What is Religion and who needs it? 1 of 4

This may be the most difficult paper you have ever read on the subject of true religion, which is the union of our soul with spirit. It points out our identification with and bondage to nature in the realm of duality.

May I suggest, that you read a small section at a time, ponder it and try to understand it, before you move on.

If your background is Christian, which is based on faith and the atonement of Jesus (The Atonement is the sacrifice Jesus Christ made to help us overcome sin, adversity, and death. Jesus paid the price for our sins, took upon Himself death, and was resurrected). You may say to yourself ‘I thought being a Christian is hart, but this, being based on a universal Concept of Oneness, Wholeness, is another story’. Many people say, everything in the universe is connected. If you are one of them, read to the end…. Peace.

 How can we make the distinction between that which is living and that which is dead? This question seems to be a no brainer. In the living there is freedom, there is intelligence; in that which is dead, is bondage and no freedom is possible, because there is no intelligence.

This freedom is what all of us are striving for. To be free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection. This effort to attain freedom underlies all forms of worship, whether we know it or not.

If we were to examine the various sorts of worship all over the world, we would see that the most primitive of mankind are worshipping ghosts, demons, and the spirits of their forefathers. There is serpent worship, worship of tribal gods, and worship of the departed ones. Why do humans do this? It is because they feel that in some unknown way these beings are greater, more powerful than they are, and thus limit their freedom. They, therefore, seek to atone these beings with sacrifice in order to prevent them from molesting them, in other words, to get more freedom. They also seek to win favour from these so-called superior beings.

In general, this shows that the world is expecting a miracle. This expectation never leaves us, and however we may try, we are all running after the miraculous and extraordinary.

What is mind? It is but that ceaseless inquiry into the meaning and mystery of life? We may claim that only uncultivated people are going after all these things, but the question still is there: Why should it be so? The Jews were asking for a miracle. The whole world has been asking for the same for thousands of years. There is, again, the universal dissatisfaction. We get an ideal into our mind and before we do something about it, we rush into another direction. We struggle hard to attain some goal and then discover we do not want it.

This dissatisfaction repeats itself many times and what it creates is only more dissatisfaction.  

What is the meaning behind this universal dissatisfaction? It is because freedom is everyone’s goal. The search is endless. It goes on forever.  The child rebels against the law as soon as it is born. Its first utterance is a cry, a protest against the bondage in which it finds itself.

This longing for freedom produces the idea of a Being who is absolutely free. The concept of God, this is a fundamental element in the human psyche.

In yoga, Sat-chit-ananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) is the highest concept of God possible to the mind. It is the essence of knowledge and is by its nature the essence of bliss.

We have been stifling that inner voice long enough, seeking to follow law and quiet the human nature, but there is that human instinct to rebel against nature's laws, as the law of cause and effect. We may not understand what the meaning is, but there is that unconscious struggle of the human with the spiritual, of the lower with the higher mind, and the struggle attempts to preserve one's separate life, what we call our "individuality".

Even hell stands out with this miraculous fact that we are born rebels; and the first fact of life, is the inrushing of life itself, against this we rebel and cry out, "No law for us." As long as we obey the laws we are like robots, and on goes the universe and we cannot break it. Laws as laws become man's nature. The first inkling of life on its higher level is in seeing this struggle within us, to break the bond of nature and to be free. "Freedom, O Freedom! Freedom, O Freedom!" is the song of the soul. Bondage, to be bound in nature, seems its fate.

Why should there be serpent, or ghost, or demon worship and all these various creeds and forms for having miracles? Why do we say that where there is life, there is