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Chapter 2: We Have Outgrown the Cult of Childish
Religion
The Evil in Man and
Religion
The Living God is Present under all conditions. However,
the fact is that all conditions may be perceived,
experienced, conceived, and altogether known in themselves
and for their own sake.
Phenomenal conditions themselves are a force, a machine,
a cycle of beginning, change, and end, a destiny, and a
presumption that always contain an equal balance of positive
and negative factors. The entire realm of phenomena, or
“Nature,” is, in itself, a binding form, an inevitability
that is without freedom or ultimate happiness. The
phenomenal realm is, in itself, what has traditionally been
called “evil.”
Phenomenal conditions, including ones own body-mind, are
recognized in Truth only when they are seen arising within
or as modifications of the Transcendental Power and Person
or Being that is the Living Divine Reality or God. Such
recognition, and only such recognition, is the necessary
basis of freedom and ultimate happiness. Such recognition,
freedom, and happiness, under whatever conditions are
presently arising, are what have traditionally been called
“goodness.”
Many human individuals presume themselves to be religious
when they are merely persuaded, in their minds and to a
partial degree, by certain consoling ideas, or “beliefs,”
relative to their own future, the conventional “rightness”
of their behaviors, and so forth. Typically “religious”
people suffer from profound separative tendencies, fears,
and doubts, which are always present in the unliberated
psyche of Man in Nature, and which cannot be dissolved by
concepts or forces in the superficial mind and body. And,
unfortunately, such people project themselves via righteous
opinions that tend to exclude and negate other individuals,
whose social (and particularly sexual) behaviors and
“religious beliefs” are different from their own.
The righteous presumptions and behaviors of superficially
and conventionally religious people are a Life-negative and
socially pernicious influence, based on a failure to
recognize the phenomena of human experience within the Being
of the Living God, Who is the ultimate Self and Destiny of
all beings, things, and processes. Such individuals give lip
service (or mental acknowledgment) to the Divine, because
such service consoles them in their fear. But they do not
Realize the Living and Present God, and they do not truly
serve all beings in love, as an expression of the liberality
and wisdom of their prior and eternal happiness.
The conventionally religious mind is not free, not
liberated from the force of phenomena, or the dreadful and
marvelous Machine of Nature. Therefore, even though
so-called religious people may be full of God-Talk, curious
beliefs, and mystical profusions, they do not typically
acknowledge or Realize the present inherence of all beings
and things in the Transcendental Reality. And this absence
of direct Realization obliges them to function, and
experience, and presume within the domain of phenomena, or
Nature in itself. In this manner, conventional religion is
often bound up with tendencies, motives, expressions, and
philosophies that are “evil” and not “good.” Therefore,
anyone who is moved by arguments of a religious kind should
consider all of it to the point of ecstatic surrender,
awakened wisdom, and a profoundly activated love of all
beings (expressed through non-threatening service,
tolerance, compassion, and help).
Be more sensitive to the “evil” that is always persuasive
in your fear, regardless of the glamour of your
“experiences” or your beliefs. And oblige yourself first of
all to surrender the self and all its internal and external
possessions to the Infinite Being and All-Pervading
Life-Radiance that are God.
Scientific
Proof – Table of Contents
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