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Culture and Spirituality Nobody can Make |
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Culture and Spirituality Nobody can Make |
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When God is made the expression of faith what it promotes is blasphemy as God is outside the faiths that religions preach for promoting herdism. The influence of reason on the conceptualization of God makes the faithful consider God a subordinate that succumbs to all types of material temptations which really attributes their own greed to God. Most of these religions thrive in their trades by projecting God as somebody sitting there to free the faithful from all nefarious sins. Herbert Spencer, the 19th century English philosopher, said that man thinks of God as a being afflicted with "a love of adulation such as would be despised in a human being." (‘First Principles’) The dependence upon faith for the management of life really degrades life in all its aspects as religious faith is alien
to the System of Life. On the other hand, life should be lived on the basis of the sacred and intelligent relationship with the System of Life. That was what Prophets too demanded when their contemporaries degraded morally due to their reliance upon faith for the management of life. The faith-based religions are again facilitating moral degradation making them the very expressions of faith against which the prophets fought. "Men, serve your Lord, who has created you and those who have gone before you, so that you may guard yourselves against evil; who has made the earth a bed for you and the sky a dome, and has sent down water from the sky to bring forth fruits for your sustenance.... Eat and drink of that which God has provided and do not foul the land with evil” (‘The Koran’) The One who created the Universe, and provides food simply cannot be the creation of anybody's faith. Prophet Mohammed was trying to bring sanity into life with his insistence on the management of life on its relationship with the Real World, the world that is created by God. The 'Kingdom of God' that Christ spoke of also is the same Real World. Life gets vested with all evils when consciousness is alienated from the Real World by the
faiths that sustain many religions.
Faith takes them to hell |
| Texas: An argument over who was going to heaven and who was going to hell ended with one Texas man shooting another to death with a shotgun, police said. Johnny, 20 was allegedly shot by Frank, 21, on Sunday. A witness told police they were sitting at a table outside a trailer park and entered into an argument over who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. (31st July 2002) |
Faith is the creation of reasoning, but God cannot be the creation of any faith. Knowledge of God is the knowledge of the System of Life/Truth. If people go beyond Truth to conceptualize God, what they realize is the product of their own (or others') creativity. Any attempt to conceptualize God is dangerous because it leads to parochial expressions that do not agree with the holistic System of Life with which God should be identified. Religious faiths promote psychic disorders due to the alienation of the mind from the System of Life. Anything that does not belong to the System of Life is dangerous to the mind and the body.
God is the Super-Intelligent System existing in the Universe, and we being the creations of this System must belong intellectually and emotionally to it. Only then the mind can keep its human identity. God should not be allowed to be projected as the expression of parochialism on which all these religions thrive facilitating expressions of brutality all over the world. God should be defined by all Governments as the sum total of the creative force that has been responsible for the Universe, and life in it because God has become a law and order problem. It is the duty of all sensible people to liberate God from parochialism, and then there will be no problem as all these calamities are due to the alienation of human consciousness from the System of Life. Religions must be blamed for this alienation as their faiths are alien to the System of Life. The wars we witness in many places are due to this alienation. The predatory qualities that some faiths preach equip their believers
with violence that actually is a threat to sanity.
The sanity of the human mind is more important than religious faiths. People find it difficult to accept this Reality because their minds are conditioned by the falsifications that religions preach. No human technology can come up to the technology that we find in Nature. Truth is the incorporation of science, art, and life - that is God's technology. God can be reached only through support for the System of Life as it is the system of God. People develop insensitivity to everything that belongs to the System of Life due to the shifting of consciousness from this System to the parochial systems with which they are forced to identify themselves. "This present life is like the rich garment with which the earth adorns itself when watered by the rain We send down from the sky. Crops, sustaining man and beast, grow luxuriantly: but, as its tenants begin to think themselves its masters, down comes Our Scourge upon it, by night or in broad day, laying it waste, as though it did not blossom but yesterday. Thus do we make plain Our revelations to thoughtful men." (‘The Koran’ 10:24)
The up-gradation of consciousness is possible only on the interaction with the objects that belong to Nature because the human mind is a product of this System of Life. The relationship between the self and other beings in the Real World only can promote sanity. The creations of God include all humans too, for none is alien to the System of Life though many faith-religions consider people outside their faiths aliens. As human civilizations progress, societies develop many systems that appropriate human feelings for their own products. People have alienated themselves from the objects that belong to the Real World due to the projected implication that the best products always are the products of the civilizations. Thus we have our education, our religions, our manufactured foods, our agriculture, and the like. But, the best always belongs to the System of Life, and human existence
in all its aspects must be based on the sacred relationship that it has with
this holistic system. Getting this knowledge is Enlightenment because it is the expression of wisdom. Retaining this knowledge in all activities through its application is the wisdom that societies in the march of their civilizations tend to override. Though this Enlightenment was attained by the Prophets who spoke of the Truth, the religions that instil predatory qualities are becoming promoters of intolerance.
Monotheism
Monotheism and polytheism are the same so long as religions make no effort to cultivate the sacred relationship with the objects that belong to the System of Life. Religious traditions and customs must be for driving home the necessity for retaining this sacred relationship. What is more important than faith is adherence to the System of Life as humans are the products of this System, not any faith. Serving God means living according to the System of Life needs much intellectual and emotional honesty. Spirituality is in not serving any religious concept that promotes herd instincts only. The origin of polytheism goes to the identification of divinity in the forces of Nature
which is the only divine system that is available to us because we are the products of this System of Life.
Even when 'The Koran' asserts the supremacy of the Creator ("Men, serve your Lord, who has created you and those who have gone before you, so that you may guard yourselves against evil; who has made the earth a bed for you and the sky a dome, and has sent down water from the sky to bring forth fruits for your sustenance. Do not knowingly set up other gods beside God.”), Allah is made the product of faith due to the promotion of parochialism. Allah's way is the way of the Truth. People can fabricate religions, but nobody can fabricate spirituality. The Real World that lives in Life alone is the expression of spirituality. People must belong to it, the earlier the better. Many religions are haunted by historical factors. Every moment the relationship must be guided by the Living World, not what people import from the past. Many are thrust upon to believe that fidelity to ancient narratives is necessary for the religious identity. Thus many live archaically, and in this effort many lose their human identity too.
'Sruti' - Revealed Truth
“Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them
out, to be defiled by them.”
(Leviticus 19.31)In Hindu system of thought the knowledge one receives at the real state of the mind is 'sruthi'. Real state of the mind is when it is aligned to the System of Life. Truth is not a secret to be revealed as it is the Reality that belongs to the System of Life. It is available to every being on this planet. Though human beings are products of this system, they do not identify themselves with it under the influence of faith-religious. When the mind identifies itself emotionally and intellectually with the Reality it gets the knowledge that is necessary for the conduct of life from the Real World, and the knowledge thus received is 'sruti'. So the knowledge thus received must be called the 'Received Truth' instead of 'revealed truth'.
Sankara (India,788-820) says in ‘Sarva Vedanta Siddhanta Sarasangraha’:- “'Sruthi' declares that Brahman (God) is eternal, true, and real. Brahman is not subject to any kind of change, and 'sruthi' is the proof of it. Therefore the knowledge of Brahman does not depend upon anything else.... The Lord says, 'I cannot be known by the Vedas (ancient religious texts), nor by austere penance.' Therefore the view that the study of the Vedas and the observance of religious formalities would help a person to realize the innermost Atman stands refuted.... Knowledge is the awareness of
what a thing is in itself. It is gained by the valid means of knowledge. Neither logical acumen, nor ritualistic observances are of avail in acquiring knowledge." The acquisition of this knowledge is immediate as it is not based on reasoning. This was the knowledge that the prophets got. Though the prophets had this immediate perception of the knowledge of the Reality, religions fail to live up to their prophets due to their insistence upon faiths.
'The Koran' contains
examples of 'sruthi'. The problem comes when elements not related to
spirituality take control of religions. Any departure from Truth is vested with
ignorance. Truth gets outside the purview of these religions as they are concerned with faiths that falsify life. This is the greatest of all calamities that happen to the noblest of God’s creations.
© 1999-2005 Satheesan N. Kochicheril
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25thMarch 1999 page
added on 20th Nov'.
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