 16. Atheism is Realism and Materialism |
Atheism (or conventional realism) is a state of mind that possesses individuals who are fixed in the first three stages of life. It is a form of "spiritual neurosis" (or ego-possession), as are all of the characteristic mind-states of the first six stages of life.
Esoteric "God-religion" provides a basis for certain remarkable individuals to enter the fourth stage of life and the fifth stage of life, but the commonly (or exoterically) "religious" individual is, like the atheist, a relatively adolescent (if not childish, and even infantile) character, fixed in the ego-possessed states characteristic of the first three stages of life.
Atheism proposes a myth and a "method" for ego-fulfillment that is based on phenomenal realism, rather than "religious" idealism (or the culture of the conventional "God"-idea).
Therefore, atheism is traditionally associated with the philosophy of materialism — just as theism is associated with "Creationism", and "Emanationism", and conventional (or mystical, or fourth and fifth stage) Spirituality.
And the realistic (or atheistic) view tends to be the foundation for all kinds of political, social, and technological movements, since its orientation is toward the investigation and manipulation of material Nature.
Atheism is realism and materialism. It is about the acquisition of "knowledge" about conditional Nature and the exploitation of that "knowledge" to command (or gain power over) conditional Nature. And it is this scheme of "knowledge" and power (expressed as political and technological means of all kinds) that is the basis of the mythology and quasi-"religion" of atheism.
The atheistic (or non-theistic) view of life is ego-based, organized relative to conditional Nature as an elemental (or grossly perceived) process, and committed to "knowledge" and power as the means of "salvation" (or material fulfillment of egoity).
In this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch), the materialistic, realistic, and non-theistic philosophy of ego-fulfillment is represented by the global culture of scientific, technological, and political materialism.
The entire race of humankind is now being organized by the cultural movement of scientific materialism — which counters (and even seeks to suppress) the alternative cultures of exoteric "religion", esoteric mysticism, Transcendental Self-Realization, and Divine Enlightenment.
Scientism (or the culture of realistic or materialistic "knowledge") and its two arms of power (technology and political order) are the primary forces in global culture of the present time. And humanity at large is (thus) tending to be reduced to the robotic acculturations of orderly egoism in the limited terms represented by humanity's functional development in the first three stages of life.
It is only when the egoic "root" of one's functional, "worldly", and "religious" or "Spiritual" life is inspected, understood, and transcended that "self", and "world", and Real God are seen in Truth.
Therefore, it is necessary to understand your own egoic activity. It is necessary to aspire to Wisdom, Truth, and Enlightenment. All occupations derived from the ego-base are (necessarily) limited to egoity, and all conceptions that feed such egoic occupations are (necessarily) bereft of a right view of "self", "world", and Real God (Which Is the Acausal Divine Reality and Truth).
The ultimate moment in the "play" of conditional Nature is not the moment of egoic success (or the temporary achievement of the apparently positive, or "Good", "effect"). The ultimate moment is beyond contradiction (or the dynamics of polarized opposites). It is the moment of equanimity, the still point (or "eye") in the midst of the wheel of Nature's motions and all the motivations of the born "self".
The Truth — and the Real Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State — of "self" and cosmic Nature is Revealed only in that equanimity, beyond all stress and bondage of energy and attention.
This disposition of equanimity (or free energy and attention) is basic to the sixth and seventh stages of life.
In the sixth stage of life, the disposition of equanimity provides the functional base for the ultimate and final investigation of the ego and the dynamics of conditional Nature.
Real (Acausal) God — or the Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, Intrinsically egoless, and Self-Evidently Divine Reality (Prior to conditional "self", conditional "world", and the ego-bound conventions of "religion" and non-"religion") — Is the One and Only Truth of Reality Itself, and the One and Only Way of Right Life and Perfect Realization. -F.J.
