized entirely scattered cult whereas the adherents of orthodoxy
are numbered by the million, and even those of unorthodoxy are numbered by the
thousand or hundred? Must all importance, all truth, all significance in
religion be limited to organized groups alone? Are there no inspired persons and
no ordinary individuals who do not choose to belong to any such groups at all?
Why should orthodoxy and unorthodoxy, merely because they are organized into
churches and labelled as denominations, alone represent the voice of religion?
136
The inspired individual who has climbed Sinai on
his own feet and received the Tablets of God's Law with his own hands has merely
a small fraction of the power, influence, and prestige of the be-robed
representative of organized religion, who knows God only at second hand and
through others, who has no inspiration with which to bless men and no real power
to save them.
137
What is the difference between Quietism and
Mysticism? Quietism is Roman Catholic and seems to have been solely
devotional-mantra, repetition japa singing, ascetical in order to find personal
salvation, whereas Mysticism is a generic term for all religions and seems to be
positive living in God plus illumination.
138
So long as official religions held the highest
places, so long the Enlightened, the knowers and the seers, were left to walk
alone or to think in secret or to stifle their words.
139
There are austere anti-mystic theologians just
as there are hidebound anti-mystic ecclesiastics.
140
The devotional life of religion finds its
culmination in the meditative life of mysticism. Devotion can be practised en
masse but meditation is best done in solitude. Religion can be organized but
mysticism is best left to the individual.
141
If we mix the mystical with the religious
standpoint, the result will be confusion and misunderstanding. They must be kept
apart and in their proper places.
142
Those who have touched the mystical level in
what they have deeply believed and deeply experienced are much less likely to be
dogmatic, narrow religionists.
143
The gulf between ritualistic religion and
mystical religion is the gulf between a metaphor and a fact.
144
It would be sheer folly for even an organized
form of mysticism to compete with organized religion. The votaries of mysticism
are and will remain a minor group. But insofar as their challenge acts as a
successful irritant, they may help orthodox religion to improve itself.
145
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cochin told me a
few years ago that he disapproved of mysticism because it could very easily
lead, and had historically led, to intellectual and spiritual anarchy and was
therefore dangerous. Another Roman Catholic, G.K. Chesterton, the brilliant
English author and journalist, told me nearly thirty years ago that he
disapproved of mysticism because it could very easily lead to moral anarchy and
evil behaviour, and had indeed done so. Yet both men were quite willing to
accept mysticism provided it was fenced around by the limitations and
regulations, the dogmatic definitions and supervisory direction imposed by their
Church.
146
It is the constant contention of ecclesiastical
authorities that mystics who find sufficient guidance and teaching in waiting
upon the inner light, who disregard all outward supports, expose themselves to
deception and error and the Church to anarchy and disintegration. Their
contention is correct enough. Nevertheless the argument is not adequate enough
to prohibit the practice of mysticism altogether. For, on the first count, the
mystic can be taught how to protect himself against these perils. On the second
one, not many people are willing or ready to become mystics and there are more
than enough left to keep the Church busy while those who are ready can still be
helped by the Church.
147
This insistence on the rigorous following of
external forms, together with this neglecting of the internal spirit which
should be the main object of those forms, is more harmful in the mystical world
than in the religious one.
148
That which religion worships as from a distance,
mysticism communes with as an intimate.
149
Many believe, some suspect, but few know that
there is a divine soul in man.