It was the special contribution of the Wang Yang-ming school to synthesize the subtlest mentalism with the most practical routine of daily life, the holiness of fervent religion with the obligations to society, the discipline of self with the freedom of undogmatic mind.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Confucius, Confucianism, neo-Confucianism

#19041 – 10.15.4.130

BN – X – D

The following are equivalent terms for one and the same thing: Original Pure Mind of Zen Buddhism, Pure Consciousness of Vedanta, Alaya of Mahayana Buddhism.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Japan

#19066 – 10.15.4.155

UR_3.2 – Z – K

Zen Buddhism is a form of mysticism, perhaps one of its highest if most puzzling forms, and not a philosophy. Therefore it is incomplete, one-sided. The evidence for this is inherent in itself for it disdains metaphysics, study, reason, and stakes everything on a flash intuition got by meditation. There is here no such check on the correctness completeness and finality of such an intuition as is provided by philosophy. A further evidence lies in the history of its own founder. Bodhidharma admittedly travelled to China to give out his teaching yet, after his arrival, he contented himself with sitting in complete solitude for nine years at Sung-Shan, waiting for a prospective disciple to approach him. Had he been a sage, however, he would surely have filled those nine years with making his knowledge readily available to whoever was ready for it and if there existed no such elite, he would in that case have helped the masses with simpler if more indirect forms of truth.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Japan

#19071 – 10.15.4.160

BN – ZZ – K1

Those who care for 'koans' will wander about in circles and in the end come back with empty hands. They will have to start afresh on a new road having learnt that wisdom is not hidden in lunacy—except for minds already confused or distorted.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Japan

#19076 – 10.15.4.165

BN – X – K1

The tea ceremony was started in China 1000 years ago by Zen priests and spread into Japan a couple of centuries later. Whereas Chinese priests started it to ward off drowsiness in meditation, the Japanese laity made it popular. Slowly it changed until the sixteenth century, when the present rite was finalized by Zen priests. The greatest possible economy of movements is aimed at. The rite is an exercise in refinement, gracefulness, and calm. But surprising humility is also embodied in it in a way strangely reminiscent of the Egyptian Great Pyramid, for like the entrance to the King's Chamber, the entry to the Tea-Chamber is through an opening so small and so low in the wall that a visitor is forced to bend down and almost crawl through.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Japan

#19083 – 10.15.4.172

BN – X – K1

If we enquire why Communism is now a sort of nemesis to the religion of Tibet and even begins to threaten India, we must remember that the villagers are ruled as much by superstition and fanaticism as by piety and wisdom. They are certainly not guided in their everyday living by the higher philosophic or mystic culture which mostly attracts the interest of foreigners to Buddhism and Hinduism.

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Tibet

#19107 – 10.15.4.196

BN – X – K1

Padma Sambhava (Tibetan Master): "If the seeker, when sought, cannot be found, thereupon is attained the goal of the seeking, the end of the quest itself. Then there is no need to search for anything and there is nothing to be practised".

The Orient > China, Japan, Tibet > Tibet

#19111 – 10.15.4.200

B_05 – ZZ – K

The contrast between loquacious Americans of the cities and silent Arabs of the desert is unforgettable. The Bedouin can sit in a group and say nothing at all for hours! The desert's peace has entered into them to such an extent that the social duty of laryngeal activity is unknown among them, and regarded as unnecessary!

The Orient > Ceylon, Angkor Wat, Burma, Java > Ceylon

#19120 – 10.15.5.4

BN – X – K1

The restoration and protection of Angkor ruins has brought great good karma to France. They were on the point of being defeated in the Great War, but they were saved; although they did not know it, it is Angkor karma which saved them. The French restored Angkor with the materialistic object of attracting travellers' money. Still it was a meritorious act and brought immense good karma.

The Orient > Ceylon, Angkor Wat, Burma, Java > Angkor Wat

#19129 – 10.15.5.13

BN – X – K

It is my well considered belief that Ananda Metteya was a Bodhisattva, come from a higher plane to penetrate those Western minds which could appreciate, and benefit by, Buddhism as meeting their intellectual and spiritual needs. He gave the hidden impetus, but others came later to do the outer work.

The Orient > Islamic Cultures, Egypt > Islamic cultures

#19180 – 10.15.6.5

BN – X – K1

The story that Pythagoras was murdered because he refused to pass through a bean field (which was his only way of escape) owing to his aversion to beans is as untrue as so many other legends of antiquity. When there was trouble at Crotona and his work there became impossible, he simply removed in 515 B.C. to Metapontum, the capital city of a small state, and continued there until he died peacefully. His ban on beans in the diet of his followers applied to the large "Fava" bean, as it is called in Italy where he then lived, or the "horse bean," as it is now called in some other European countries. This definitely contains a poisonous element, and I remember two cases of food poisoning in villagers who had eaten too largely of them during my sojourn in Greece.

The Orient > Islamic Cultures, Egypt > Islamic cultures

#19205 – 10.15.6.30

BN – X – K1

There was a sanity, a wholeness, about the goal of the best Greeks which we do not find easily elsewhere in the antique or Oriental world. They appreciated art created by man, beauty created by Nature, and reason applied by man. They developed the body's health, strength, shapely form; they disciplined it at certain periods for special purposes, but without falling into the fanaticism and extremism of those ascetic religions which abjure enjoyment merely because it is enjoyment.

The Orient > Islamic Cultures, Egypt > Islamic cultures

#19213 – 10.15.6.38

BN – X – K1

The ancient Hellenic mind was sharpened by the study of mathematics. This enabled it to search for truth unclogged by superstition and unswayed by imagination. It helped too by nurturing the power of concentration. But it was still inferior to the far more valuable capacity of the Indian mind to still thought altogether.

The Orient > Islamic Cultures, Egypt > Islamic cultures

#19215 – 10.15.6.40

BN – X – K1

The Orphic Mysteries were found in Greece and its colonies, in Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor, and southern Italy. Their revelations concerned the mystery of Deity, the nature of the soul, and its relationship with the body. For humanitarian, hygienic, and purificatory reasons a meatless diet was prescribed.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19280 – 10.15.7.32

BN – X – D

The Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece once visited the sacred oracle at Delphi and left two offerings in the temple. Both were maxims and were subsequently carved on the building. The first is famous: "Know Thyself." The second is: "Nothing too much." The first points to the peaks of human experience. The second warns us against the dangers of the quest (as well as of life) and how to avoid them by keeping our efforts in balance.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19284 – 10.15.7.36

BN – X – D

The word 'philosophy' has no precise synonym in any Indian language: it is a Greek word. The implications here are quite interesting.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19287 – 10.15.7.39

UR_3.2 – Z – K

So-called pagan philosophers, like the Stoics, did not evade the discussion of any problem in their doctrine. What they could not solve by reason they accepted by resignation, believing that the universal mind had enough wisdom and sense to know what it is doing.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19291 – 10.15.7.43

BN – ZZ – K

Greek Stoicism, Chinese Taoism, and Hindu Yoga had certain common features and common conceptions even though differences were also there.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19293 – 10.15.7.45

BN – X – K

There are some points in the Stoic system which are simply not true, however much the Stoics dressed them up in grand, almost arrogant language, perhaps the better to convince themselves. But the general loftiness of ethic, excellence of purpose, and peacefulness of mind which Stoicism contributed are, of course, most admirable.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19302 – 10.15.7.54

BN – Z – K

Greek thought accepted the fact that sufferings were inevitable in life but noted the joys too.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19321 – 10.15.7.73

B_17 – Z – K

The Roman Stoic was more concerned with strengthening himself with the armour of virtuous self-control and ascetic self-mastery than with the conscious union with his Overself. His work was a limited one.

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19328 – 10.15.7.80

BN – X – K

We talk of the religions of India, with their emphasis upon the element of suffering in life, as being unduly pessimistic. But what could be more pessimistic than the later and final acts of Greek drama?

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19334 – 10.15.7.86

B_17 – Z – K

Socrates' prayer to the god of Nature: "O Pan! Do so that I become beautiful inside me. And all that exists outside and around me to be in harmony with what I have in me. . . . My wish for material wealth is only for so much as a wise man can carry in his hand."—from Plato

The Orient > Related Entries > Greece

#19335 – 10.15.7.87

A241129 – P – D

To claim, as Schweitzer, Steiner, and Martinus claim, that the pre-Christian Asiatic spiritual teaching was inferior to the Christian because it lacked the message of love, is just not correct. This claim could never have been made had these three men spent some time in Asia itself, studying the classic texts and under the scholarly pundits. It most probably was based on Jesus' statement: "A new commandment give I to you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you". The Israelites, to whom these words were addressed, were governed by the loveless code of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". What Jesus taught was certainly new to them, but not to Asia. Buddha and Krishna, Lao Tzu and Confucius had taught it long before.

The Orient > Related Entries > Christianity and the East

#19336 – 10.15.7.88

B_11 – Z – K

Professor T.M.P. Mahadevan, head of the department of Philosophy at Madras University, recognized instantly and delightedly the symbol painted on several Greek ikons when I took him into the church belonging to an Orthodox monastery in Athens. It was, he exclaimed, "the gnana mudra," the gesture made by touching the tip of the forefinger with the thumb to form a circle. The inner meaning is that the ego (forefinger) is a continuation, a connection, or a unity with the Overself (the thumb). Only in appearance is it otherwise.

The Orient > Related Entries > Christianity and the East

#19341 – 10.15.7.93

BN – X – K1

"Look Within!" was not less the teaching of Jesus ("The Kingdom of heaven is within you") than it was the injunction of most Oriental sages to their own hearers.

The Orient > Related Entries > Christianity and the East

#19359 – 10.15.7.111

B_11 – ZZ – K

The grave warm beauty of Jesus' words contrasts vividly with the cold impersonal quality of Buddha's.

The Orient > Related Entries > Christianity and the East

#19360 – 10.15.7.112

B_12 – ZZ – K

We should distinguish the theories and doctrines woven round the mystic's experience from the significant features of the experience itself. And those features are: the awareness of another and deeper life, a sacred presence within the heart, the certitude of having found the Real, the gladness and freshness which follow the sense of this discovery.

The Sensitives > The Sensitives > The Sensitives

#19365D – 11.16.0.1

BN – Z – K

My Webster defines a mystic as "one who relies chiefly upon meditation in acquiring truth." This is a good dictionary definition, but it is not good enough because it does not go far enough. For every true mystic relies also on prayer, on purificatory self-denial, and on a master.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Mystical Life in The Modern World

#19382 – 11.16.1.16

BN – X – K1

It is dangerous to use terminologies and vocabularies which the past and the present have associated with particular cults, movements, groups, and organizations. It is better to find new ways of presenting spiritual truths, new words with which to name them.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Development

#19394 – 11.16.1.28

UR_3.2 – Z – K

The occult groups and religious sects have multiplied in our time—and not only among the uneducated or even the half-educated.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Continuing the tradition

#19403 – 11.16.1.37

BN – X – K

If this integral philosophy can be interpreted to those few whose right knowledge and timely inspiration will thereby be used for the mental and physical betterment of the masses, it will surely be helping, however indirectly, the masses themselves.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Continuing the tradition

#19407E – 11.16.1.41

BN – ZZZ – K

The rites and forms of religion arise logically from the point of view that God is separate from, and external to, the creatures in the universe. Hence the worship of, and communion with, God must be an external affair too. The theories and exercises of mysticism, however, arise from the point of view that God is internally linked to all creatures.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Purpose

#19409 – 11.16.1.43

BN – X – D

If there were nothing other than our ideas of things, and if it were impossible to cross their boundaries, all that we could discover would never be anything more than an exploration from our own imaginings and conceptions. Then, everything holy and divine would be robbed of its value and meaning. But mystical experience intrudes here to show us a world beyond thoughts, a reality beyond ideas.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Purpose

#19415 – 11.16.1.49

BN – X – K1

The mystic quietly declares that he has experimental knowledge of a higher self, a diviner self than the everyday one.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Purpose

#19421 – 11.16.1.55

BN – X – D

It is an error to say that mysticism and metaphysics are on equal levels. The first is more important than the second. There is no way to realize the Self which does not include going inside consciousness. Thinking, however metaphysical, cannot do it. Action, however self-denying, cannot do it. It must be found inside in the heart. The other things are needful but secondary. Without the inner consciousness, action becomes at best humanitarianism and thinking a photographic copy of the Real.

The Sensitives > Mystical Life in The Modern World > Purpose

#19432 – 11.16.1.66

BN – Z – DEK

One fact about most mystical phenomena is that they are transient. Strains of heavenly music may be heard by the inner ear and intoxicate the heart with their unearthly beauty—but they will pass away. Clairvoyant visions of Christ-like beings or of other worlds may present themselves to the inner sight—but they will not remain. A mysterious force may enter the body and travel transformingly and enthrallingly through it from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head—but it will soon vanish. Only through the ultramystic fourfold path can an enduring result be achieved.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The transience of mystical emotions

#19459 – 11.16.2.10

BN – X – K1

Ecstasies come and go outside the mystic's own will, but philosophic enlightenment is something which we win and keep because we work for and earn it.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The transience of mystical emotions

#19464 – 11.16.2.15

BN – X – D

How can a mental state be the final realization? It is temporary. Mystic experience is such a state. It is something one enters and leaves. Beyond and higher is realization of unchanging truth.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The transience of mystical emotions

#19478 – 11.16.2.29

BA11 – ZZ – DK

The uninstructed, the simple, the pious, the mystical are apt to be satisfied with their personal reactions to gurus, temples, rituals, mantras, and meditations. But the reactions may be pleasant illusions, giving birth to comforting fallacies or false consolations. That is, the seekers get beyond their ordinary selves and believe that they are experiencing the Transcendental, the Absolute. They do not know that counterfeits exist, or that there are inferior states which may be joyful or peaceful or exciting or sensational but are still not the real, the authentic goal.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > From personal vision to impersonal being

#19490 – 11.16.2.41

B_05 – Z – K

Buddha certainly glorified the worth of compassion, but he also glorified the worth of insight. He never said that universal compassion could alone bring one to Nirvana. Buddha recommended the first as a disciplinary practice for the attainment of the other. Why? Because personal feeling either blinds us to truth or distorts our mentality. Often we cannot see things as they really are because we are warped by our egoistic prejudices and passions. If we can get away from the personal, we can get rid of these obstacles. Compassion thins the ego's strength and assists us to become properly equipped to achieve insight into Truth. Similarly, Jesus gave the masses the golden rule of doing unto one's neighbour as one would be done by. They needed to be dislodged from their strong selfishness. Hence, he taught them that "Whatsoever you sow that shall you also reap" but he did not suggest that this was sufficient guidance to the Kingdom of Heaven. Love is not enough.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > From inner peace to inner reality

#19511 – 11.16.2.62

B_11 – ZZ – DEK

Whereas ordinary mysticism seeks only to discipline the personality, philosophical mysticism seeks both to discipline and develop it.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > From inner peace to inner reality

#19530 – 11.16.2.81

BN – X – D

From the philosophical standpoint, it is not enough to say that a man is illumined and leave it at that. The depth and permanence of his illumination need also to be considered.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > From inner peace to inner reality

#19532 – 11.16.2.83

BN – X – D

The more I travel the world of living men and study the recorded experiences of dead ones, the more I am convinced that mystical powers, religious devotion, intellectual capacity, and ascetic hardihood do not possess anything like the value of noble character. I no longer admire a man because he has spent twenty years in the practice of yoga or the study of metaphysics; I admire him because he has brought compassion, tolerance, rectitude, and dependability into his conduct.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19539 – 11.16.2.90

B_01 – ZZ – DEK1

If a man spends a total of six hours a day in meditation practices, as some I have known have done, but is unable to perceive the truth about the character of other men with whom he is brought into contact, then it is absurd to believe that he is able to perceive the truth about the immeasurably more remote, more intangible and ineffable Transcendental Reality.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19541 – 11.16.2.92

BN – ZZ – K1

The right act done at the wrong time itself becomes a wrong act. Mystics who prematurely try to seize the fruits of philosophy without taking the trouble to undergo the philosophic training commit an error. For the fruits thus gained are inevitably transient. And when they advise suffering worldlings to resign themselves to God's will and cease bewailing their lot, they often commit another error in timing. For it may be that the discontented worldling is moved through his very discontent to exert his latent capacities and better his lot, and if he does this rightly he will thus improve both his character and intelligence. Each individual case will necessarily differ, for there are times when it is right to resist karma and times when it is wiser not to do so. To lay down a universal rule of absolute nonresistance, as these mystics do, is to ask many men to invite needless suffering.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19544E – 11.16.2.95

BN – ZEL1/1 – K

He is not set free from the evolutionary task of developing his personality because he has developed the capacity to enter mystical states. He must fulfil this task and thus bring all his capabilities into equilibrium; until he has done this, his enjoyment of the divine bliss will be only a sporadic and broken one. But this task fulfilled, it will become a natural and continuous one.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19552 – 11.16.2.103

BN – X – D

It is good and important that people practise meditation and thus seek within themselves what can never be found outside themselves. But it is not enough. There are serious obstructions which blur, distort, or prevent our seeing what is within. Unless they are also tackled and removed, the seekers may spend half a lifetime either looking in vain or seeing wrongly.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19553 – 11.16.2.104

B_05 – Z – K

There are many who are earnest in thought and steadfast in aspiration but who, despite this, have never had any mystical experience, never known any psychical phenomena, and never felt any ecstatic uprush. They may be consoled to learn that, philosophically, these happenings are not at all the most significant indicators of spiritual advancement. The ennoblement of character, the development of intuition, and the cultivation of inner equilibrium are more important.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Moral re-education

#19554 – 11.16.2.105

BN – X – D

This is evolution: although Truth is ideally attainable here and now, technically it is attainable only at the end of the pageant of evolution, when the person's whole being has been highly developed and is ripe to receive the greatest of all gifts.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Philosophy and mysticism

#19573E – 11.16.2.124

UR_4map – ZZZ – K

So long as the mystic is unable to function fully in his intellect, why should he expect to function clearly in what is beyond intellect?

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Rational mysticism

#19600 – 11.16.2.151

BN – Z – K1

The mystic who overbalances himself with ephemeral ecstasies pays for them by deep moods of depression. This is worth noting, but it is not all. If there is not a rationally thought-out metaphysical foundation to give constant and steady support to his intuitions of truth, he may find these intuitions telling him one thing this year and the opposite next year. But this foundation must be a scientific and not merely a speculative metaphysics, which means that it must itself be irrefragable, gathering its facts not with the critical intellect alone, but also with the spontaneous intuition and above all with the insight. Such a system exists only in the metaphysics of truth.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Rational mysticism

#19601 – 11.16.2.152

BN – X – K1

There are too many people who mistake a confused mass of unrelated assertions, unrefined terms, and unproven statements for mysticism. They do so because they think that mysticism is beyond logical proof, above scientific demonstration, and out of reach of mathematical exposition. They consider mysticism to be entirely a matter of feeling and not of thinking. These are the people who fall victim to the charlatans and the impostors. The kind of mysticism they espouse is a bemused one.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > Rational mysticism

#19606 – 11.16.2.157

B_01 – Z – K

He will be all the better and not worse if he brings to his mystical path a scientific method of approach, a large historical acquaintance with the comparative mysticisms of many countries, a scientific knowledge of psychology, and a practical experience of the world. He will be all the better and not worse if he learns in advance, and in theory, what every step of the way into the holy of holies will be like.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The power of rational faith

#19628 – 11.16.2.179

BN – X – K1

There is hope for the seeker who wishes to recapture the joys of a past mystical experience. But the experience may be regained in a different form. The emotional excitement that accompanied its earlier phases is more likely to be balanced—as it should be—by greater intellectual understanding of what is happening and how to control it.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The power of rational faith

#19629 – 11.16.2.180

BN – X – D

Without a complete and penetrative understanding of philosophical truth, a real union with the Overself cannot be effected, but only an apparent one. This is why yoga alone is insufficient, although recommended as a help to fit the mind for such understanding.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The goal of truth

#19641 – 11.16.2.192

BN – ZZZ – DEK

The aspirant who is sincere but ill-informed is always in a less secure position than one who is well-informed. This is not only because "knowledge is power," as an old thinker once said, but because the opposition of evil forces has to be encountered and mastered.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The goal of truth

#19644 – 11.16.2.195

B_16 – ZZ – K

He will lose nothing and gain much if he tries to know scientifically why these experiences arise. And he will be a better mystic if he can relate them to the rest of life, if he can move forward to a fuller understanding of his place in the universal scheme, if he can reach an explicit and self-conscious comprehension of his own mysticism. If we grant that he can successfully attain his mystical goal without this definite knowledge, he cannot become an effective teacher and guide without it. So long as his interest is confined to himself this need not matter, but as soon as he seeks to serve mankind it does matter. For then only can he present the way and the goal in the detail and with the clarity that helps to convince others.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The goal of truth

#19645 – 11.16.2.196

BN – X – K1

The seeker who has not awakened the critical faculty—and is therefore still a child in his intellectual development—is naturally unsuspicious, plastic and docile. Even the seeker who has awakened it is sometimes so overawed by exaggerated or false claims as to leave it off on the threshold when he enters the presence of spiritual charlatanry.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The goal of truth

#19650 – 11.16.2.201

B_05 – Z – K

So much wishful thinking and imaginative nonsense enters mysticism that the seeker must apply independent judgement to his study of it if he wants to find truth and keep sanity.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The goal of truth

#19656 – 11.16.2.207

B_05 – ZZ – K

The degree of enlightenment which a mystic has reached corresponds also to the degree of freedom from the ego which he or she has reached.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The path beyond yoga

#19665 – 11.16.2.216

BSG_4 – P – D

Enlightenment is not equal in all mystics. With most it is only at its beginning, whatever they personally may believe to the contrary; with some it is more developed; with a few others it is perfect. In all cases it is proportionate to the extent to which the ego's influence is obliterated.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The path beyond yoga

#19673 – 11.16.2.224

BN – X – D

To unite the ego with the Overself is the highest achievement open to the mystic whilst yet in the flesh. It is not possible for him to become one and the same identity with God, united in every possible way, and with his own separate and distinct identity utterly lost.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The path beyond yoga

#19679 – 11.16.2.230

BN – X – DEK

There are likely to be many who will reject these criticisms and revaluations of yoga because they emanate from one who is a Westerner and who is therefore supposed not to know what he is talking about in such an exotic matter. Let us therefore learn what some competent Indian authorities themselves say. His late Highness, The Maharaja of Baroda, who was famous for his frequent association and patronage of the most learned Indian pundits, scholars, philosophers, and yogis, said in his inaugural address to the Third Indian Philosophical Congress held in Bombay in 1927: "The Yoga system in its essence is a series of practical means to be adopted as a preliminary to the attainment of the highest knowledge. . . . what the yoga system may have to teach us as to the preparation for the attainment of true philosophic insight needs to be disassociated from the fantastic and the magical." And at the same Congress, the general president, Sir S. Radhakrishnan, did not hesitate to declare that "the Indian tradition gives the first place to the pursuit of philosophy."

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The path beyond yoga

#19680 – 11.16.2.231

BN – X – K1

If those who have hitherto given their faith and thought to the ordinary presentations of yoga will now give further faith and more thought to the higher teaching here offered, they need lose nothing of their earlier understanding but will rather amplify it. Nor is anyone being called upon to renounce meditation; those who criticize me for this are as mistaken as they are unjust. What is really being asked for is the purging of meditation, the putting aside as of secondary and temporary interest those phases of yoga experience which are not fundamental and universal. But meditation itself should and must continue, for without it the Ultimate can never be realized. Only let it be directed rightly. Hence the inferior yogas are not for a moment to be despised, but it should be recognized that they are only relative methods useful at a particular stage only. Thus they will take their place as fit means leading towards the ultramystic practices and not be confounded with them.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The path beyond yoga

#19681 – 11.16.2.232

BN – Z – K1

Mystical experience does not yield a cosmogony, hence does not tell us something new about the universe or about God's relation to the universe, even though it does tell us something gloriously new about ourselves—that is, about man. In such experience, it is not the universe that reveals the inner mysteries of its own nature, but man.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19701 – 11.16.2.252

BN – X – K1

He cannot obtain from ordinary mystical experience alone, precise information upon such matters as the universe's evolution, God's nature, or the history of man. This is because it really does lack an intellectual content. The only reliable increment of knowledge he can obtain from it is an answer to the question "What am I?"—an affirmation of the existence of man as divine soul apart from his existence as body. Apart from that his inner experience only improves the quality and increases the intensity of his life, does not constitute a way to new knowledge about what extends beyond it.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19702 – 11.16.2.253

BN – Z – K1

The mystic seeks to stifle all thinking activity by a deliberate effort of willpower and thus arrive at a sense of oneness with the inner being which lies behind it. When his practice of the exercise draws to a successful end, the object upon which he concentrates vanishes from his field of focus but attention remains firmly fixed and does not wander to anything else. The consequence is that his consciousness is centered and this is true whether he feels it to be withdrawn into a pin-point within his head, as results from the commoner methods, or bathed in a blissful spot within his heart, as results from other ones.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19703 – 11.16.2.254

BN – X – K1

From the point of view of yoga practice, the yogi gradually succeeds in bringing his field of awareness to a single centre, which is at first located in the head and later in the heart. This achievement is so unusual that he experiences great peace and exaltation as a result—something utterly different from his normal condition. For him this is the soul, the kingdom of heaven, the Overself. But from the point of view of the philosophy of Truth, any physical localization of the Overself is impossible, because space itself is entirely within the mind, and the mind is therefore beyond any limits of here and there, and the Overself and Pure Mind (unindividualized) holds all bodies within it without being touched by them.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19704 – 11.16.2.255

BN – X – K1

The quietistic condition got by ordinary yoga is got by withdrawing from the five senses. But the hidden prenatal thought tendencies which are the secret origin of these senses still remain, and the yogi has not withdrawn from them because his attention has been directed to vacating the body. Thus the trance-condition he attains is only a temporary, external inactivity of the senses. Their internal roots still abide within him as mental energies which have evolved since time immemorial. Without adequate insight into the true nature of sense operations, which are fundamentally exteriorizations of interior mental ones, the yogi has only deceived himself when he thinks he has conquered them.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19705 – 11.16.2.256

BN – Z – K1

The successful mystic certainly comes into contact with his real 'I.' But if this contact is dependent upon meditational trance, it is necessarily an intermittent one. He cannot obtain a permanent contact unless he proceeds further and widens his aspiration to achieve contact with the universal 'I.' There is therefore a difference between the interior 'I' and the universal 'I,' but it is a difference only of degree, not of kind, for the latter includes the former.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19706 – 11.16.2.257

UR_3.2 – Z – K1

Unless we also engage in the rooting out of the ego, which is called philosophy, we do not get the final and superior transcendental state.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19707E – 11.16.2.258

BSG_4 – ZZ – DEK

It would be a grave mistake to believe that the following of ascetic regimes and the stilling of wandering thoughts causes the higher consciousness to supervene. What they really do is to permit it to supervene. Desires and distraction are hindrances to its attainment and they merely remove the hindrances. This makes possible the recognition of what we really are beneath them. If however we do nothing more than this, which is called yoga, we get only an inferior attainment, often only a temporary one. For unless we also engage in the rooting out of the ego, which is called philosophy, we do not get the final and superior transcendental state.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19707 – 11.16.2.258

BN – ZZ – DK

It would be a grave mistake to believe that the following of ascetic regimes and the stilling of wandering thoughts causes the higher consciousness to supervene. What they really do is to permit it to supervene. Desires and distraction are hindrances to its attainment and they merely remove the hindrances. This makes possible the recognition of what we really are beneath them. If however we do nothing more than this, which is called yoga, we get only an inferior attainment, often only a temporary one. For unless we also engage in the rooting out of the ego, which is called philosophy, we do not get the final and superior transcendental state.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19707 – 11.16.2.258

BA11 – ZZ – DK1

Only knowledge of the truth and application of its understanding can end the bondage to ego where these tendencies of negative feelings lurk. Hence if the practice of contemplation is accompanied or followed or, although not usual, preceded by the path of knowledge, a real rooting-out of ego-bondage is possible. This alone leads to permanent reform of character and transformation of outlook. It is done by stages, or rather depths of insight, but the final one is quite abrupt.

The Sensitives > Phases of Mystical Development > The completion in knowledge

#19711E – 11.16.2.262

B_01 – ZZZ – K

At a time like the present when the world is passing though a critical phase of wholesale reconstruction, every opponent of reason and proponent of superstition is rendering a serious disservice to mankind.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The extremes of mysticism

#19759 – 11.16.3.47

BN – Z – DK1

If we try to compute the number of those who are not overawed by the prestige, the success, and the organization of a religion, sect, cult, or group, and who seek truth with a better measure than these things, we shall find only a small remnant is left out of all those who profess an interest in the things of spirit.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > Philosophy attracts the few

#19773 – 11.16.3.61

BN – ZZZ – K

Those who are making a determined search for truth fall into a very tiny segment of humanity. Most self-styled seekers are motivated by half-hidden desires for different kinds of ego satisfaction rather than the egoless truth.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > Philosophy attracts the few

#19774 – 11.16.3.62

B_05 – ZZZ – K

What they seldom see is that spiritual illumination and psychical error can and do exist in the same mind at the same time.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > Distinguishing the spiritual and psychic

#19789 – 11.16.3.77

BN – Z – K1

All occult and psychic powers are extensions either of man's human capacity or of his animal senses. They are still semi-materialistic, because connected with his ego or his body. All truly spiritual powers are on a far higher and quite different plane. They belong to his divine self.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > Distinguishing the spiritual and psychic

#19790 – 11.16.3.78

BN – X – K1

Much incorrect knowledge is today offered the seeker intent on an understanding of the psychic and spiritual laws of the Universe.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > Distinguishing the spiritual and psychic

#19793 – 11.16.3.81

B_05 – Z – K

We were not born to perform magical stunts, nor were we born to be able to remember past lives or to foretell the future. We were born for one thing only and that is to discover what we really are in our deepest, innermost being, not just the crest of it.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19801 – 11.16.3.89

BN – Z – D

Philosophy rejects such psychic, occult, mediumistic, or trance experiences when imagination runs unbraked into them, or emotion heaves hysterically in them. It is then time to stop the dangerous tendency by applying a firm will and cold reason. Philosophy welcomes only a single mystic experience—that of the Void (Nirvikalpa Samadhi), where every separate form and individual consciousness vanishes, whereas all other mystic experiences retain them. This is the difference.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19802 – 11.16.3.90

BN – X – K1

How simple is the path itself, how complex is the pseudo-path offered by occultism and exaggerated asceticism. "All that God asks of them," writes Thomas Merton, "is to be quiet and keep themselves at peace, attentive to the secret work that He is beginning in their souls."

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19805 – 11.16.3.93

BN – X – K1

Occult or spiritistic practices which have served their purpose in convincing their student that materialism is false, should be abandoned if he wishes to make the best use of his limited period on earth. When such a point has been reached, he should turn his thoughts in the direction of seeking the Overself alone, or his life-period will be wasted.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19817 – 11.16.3.105

BN – X – D

If philosophy denies the authenticity of many occult, psychical, and religio-mystical experiences, it does not have to deny that they did occur. That need not be in dispute. But the danger of taking fancy for reality and a way-station for the terminus is very easy to fall into and must be pointed out. "Beware them who perceive the deep reality", warned the Buddha in a statement which recalls for us the warning of Jesus about the straightness of the way to truth and that "Few there be that find it". The prudent seeker will be on his guard not to succumb to the temptation of dallying in ego-flattering thrills.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19818 – 11.16.3.106

B_11 – ZZ – K

The majority are seekers after occultism. They thirst for powers that will give them an advantage over others. They seek to inflate their egos whereas the true disciples seek to flatten it.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19824 – 11.16.3.112

B_05 – ZZ – K

Excessive addiction to supernormal mystic experiences or bizarre occult titillations leads to wrong views and draws the seeker to a wrong goal. The dignity of quiet philosophical study often appears to prove too frigid for those who revel in superstition and who seek the gaudy caricatures of truth rather than the austere Truth itself.

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19825 – 11.16.3.113

B_05 – ZZ – K

If anything can give sanity, it is the calm and balance of philosophy

The Sensitives > Philosophy, Mysticism, and The Occult > The lure of occultism

#19828E – 11.16.3.116

BN – Z – DEM

Under the magical glamour of these promised supernatural attainments, uncritical minds pursue the hope of evading the restrictions which life's tough realities place on them. When they fail, as fail they must, they do not put the blame upon their own fantastic beliefs, but try a different angle of approach by following a different cult.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The wanderers

#19869 – 11.16.4.36

BN – Z – K

Up to a certain level, this gleaning of knowledge from diverse and various sources enriches man but beyond that level it confuses and thus weakens him.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The wanderers

#19879 – 11.16.4.46

BA11 – ZZ – DK

Many beginners are not really on this Quest of the Overself at all, although they tell themselves and others that they are. Their quest is for a group to which they can belong—an organization they can join or a sect with which they can affiliate.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The innocents

#19897 – 11.16.4.64

BSG_5 – P – D

The wise aspirant will not hanker after manifestations of the marvellous. He wants the highest life has to offer, and he knows that nothing could be more marvellous than the realization of God as his own self.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The dreamers

#19935 – 11.16.4.102

BN – X – D

If these studies attract genuine seekers after truth, they also attract foolish seekers after sensational thrills and freakish seekers after weird eccentricity.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The dreamers

#19952 – 11.16.4.119

B_05 – Z – K

The lunatic fringe surround the halls and vestibules of mysticism, the incorrigible cranks infest its ascetic disciplines and physical regimes. The morons are there, too, gullibly swallowing every tale and addicted to every superstition, and unaffected by logic, science, common sense, practicality, or facts. But the account is not finished with them: there are the sensible, the educated, and the thoughtful, the genuine seekers after truth or peace.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The unbalanced

#19995 – 11.16.4.162

B_05 – ZZ – K

If materialism is to be displaced by mysticism, and if every fantastic doctrine is to be labelled and accepted as mysticism and any crackpot who claims them is to receive mystical honours, then the so-called advance will really be a retrogression. Those who accept enthusiastically any doctrine merely because it is unorthodox are not truth-seekers. They are eccentrics. And those who follow any guide merely because he wears a turban are also not truth-seekers. They are exotics. The first group may be victimized by crackpots, the second by charlatans.

The Sensitives > Those Who Seek > The unbalanced

#20002 – 11.16.4.169

B_05 – ZZ – K

There is not a little sham mysticism, specious religion, and false philosophy in these days. This is why seekers must approach such topics warily.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > The prevalence of charlatans

#20027 – 11.16.5.1

B_05 – ZZ – K

The sources of spiritual help are many, but of reliable help, few. Superstition, self-aggrandizement, or semi-charlatanry taints much of what is offered to the public.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > The prevalence of charlatans

#20030 – 11.16.5.4

B_01 – Z – K

All religious occupations lend themselves to hypocrisy, and this is no exception. The twentieth-century mystics are often pious impostors, playing upon the credulity of their ignorant following. There exists among them a solid, saving remnant of noble men who are making arduous and genuine efforts to attain the superhuman wisdom which mysticism promises to devotees.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > The prevalence of charlatans

#20041 – 11.16.5.15

BN – Z – K1

Just as the true teacher will widen the circle of a student's mental contacts, so the false one will plunge him in intellectual isolation, will keep him wholly under his own influence and prevent the enrichment of ideas and expansion of outlook necessary to his progress.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > Domination and narrowness

#20074 – 11.16.5.48

B_07 – Z – K

False guides put the seeker's mind into handcuffs whereas true guides free him.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > Domination and narrowness

#20079 – 11.16.5.53

B_07 – ZZ – K

The Quest is so much an individual affair that although all questers must arrive at the same destination, each will do so by his own separate way, by his own special experiences. Any spiritual guide who ignores this fact merely tries to make his disciples mere copies of himself. This cannot possibly happen although both may exhaust themselves in the attempt. There are no two things, no two creatures, and no two quests identically alike anywhere in Nature.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > Domination and narrowness

#20085 – 11.16.5.59

B_06 – ZZ – K

It is sometimes needful to remind those who emotionally exaggerate the office and service, the power and knowledge of their master and display this trait in their relationship with him, of Jesus' words: "It is good for you that I go away", and also of Ramana Maharshi's words to Swami Dandapani when he was expelled by the ashram: "This is the best thing to have happened for you now".

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > Domination and narrowness

#20096 – 11.16.5.70

B_11 – Z – K

How many contemporary mystics have gained from all their work in meditation nothing but illusion, self-aggrandizement, or giddy hallucination? One claiming communication every day with the Buddha drips nonsense, propagates fear, and repeats the profound metaphysic read in Buddhist books; another while professing to be Jesus reincarnated and announcing his own Messiahship makes extensive financial demands on his disciples every year.

The Sensitives > Pseudo and Imperfect Teachers > Incomplete teachers

#20119 – 11.16.5.93

B_01 – Z – K

When all men are holy in the divine sight, why proclaim a few only and set them apart from others?

The Sensitives > Delusions and Painful Awakenings > The illusion of perfection

#20175 – 11.16.6.12

BN – Z – K

It is wiser to keep attention upon the teaching and not upon the teacher's personality.

The Sensitives > Delusions and Painful Awakenings > The illusion of perfection

#20193 – 11.16.6.30

B_02 – Z – K

Worse than failing to comprehend the truth is thinking that you comprehend it. It is harder to climb out of the pit of error than out of the pit of 'illusion'.

The Sensitives > Delusions and Painful Awakenings > Superstition, imagination, and self-deception

#20212 – 11.16.6.49

BN – X – K

There are three well-defined stages in the master-disciple relationship. In the first one the master is enthusiastically loved and exaggeratedly appreciated. In the second there is revulsion of feeling against him; he is depreciated, criticized, and finally rejected. In the last stage the disciple either attaches himself to another master and repeats the entire situation or decides to walk alone without any master at all and take care of his own further development.

The Sensitives > Delusions and Painful Awakenings > Penalties of delusion

#20245 – 11.16.6.82

B_07 – Z – K

We would all like to learn quick ways of achieving Nirvana; we would all like to realize the Overself overnight. Spiritual teachers are often asked for some magical formula whose use would turn man into Overman.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Dangers of dependence

#20287 – 11.16.7.1

BN – X – D

Whoever seeks this intimate awareness of the Overself-presence does not need to seek anywhere outside his own heart and mind, does not really need to go to any distant land nor try to find some other person to become his "Master." Yet such is the power of suggestion that because he hears or reads that the one or the other is an essential prerequisite, he fills himself with unnecessary anxieties, frustrated yearning, or futile speculations as a result.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Independence

#20306 – 11.16.7.20

BN – X – DEK

There is no substitute for personal effort, no gratuitous presentation of the divine consciousness by a master, no escape from the hard necessity of unfaltering practice of the exercises, no way of being absolved from the need of patience.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be responsible

#20328 – 11.16.7.42

BA12 – ZZ – DK

Since all things have come out of the primal Source, all that I really need can directly come out of it to me if I put myself in perfect harmony with the Source and stay therein. This is the truth behind the fallacy of these cults. For to put myself into such harmony, it is not enough to pronounce the words, or to hold the thought, or to visualize the things themselves. More than this must be done—no less a thing than all that labour of overcoming the ego which is comprised in the Quest. How many of the followers of the cults have even understood that, and all its implications in connection with their desires? How many of them have tried to overcome the ego? If they have not succeeded in understanding and complying with the divine law governing this matter, why should the divine power be at their beck and call to bring what they want? If they have not sought and largely attained that mastery of the animal propensities and that deep concentration in the centre of consciousness which the Quest seeks, is it not impertinent to expect to reach that power with their voice?

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be responsible

#20329 – 11.16.7.43

BN – Z – K1

Even in the case of those who take the guidance of a guru, it should not be forgotten that if development advances sufficiently the pupil must start somewhere to be his own teacher, must start looking for, and finding, the inner guru—his own soul. A sincere competent guru would demand this.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be responsible

#20339 – 11.16.7.53

BN – X – D

The service of a guide is helpful to beginners to direct their way, to point out where it lies, and—if the guide is inspired, if the students are sufficiently receptive, if their personal karma is favourable, and if the World-Mind uses the guide for the purpose—to give them the important experience of a Glimpse. Beyond this the guide cannot go, despite all the gross exaggerations which surround this subject in most Oriental circles and which, if believed and followed, actually keep aspirants back from making real rather than fictitious advance. They themselves 'must' do the travelling.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be responsible

#20341 – 11.16.7.55

BN – Z – K

The labour of discovering and realizing the soul is something no other person can vicariously take over from you. You alone must do it because it is precisely through such labour that you can grow into soul-consciousness.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be responsible

#20346 – 11.16.7.60

BN – X – D

The seeker should beware of cults masking their commercialistic motive under the guise of an earnest purpose.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Use your judgement

#20353 – 11.16.7.67

B_05 – Z – K

The prudent seeker will not be swept off his feet by the impressive but theatrical appearance of a proclaimed master, nor stupefied by the grandiose claims, titles, organization, and theories which accompany the proclamation.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Use your judgement

#20368 – 11.16.7.82

B_05 – Z – K

They need philosophy not only to lead them to truth but also to protect them from the fools and frauds, the hallucinated teachers and mercenary guides who infest the approaches to it.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Use your judgement

#20375 – 11.16.7.89

B_01 – ZZ – K

The attitude towards cultism should be precisely the same as that towards all other religions with organized institutions. One may learn what they have to offer without joining them. It is needful to use one’s critical judgement and try to see clearly their limitations, deficiencies, and weaknesses along with their truths and services.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Use your judgement

#20384 – 11.16.7.98

BN – Z – DK

If the personality has been unevenly developed, if its forces have not been properly harmonized with each other and defects remain in thinking, feeling, and willing, then at the threshold of illumination these defects will become magnified and overstimulated by the upwelling soul power and lead to adverse psychical results.

The Sensitives > The Path of Individuality > Be discriminating

#20398 – 11.16.7.112

BN – Z – DK1

The New Thought or Christian Science claims, where correct, are true only of the adept, for he alone has fully aligned himself with the Spirit.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20420 – 11.16.8.5

BN – X – K1

Theosophy is often helpful in serving as a means of information to some seekers of Spiritual Truth. But it also contains elements which can lead them woefully astray.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20423 – 11.16.8.8

B_05 – Z – K

Although we have ventured to disagree with Christian Science on a number of points, we recognize the valuable truths it certainly contains. Our criticisms do not despoil its genuine merits, and there are many—enough to overbalance the account in its favour. Despite all difference of view, it is propagating the foundational doctrine of mentalism in the world of theory, as it is inculcating the casting out of negatives in the world of thinking.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20441 – 11.16.8.26

BN – X – K

New Thought would be better titled Muddled Thought. It is an amazing amalgam of the divinest truths with the stupidest errors. People can often see the golden reef in it and then proceed towards the unwarrantable conclusion that it is ALL gold. It is not. A mixture of right and wrong has never yet produced all right, nor can it.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20445 – 11.16.8.30

BN – Z – K

The great error of all these worldly-happiness Spiritual teachings like New Thought, Unity, Christian Science, and especially Dr. Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking" is that they have no place for pain, sorrow, adversity, and misfortune in their idea of God's world. They are utterly ignorant of the tremendous truth, voiced by every great prophet, that by divine decree the human lot mixes good and bad fortune, health, events, situations, and conditions; that suffering has been incorporated into the scheme of things to prevent man from becoming fully satisfied with a sensual existence. They demand only the pleasant side of experience. If this demand were granted, they would be deprived of the chance to learn all those valuable and necessary lessons which the unpleasant side affords and thus deprived of the chance ever to attain a full knowledge of spiritual truth.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20452E – 11.16.8.37

B_17 – ZEL1/2 – K1

It is the ego which is the real source of such a limited teaching [like New Thought, Unity, Christian Science, and especially Dr. Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking"]. Its desire to indulge itself rather than surrender itself is at the bottom of the appeal which these cults have for their unwary followers. These cults keep the aspirant tied captive within his personal ego, limit him to its desires. Of course, the ego in this case is disguised under a mask of spirituality.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20452E – 11.16.8.37

B_17 – ZEL2/2 – K1

The fallacies of Christian Science arise not only from its ignorance of the law of karma but also from its ignorance of the law of opposites. Every kind of experience in this space-time world is conditioned by its opposite kind. Thus light appears to us only because darkness also appears. We can call some things large only because we are able to call others small. We are accessible to joy only because we are also accessible to misery. We live only because we die. Consequently, in claiming the right and power of mankind to physical immortality, unbroken prosperity, and continuous good health, in wanting pleasure without the pain which it rests upon, Christian Science claims what is contrary to universal law; and when it believes it has succeeded in making a demonstration of truth, it has merely succeeded in making a demonstration of self-delusion.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20453 – 11.16.8.38

BN – Z – K

Those cults which remove suffering from their conception of human life and believe that the latter could and should consist solely of health, wealth, success, and joy are the fruits partly of wishful thinking and partly of misapplied intuition. They ascribe to Deity what are merely the desires of humanity. They accept what they wish to be true, and reject what is unpleasant if true.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20473 – 11.16.8.58

B_17 – ZZ – K

Their total optimism is immune to the shocks and disturbances, the thrusts and disappointments of experience. It sees only what it wants to see: not the world in which it actually has to live, but the one in which it would like to live. The lessons of suffering are not assimilated; each adverse experience leaves them exactly where it found them.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20478 – 11.16.8.63

B_17 – ZZ – K

To drug the mind with the idea that pain, poverty, suffering, and sickness do not exist because, finding them unpleasant, we do not want them to exist, is not a heroic act nor even so spiritual as it seems. Behind it lies physical fear and prompting it is personal desire.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > Virtues and faults

#20484 – 11.16.8.69

B_17 – ZZ – K

"New Thought" is not philosophical thought. The difference between the "Dollars want me" attitude and the "My future is with the Overself" attitude is the difference between the retention and the surrender of the ego.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > The hidden materialism

#20495 – 11.16.8.80

BN – Z – K

Joel Goldsmith's assertion that "God is supply" is true enough, but to leave it stated as simply as that is likely to mislead its believers. For "God is also lack." He takes away as well as gives, according to each person's particular karma and higher needs.

The Sensitives > Christian Science, Other Spiritual Movements > The hidden materialism

#20496 – 11.16.8.81

BN – Z – K

The sect which believes that only to itself has God spoken has never really heard Him. All these inexplicable miracle stories which gather around the life of every renowned saint must not be swallowed uncritically. In the Orient, the simple common people, the devout and the mystical, have usually failed to distinguish legend from history, observation from imagination. Let us not believe that by encouraging superstition we encourage spirituality. We must discard the one in order to find the other. We must differentiate between the noble disinterested efforts of the prophet and the ecclesiastical systems men set up in his name after he has passed away.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Conflicting tenets, contradictory 'revelations'

#20537 – 11.16.9.28

BN – Z – K

In one and the same day I was asked to comment upon two utterly opposed doctrines by two truth-seekers unknown to each other. Yet both doctrines were put forward as tested truths by mystical teachers with considerable public followings. One asserted that the closer a disciple came to spiritual self-realization the more was he provided by the Spirit with material satisfactions. The other claimed that the advancing disciple was provided with so many sufferings as to be utterly crucified. The earnest student whose reading brings him up against them is bewildered by such contradictions. He may end his bewilderment if he will accept the assurance of philosophy that neither assertion is accurate.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Conflicting tenets, contradictory 'revelations'

#20543 – 11.16.9.34

B_03 – Z – K

No matter how he try, the mystic will not be able to express his inspiration on a higher intellectual level than the one on which he habitually finds himself. This has been plain enough in the past when over-ambitious attempts have brought ridicule to an otherwise inspired message. This is why the best prophet to reach the educated classes is an educated man who possesses the proper mental equipment to do it, and why uneducated masses are best reached by one of themselves. What is communicated—and even the very language in which this is done—always indicates on what levels of human intellect, character, and experience the mystic dwells, as it also indicates what level of mystical consciousness he has succeeded in touching.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Interpreting mystical experience

#20563 – 11.16.9.54

BN – Z – K1

It needs again and again to be explained that after the Overself takes possession of a man's consciousness and begins to rule his will, it can take possession only of what it finds in his whole personality. If, for example, it finds an undeveloped reasoning power it cannot and does not suddenly develop it for him. Its communications to and through him will be perfect but their interpretation in his own mind and expression to others may, because of this imperfect reasoning capacity, be partly right and partly wrong.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Interpreting mystical experience

#20565 – 11.16.9.56

BN – X – DEK

Just as a stained-glass window colours every ray of light which enters a church through it, so an egoistic mentality imposes its own conceptions on the spiritual truths which enter a man through it.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Admixture of ego

#20589 – 11.16.9.80

BN – ZZ – K

The intrusion of the thinking intellect or the egoistic emotion into the intuitive experience presents a danger for all mystics. And it is a danger that constantly remains for the more advanced as for the mere neophyte, although in a different way. It is the source of flattering illusions which offer themselves as authentic infallible intuitions. It crowns commonplace ideas which happen to enter the mind with a regality that does not belong to them. The prudent mystic must be on his guard against and watch out for this peril. He must resist its appeals to vanity, its destruction of truth.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Admixture of ego

#20598 – 11.16.9.89

BN – Z – K1

Even where sensitivity of telepathic reception has been developed, the ego still cunningly interferes with accurate reception. It will take the current of inspiration from the master and, by adding what was never contained in it, give a highly personal, vanity-flattering colour to it. It will take the message of guidance from the higher self and, by twisting it to conform to the shape of personal desire, render it misleading. It will take a psychical or intuitive reading of a situation and, in its eager seeking of wish-fulfilment, confuse the reading and delude itself. It may even, by introducing very strong emotional complexes, create absolutely false suggestions and suppose them to be emanating from the master or the higher self.

The Sensitives > Inspiration and Confusion > Admixture of ego

#20604 – 11.16.9.95

BN – X – K1

Do not get locked up in a particular sect and exclude all others from it in your mind. This too is a form of attachment and life today is teaching most people the futility of such attachments. Look what is happening to the Roman Catholic and to other churches! See how the idea of ecumenism among them has taken on. See what happened to the Theosophical Society, which started out to find the truth in all religions by being unsectarian, but has ended up becoming another sect itself by establishing centres, lodges, branches, headquarters.

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Limitations of dogma

#20628 – 11.16.10.14

BN – Z – K

Too much self-satisfaction, too little acquaintance with the world's great thinkers, seers, and sages—this ignorance enables too many cults and sects to thrive.

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Limitations of dogma

#20654 – 11.16.10.40

B_01 – ZZ – K

Beware of cults and their exaggerated claims. The IS is not an ISM.

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Misuse of mystery

#20689 – 11.16.10.75

BN – X – K1

We could not fail to behold that the abysmal depth of these cult-leaders' failure is in direct ratio to the preposterous height of their extravagant claims to wisdom and power. Of what outstanding value have they been to their fellow men and women? We are entitled to ask for the visible fruits of all this verbal commotion and general mystery-mongering. What proof have they given that there is anything substantial behind their claims? They can show no practical achievement or productive effort that has made a deep mark in any sphere of contemporary history or even revealed that they possess any capacity to make it. They have not brought to the concrete problems which confront mankind any better counsel than the non-illuminati have brought—unless the utterance of abstract nouns be such. The final demonstration of their futility is given by the personal failures of their followers in consequence of such unprofitable influence and hollow teaching.

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Misuse of mystery

#20691 – 11.16.10.77

BN – ZEL1/2 – K

The personal lives of a large proportion of these believers are stamped with frustration and failure, as the public lives of their leaders are stamped with utter inability to accomplish any marked positive benefit for mankind. It is as comical as it is tragical to contemplate how ineffectively they drift through the years as mere dreamers lacking power but ever talking of it. Even when their miseries and sufferings impel them eventually to some reflection, they apportion the blame everywhere except in the right place. It is God's will, or adverse stars, or evil spirits, or unavoidable karma, or a spiritual test, but it is never the harvest of the gullibility which they have sown, of the intellectual exaggerations to which they have yielded, of the one-sided, unbalanced, and negligent view of life which they have been taught, nor of the self-deception which permits them to take so many illusions for realities.

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Misuse of mystery

#20691 – 11.16.10.77

BN – ZEL2/2 – K

All these cults cunningly appeal to the ego in man, however much or often they cull New Testament texts or quote Christ or affirm lofty metaphysical truths of being. Their primary desire is a materialistic one, but it is mixed with such a thick serving of spiritual principles and quotations from Jesus that the cult is able to deceive itself into saying that it is a religion!

The Sensitives > The Is Is Not an Ism > Misuse of mystery

#20704 – 11.16.10.90

A241224 – ZZ – K

Those very features of the sect and characteristics of its leader which create doubt and scepticism in rational minds, only increase the enthusiasm and fanaticism of credulous ones.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Fanaticism

#20738 – 11.16.11.16

BN – Z – K

Too often sects breed tyranny, uncharitableness, and fanaticism. They shut out the freedom which permits spiritual adventure and hence true spiritual seeking.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Fanaticism

#20741 – 11.16.11.19

B_01 – ZZ – K

Within these groups, schisms and rivalries, sectarianism, jealousies, controversies over the interpretation of the Leader's words appear just as they do in worldly organizations.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Fanaticism

#20751 – 11.16.11.29

BN – Z – K

These small religio-mystical or occultist sects are as notorious as the large and old religions for splitting into opposing factions and suffering internal feuds. The troubles are sometimes personal, sometimes ideological, more often the two together.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Fanaticism

#20752 – 11.16.11.30

BN – Z – K

During a long life I have observed many gurus and their followers in both East and West, many teachings and movements in religious, occult, mystical, metaphysical, spiritistic, and allied areas. And though there certainly are pearls of truth, there is also more lunacy than is recognized. In literary, poetic, and art circles the situation is the same. Several figures hailed as brilliant geniuses in the spiritual and cultural areas are in fact brilliant semi-lunatics. Their followers who are attracted to or try to copy them lose more and more sanity. This is why I have put forward so prominently the quality of balance, its importance to all alike, both teachers and taught. Give all things their just weight; put them in their proper place. In the figure of Libra, the scales are very evenly held so that justice may be done—that is, the truth may be found.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20757 – 11.16.11.35

BN – Z – K

There is a sect of hippies in California who call themselves the Crackpots of Christ. The leader is a young man who travels throughout the country on a motorcycle and his name is Arthur Blessit, obviously an assumed name. They publish a journal called the "free journal of Hollywood." What is interesting about them, apart from the fact that most of them were formerly drug-takers and have been freed from this habit by Blessit, is their communal prayer. This is done by raising their arms towards the sky out in the open, closing their eyes, and then beginning to hum all together. This hum gets slightly stronger and stronger until in the end it becomes a thundering cry. No word is actually uttered. How shall we interpret this prayer? Is it the anguished cry of the soul towards God?

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20759 – 11.16.11.37

BN – Z – K

The maniacal occurrences at these Subud meetings do not indicate the presence of God but rather the reverse. Such manifestations are not new in religious history. Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, and Muhammedan sects have displayed them, shrieking, shouting, singing, crying, yelling like animals, swaying, leaping, crawling, dancing. The delirium of madness is not spirituality.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20760 – 11.16.11.38

BN – Z – K

There are insane leaders who form insane cults and gather unbalanced fanatics around them. The heads of the followers are constantly filled with mad dreams until there is little room left for the real facts of this world and less for those of the authentic spiritual world. The cheating, the betrayal, and the disappointment of these foolish people is inexorable but they may refuse to acknowledge the futility of their dreams and may resist disillusionment to the end.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20762 – 11.16.11.40

B_01 – ZZ – K

They get swept into the current of imagination which flows through the master's mind, and are thus led to share his hallucinations.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20763 – 11.16.11.41

BN – Z – K

The insane man's mind tells him that he is Napoleon. The deluded mystic's mind tells him that he is a master. The initial lie, once accepted, leads logically to the final delusion. This is why they are wrong who assert that one mystical school, belief, practice, or teacher is as good as any other for the beginner, so long as he gets started. It is a fact that men who live in mad fantasy or wild imagination, and whose teaching emanates from the same disordered source, can soon collect a following if they mutter the magic words "Indian yoga" or "Tibetan masters."

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20764 – 11.16.11.42

BN – Z – K

It is an unpleasant fact, yet one too serious to ignore, that quite a number of cults and teachers lead their naïve followers, not gloriously to spiritual reality, but unfortunately to spiritual lunacy. By the initial act of adherence to the cult or pupilship with the teacher, these followers make their own subsequent karma and fall more and more from the path of sanity each year. In their defense let it be said that their intentions were mostly good, but good intention is not always a sufficient virtue in life, especially in connection with spiritual seeking.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20765 – 11.16.11.43

BN – Z – K

What I have seen in these circles convinces me that a mild insanity pervades many of them, from much reputed gurus to just beginning disciples. It was a man of the sharpest intelligence, of the acutest psychological insight, who first pointed out this fact to me. V. Subramanya Iyer illustrated his thesis again and again during our textual explorations and personal excursions in India itself, but it was found still valid when I continued the investigation in Europe and America.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20769 – 11.16.11.47

BN – Z – K

Those who found their manna in a robot-like personal relationship with Gurdjieff, so that they never awoke to the facts, got what they deserved. But they were to be pitied for grovelling at the feet of a somewhat boorish half-lunatic, a heartless exploiter of trusting women and men, a man who thrived on mystery-mongering.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20771 – 11.16.11.49

BN – Z – K

There is one important quality that seems to be missing from the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky training, and that is the heart element of love.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20773 – 11.16.11.51

BN – Z – K

Rosicrucians seemed to have taken the greatest pains to keep their teachings secret, and themselves in the background, but these American Rosicrucians offer to send you their sublime philosophy through the posts, while they take care to keep themselves in the foreground by plentiful use of the arts of publicity.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20774 – 11.16.11.52

BN – Z – K

If a crazy person declares that he is Napoleon, it may not be long before he finds himself in the confinement of a lunatic asylum; but if someone equally crazy declares that he is God, it will not be long before a worshipful following collects around him.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Deluded guides, gullible followers

#20779 – 11.16.11.57

BN – ZZ – K

Those who seek for gain financially and notoriety personally are one kind, those who seek to hide their unethical acts behind occult secrecy are another kind. But all the different kinds share one thing in common—they are animated by, serve, and worship their own ego.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20787 – 11.16.11.65

BN – Z – K

In the hands of cheap imitators exploiting the grand tradition of Asiatic wisdom, truth has become a cover for personal ambition and financial exploitation. They are as much under the influence of worldly motives as those whom they denounce. They proffer sanctimonious precepts to living worldlings, for the benefit of others, drawn from the code of defunct saints.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20788 – 11.16.11.66

BN – Z – K

The cults which hold out a bait of teaching followers how to achieve prosperity in their financial affairs and how to bring therapy to their bodily ailments need careful scrutiny.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20791 – 11.16.11.69

BN – Z – K

When the relation between a spiritual guide and an aspiring seeker is one of greed, no truth can pass from one to the other, only the illusion of it.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20797 – 11.16.11.75

B_07 – Z – K

To be poor in spirit, in Christ's sense, is exactly the same as to die to self. More plainly, it is to achieve a total detachment from all things. How remote from truth, then, are all those who seek to turn the kingdom of heaven into a convenience for acquiring worldly goods!

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20803 – 11.16.11.81

BN – Z – K

All these cults cunningly appeal to the ego in man, however much or often they cull New Testament texts or quote Christ or affirm lofty metaphysical truths of being. Their primary desire is a materialistic one, but it is mixed with such a thick serving of spiritual principles and quotations from Jesus that the cult is able to deceive itself into saying that it is a religion!

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Money

#20808 – 11.16.11.86

A241224 – ZZ – K

When spirituality turns professional, when it begins to wear special clothes, possess particular titles, advertise its presence in certain men, it begins to become an artificial pretentious thing. It is no longer its pure self but an adulteration of itself, no longer spontaneous and natural but forced and self-conscious.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > The abuse of power

#20810 – 11.16.11.88

BN – ZZ – K

Before they can make fools of their followers, they have first to be foolish themselves. This is obvious enough in the case of those whose disordered brains breed wild fancies, but not in the case of those whose crafty self-seeking shows active intellect. Here the foolishness is moral, for the practice of such evil breeds a dark karma.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > The abuse of power

#20811 – 11.16.11.89

BN – Z – K

The yogi who sits so solemnly or squats so obediently may think himself more spiritual than the artist who does neither. But this sort of professional spirituality can easily become artificial and self-deceptive.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > The abuse of power

#20822 – 11.16.11.100

BN – Z – K

They have lost control of their animal self and indulge in sordid amours and squalid dissipations miscalled "adventures," "being oneself," or "living one's own life."

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > The abuse of power

#20823 – 11.16.11.101

BN – ZZ – K

Success in meditation is most often hard and slow to achieve; patience, and more patience, is needed. So the drug offer of instant escape from this world of time, care, toil, problem, and suffering makes a better appeal to the ill-informed.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Drugs

#20830 – 11.16.11.111

BN – ZZ – K

The heavenly conditions given by drugs are hallucinatory ones. They soon pass and have to be sought again until addiction to the drug is established, and with it all its harms and dangers to one's character and fortune. There is however another way, a natural way, to find this heavenly condition and not an artificial one like the drug way. That other way can be found through philosophy.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Drugs

#20832 – 11.16.11.113

BN – Z – K

These drugs—the bhang of India, the hashish of the Near East, the LSD of America—make it more difficult to find truth, not easier as addicts claim.

The Sensitives > Fanaticism, Money, Powers, Drugs > Drugs

#20840 – 11.16.11.118

BN – Z – K

All occult experiences and spirit visions are mental, and not spiritual, in the sense that the mind has various latent powers which pertain to the ego, not Overself. The question which is real can be answered differently according to standpoint. He need not trouble about the occult side, which would be a degeneration for him. His chief aim must be to realize pure B-e-i-n-g, not to see or experience anything outside it. Only after this has been done is it safe or wise to concern himself with anything occult.

The Sensitives > The Intermediate Zone > The Intermediate Zone

#20885 – 11.16.12.4

BN – Z – K1

It is true that to analyse with scientific detachment these most intimate and precious experiences, visions, and messages could if imprudently done easily destroy their value or prevent their recurrence. Yet this is precisely what he has to do if he is to protect himself against illusions.

The Sensitives > The Intermediate Zone > Danger signals, protective measures

#20921 – 11.16.12.40

BN – X – K1

He must learn to discriminate between what is genuine and what is false, what is good and what is evil, if he is to pick his way through this deceitful region.

The Sensitives > The Intermediate Zone > Danger signals, protective measures

#20922 – 11.16.12.41

BN – Z – K

If he can catch any of these psychic manifestations at the very moment when they begin, that is the best time to prevent their arisal altogether, for then they are at their weakest. That is the proper time to nip them in the bud.

The Sensitives > The Intermediate Zone > Danger signals, protective measures

#20923 – 11.16.12.42

BN – X – K1

The first reason for the warning not to pursue occult powers is that pursuing them is a sure way to prevent the soul’s self-revelation. For the soul cannot be found unless its Grace has been granted. And it will not grant its Grace unless sought in all purity for its own sake. Hence the aspirant has to choose between it and occultism.

The Sensitives > The Occult > A choice of directions

#20941 – 11.16.13.1

BN – X – DK

The spiritual seeker who is under the impression that he must enter upon a course of occult experiences is utterly mistaken. Instead of being beneficial, such practices can, and often do, lead to serious unbalance, insanity, and dangerous and frightening occurrences.

The Sensitives > The Occult > A choice of directions

#20947 – 11.16.13.7

B_05 – Z – K

The misuse of any occult power will effectively seal him in the ego and prevent union with the Overself.

The Sensitives > The Occult > A choice of directions

#20949 – 11.16.13.9

BN – X – D

The genuine truth-seeker tries to keep out self-delusion in all its forms. He knows that the road is beset with it, that he must be watchful, and that the warning counsel of those who are farther on the way must be heeded.

The Sensitives > The Occult > A choice of directions

#20964 – 11.16.13.24

B_05 – ZZ – K

If he is not careful, critical, balanced, sensible, and self-disciplined, the eager seeker may find after many years that he has simply been moving around the labyrinth of occultism to his own confusion in the end.

The Sensitives > The Occult > A choice of directions

#20966 – 11.16.13.26

B_05 – Z – K

Beware of pseudo-spiritual people. They are pests. Avoid meeting them; avoid talking to them. It would be far better for them to become out-and-out materialists than to go on deceiving either themselves or others with their wordy but fake spirituality. Under this heading I include also the spiritualists, the occultists, and the "mental science" demonstrators. These people move through a fog of fake uplift. It is useless to try to give these people that which they are neither seeking nor asking for. They are not interested in finding REALITY but only its reflections and shadows. Hence, they have to be shown cosmologies, planes, occult powers, and miracles of magic. To teach Truth to such people when one is not asked for it is to commit an error with results that will act as a scourge to oneself. They themselves are always ready to teach anybody at any moment. We must be far wiser. We shall teach only when asked, only when we understand that it will do some real good, and even then only so much will be revealed as the querent is fit to take in.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Occultists and psychics

#20984E – 11.16.13.44

BN – ZZ – K

Edgar Cayce was not a mystic, he was a psychic. Although he brought much knowledge of a curious or interesting kind from his psychic experiences, it would be an error to regard them all as reliable, for most psychics can be misled.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Occultists and psychics

#20986 – 11.16.13.46

BN – X – K1

Tantrika Yoga: Its methods are physical, ceremonial, sensual, and dangerous; its aims are the arousal of sleeping occult strength. In its highest phase, where the motive is pure and egoless, it is an attempt to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. But few men have such an exalted motive, as few are pure enough to dabble in such dangerous practices. Consequently, it need hardly be said that in most cases this road easily leads straight down to the abyss of black magic. This indeed is what has happened in its own history in Bengal and Tibet.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Occult practices

#21010 – 11.16.13.70

BN – X – K1

Nowhere in history have sorcery and magic demonstrated that they are utterly and always reliable means of dealing with distressful personal conditions. We feel the need of tested procedures which have yielded more satisfactory results, which means that we feel the need of rational understanding and rational techniques of dealing with those problems.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Occult practices

#21016 – 11.16.13.76

B_02 – Z – K

Beware of those gatherings where blind movements of head, limbs, and trunk sway the crowd, where strange voices are heard and uncontrolled feelings are let loose. There is nothing holy there; on the contrary, evil forces should be suspected.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Occult practices

#21020 – 11.16.13.80

B_16 – Z – K

There are fourteen signs of the mediumistic condition. The medium suffers from: (1) loss of memory, (2) inability to keep mind on conversation, (3) frequent mental introversion, (4) decreasing power of prolonged concentration, study, thought, analysis, and intellectual work, (5) increasing emotionality, (6) weakened willpower, (7) greater sensitivity to trifles, with nervous irritability and silly vanity resulting therefrom, (8) more suspicions of others in his environment, (9) more self-centered and egotistic, (10) frequent glassy stare of the eyes, (11) increased sexual passion, (12) appearance of hysteria or uncontrollable temper where previously absent, (13) disappearance of moral courage, (14) the feeling at times that some unseen entity takes possession of him.

The Sensitives > The Occult > Mediumship, channeling

#21051 – 11.16.13.111

BN – X – K1

The only elementals are vivified thought-forms. If they are evil and attack you, oppose them with thoughts of an opposite character. If your thoughts are strong enough and sustained enough, the elementals will eventually vanish.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Psychic sensitivity, personal sensitivity

#21106 – 11.16.14.16

BN – X – K1

The more developed a man is, in intelligence character and spiritual consciousness, the larger is the auric field around him.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Psychic sensitivity, personal sensitivity

#21112 – 11.16.14.22

BN – X – D

As he progresses on the path he must be careful of his personal contacts. He becomes increasingly sensitive to other persons' auras and thoughts. He should, for instance, refrain from associating with anyone who is a failure, as not only will this affect his own attitude, but he will tend to pick up something of the other's bad karma and defective mental tendencies.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Psychic sensitivity, personal sensitivity

#21128 – 11.16.14.38

BN – ZZ – K

It is a strange fact to which science as well as philosophy, experience as well as intuition, can testify, that thought from one mind can be brought into another mind, that the feeling of one man may affect the feeling of another without the use of written message or spoken word. If there were no common mind among all men, this could never happen, could never have been possible. If they were not all rooted in a universal consciousness, however secret and hidden it be, such silent transmission between their individual consciousnesses could never have been possible.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Telepathy, mental influences

#21147 – 11.16.14.57

BN – X – D

It is only after the mystic has felt human desires and known human joys, come up against intellectual limitations, suffered worldly disappointments, that he can evaluate. If he has not had sufficient experience of common life, he may not adequately assess the values indicated by mystical intuitions nor properly understand the meaning of his mystical experiences themselves. Thus, what he gets out of both depends to some extent on what he brings to them. If he brings too little or too lopsided a contribution, then his higher self will gradually lead him to seek development along the lines of deficiency. And to compel him to make the diversion when he fails to respond to the inner leading, it will throw the terrible gloom of the dark night over him for a time.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21176 – 11.16.14.86

BN – ZZ – K1

The best practical advice to beginners, and even to many who think they are proficients, is a warning. However solemn the message seems to be, however inspired the accompanying state of mind apparently is, do not automatically and unquestioningly believe that the Lord is speaking to them. If they object that surely at such a time as sacred prayer or uplifting meditation the Lord would not let them be deceived by evil forces, the answer is that the question is wrongly put. It is they, and not necessarily the evil forces, who deceive themselves.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21188 – 11.16.14.98

B_16 – Z – K

The capacity for intuition is born from a long experience in bygone lives but the psychological reality of it was always present—because the Overself was.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21215 – 11.16.14.125

BN – X – D

All communications of a psychical or intuitive, visioned or heard character must be tested warily and judged critically by their results in experience. Otherwise the false, the fraudulent, the unfactual, the misleading may be accepted as the true and real. This of course is a rule mainly for beginners.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21216 – 11.16.14.126

B_03 – Z – K

He must test these experiences not only by their internal evidences but also by their external results. Do they make him humbler or prouder? Do they improve the balance of his faculties or disturb it?

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21218 – 11.16.14.128

BN – ZZ – DK1

Make it a definite rule in every single instance to check your intuitions by the light of reason.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21219 – 11.16.14.129

BN – Z – DM1

We cultivate intuition not so much by strengthening it little by little as by removing the obstacles to it.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21223 – 11.16.14.133

BSG_5 – P – D

The highly personal man is too full of himself to leave any room for the soul, with its utter impersonality, to enter his field of awareness.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21224 – 11.16.14.134

BN – X – D

The intuition which fails when checked, tested, and verified by every other possible source must be treated with caution.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21233 – 11.16.14.143

B_03 – ZZ – K

Intuitions move in on us in one of two ways: either so soft and gentle at first as almost to be missed or with such aggressive forcefulness as to allow no other way.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21237 – 11.16.14.147

BN – X – D

It is not easy for the beginner to know how valid is the intuition he feels or the guidance he gets. Where any doubt exists it is better to wait before accepting the one or obeying the other.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21240 – 11.16.14.150

BN – X – D

It is easy to take one’s opinion as something more than it is. But no one who really gets an intuition, a revelation, or an awareness from the Overself can mistake it as something less than it is. For it is unique in presentation and experience.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21243 – 11.16.14.153

BN – X – D

He may test the authenticity of his inner experiences in various ways but one of them is to remember that if they begin with doubt and end with certainty, or begin with fear and end with joy, they represent a movement from the ego to the Overself. But if this order is reversed, they represent nothing more than a movement within the ego and are therefore to be distrusted.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21244 – 11.16.14.154

BN – X – D

How much of the glimpse, experience, or message is truly inspired by a higher source, and how much is merely added, imagined, or misconceived by his own little ego-mind, is a question that the beginning quester should have the humility to ask himself. What is authentic will easily survive such careful discriminating judgement.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21247 – 11.16.14.157

BN – X – D

He must not be content to accept the communication entirely as presented but should sift it and seek the origins of its various parts. But he must sift it critically and seek these origins open-mindedly.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21248 – 11.16.14.158

B_03 – ZZ – K

As such possibilities of error and deception exist along the aspirant’s path, it is needful for him to lay down a safe rule for his self-protection. And that is to regard all his revelations as being projections of his subconscious ego, with all the ego’s limitations and defects, until they prove themselves in time to be otherwise.

The Sensitives > The Sensitive Mind > Evaluating intuitions and 'messages'

#21251 – 11.16.14.161

BN – X – D

If the voices which he hears are audible in the same way that one hears the voices of people through the ears, it is merely psychic and undesirable. If, however, it is a very strong mental impression and also very clear, then it is the mystic phenomenon known as the "Interior Word" which is on a truly spiritual plane and therefore is desirable.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Spiritual reality, mental imagery

#21280 – 11.16.15.29

BN – Z – K1

H.P.B.'s Voice of the Silence tells of seven mystical sounds which are heard by the aspirant. The first is like the nightingale's voice, whereas the sixth is like a thunder-cloud. This passage has been much misunderstood both by novices and by unphilosophical mystics, whilst in India and Tibet whole systems of yoga have been built up on their supposed psychic existence. The sounds are not actually heard. The reference to them is merely metaphorical. It speaks rather of the silent intuitive feeling of the Overself's existence which becomes progressively stronger with time, until finally, in H.P.B.'s own eloquent words, "The seventh swallows all the other sounds. They die, and then are heard no more." This represents the stage where the voice of the ego is completely unified with the voice of the Overself, where occasional realization is converted into a constant one.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Spiritual reality, mental imagery

#21281 – 11.16.15.30

BN – X – K1

God will appear to us in Spirit alone, never in Space. To see him is to see the playing and posturing of our own mind.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Spiritual reality, mental imagery

#21292 – 11.16.15.41

BN – X – K1

The fact that God is formless suffices to show that he cannot be seen as an external or internal form. Whoever declares that God has taken shape before him, whether in tangible flesh or untouchable vision, thereby declares his own ignorance.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Spiritual reality, mental imagery

#21295 – 11.16.15.44

BN – X – D

The kind of spiritual experience a man gets depends upon the degree of development attained by his character, intelligence, and aspiration.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Conditioning factors

#21333 – 11.16.15.82

BN – X – D

Suggestion pours in from his origins and devotions, his background and dedications, his experience and relationships, from all the past generations and past reincarnations which have made his ego what it is.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > Conditioning factors

#21341 – 11.16.15.90

BN – X – D

If the Overself meets with no obstructions in his mind, its manifestation will be perfect. But in the ratio that it does meet with them, its manifestation will be imperfect. The mind must not only be made sensitive enough to be guided by the Overself, it must also be made pure enough to interpret such guidance correctly and egolessly.

The Sensitives > Illuminations > The true Word of revelation

#21394 – 11.16.15.143

BN – X – D

The essence of religion does not consist in dogma and ritual but in faith in a higher power, worship of that higher power, and moral purification to come closer to it.

The Religious Urge > The Religious Urge > The Religious Urge

#21412 – 12.17.0.1

BN – Z – DK

Just as the human embryo is nourished and kept alive in complete dependence upon the mother inside whose body it is carried, its consciousness being in dreamless slumber like a hibernating animal, so the human adult is in reality just as dependent for his own existence on the Overself. His spiritual yearnings are a kind of nostalgia for the direct, free, unimpeded-by-the-ego consciousness of that dependence, which is blessfully similar to the embryo's. The womb is a great symbol in several ways.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21422 – 12.17.1.9

BN – X – DEK

A quester necessarily becomes a pilgrim seeking his destination in a Holy City. He may be a metaphysician or mystic, a profound thinker or connoisseur of Orientalisms, but he may not leave out the simple humble reverences of religious feeling.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21423 – 12.17.1.10

BN – X – K1

One day the modern world will wake up to the fact that the four fundamental tenets which the inspired religious prophets taught the old world are as literally true as that two times two is four. That there is an indefinable Power—God—which was never born and will never die. That evil-doing brings a punitive result. That man is called to practise regularly the moral duty of self-control and the spiritual duty of prayer or meditation. The prophets may have erred in some of their other teachings; they may have introduced personal opinion or inherited suggestion or imagined heavens: but they generally agreed on these four things. Why? Because these truths have always been present, outside human opinion, suggestion, or imagination, inherent in Life itself.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21429 – 12.17.1.16

BN – X – DEK

We are like flowers torn from our natural soil and suffering the misery of separation. Our fervid mystical yearnings represent the recognition of our need to reunite with our Source.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21431 – 12.17.1.18

BT1008 – P – D

If he were not already rooted in spiritual being—yes, here and now!—he would not be able to feel the longing to find that being.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21432 – 12.17.1.19

BN – X – D

All things and all creatures are within the World-Mind, draw their current of life and intelligence from this source. This is why, in the end, they come to feel nostalgic for it; this is why religions arise and mystics seek.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21433 – 12.17.1.20

BN – X – D

The spiritual instinct may appear to be totally dormant in a man but it is never killed. In another birth, and after other experiences, it will return.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21443 – 12.17.1.30

BA11 – Z – DK

All such turning to religion and mysticism is really due to a sense of nostalgia, a yearning for our true Home.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21453 – 12.17.1.40

BN – X – D

A religious revelation is also a carrier of good news, the gospel that there is a higher power, that we are all in relation with it, and that because of this relationship we can have access to truth, goodness, beauty, reality, and peace.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Introductory

#21454 – 12.17.1.41

BN – X – D

For the karma yogi, all his activity takes on something of the nature of a ritual. Even where religions have become empty, hollow, and hypocritical, we need not be too eager to welcome their destruction. For even then they preserve a teaching, a message, a memory, and a tradition of a holier and better time in that religion's history.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On evaluating religion

#21471 – 12.17.1.58

BN – X – K

If Jesus and Gautama never existed, some other men with the same deep insights must have existed to have voiced such thoughts and conveyed such inspirations. If the traditions concerning them are scanty, uncertain, and mixed with fable, this need not diminish the belief in their actual existence on the part of any just-minded person. And whatever he may think of the Churches which claim to represent them, of their contradictory teachings and all-too-human history, he ought to give his unhesitating admiration and reverence to this pair of Lights, who themselves gave three-quarters of the human race such sorely needed ideals.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21487 – 12.17.1.74

B_12 – ZZ – K

The philosophical teaching is that the return of every prophet is an inward event and not a physical one. The common people, with their more materialist and less subtle apprehension, expect to see his body again. The initiates expect only to find his mental presence in themselves.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21489 – 12.17.1.76

BN – ZZ – DK1

If Jesus could have met Buddha, the differences in their teaching would not have prevented their delighted recognition of one another for what each was.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21490 – 12.17.1.77

B_12 – Z – K

Jesus called men to life more abundant, Buddha called them to cessation of desire, Krishna to a training of the thoughts and feelings, Confucius to proper courteous and moral behaviour, while Lao Tzu gently reminded them of their higher allegiance.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21491 – 12.17.1.78

B_12 – Z – K

It is quite proper to give homage and show esteem to a great soul. But it is quite another thing to deify him, to worship him, to forget utterly that he is still a human being, with human fallibility and imperfection.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21492 – 12.17.1.79

BN – ZZZ – K

Buddha swore an oath under the sacred banyan tree, where he came to know himself, that he would not pass from our sphere of evolution until he had been reborn again and again, to help laggard humanity reach what he himself had reached. So Jesus keeps ever in inner contact with those who need him—and that means millions. He is not dead, cannot die. And the love which brought him here from afar keeps him here.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21505 – 12.17.1.92

B_11 – ZZ – DEK

Jesus and Gautama did not speak to mankind from different levels of being. They spoke from different levels of intellect. Their realization of the truth was one and the same. For there is only one truth. But they could only communicate it to others according to the intellectual equipment, degree, and background of its receivers.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21509 – 12.17.1.96

B_12 – Z – K

Men and women were being enlightened before Gautama arose and after Jesus went. And they are being enlightened today as they will still be in ages yet unborn. Inspired teachers may come and go but the Soul in every man is eternal.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21510 – 12.17.1.97

B_12 – ZZ – DK*

That one man could pay by his own suffering for the wrong-doing of all men is not only illogical and unfair but also impossible. It would be a claim that guilt is transferable. Such a transfer is morally wrong and karmically impossible. This is the answer to those in the West who put forward the tenet of the vicarious suffering of Jesus as the price of God's forgiveness of man, as well as to those in India who assert that substitutionary suffering of Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna is the result of lifting the burden of karma off their disciples' shoulders.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21512 – 12.17.1.99

B_12 – Z – K

There is a wide difference in the styles of two men who meant so much to aspirants. Consider the style of Jesus' sayings and contrast it with Gautama's. The first moves directly to the idea in a pithy, if poetic, announcement, and then leaves it almost immediately. The second seeks to persuade, circles round and round it, and leaves only after its meaning is abundantly clear, only after its logic is sufficiently acceptable. That each man puts a value upon style cannot be gainsaid.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21514 – 12.17.1.101

B_12 – Z – K

The sage who ventures forth into public with a message to deliver or a work to perform must shape both message and work to suit the circumstances that surround him.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21516 – 12.17.1.103

BN – Z – K

Who that reads these divine proclamations of a Jesus, these inexorably logical analyses of a Gautama, can fail to recognize that he is in the presence of uncompromising sincerity and unbending truth?

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21520 – 12.17.1.107

B_12 – ZZ – K

Not a single word was ever written by Jesus. And yet others collected his spoken words and wrote them down for us. The same is true of Gautama the Buddha.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21526 – 12.17.1.113

B_12 – Z – K

Is it not worth noting that among those who left their spiritual mark on mankind it is the young rebels who are foremost? Both Buddha and Jesus broke with their traditions.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21529 – 12.17.1.116

BN – Z – DK

He feels sincerely that he has been entrusted with a revelation, that he has a message to deliver which is valuable and important to thousands of people, and that the task of delivering it is an exalted service, a holy privilege that needs no other reward than the moral satisfaction it brings him. Nor will it make any difference if there be only one man to listen to him during his own lifetime. The need to bear witness has become a matter of inexorable conscience. The result of bearing witness, whether it be worldly honour or worldly persecution, is a matter to which his ego has become emotionally indifferent.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Prophets and Messengers

#21530 – 12.17.1.117

BN – ZZZ – DEK

They are too much absorbed by the toil for existence and by the few pleasures that enable them to relax from this toil, to trouble themselves about the higher meaning of that existence. Nor do they possess the means—intuitional or intellectual—of solving the problems connected with the search for such a meaning.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21551 – 12.17.1.138

M231217 – ZZ – K

Until about the turn of the previous century (the 19th century), the truth about religion was never published frankly and plainly. This was because those who wrote about it were either one-sidedly biased in its favour and so refused to see the undesirable aspects, or else they were hostile in their personal standpoint which stopped them from mentioning the deeper merits. Those who really knew what religion was in theory and practice, what were its goods and bads, kept silent. This was because they did not wish to disturb the established faith of the simple masses or else because the latter, being uneducated, were unprepared to receive subtleties which required sufficient mental development to comprehend.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21565 – 12.17.1.152

BN – X – K1

Whether it be a religion of impressive ceremonial and organized priesthood, or one of utter simplicity and without intermediaries, it will serve men only to the extent that it helps each individual follower to come closer to the Overself.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21569 – 12.17.1.156

BN – X – D

The multitude need to be consoled and comforted: they need celestial messages of hope, the promise of help. The bare truth is too harsh on the ego, too impersonal to be welcome.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21574 – 12.17.1.161

BN – ZZ – K

In the moment of his greatest trial, in the hour of his greatest danger, man looks to the Infinite for his last resource as a babe looks to its mother.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21576 – 12.17.1.163

BN – X – D

If everything was not told to the masses, it was largely because everything would not be acceptable to the masses, or the simple ones, as Origen, a Church Father himself, called them. Or it was too metaphysical for them, as the history of Alexandria, with its violent riots against the schools of Philosophy, showed. Origen staunchly included reincarnation and meatless diet in his teachings there, but how far has either of these two been taken hold of by the masses then or since?

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21578 – 12.17.1.165

BN – X – D

After many years of propaganda work in Europe, Miss Lounsberry, Secretary of the "Friends of Buddhism Society" of Paris, had ruefully to confess (in the Maha Bodhi Journal in the middle of World War II): "How can we help now, how can we bring the truth forcibly to bear on men's minds? Surely not by just saying there is no God and no Soul? For God in the West means many things, among others an inherent justice, which is to us Buddhists—Karma." This confession based on experience justifies our own attitude that religion is needed in the sense that belief in a higher Being is needed.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21591 – 12.17.1.178

BN – Z – DEK

Without the religious faith in a higher power, without the religious organizations, buildings, and bibles which keep up and channel this faith, the mass of people might have fallen into a dense materialism devoid of any moral content.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Purpose of popular (mass) religion

#21593 – 12.17.1.180

BN – X – D

Truth needs to be expressed again and again, each time differently, because it must be expressed each time in the idiom of its period.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On diversity in religion

#21595 – 12.17.1.182

BN – X – D

There is a teaching to meet the need of each type of mind. Because there is such a variety of types in the world, there is room for a variety of teachings. But this said, and in practising our tolerance, we need not blind ourselves to the fact that just as there is a progression of levels of quality among these minds, so there is among the teachings.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On diversity in religion

#21597 – 12.17.1.184

B_02 – Z – K

There is no single approach which is the only true one, the only true religion. God is waiting at the end of all roads. But some suit us better than others.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On diversity in religion

#21601 – 12.17.1.188

BN – X – D

Salvation is for all, the atheist and the devotee, the wicked and good, the ignorant and learned, the indifferent and earnest. It is only the time of its realization that is far off or near at hand but realization itself is certain. "Let no one of Thy boundless Grace despair"—thus Abu Said, an eleventh-century Persian mystic of high degree, holds out the prayerful hope to all men of their impending or eventual liberation. The New Testament parallels the Bhagavad Gita's promise of ultimate salvation for all, sinners and good alike. It says: "God willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."—1 Tim. 2:4.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On diversity in religion

#21605E – 12.17.1.192

BN – Z – DEK

The men of this era have to be led closer to the freedom of their higher self. No organization can do this because all organizations necessarily demand fealty and impose bondage.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On choosing one's religion

#21632E – 12.17.1.219

BN – X – DEK

The herd of men and women are so hypnotized by the prestige of an institution that they never stop to question the truth of the institution. This is why Jesus was persecuted and Socrates was poisoned.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > On choosing one's religion

#21647 – 12.17.1.234

A241129 – Z – K

Just as young children are more influenced by the world of the five senses than by the conclusions of reason, so many whose adulthood is still largely physical rather than mental are more influenced by what they see, hear, and feel, rather than by reason or intuition. Such persons are far from being ready for philosophy and could never give assent to its teachings. They lack discrimination and are led by appearances. They are impressed by "signs", that is, physical miracles, cures, and demonstrations, as proof of God-given power. Few of them would be willing to forsake their ego-directed lives and take to the way of living which Jesus—in contradistinction from his Church—really preached. But all of them may make excellent followers of an inwardly devitalized mass religion.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Grading teaching to capacity

#21667 – 12.17.1.254

B_12 – ZZ – K

It cannot be said that these truths have been kept from the masses. Rather, the masses' own limitations have kept them from these truths.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Grading teaching to capacity

#21679 – 12.17.1.266

BN – X – D

The man whose idea of himself is strictly limited to his little ego, and who is excessively attached to it, will naturally tend to form an idea of God as being a kind of gigantic person.

The Religious Urge > Origin, Purpose of Religions > Grading teaching to capacity

#21686 – 12.17.1.273

BA11 – Z – DK

esus, the first and best Christian, set an example for all later professed Christians to follow. He did not preach in return for payment. He did not turn religion into a profession. He even told those whom he sent forth as apostles to carry no purse. If therefore we wish to understand one reason why the Church does not represent him, here it is. The apostle Paul made tents so that he could pay his own way while spreading the Christian message. Modern spiritual teachers could not do better than follow this excellent example. Their instruction should be given free. Hence they should either earn their own living or have their own financial resources. Thus, the new clergy will not labour for hire but for love. They will draw no salary for their teaching and preaching but will draw it from their worldly work. Having learned how to earn their own living first, they will be beholden to no one, dependent on no organization, but will have the freedom to speak as the Spirit of Truth bids them speak.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Clergy

#21702E – 12.17.2.6

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

The old idea was to preach and serve at the cost of the clergy's hearers. The new idea will impel the minister to preach and serve at his own cost. When religion is pure, however, there will be no professional clergy. Its ministers will then have to earn their livelihood from a different source. Thus they may remain undefiled in motive and inspiration.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Clergy

#21702E – 12.17.2.6

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

If the words of a priest or a clergyman contain the message of true spirituality and carry comfort to suffering men, the latter might walk many miles to hear him; but if they do not contain them, they might probably walk miles to avoid him! How many clergymen have said all that they had to say in their very first sermon, since which they have added nothing new? Yet although they have had nothing further to preach, they continue to preach it boringly for the remainder of their lifetime! The people of this hapless epoch seek the bread of an inwardly-ravishing spiritual experience; they are offered instead the stones of inwardly-dulling intellectual gabble.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Clergy

#21723 – 12.17.2.27

BN – ZZ – K

No church can keep its primitive spirituality unless it keeps its political independence. And this in turn it cannot have if it accepts a preferred position above other churches as a state establishment. It was not the leader of Russian atheism but the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church itself, the late Patriarch Segius, Metropolitan of Moscow, who admitted that the disestablishment of the State Church in his country by the Bolsheviks was really "a return to apostolic times when the Church and its servants did not deem their office a profession intended to earn their living." Such were his own words.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Church and State

#21729 – 12.17.2.33

BN – X – K1

In religion, metaphysical 'principles' become symbolized by mythological persons. Thus Adi Buddha, the primeval Force, becomes the first historic Buddha, while Christos, the Higher Self, becomes the man Jesus. Thus the universal gets shrunken into the local.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Religious symbols

#21739 – 12.17.2.43

B_12 – Z – K1

The dangers and downfall of every religion begin when its symbols are taken as substitutes for its realities, and when attendance at its public services replaces efforts at individual development.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Religious symbols

#21740 – 12.17.2.44

BN – Z – K1

The deep heavy clang of a temple bell reverberates in the inner being of its hearers. The musical chimes of a church bell seek to attract worshippers, and each sound works in its own way as a sacred reminder.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#21752 – 12.17.2.56

BN – X – D

It is right that the principal cathedrals, temples, and mosques of religion should be built on a majestic plan to impress those who go there to worship and to express the faith of those who put the buildings up. Such structures are not only symbolic of the importance of religious faith, but also conducive to the humility with which worship should be conducted.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#21753 – 12.17.2.57

BN – X – K1

It is right and proper that a building put to a sacred use should be reserved for it and kept apart from profane activities.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#21755 – 12.17.2.59

BN – X – K1

In some rose-stained-glass-windowed church one may sense the strong atmosphere of true devotion so acutely that one instinctively falls on bended knee in humble prayer and in remembrance that self is nought, God is all.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#21757 – 12.17.2.61

BN – X – K1

God is Mind and they that would worship it in truth must worship it mentally. The ostentatious ceremonies set up by paid professionals enable men and women to obtain pleasing emotional effects but they do not enable them to worship God. A building becomes a sacred temple when it ceases to hear phonographic mumblings and when it ceases to witness theatrical mimicries, and when it provides a fitting place where its visitors can engage in undisturbed silent and inward-turned communion with their own deeper Mind.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Places of worship

#21758D – 12.17.2.62

BN – X – K

Both Jesus and Buddha sought to remove bloody sacrifices from the institutional religion which surrounded them.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Ceremonies and rituals

#21774 – 12.17.2.78

B_12 – Z – K

When the aspirant has great devotion to the Overself but little understanding of it, Nature will halt them at a certain stage of their spiritual career and compel them to redress the balance.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Ceremonies and rituals

#21783 – 12.17.2.87

BN – X – K

Care is to be taken that the deceptions into which both a person’s logic and their sentimentality are liable to fall, are avoided by the use of sharp discrimination.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Ceremonies and rituals

#21795 – 12.17.2.99

BN – X – K

The exhibition of relics, the erection of shrines, or the creation of memorials, statues, paintings, and sects to record the name of a saint or prophet or holy man is useful to impress his attainments upon the minds of others living long after he has gone, and perhaps to inspire them to do something for themselves in the same direction.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Relics

#21810 – 12.17.2.114

BN – Z – K1

Such grave and great distortions, interpolations, and eradications have some scriptures undergone in the course of their history and manipulation, it is no wonder that sects compete in common ignorance with one another.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Scriptures

#21826 – 12.17.2.130

UR_2.9.3 – ZZ – K

Those who think that because a statement appears in sacred scripture such appearance terminates all further controversy upon a question are deluding themselves. They base their unqualified assent upon the undeniable fact that the ancient sages knew what they were talking about, but they ignore the other fact that some of their followers did not. They do not know that the scriptural texts have been peppered with later interpolations or debased with superstitious additions and are consequently not always reliable. But even if they were, still, the human mind must keep itself unfettered if it would achieve truth.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Scriptures

#21832 – 12.17.2.136

BN – X – K1

Jesus spoke in Aramaic but the written texts of his teaching came to us in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Buddha spoke in Pali but at least half his followers got the written teaching in Sanskrit. The possibility of mistranslation through symbolic, metaphorical, or allegorical expressions being taken literally; or through esoteric-mystic experiences being only half-understood; or through terms with two different meanings being used; or through simple ignorance, is an ever-present peril.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Scriptures

#21835 – 12.17.2.139

UR_2.9.3 – ZZ – K

The simply constructed, unforgettably inspired sentences of Jesus may be picked out in the four Gospels from those which have been interpolated by later men. Why this interpolation, it may be asked? Because they wrote down the words, as we have them today, after original bearers were themselves dead. Because with the passage of years and the passing down from mouth to mouth, remembrance may be faulty. Because human mentality may misinterpret the facts. Because human desire may exaggerate them. Because the fatal influence of an ambitious emperor forced organization and institutionalism on believers to serve his own ends and secured the necessary interpolations for this purpose on the theory that the end—monopoly and stability of power through the union of religion and State—justified the means.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Scriptures

#21836 – 12.17.2.140

UR_2.9.3 – ZZZ – K

Each group gives a different name to the Parent of the universe, calls it Brahma or Jehovah, Allah or Tao, but all groups really direct their worship to one and the same God.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21846 – 12.17.2.150

BN – X – D

When I feel the divine presence in my heart, I acknowledge God as Personal; but when, going deeper in silent contemplation, I vanish in the infinite immeasurable Void, I must afterwards call Him Impersonal.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21851 – 12.17.2.155

BA11 – Z – DK

The Bible's first commandment is Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. What is the meaning of a god here? It means something which is the object of worship. That thing can be money, fame, or sex: it is not at all necessarily an idol, a force, or a being.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21855 – 12.17.2.159

BN – X – D

Many people have so meditated upon their concept of God that they have become one with the concept and not one with God, as they vainly delude themselves. The concept is not reality.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21862 – 12.17.2.166

BN – X – K1

We all worship God as best we can. But the ignorant perceive and honour only the veils of liturgy, dogma, and ceremony which enwrap Him, whereas the wise thrust the veils aside and worship Him as He is.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21867 – 12.17.2.171

BN – ZZ – K

The concept of God as Father or Father-Mother is a true one but still only an elementary one. The man who rises to the understanding of God as that in which his own self is rooted holds a truer concept.

The Religious Urge > Organization, Content of Religion > Conceptions of God

#21869 – 12.17.2.173

BN – X – D

The general line of inner development for the human race is in the first stage Right Action, which includes duty, service, responsibility.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Religion As Preparatory

#21879E – 12.17.3.3

BSG_4 – P – DE

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Religion As Preparatory

#21879 – 12.17.3.3

BN – X – DEK1

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Religion As Preparatory

#21882 – 12.17.3.6

BN – X – K1

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Doubt

#21898 – 12.17.3.22

BN – X – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Doubt

#21924 – 12.17.3.48

BN – ZZ – K

The masses have their ready-made religion; the seeker must form his own.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Doubt

#21932 – 12.17.3.56

B_05 – Z – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21940 – 12.17.3.64

BN – X – D

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21942 – 12.17.3.66

BN – X – D

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21945 – 12.17.3.69

BN – X – K1

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21946 – 12.17.3.70

B_12 – Z – DEK1

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21949 – 12.17.3.73

BN – X – D

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21950 – 12.17.3.74

B_01 – ZZ – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21953 – 12.17.3.77

B_12 – Z – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21954 – 12.17.3.78

BN – X – D

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21955 – 12.17.3.79

BN – X – D

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21957 – 12.17.3.81

BN – ZZ – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21959 – 12.17.3.83

B_12 – ZZ – DK*

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21972 – 12.17.3.96

B_12 – ZZ – DEMK

It has been observed that most religious hymns are about ourselves, few only are about God.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Inner worship is superior

#21977 – 12.17.3.101

BN – X – K

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.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Mysticism and religion

#21986 – 12.17.3.110

BN – X – K1

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?

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Mysticism and religion

#21994 – 12.17.3.118

B_12 – ZZ – K

Fanatical religion killed Hypatia, conventional religion lynched Pythagoras, respectable religion poisoned Socrates, authority-worshipping religion crucified Jesus.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Mysticism and religion

#22003 – 12.17.3.127

A241129 – Z – K

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!

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Mysticism and religion

#22005 – 12.17.3.129

BN – Z – K

Many believe, some suspect, but few know that there is a divine soul in man.

The Religious Urge > Religion As Preparatory > Mysticism and religion

#22025 – 12.17.3.149

BA11 – ZZ – DK

Instead of being vexed over the rise of scepticism and indifference or grieved over the fall of religious influence, they should seek the causes and adjust faith to reason and truth.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > On criticism and scepticism

#22028 – 12.17.4.3

BN – ZZ – K

Each person has some kind of faith; this includes the person whose faith reposes in scepticism.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > On criticism and scepticism

#22032 – 12.17.4.7

BN – ZZ – K1

When men transfer their faith to another religion, cult, or system of thought, it not only shows that the force behind the new one is greater than that behind the old one, but may also show that the World-Idea, which includes karma, is itself the force promoting the successful rival.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Cycles of inspiration, decay

#22071 – 12.17.4.46

BN – Z – K

The farther we get from the Prophet's time, the more difficult it becomes to discover exactly what he taught. Sects multiply in his name, each with a different doctrine. Imaginations and interpolations, distortions and caricatures become part of the received teaching. As if this were not enough, personal ambitions and institutional exploitations add to the confusion.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22085 – 12.17.4.60

UR_2.9.3 – ZZ – K

It is a tragedy of all history that the names of Men like Jesus, who came only to do good, are invariably exploited by those who fail to catch their spirit and do more harm than good. Formal entry into any religious organization relates a man only to that organization, not at all to the Prophet whose name it claims. No religious institution in history has remained utterly true to the Prophet whose name it takes, whose word it preaches, whose ethic it inculcates. A religious prophet is mocked, not honoured, when men mouth his name and avoid his example. No church is a mystical body of any prophet. All churches are, after all, only human societies, and suffer from the weaknesses and selfishnesses, the errors and mistakes, inseparable from such societies.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22087E – 12.17.4.62

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K1

It is a historical fact that where religious influence upon society has bred the evils of fanaticism, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, superstition, and backwardness, their presence may be traced back to the professional members and monkish institutions of that religion. Priestcraft, as I have seen it in certain Oriental and Occidental lands, is often ignorant and generally arrogant. Throughout the world you may divide clergymen and priests into two categories—those who are merely the holders of jobs and those who are truly ministers of religion.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22087E – 12.17.4.62

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K1

The only way to retain Faith is to regenerate it. Churchianity must become Christianity. Its failure became plain during the War, when a situation existed where the Japanese nominal followers of the peace-bringing Buddha spread murder and pillage across Asia and where the German nominal followers of the love-bringing Jesus spread hatred and aggression across Europe, in some cases with the sanction and under the blessing of their local priests and national High Priests and in all cases without a firm protest and resolute opposition by the whole weight of their organizational influence against such betrayal of what both Buddha and Jesus stood for. Here history but repeats itself. It was not the atheists who crucified Jesus but the priests. It was not the atheists who drove Buddhism right out of India but the priests.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22097 – 12.17.4.72

B_12 – ZZ – K

People are easily deceived by the stature to which religions have grown into thinking that they have achieved assured stability. An institution which has reached great size has not necessarily reached great success. It is necessary to look beneath the illusion of numbers and the skin of popularity. Spiritual degeneration and decrepitude are still what they are even if they are spread among millions of people. When we try to understand the causes of such disintegration, we are inevitably led to the conclusion that religion wrongly understood and wrongly expounded breeds distrust, exploits ignorance, and disrupts society. How do ordinary people arrive at their understanding of a religion, then? They arrive at it through the guidance of official exponents. Therefore the latter bear a larger responsibility for the downfall of their own faith than they usually realize. They have often invoked judgement of God on others; have they ever observed how history has invoked the judgement of God on them?

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22098E – 12.17.4.73

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

So far as the mission of an institution consists in assuming the austere role of a prophet and making the glowing message of such a man freely available to simple toiling folk, so far as its presence in society acts as a check on human character, which would otherwise degenerate and permit evils more serious than existing ones to spring up, it possesses something which the people profoundly need; it has a most valuable service to render for which it must live, and it can face its critics as indifferently as Jesus faced his persecutors. But so far as the institution has come to mean something glaringly different or has come to constitute a professional means of livelihood for certain individuals, merely by seating them on the chair of sanctity, or has associated itself with pointless dogmas which outrage human intelligence, it has certainly become something so unchristian and useless that the continued fall of its influence need surprise none.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Accretions, distortions, corruption

#22098E – 12.17.4.73

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

He only has the fullest right to talk of God who 'knows' God, not his idea, fancy, belief, or imagination about God. He only should write of the soul, its power, peace, and wisdom, who lives in it every moment of every day. But since such men are all too rare and hard to find, mankind has had to accept substitutes for them. These substitutes are frail and fallible mortals, clutching at shadows. This is why religionists disagree, quarrel, fight, and persecute both inside and outside their own groups.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Sectarianism

#22111 – 12.17.4.86

A250426 – ZZZ – K1

Since truth can be looked at from different standpoints, since it has different aspects, it is desirable that there should exist a variety of doctrines and views. Where the attempt is made to congeal it into a fixed creed, for all time, a sect is created and sectarian prejudices are introduced.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Sectarianism

#22112 – 12.17.4.87

BA11 – ZZ – DMK

In the end the powers of karma fall crushingly upon those who, for selfish motives, have suppressed truth and supported falsehood.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Intolerance, narrowness, persecution

#22132 – 12.17.4.107

BN – ZZZ – K

Jesus would have been the first to realize that the love which he enjoined on his followers was essentially the same as the compassion which Buddha enjoined on his own. Yet, uninformed, or informed but biased, religionists seek to decry the Oriental teachings by proving the alleged superiority of the Occidental—as if Jesus was not Himself an Oriental! The real secret of this attempt to classify Jesus among the Occidental races is that they happen to be Occidental: in short, it is the dominance of their egos which leads to the confusion in their concepts.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Intolerance, narrowness, persecution

#22133 – 12.17.4.108

B_12 – ZZ – K

Criticism is the inevitable karma of superstitious credulity as hatred is the inevitable karma of unjust persecution. We heard much of the persecutions of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Bolsheviks after their revolution but little of the persecutions by the same Church before the revolution. Those who understand how karmic retribution works unerringly will find the following little paragraph, taken from a leading St. Petersburg newspaper, Novoye Vremya, during the year 1892, very significant. Dealing with accounts given by Prince Mestcherski of certain suffering endured by the Christian sect called "Old Believers" at the hands of the Orthodox State Church, in Siberia, the paper writes: "The treatment of the Buddhists is still harsher. Says the Prince, `They are literally forced by the police, at the instance of the local clergy, to embrace Christianity. All kinds of means are resorted to; they are captured in the woods, hunted like beasts and beaten, force even being employed with pregnant women.'"

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Intolerance, narrowness, persecution

#22142 – 12.17.4.117

BN – X – K

What strikes us most poignantly is the absence of sympathy, of love in the widest Christian sense, for all those outside each little sect. For the incompatible difference between the lofty kindness enjoined by Jesus and the petty meanness practised by the sectarians in his name is heart-saddening.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Intolerance, narrowness, persecution

#22143 – 12.17.4.118

A250426 – ZZ – K

The absurdity of insisting on name-labels, the narrowness of joining religious groups, attains its summit when immortal life is proclaimed as our destiny only if we belong to a particular group!

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Intolerance, narrowness, persecution

#22146 – 12.17.4.121

B_01 – ZZ – K

We need religion, yes assuredly, but we need it freed from superstition.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Superstition

#22162 – 12.17.4.137

BN – Z – K1

It is possible that the minister of an orthodox church may be a truly enlightened individual. How, then, it will be asked, can such a person coordinate the abstract Truth of Philosophy with the popular belief of the divinity of Jesus Christ? One answer might be that he privately interprets "divinity" in a special way but publicly follows the orthodox interpretation, because of what he believes to be the necessity of making use of the best available means for leading mankind nearer to Spiritual Reality. Outwardly he might elect to appear as a representative of, say, the Church of England.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Dogma

#22186 – 12.17.4.161

B_12 – ZZ – K

The degradation, falsification, commercialization, and exploitation which men, making use of institutional religion, have made of a prophet's mission, speaks clearly of what these men themselves are made. The fact is that they are not fit to be trusted with the power which institutionalism gives them. Religion is safer and healthier and will make more genuine progress if left free and unorganized, to be the spontaneous expression of inspired individuals. It is a personal and private matter and always degenerates into hyprocrisy when turned into a public matter. The fact is, you cannot successfully organize spirituality. It is an independent personal thing, a private discovery and not a mass emotion.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Institutionalism, exploitation

#22201 – 12.17.4.176

BN – Z – K1

When religion identifies itself with an ecclesiastical organization and forgets itself as an individual experience, it becomes its own enemy. History proves again and again that institutionalism enters only to corrupt the purity of a religion.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Institutionalism, exploitation

#22202 – 12.17.4.177

BN – Z – K1

History has shown that a monopolistic religious institutionalism invariably falls into spiritual degeneracy and inevitably ends in intellectual tyranny. The setting up of autocratic government, episcopal authority, and professional clergy is sooner or later followed by a train of corruptions and abuses. Jesus denounced the religious institutions and religious hierarchy of his time and drew his followers out of them. Yet hardly had he passed from this earth when they began, in their atavistic reversion to traditional ideas, to recreate new institutions and new hierarchy. If it be asked why the spiritual teacher who knows the harmfulness of these ideas is not heeded by those who believe in him, the answer is first, that belief may be present yet understanding may be absent and, secondly, that the innate selfishness of men finds too easy an opportunity for exploitation through such ideas to miss falling into the temptation of propagating them.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Institutionalism, exploitation

#22217E – 12.17.4.192

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

Were the truth of any religion really clear to people, all the bitter controversies and bloody persecutions of history would not have happened, and all the innumerable commentaries of theology would never have been written to prove what was so plainly evident.

The Religious Urge > Problems of Organized Religion > Institutionalism, exploitation

#22217E – 12.17.4.192

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

It is something in history to ponder over that in the Alban hills, a few kilometres from Rome, there was once a Temple of Orpheus where, 3000 years ago, the Orphic mysteries were celebrated, where Orphic religion prevailed with its tenets of rebirth, fleshless diet, the quest, and inner reality. It is arguable whether the two other religions which followed it in that area have brought a better message.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Ancient religions

#22235D – 12.17.5.3

BN – X – K

That Buddha, like Jesus, wanted to reach the populace, there can be no doubt, except in the minds of the prejudiced. First, he went to extraordinary, most unusual lengths to repeat his teachings from different aspects, so as to make his meaning clearer. Second, he recommended his monks to use the ordinary dialects of simple people whenever they preached Doctrines which were both complex and subtle in themselves and needed simplification anyway.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Buddhism

#22241 – 12.17.5.9

B_12 – Z – K

The close relation between new faiths and old ones can still be readily traced in Asia, where the vestiges of the latter continue to flourish by the side of the former among aboriginal tribes. It can be traced, too, in African Egypt and Ethiopia, in lands even more accessible to the Western student of theological archaeology, by anyone who cares to venture into the Coptic churches and to examine the Coptic tradition. He will find it in many of the externals and theoretic dogmas of the simple primitive cult of Coptic Christianity, a cult whose propitiations of burning incense, unimpressive mass, cymballed music, and priestly blessings are replete with characteristics that were familiar enough to the Pharoahs.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22249E – 12.17.5.17

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

Christianity, which arose in a region midway between the Orient and the Occident, significantly moved westward first and then spread across Egypt, where it silenced the superannuated sanctuaries more quickly than in any other land. In fact, although the worship of Jesus was so quickly triumphant in this colony of Rome, it did not officially supplant the worship of Isis or Jupiter until the reign of Constantine two and a half centuries later.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22249E – 12.17.5.17

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

The fact that Jesus was born in the Near East and not the Far East gave the religion that bears his name a geographical advantage and a historical familiarity which help to explain why Buddhism and Hinduism spread in all other directions except Westward. And the fact that the European-American mind is much more outward bent and much more attached to the personality than the tropical-Asiatic mind explains why Christianity had much more affinity with and appeal to the first mind.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22250 – 12.17.5.18

B_12 – X – K

Christ spoke to the Roman world, and to some of those parts of the Near East which were then included in the Roman Empire. Buddha spoke to Asia. Saint Paul and Timothy felt themselves "forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia". In short, Christianity is for the West since its civilization grew out of the Roman one.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22251 – 12.17.5.19

B_12 – Z – K

The spectacle of so many sects, hostile to one another, teaching dogmas that Jesus never taught, raised probing questions in the minds of many Orientals who spoke to me about the matter.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22252 – 12.17.5.20

B_12 – Z – K

The Oriental ideas about the spiritual goal and methods of spiritual practice as they appear in most Buddhist and many Hindu sects are not likely to appeal to Occidental seekers. For they seek the dissolution of human personality, either through merging into an inconceivable Unity or through disappearance into an indescribable Nirvana. As a rolling wave dissolves in the sea, as a wisp of smoke vanishes in the air, so does the separated human life enter its ultimate state. Few Westerners are prepared to renounce their own identity, to sacrifice their inborn attachment to personality for the sake of such a vague goal—one moreover which seems too much like utter annihilation to be worth even lifting a finger for!

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22253E – 12.17.5.21

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

To most Westerners it is unpleasant and terrifying to look forward to such an end [to sacrifice their inborn attachment to personality]. For who gains by this goal? The man himself certainly does not. The absolute Unity remains what it was before; so it does not gain either. If we enquire why the goal is acceptable to the East but objectionable to the West, the answer will be partly found in the latter's religious history. By seeking to perpetuate for all eternity the same human personality in the spirit world, too many orthodox church interpreters of Christ's teaching have misinterpreted it. For Christ taught in several clear sentences the giving up of self, the denial of personality. These theologians reduced this preachment to the practice of charity and unselfishness but kept the ego as something precious, whereas Jesus asked not only for these moral virtues, but for the immeasurably more important metaphysical-mystical virtue of rooting out the ego itself. The moral improvement of character is thus substituted for the metaphysical destruction of ego.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22253E – 12.17.5.21

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

A Christianity once existed which has long been condemned and forgotten but which is as much nearer the true teaching of Jesus as it is nearer him in time. We refer to the school of the Gnostics. Their defeat and disappearance does not lessen their truth. The Gnostic Christians of the third century accepted the pre-existence and earthly rebirths of man. With this doctrine there came naturally the law of recompense, which warns men to heed more carefully what they think and do, for the results will return equally and justly in time.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22260 – 12.17.5.28

B_12 – ZZZ – DMK

Those Christians who were closest to Jesus' time did not set up two categories—those in the world and those living withdrawn from it outwardly, with the second as superior. It was monks who later made this division.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22262 – 12.17.5.30

B_12 – Z – K

The early Christians who spoke of being "in Christ" were men whose intense faith, devotion, and sacrifice had lifted them into the Overself consciousness.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22264 – 12.17.5.32

BN – X – D

Was not the most important council of all the Council of Nicaea, which finally settled Christian doctrines for a thousand years, but which foolishly dropped the tenet of metempsychosis as heresy after it had survived the first five centuries of anno domino; was not this great gathering composed of men who mostly could neither write nor read, who were stern extreme ascetics, fanatical in character and behaviour, narrow, intolerant?

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22268 – 12.17.5.36

BN – X – K1

When the Romans ruled there were few means of communication, and even these were slow and difficult. Nor were there newspapers and printed books. The message of Jesus spread along Roman highways but even so took a few hundred years to find its hearers.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22269 – 12.17.5.37

B_12 – Z – K

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.—Matthew 3:11.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22271E – 12.17.5.39

B_12 – ZEL1/4 – K

Water has been universally used in sacred literature as a symbol of the emotional nature of man. The fluidic character of both is the reason for the use of this symbol. What John called "baptism by water" means therefore such a cleansing of the dominance of his animal passions, desires, and appetites. Consider further that it is the tendency of water always to flow downwards in obedience to the law of gravity, and then note the striking contrast of the tendency of fire, whose sparks always soar upwards. "Baptism by fire" therefore refers to a process on an entirely higher level, not to a merely negative purification but to a positive illumination. Light is one of the effects of fire.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22271E – 12.17.5.39

B_12 – ZEL2/4 – K

The work of John the Baptist was concerned with clearing the way for Jesus, the light-bringer, a preparation that was not only outward and annunciatory but also inward and purificatory. John collected "followers" for Jesus; they were the masses who sought physical help and emotional comfort in their troubles and sicknesses. But Jesus, when he came in person, not only gathered all these followers but also collected "disciples"; they were those who had no necessity to seek such help and comfort but were attracted by the Spirit itself as it shone through Jesus. They were the few who received the baptism of fire and by the Holy Ghost. Many people became followers but few became disciples.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22271E – 12.17.5.39

B_12 – ZEL3/4 – K

There is, further, a difference between the baptism by the Holy Ghost and the baptism by fire. The baptism by the Holy Ghost arouses and awakens the potentialities of the dynamic Life-force, raising its voltage far above the ordinary. This process is usually accompanied by thrills, ecstasies, or mystical raptures. It represents the first awakening on the spiritual level as it filters through the partially cleansed emotional nature. Baptism by fire represents the next and highest stage after this event, when, the thrill of the new birth has subsided and when, in a calmer and steadier condition, the intelligence itself becomes illumined in addition to the feelings, thus balancing them.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22271E – 12.17.5.39

B_12 – ZEL4/4 – K

Jesus did not construct any religious system or creed, Church or doctrine. Others did that when he was no longer there to say Yes or No. Christianity was therefore their creation, not his.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22278 – 12.17.5.46

A241224 – ZZ – K

A reincarnated Jesus appearing in our century would not be able to recognize his original message in the orthodox sects of our time.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22279 – 12.17.5.47

A241224 – ZZ – K

These three doctrines—now turned by the Church for its own motives into three dogmatic superstitions—were, and are, sacred truths before being corrupted. They are the Crucifixion, the Atonement, and the Trinity. Trinitarianism in its present form was never taught by Jesus. It came into Christian doctrine centuries after he lived.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22280 – 12.17.5.48

A241224 – ZZ – K

Nowhere does Jesus in the publicly available sayings included in the New Testament order the formation of a clergy or preach the need of a church or lay down a ritual. Instead he gave clear precise instruction on how to pray: "Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret". But Paul thought differently and founded what is now misnamed Christianity.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22281 – 12.17.5.49

A241224 – ZZ – K

The Inspired Prophets did not themselves personally organize religion. What they did was to give inspiration to those individuals who could respond to it. It was their followers, men acting on external methods, men with limited capacity, who organized and eventually exploited institutions. Indeed these followers had no alternative but to use such methods, not possessing themselves the inner depth of the prophets. The truth is that nobody has ever really organized religion, for it is a private and personal affair between each individual and his God. It is men who have organized themselves for purposes derived from their religious feelings—which is not the same as organizing religion itself. All such organizations are man-made throughout, as is also the authority they claim.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22282E – 12.17.5.50

B_11 – ZEL1/3 – K

There is no record in the New Testament speeches of Jesus that he himself appointed apostles. Consequently we must believe that they appointed themselves after he was no longer present among them. The basic claim of certain Churches to be a continuation of this apostolate has no ground to support it in Jesus' own statements. It is because of this claim that the Catholic Church does not theoretically recognize the right to freedom of worship on the part of other religious organizations, although in actual practice it gradually found it expedient to grant that right on practical grounds.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22282E – 12.17.5.50

B_11 – ZEL2/3 – K

"My kingdom is not of this world", declared Jesus. We may easily identify to which world these institutions belong, which were later organized in his name, by noting the official status which they secure in this world". This explains the historic opposition occurring at times between the true spirit of Jesus and the worldly behaviour of his Church. It is regrettable that most people confuse an institution with the man upon whose name it may be built. There is no indication that Jesus ever wanted an organized church, but there is every indication that it was his followers who wanted it and who made it. Unfortunately, the masses do not understand this but are easily deceived into thinking that they are in touch with Jesus through his Church when in reality they are not so at all. To find Jesus they must go deep into their own hearts. There is no other way.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22282E – 12.17.5.50

B_11 – ZEL3/3 – K

Search all the words of Jesus and you will not find the word "religion" uttered once in reference to what he was teaching. It was a way of positive living, although men have turned it into a mere social convention.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22283 – 12.17.5.51

A241224 – ZZ – K

The truth about Jesus and about his teaching is hard to find today. For it is buried under a man-built mountain of deliberate falsification and superstitious accretion.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22284 – 12.17.5.52

A241224 – ZZ – K

Jesus is honoured in every Christian Church by name, by chanted hymn, and by carven figure. Why does it not also honour his tremendous teaching that the kingdom of heaven is within man himself, not within the church?

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22285 – 12.17.5.53

A241224 – ZZ – DEK

The severe impact of Jesus' phrases, stripped of embellishment and free from rhetoric as they are, shows up the lengthy lucubrations of official religionists for what they are.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22287 – 12.17.5.55

A241224 – ZZ – K

Nowhere in the parables, nowhere in the spoken words of Jesus is there any teaching showing that he wanted an ecclesiastical hierarchy established or that he instituted a system of sacraments.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22288 – 12.17.5.56

A241224 – ZZ – K

When men become enslaved by their religious symbols to the extent that they are willing to murder other men for them, or even to imprison them, when this slavery blinds their better sight and renders them fanatically intolerant of all other views, Nature deems it time to liberate both—the first from their sin, the others from their suffering.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22290E – 12.17.5.58

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

When ecclesiastics become intolerant and forget the first virtue of all religion—which is goodwill towards other men—and when they begin to persecute good men who are unable to agree with them, they not only put others in danger but also themselves. Jesus is one authority for this statement, for he warned all mankind that they would reap the circumstances sown by their conduct. Another authority is the ever-open bloodstained book of history. A good deal of true Christianity burnt itself out in the medieval fires which its more ardent advocates lit for each other and for those unfortunate infidels who knew nothing more of Christ than his name.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22290E – 12.17.5.58

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

The figure of Jesus has been molded into fictions by credulous, imaginative, or professionally interested priests—fictions that were acceptable to the marvel-loving taste of posterity. But no marvel could be greater than what he taught—the entry into the kingdom of heaven, which is nothing else than a conscious return to the true nature of man. Thousands of theologians have scrutinized his personality and estimated the worth of his teachings, but most of them have deluded themselves because only those who have come within the orbit of a living sage can possibly understand him or his words, in their truest significance. Jesus made an impact on the spiritual life of the West, but that impact has never been properly evaluated because it cannot be perceived in the light of Church organization but somewhere else—in the hearts of men.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22292E – 12.17.5.60

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

Although Jesus did not properly belong to our own planet, he gave us the emphatic assurance that we too might win his realization and attainment; we too might uncover our true selves and enter the Light. Professors come and write their academic footnotes to his work, but he must be viewed for what he was—not the organizer of a Church but the planter of living, unseen seeds that fertilized in their own special way in the nature of Western man. He owed and demanded allegiance to no particular sect or school, and he paid fealty to no earthly master. He stood out only under the auroral light of divinity which shone down upon his life. He descended like an angel to dwell in the tabernacle of flesh at a time when religious life was but a guttering candle.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22292E – 12.17.5.60

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

Jesus emanated Love, Jesus brought Truth, and Jesus incarnated Forgiveness.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22293 – 12.17.5.61

A241224 – ZZZ – K

Whether Jesus was merely human or really divine is a question which may worry others, but which does not trouble me. He had something to communicate and did so. He had affirmation to make, a gospel to give which supported so many people for so many centuries. That men have demeaned his message, exploited his person, and twisted his words is regrettable but, men being what they are, expectable. It is good that he came, for clearly they needed him.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22294 – 12.17.5.62

A241224 – ZZ – K

Most Christian churches and sects have claimed a spiritual monopoly. The main foundation for this claim is the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John where the Evangelist says that Jesus is "the only begotten son of God". But nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus himself make the same assertion. On the contrary, he went out of his way to tell men, "The works that I do shall ye do also", thus refusing to put himself in a unique separate and unattainable species, which would make it impossible for other men to imitate his example or hope to attain his understanding.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22296 – 12.17.5.64

B_12 – ZZZ – K

The belief (of Christianity) that Jesus was specially created, as no one before or since has been, is unacceptable. The belief that Jesus was one among the other great souls invested with special power is both acceptable and reasonable.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22297 – 12.17.5.65

B_12 – Z – K

"Why callest thou me good?" asked Jesus. "There is none good but one; that is God". If these words mean anything, they mean that he is still a human being, however close and harmonious is his relationship with God, and that he is not to be deified.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22298 – 12.17.5.66

B_11 – Z – K

When Jesus declared that he was the Way, he spoke as the infinite Christ-self in every man, not as the finite person Jesus. He meant that whoever sought God, the Father, had to come through this higher self, could not find him by any other channel. This only was the Way.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22299 – 12.17.5.67

B_11 – ZZ – DK

The Sermon on the Mount is truly representative of Jesus' teaching. It holds first place in the literature of the world; it contains the essence of practical Christianity expressed as finely as is humanly possible.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22300 – 12.17.5.68

B_11 – Z – DK

Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is not merely a pretty speech. It is a discipline. Therefore, it is only for his disciples. The masses who seek benefits or follow convention, not being ready for the effort, cannot be called disciples.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22301 – 12.17.5.69

B_11 – Z – K

When Jesus told his adult hearers that they had to become children before they could enter the kingdom, he made what must have sounded an astonishing assertion to them. What did he mean? How are we to interpret and apply his words? There are two ideas worth noting here. First, a child enjoys living. Second, a child thinks, feels, and acts spontaneously. Both these factors are combined in its direct awareness of life, untrammelled by hesitations or obstructions imposed from without and unfiltered by colourings or opinions imposed from within.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22302 – 12.17.5.70

B_12 – ZZ – K

We hear much of Jesus' being the friend of sinners and outcasts. But the fact was that he was also the friend of good people and society's supporters. It is true to say that his mission was chiefly to the populace, the common people, but that did not mean that he was hostile to those classes whose grammar and diction were superior and whose possessions and status were higher.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22304 – 12.17.5.72

B_11 – Z – K

It is hardly credible, to those who understand, that Jesus ascended quite literally and physically "to heaven." This assertion can be credible only to those who ignore Jesus' own statement that "the Kingdom of heaven is within you," those who look to the sky for its abode. For the same reasons, Jesus' second coming is also not to be taken literally, visibly, and physically, but inwardly as an experience in the heart.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22305 – 12.17.5.73

B_11 – Z – K

It is one more of life's singular paradoxes that such a man as Jesus, who incarnated essential goodness, who would not wish to inflict the slightest hurt on any creature, who came here among men to be appreciated, even revered, so that they might draw the return back-flow of spiritual life-current to revive a materialistic world, met so much insensitivity. So many saw nothing superior in him but denigrated him, attacked him, vilified him, and sought his death.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22307 – 12.17.5.75

B_12 – ZZ – K

We need not torture our reason to accept these parts of the New Testament which seem incredible. If we give some of them an allegorical meaning, as being taken from the mythology of a mystery cult and reject the others as the results of deliberate tampering with the text, as obvious interpolations, we shall be able to justify all the more our faith in the credible parts. For with them is interwoven the genuine historical narrative of the real life of the man Jesus. The result is a mixed composition, where the Annunciation and Crucifixion are not to be taken literally, but Jesus' preaching and his disciples' apostolate are. The biographic Jesus must be separated from the symbolic Christ, for the one is an earthly figure and the other a mystical concept.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22310 – 12.17.5.78

B_12 – ZZ – K

Consider how vain, how puffed-up these mortals be when they declare that nothing less than the One Infinite Power—the Absolute Itself—deliberately incarnated as man to help them. Surely if it had such intent it would act more in accord with its own laws of progressive development and send here another mortal but a more advanced one. Such a man could be found on a more advanced planet. And this is what happened. Jesus came here from a higher planet. There was no need for God to intervene directly.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22311 – 12.17.5.79

B_12 – ZZ – K

There are a number of alleged portraits of Jesus, some passed down traditionally and others made in our own time by psychic means. They are not in agreement with each other. But this contradiction is resolved when we understand that each is the fruit of the artist's own idea. They are imaginative conceptions.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22313 – 12.17.5.81

B_12 – Z – K

Jesus was not an ordained minister, yet his preachments have outlived many centuries. He was only a layman, yet he brought more reverential feeling for the higher power to more people than thousands of clergymen combined.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22314 – 12.17.5.82

B_12 – ZZ – K

There has been much miscomprehension of Jesus' proclamation that the kingdom of God was immanent. It did not refer to a future event but to a present fact; it was not prophetic but Vedantic. The kingdom is "at hand" always; immediacy is its correct attribute.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22316 – 12.17.5.84

B_11 – Z – K

Not once in all his recorded sayings did Jesus ever refer to, or use the word, Hell.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22317 – 12.17.5.85

A241224 – ZZ – K

Jesus is the Greek transcription of the Hebrew name Jehoshua. Christus is Latin, Khristos in the Greek, which is a title meaning "anointed", as Buddha, meaning "enlightened", is a title, and Gautama the name.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22318 – 12.17.5.86

B_12 – X – K

In ancient Rome as in modern Europe, in Attica as in America there were, and are, humanists who reject religion as such but concede its usefulness in restraining the baser expressions of human character. If they cannot denigrate Jesus, they deride his spiritual message. They may accept him as a good man, as an ethical teacher, but not his revelation that God is and that man may commune with Him.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22320 – 12.17.5.88

B_12 – Z – K

Jesus went to the length of denouncing as hypocrites those who were outwardly faithful in performing religious practices, but who were secretly sinning in thought.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22321 – 12.17.5.89

B_12 – ZZZ – K

Christ's mission was addressed to the common man with limited intellectual attainments. I have said so in my book A Search in Secret Egypt. That is why he did not publicly teach the metaphysical truths.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22322 – 12.17.5.90

B_11 – Z – K

James, the brother of Jesus and an Apostle, was a vegetarian. But the theologians and historians ignore this fact, which was testified to by the Judeo-Christian Hegesippus, who lived in the century following and had contact with the Palestinian circles of the Apostolic time. Moreover Hegesippus asserts that James had been brought up in this way since childhood. Does this imply that the family circle was vegetarian?

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22323 – 12.17.5.91

B_12 – Z – DK1

The first need for Christian theology is to separate the teaching of Jesus from that of the unfortunately canonized Paul, who never even met him and who began to organize a Church, spread a doctrine, and formulate an asceticism of his own. This gained power and prevailed far too long, being the chief contribution to keeping people from the true Christianity.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22324 – 12.17.5.92

B_12 – ZZ – K

If Paul had not busied himself with turning Jesus' inspiring message "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!"—meaning it is within you NOW—into an ascetic message of long-drawn war against the carnal body; if he had listened better and learned more from that flash which lighted his road to Damascus, instead of returning to the bias and prejudice of his innate nature, he might have given history a higher, less Judaic, version of Christianity.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22325 – 12.17.5.93

B_12 – Z – K

Some of the statements of Saint Paul are on a religious level and are very questionable; others, on a mystical level, are representative of his own but not of general experience; while still others, on the philosophical level, as in his remark to the Greeks about the Unknown God, are quite confused. But he was used to spread Christianity despite this, because of his fervent missionary temperament; and so his preachments were mainly effective and serviceable to the cause, even though they led in the end to a vast organization which was never mentioned, desired, or suggested even once by Jesus.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22326 – 12.17.5.94

B_12 – ZZZ – K

It must be said, and said quite plainly, that the Western and Near Eastern worlds would have had a better history, and Christianity would have had a stronger foundation, because truer, if Saint Paul had never been converted but had remained a Jew. For the vision on the road to Damascus, although a genuine one, was totally misinterpreted. It was a command (to stop persecuting Christians) of a solely personal nature; but he went much farther and not only began the construction of a new world-religion but shifted its emphasis from where Jesus had put it (the kingdom of heaven within men) to Jesus himself, from faith in the Christ-consciousness to faith in a crucified corpse.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22327 – 12.17.5.95

B_12 – ZZ – K1

When pure religion descends upon the earth and makes its way among men, two things will happen. It will dissolve the false belief of the populace that they already possess it, and it will receive the opposition of religious institutions with pretensions to represent it. It was Saint Paul who started Christianity on the road which turned it into Churchianity. But he derived his Christian knowledge at second hand. He knew less about the work which Jesus sought to do on this earth than about the work which he himself sought to do. He is the true founder of the Christian Church, its first great propagator, but he is not the truest interpreter of Jesus' message.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22331E – 12.17.5.99

B_12 – ZEL1/2 – K

It is the Church's personal self-interest, however unconsciously present, which has made the apostle Paul the most praised Christian teacher and the most frequently mentioned one in all the sermons and writing of the clergy. Never having met Jesus, he should not be blamed for never having fully understood Jesus' teaching. The grave consequences of this misunderstanding appeared later in the form of obstacles which interposed themselves between Jesus and his true work, and which succeeded in diverting and distorting it. They were organization, dogma, hierarchy, and literalness. Where Jesus tried to create Christian individuals, Saint Paul tried to create Christian groups. This opened the door to hypocrisy, externalism, materialism, ritualism, priestcraft, persecution, and deterioration. The realizable kingdom of heaven within man had to give way to an unrealizable kingdom of God on earth. The way back to true religion must therefore lie through making a fresh start with new ideas and a fresh approach through individual self-development.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22331E – 12.17.5.99

B_12 – ZEL2/2 – K

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within us: he did not say that the Church is within us.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22349 – 12.17.5.117

A241224 – ZZ – K

The only way in which the individual can find Jesus today is to seek for him within his own heart by the means of constant prayer and study, together with the faithful carrying out of his teachings in all daily life.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22352 – 12.17.5.120

B_12 – ZZ – K

The initiated early Christians understood well enough that the Christ was no other than their own higher self, the Overself. This was true then; it is true now…

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22353 – 12.17.5.121

BN – X – D

The woman of deep Christian piety who has striven to follow this path knows well that in the Christ-Self within her heart she has her greatest treasure. Its Presence is the God she is to worship. She will have learned in the past the mysterious value of tears—tears of spiritual yearning, as well as tears of worldly grief.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22354 – 12.17.5.122

BN – X – D

The Church that Jesus actually founded was not an ecclesiastical organization, complete with its credos, liturgies, rituals, robed prelates, and imposing buildings of its own, but a deeper awareness of being and a better outlook on life. It was therefore an unseen Church, laical rather than clerical.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22355 – 12.17.5.123

A241224 – ZZ – K

The message of Jesus, which was so largely a call to repentant deeds and changed thoughts, is needed today by us all much more than it was needed by the Jews of his time.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22356 – 12.17.5.124

B_11 – Z – DMK

The noble life of Jesus inspires sensitive men as few lives have done. The benign sayings of Jesus afford them matter for heartfelt ethical reflection during the peace of eventide. The terrible sufferings of Jesus have taught his weaker kindred how to bear their own personal misfortunes with strength, courage, and dignity. The true followers of Jesus have spent great sums and given much food, clothing, shelter, and education through varied praiseworthy charitable enterprises.

The Religious Urge > Comments On Specific Religions > Christianity

#22357 – 12.17.5.125

B_12 – ZZ – K