© 1996 Ken Glasziou
© 1996 The Brotherhood of Man Library
(Adapted from Paper 155, Sections 5 & 6. Word for Word quotation is shown in italics)
The religions of the world have a double origin—natural and revelational. Three manifestations of the religious urge are common to peoples of all races and at all times. They are:
Primitive religion. In Western countries in the twentieth century, the primitive aspects of religion, formerly conditioned by fear, have now tended to be replaced by the yearnings of lost and lonely souls for some form of direct personal contact with supernatural forces or beings. These yearnings may become manifested as belief in the occult, or in magic, covert, esoteric and mysterious forces and beings that provide excitement and escape from the reality of a puzzling, rapidly changing, and poorly understood intellectual and social environment.
The religions of civilization. Authoritarian religions of the mind, now suffering the assaults of a scientific materialism that is driving even main stream religionists to flee to the shelter of fundamentalism .
True religion—the religion of revelation. The revelation of eternal values and realities. The very concept of supernatural revelation is also suffering under the assault of scientific materialism and a philosophy that denies any basis for the existence of eternal values—or, for that matter, any preferred system of values. The basic value of revelatory religion consists in the glimpse it provides of the goodness and beauty of the infinite character of the Father in heaven—a religion of the spirit as promulgated through personal religious experience.
During this period of his teaching, the Master made it clear that the great difference between the religion of the mind and the religion of the spirit is that, while the former is upheld by ecclesiastical authority, the latter is based solely on individual human experience. He said:
“Until the human race progresses to the level of a higher and more general recognition of the realities of spiritual experience, large numbers of men and women will continue to show a personal preference for those religions of authority which require only intellectual assent. In contrast, the religion of the spirit entails active participation of mind and soul in the faith adventure of grappling with the rigorous realities of progressive human experience.” (UB 155:5.8)
“The acceptance of the traditional religions of authority presents the easy way out for man’s urge to seek satisfaction for the longings of his spiritual nature. The settled, crystallized, and established religions of authority afford a ready refuge to which the distracted and distraught soul of man may flee when harassed by fear and tormented by uncertainty. Such a religion requires of its devotees, as the price to be paid for its satisfactions and assurances, only a passive and purely intellectual assent.” (UB 155:5.9)
“For a long time there will live on earth those timid, fearful, and hesitant individuals who will prefer thus to secure their religious consolations, even though, in so casting their lot with the religions of authority, they compromise the sovereignty of personality, debase the dignity of self-respect, and utterly surrender the right to participate in that most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences: the personal quest for truth, the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal triumph of the actual realization of the victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in the supreme adventure of all human existence—man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him.” (UB 155:5.10)
“The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The religion of the mind—the theology of authority—requires little or none of these exertions from its formal believers. Tradition is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fearful and halfhearted souls who instinctively shun the spirit struggles and mental uncertainties associated with those faith voyages of daring adventure upon the high seas of unexplored truth in search of spiritual realities as they may be discovered by the progressive human mind and experienced by the evolving human soul.” (UB 155:5.11)
God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is man 's eternal destination. (UB 5:4.3)
But long before reaching Havona, these ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerablefaith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. (UB 26:5.3)
When human beings form religious groups, as the group enlarges it is virtually inevitable that a hierarchical structure will develop, rules will be made, and rituals and creeds will gradually be formulated. Along with such organization, positions of power and authority evolve, and people become divided and ranked according to status in its pyramidal structure. Even a religion that starts as a communal group tends to follow this pattern, aided and abetted by ambitious individuals struggling to clamber toward the apex of the pyramid. Jesus told the gathering that the appeal of all such religions is to the mind. He warned his followers that the religion of the spirit would always be in deadly conflict with all such forms of religious organization and that, for the religion of the spirit, authority resides in the Father in a one-on-one relationship with the individual. Then, pointing to each of his followers and calling them by name, he said:
“And now, which one of you would prefer to take the easy path of conformity to an established and fossilized religion rather than to suffer the difficulties and persecutions attendant upon the mission of demonstrating a better way of salvation to men as you experience the satisfaction of discovering for yourselves the beauties and realities of the eternal truths and supreme grandeurs of the kingdom of heaven? Are you fearful, soft, and ease-seeking? Are you afraid to trust your future in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you distrustful of the Father, whose children you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the certainty and intellectual settledness of the religion of traditional authority, or will you gird yourselves to go forward with me into that uncertain and troublous future of proclaiming the new truths of the religion of the spirit, the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men?” (UB 155:5.13)
“After a short break, during which the band considered this challenge, Jesus continued. In substance, he said: “I am calling upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I am calling you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of making for yourselves the greatest discovery that the human soul can make—the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself—and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience. In so doing your religion shall change from mere intellectual belief to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. This religion of the spirit consists in a personal and progressive revelation that ever beckons you on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities”.” (UB 155:6.3-4)
“Never can the religions of authority come to unification. Human unity and mortal brotherhood can be achieved only by and through the super-endowment of the religion of the spirit. The hope of unity can only be realized when, and as, the divergent religions of authority become impregnated with, and overshadowed by, the unifying and ennobling religion of the spirit—the religion of personal and individual spiritual experience.”
“The religions of authority require of mankind uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in this troubled and divided world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience—the unity of destiny—while making full allowance for diversity of belief. It requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. It does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. Thereby it grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.”
The morality of the religions of evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of fear. The religions of revelation allure men to seek for a God of love because they crave to become like him. (UB 5:4.1)
All nonreligious human activities seek to bend the universe to the distorting service of self. (UB 5:4.3)
“Never forget there is only one adventure which is more satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover the will of the living God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying to do that divine will. And fail not to remember that the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness—justice. The spirit which my Father and I send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of idealistic beauty.” UB 155:6.11
“Those who are born of the spirit of God shall henceforth discern the word of God regardless of whence it appears to take origin. Divine truth must not be discounted because the channel of its bestowal is apparently human. Many have minds which accept the theory of God while they spiritually fail to realize the presence of’ God. This is why I have so often taught you that God’s presence can best be realized by acquiring the spiritual attitude of a sincere child. But it is not the mental immaturity of the child that I commend to you. Rather, it is the spiritual simplicity of such a fully-trusting little one. It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly learn to experience and feel the presence of God.” UB 155:6.12
“When you begin to find God in your soul, presently you will begin to discover him in the soul of others and, eventually, in all the creatures and creations of a mighty universe. But what chance will the Father have to appear as a god of supreme loyalties and divine ideals in your souls if you give little or no time to the thoughtful contemplation of eternal realities? While the mind is not the seat of the spiritual nature, it is surely the gateway thereto.” UB 155:6.13
“I ask you not to try to prove to others that you have found God. You cannot > produce a valid proof. Nevertheless, there are two positive and powerful > demonstrations of the fact that you are God-knowing, and they are:”
“The fruits of the spirit show forth in your daily routine life.”
“The fact that your entire life plan furnishes positive proof that you have unreservedly risked everything you are and have on the adventure of survival after death in the pursuit of the hope of finding the God of eternity, whose presence you have foretasted in time.” UB 155:6.14-16
“You are now my apostles and to you religion must not become a theologic shelter to which you may flee in order to escape the rugged realities of idealistic adventure nor the difficulties of making spiritual progress. Rather must your religion forthwith become a fact of real experience testifying that God has found you, idealized you, ennobled you, and spiritualized you—and thereby you witness to your fellows that you have enlisted in the eternal adventure of finding the God who has already found and sonshipped you. Let us now be on our way.” UB 155:6.18
Adapted from Paper 155, Sections 5 & 6
“But the greatest error of the teaching about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance.” (UB 159:4.9)