![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Real religion must be in service of truth. When religion serves personal or social gratification, it is no longer a real religion but becomes an appendage of society and serves the unconscious aims of society. Real religion is the most important undertaking of humankind.
Real religion must be in service of truth. When religion serves personal or social gratification, it is no longer a real religion but becomes an appendage of society and serves the unconscious aims of society. Real religion is the most important undertaking of humankind. The nature and destiny of humans is to be more than just social animals driven by various desires and fears, trying to accumulate wealth, experience, and honors only to die unfulfilled.
Real religion needs to be the one aspect of human endeavor that serves people directly rather than serving society. It is the only human activity that can provide true happiness and fulfillment. Unfortunately, what we take to be religion is associated with the various conventional religious traditions. These traditions are corruptions of the original teachings of their founders. The Buddha, who revealed that all beings are in fact buddhas, was not a Buddhist. Much in contemporary Buddhism is the taming and corruption of his insights. Jesus, who sought the kingdom of god within, was not a Christian. Much in present day Christianity is the bending and taming of his teachings into a mechanism for social control. It needs to be noted, however, that within both these religious institutions there are mystical elements which still serve the quest for truth.
Real religion is the most important undertaking of humankind. It is the one activity that needs to remain pure and uncorrupted by society. It is the only activity that serves the individual in the truest sense: it is concerned with the ultimate that each can hope to be. To do this, it must set the person free from all conditionings. True religion must seek the truth regardless of social pressures and needs. It is the only human approach that has the potential of ensuring that the individual's potential is realized rather than being frittered away in meaningless social and economic activities. Do you really believe we were created to spend hours watching television or slaving away at meaningless jobs?
It is an ancient axiom that the truth shall set you free. Free from what? We need to be free from the general unsatisfactoriness of life with its constant tensions, anxieties, and problems; from the lack of peace and contentment that afflict virtually everyone these days. It is rare to find people who are truly content with their life and at peace with themselves. So perverted has our society become that peace and contentment are not even considered worthy of pursuit. We are encouraged to achieve, improve, succeed, and engage in all sorts of activities that do not lead to peace and contentment.
Why should peace and contentment be valued? Because in them lies the true enjoyment of life, a life that is harmonious. Have you ever experienced the relief of just being at peace, with your life perfectly fine as it is, with no drive to achieve or accomplish something? We are so acclimated to tension and anxiety that we do not recognize them as dis-ease. By following our minds—which are nothing other than highly conditioned agents of society—we are always striving for something or avoiding something, but never at peace, never content.
Spend a few hours by yourself with nothing to do, and you will most likely feel uncomfortable. You may find yourself restless or bored. Your mind will be clamoring for stimulation and gratification, and you will not be able to experience the incredible joy of just being alive. You will find yourself needing some kind of stimulation that, if not provided from the outside (TV, phone calls, books, friends), your mind will create through worrying, planning, fantasizing. In the absence of activities and diversions, you will be restless, fidgety. Unpleasant feelings, emotions, and thoughts that may have been suppressed since childhood will start to rise toward the surface, making you feel uncomfortable. Normally, we have our jobs, television, the movies, gossip, worries, eating out, sports, all sorts of activities that distract us from ourselves so that we don't have to face this disturbing situation.
If we were simply at peace with ourselves, then distraction would be unnecessary. We would experience deep satisfaction with just the miracle of our existence. We had that satisfaction as children when we spent hours immersed in the splendor of simply being alive. But then the world—parents, school, media—caught us and told us that there were other, more important, things to do and accomplish. We may have needed to please our parents, perhaps by playing sports or achieving excellence at our studies or being popular. We were indoctrinated into believing that happiness and success lie outside ourselves. No one encouraged us to simply enjoy being ourselves. No support was given for finding satisfaction from within. We were pulled away from our inner source of satisfaction. We may have sensed something was missing, but we were brainwashed (socialized) into looking for it outside of ourselves. Of course, that didn't work except for transitory moments. But instead of questioning our belief that happiness comes from outside, we began to question ourselves. Perhaps we were inadequate or poorly prepared or needed to know more. Maybe we needed to try harder or be better. We never thought to look and see if our assumption that happiness could come from without was correct.
To correct this misconception that happiness comes from outside yourself is the work of true religion, which will help you to see very clearly both yourself and the world around you. Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it nicely in his book I Am That:
Insanity is universal. Sanity is rare. Yet there is hope, because the moment we perceive our insanity, we are on the way to sanity. This is the function of the [teacher]—to make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.
"Real Religion"
Real religion must be in service of truth. When religion serves personal or social gratification, it is no longer a real religion but becomes an appendage of society and serves the unconscious aims of society. Real religion is the most important undertaking of humankind. The nature and destiny of humans is to be more than just social animals driven by various desires and fears, trying to accumulate wealth, experience, and honors only to die unfulfilled.
Real religion needs to be the one aspect of human endeavor that serves people directly rather than serving society. It is the only human activity that can provide true happiness and fulfillment. Unfortunately, what we take to be religion is associated with the various conventional religious traditions. These traditions are corruptions of the original teachings of their founders. The Buddha, who revealed that all beings are in fact buddhas, was not a Buddhist. Much in contemporary Buddhism is the taming and corruption of his insights. Jesus, who sought the kingdom of god within, was not a Christian. Much in present day Christianity is the bending and taming of his teachings into a mechanism for social control. It needs to be noted, however, that within both these religious institutions there are mystical elements which still serve the quest for truth.
Real religion is the most important undertaking of humankind. It is the one activity that needs to remain pure and uncorrupted by society. It is the only activity that serves the individual in the truest sense: it is concerned with the ultimate that each can hope to be. To do this, it must set the person free from all conditionings. True religion must seek the truth regardless of social pressures and needs. It is the only human approach that has the potential of ensuring that the individual's potential is realized rather than being frittered away in meaningless social and economic activities. Do you really believe we were created to spend hours watching television or slaving away at meaningless jobs?
It is an ancient axiom that the truth shall set you free. Free from what? We need to be free from the general unsatisfactoriness of life with its constant tensions, anxieties, and problems; from the lack of peace and contentment that afflict virtually everyone these days. It is rare to find people who are truly content with their life and at peace with themselves. So perverted has our society become that peace and contentment are not even considered worthy of pursuit. We are encouraged to achieve, improve, succeed, and engage in all sorts of activities that do not lead to peace and contentment.
Why should peace and contentment be valued? Because in them lies the true enjoyment of life, a life that is harmonious. Have you ever experienced the relief of just being at peace, with your life perfectly fine as it is, with no drive to achieve or accomplish something? We are so acclimated to tension and anxiety that we do not recognize them as dis-ease. By following our minds—which are nothing other than highly conditioned agents of society—we are always striving for something or avoiding something, but never at peace, never content.
Spend a few hours by yourself with nothing to do, and you will most likely feel uncomfortable. You may find yourself restless or bored. Your mind will be clamoring for stimulation and gratification, and you will not be able to experience the incredible joy of just being alive. You will find yourself needing some kind of stimulation that, if not provided from the outside (TV, phone calls, books, friends), your mind will create through worrying, planning, fantasizing. In the absence of activities and diversions, you will be restless, fidgety. Unpleasant feelings, emotions, and thoughts that may have been suppressed since childhood will start to rise toward the surface, making you feel uncomfortable. Normally, we have our jobs, television, the movies, gossip, worries, eating out, sports, all sorts of activities that distract us from ourselves so that we don't have to face this disturbing situation.
If we were simply at peace with ourselves, then distraction would be unnecessary. We would experience deep satisfaction with just the miracle of our existence. We had that satisfaction as children when we spent hours immersed in the splendor of simply being alive. But then the world—parents, school, media—caught us and told us that there were other, more important, things to do and accomplish. We may have needed to please our parents, perhaps by playing sports or achieving excellence at our studies or being popular. We were indoctrinated into believing that happiness and success lie outside ourselves. No one encouraged us to simply enjoy being ourselves. No support was given for finding satisfaction from within. We were pulled away from our inner source of satisfaction. We may have sensed something was missing, but we were brainwashed (socialized) into looking for it outside of ourselves. Of course, that didn't work except for transitory moments. But instead of questioning our belief that happiness comes from outside, we began to question ourselves. Perhaps we were inadequate or poorly prepared or needed to know more. Maybe we needed to try harder or be better. We never thought to look and see if our assumption that happiness could come from without was correct.
To correct this misconception that happiness comes from outside yourself is the work of true religion, which will help you to see very clearly both yourself and the world around you. Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it nicely in his book I Am That:
Insanity is universal. Sanity is rare. Yet there is hope, because the moment we perceive our insanity, we are on the way to sanity. This is the function of the [teacher]—to make us see the madness of our daily living. Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.
"Real Religion"