 136. Religions (A Review) |
Why is it that “great religious institutions”, which seem to be founded on the greater human and cultural persuasions, ultimately become the primary basis of social conflict and even personal neurosis? The reason is that “great” (or popular, and, necessarily, public-oriented, and even State-”bonded”) “religious” institutions are (because of their orientation) obliged to include (and identify with, and even to pander to) masses of immature people who have very little will or capability for the practical personal and cultural exercise of right “religious” or (otherwise) Spiritual (or esoteric) life. As a result, the institutions of “great religion” develop much like the institutions of State develop under the same conditions of universal human immaturity—and, indeed, because of that likeness, “great religions” (and even all “establishment” institutions) are, characteristically, “bonded” to the State in which they are “established” (and by which their public power is legitimized). Thus, right “religious” practice (or, otherwise, esotericism in general) characteristically eschews mere popularism, and all subordination to “establishment” cults, and all tendencies toward the non-separation between “religion” and “State”.
Every popular (or even “great”) “religious” institution tends—except during periods of renewal by living Adept-Realizers—to become more and more dogmatic, and, eventually, to become irrevocably associated with fixed ideas that, in one manner or another (and to one or another degree), deny the very (and, necessarily, esoteric, recondite, and intensively demanding) Truth relative to Which all “religions” (and all mere ideas) are mere pointers. Likewise, the fixed-mindedness of dogmatic popular “religiosity” also tends to vigorously (and in a presumptuous “culturally superior” manner) deny the “religious” authenticity or “religious” completeness of people who belong to other “religious” institutions or cultures. The conventional (or ego-based, and ordinary, or merely public-oriented, and, therefore, less than Truth-oriented) “religious” institution, like any other mortal (or inherently threatened) entity in the “world”, tends to become more and more centered in itself—and more and more devoted (more or less exclusively) to its own survival (and its own public power).
Conventional “religious” (or even esoteric) institutions learn how to survive by serving and manipulating a massive membership that is largely incapable of right “religious” (or, otherwise, esoteric) responsibility in practice. This is done by minimizing the right “religious” (or, otherwise, esoteric) demand for literal and personal conversion of mind and action, and replacing that difficult demand with the “easier” (less rigorous) and more secular demand for mere allegiance to systems of myth, belief, ritual, dogma, and rote practice of ego-supportive “methods” and ego-reinforcing “techniques”. Thus, the condition for membership in most institutions of “great” (or merely public-oriented and society-bound) “religion” is allegiance to fixed ideas and other outward (or superficial) signs of belonging to the cult—whereas right “religious” (or, otherwise, esoteric) practice is founded on active conversion of body and mind to the Divine Reality, and on the acceptance of behavioral disciplines that (at the very least) make the individual an outwardly benign (or socially “self”-restrained) character.
Of course, “great” institutional “religions” do recommend various “social morality” attitudes, but the practice of “self”-restraint is not made a condition of membership—except, perhaps, in the case of a few selected acts that are, often for absurd reasons, taboo. Furthermore, institutionalized “morality” tends to be associated with archaic, neurotic, and petty sexual and social taboos, rather than with the truly human obligations of ego-transcending love, service, and compassion. Likewise, most “religious” institutions today have abandoned the detailed (and even ancient) “religious” disciplines associated with “right life”— including, for example, the ancient recommendations relative to personal disciplines of a healthful dietary nature, such as the obligation to avoid meat or other killed food, impure food, toxic stimulants, and so forth. And the esoteric and universal Spiritual teachings that are the only real significance of “religion” have been almost totally abandoned and even lost by the non-esoteric “orthodoxy” of the “great religions”.
In the conventional affair of popular “religion”, the communication of rigorous demands (and, also, of esoteric understanding and practice) is avoided, because conventional “religious” institutions are trying to survive (and, also, to achieve or, otherwise, maintain public power) by acquiring and maintaining massive memberships. Thus, conventional (or popular, public-oriented) “religion” is promoted and sold by hyped appeals to the non-discriminating mind of “Everyman”.
