Is there a ‘religious agenda' that has nothing to do with any religion?
From Martin Lefevre in California
An American living much of the year in Mexico wrote asking me to "state my
religious agenda." That's a difficult challenge. Presuming the term "religious
agenda" doesn't reflect a built-in bias, it boils down to the large difference
between religion and religiosity.
This acquaintance writes that organized religion is a "null set." By that he
means that religion is invalid, indeed, that it amounts to nothing.
But I think he may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. True, thousands
of years of organized religion in the so-called civilized world haven't made us
less violent and more compassionate toward each other. The curbs on bad behavior
that religion has provided through moral strictures have been offset by the
divisions, hatreds, and conflicts generated by religious identification.
Religion reflects two powerful, apparently innate human tendencies--one good,
the other harmful. On one hand the universality of religion indicates that the
religious impulse is common to all people. On the other hand, the tendency to
crystallize religious experience into organized religion reflects a ubiquitous
spiritual laziness.
Each person needs to continually replenish and deepen his or her spiritual life
by drawing from the well of religious reflection. However scriptures, priests,
traditions, and rituals solidify, and come to replace direct perception and
feeling.
The greater the genuine religiosity, the less rigidly a person clings to a
belief system. But if one strips away the belief system, does the religious
impulse still exist? Certainly, and much stronger--at least in the young and
young at heart.
It is disturbing to realize that organized religion has impeded the spiritual
development of the human being. But beliefs, the currency of religions, corrupt
religiosity; and fundamentalist beliefs corrupt it absolutely. In short, the
stronger the belief, the greater the spiritual corruption.
Spiritual growth is arduous. But if one takes the time to negate the separate
self, through questioning and passive observation, meditation spontaneously
occurs. The observer dissolves, thought slows, and time stops. Being fully in
the present, the timeless now, life and death are as close as breathing in and
breathing out.
Then there is something beyond words, ideas, concepts, and beliefs. Call it what
you will. I don't like to give it any name (since that's where the trouble with
organized religion starts).
However one has to take the time and devote the energy to it every day. Then the
separate self falls away, and thought quiets down entirely. The brain is
renewed, and infused with insight. Perhaps that is the true meaning of human
life.
Yet even given the validity of so-called mystical experience (in the sense that
there is an intelligence beyond the human mind of which the silent mind/brain
can be aware), does human existence have any more significance in the universe
than any other life? Tentatively, yes. Our brains, because they give us the
potential to be aware of cosmic intelligence, do have significance to the
intelligence that imbues the universe.
So is there a 'religious agenda' that has nothing to do with any religion? I
feel there is, and that its intent is to bring about a transmutation in human
consciousness. Is that beginning to happen?
When this psychological revolution does fully ignite, an effectively new species
of human being will be born. Human beings will then live in imperfect harmony
with nature and each other--as opposed to our present trajectory of increasing
disharmony, which is eroding the human character and soul, and driving man
toward machine-like existence.
Religiosity begins and ends with the individual. An inner revolution starts with
seeing that all intermediaries interfere with authentic religious experience.
mglefevre@earthlink.net
The author welcomes comments.
