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Gaelic defined religion as "that device by which people live with realities." He distinguished two aspects of religion. "The first is the essence, which is very simple and not diversely differentiated; and the other is the outer appearance, which represents the essence to the individual beholder. The first is always the same; the second is of almost infinite variety. The second never completely expresses the first, but to those who hold it in sincere belief it represents as much as is adequate. When it ceases to be adequate, it either is changed, or if obtained, becomes not a medium of transmission of reality, but actually an insulation against it. "These almost infinitely varied forms correspond in their variety to the variety of receptive apparatus. The variety of receptive apparatus is merely another reflection of the variety to be found everywhere in nature; and comes into being from the same causes; that is to say, because of divergent developments through reaction to different environments, mental, physical, and spiritual. Just as the fish and the eagle are both basically creatures embodying a common life force; nevertheless owing to different evolutionary developments, one maintains his contact with the life force through one medium, water, and the other through a totally different medium, air. "It is of course from this point of view self-evident that the exact outward form of any religion derives its whole importance from the degree to which it expresses the inner essence. But note that this importance derives (is communicated or transferred) only to that particular group with whose individual and personal receptivities these particular forms correspond. It is of less than no importance that to any other group of people this particular outward form expresses nothing whatever of the inner essence. "Religion is a state of realization of certain simple essential things, an attitude of heart -" here Gaelic broke off, expressing dissatisfaction over the wording. He explained that he really meant, deeper fundamental currents: than went on. "It (religion) is a direction of currents brought about by belief in certain things which are facts, and therefore worthy of belief, only when viewed from the exact orientation point of the believer. From any other point of vision they may cease to be facts and become unworthy of credence. "Take, for instance a card. Looked at sideways it is a card. But suppose you look at it edgeways, and that furthermore you cannot be moved -. that is your point of view - and no one moves the card. Then to you it is nothing but an edge. Another sees it sideways and says it is a card - of course it is a card! You see only the edge! "Or suppose it is dark, and there is a piece of blue glass between you and a distant light. It would appear to you as a piece of blue glass, quite obviously. But from any point where the light was not directly behind the piece of glass it would appear black or non-existent. Religion is the same. Unless illuminated by being directly in line with the essential simplicities, it appears dark or non-existent." |
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"The difference between a religion and a superstition is in whether or not it conveys, not to the minds, of the believers necessarily, but to the inner sense currents of their lives, any portion of the few simplicities we have called the inner essence. The ultimate truth of any religion is not how wholly it conveys these simplicities, but whether or not it conveys them in such degree as has an exact correspondence with both capacity and need. "Therefore, no man is justified in denying authenticity to any religious belief whatever, no matter what its crudity or simplicity may be, unless he is able to say that such correspondence either never has been or has ceased to exist. And since no man is possessed of omniscience to apprehend all degrees and kinds of human creatures, it may confidently be said that on this basis alone his judgment is unjustifiable. If he would evaluate he must go deeper. He must first of all determine what these inner simplicities may be. He must determine next whether the external pattern of that particular religion (and by that I do not mean articles of creed, but articles of supposed belief, as fact) - whether those outward things bring through the inner things and he must guess on whether the transfusion equals the capacity. And since this could be done only by putting himself into the skin of the other fellow (becoming him), which is impossible, he is reduced in the final analysis to a judgment of results. And the results themselves must be evaluated as merely the representations of inner essences, realities." Someone brought up the question of the crass materialist who holds the belief that the material is everything, that man is merely a chemical compound, reverting to its elements at death. How about such a belief? Could that be considered a religion? A sort of negative religion; a stop-gap, replied Gaelic. What value such a religion? our interlocutor insisted. "It cannot be a positive good to anybody," admitted Gaelic, "but is not detrimental if through the distorted intellectual image the essential simplicities happen to shine. The form is absolutely and totally unessential, provided the basic simplicities are, not thought, but realized, in the directing current in life. It is there that one catches the dividing line of the importance of the intellect and the intuitions. Just as the intellect has its especial field, where it is at least of equal importance, there is this field, which I broadly call religion, where it is not of the slightest importance. Its focus is not upon this field. There is focused the eternal mind which man has builded by his own experience and decision." |
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But, Gaelic insisted, he did not wish to confine the idea of religion to any defined and recognized creeds. "A religion," said he, "may quite well be a religion of one, a relation of one man to reality. It is important to remember that. It is also important to remember that Religion with a capital R is one thing; but that religions are myriad. "Now," said he, "we will take up the former. "The first of the Essential Simplicities," he began, "is a faith in continuity, in a progressing, expanding and continuing personality. "I said faith, and not belief," he distinguished. "This faith, in some form, is an absolute essential to anything that can be truly designated a religion under our definition. It is a tenet of belief in all formal religions, from the crude, happy hunting grounds of the savage to the complicated hereafters of civilized systems. "There are, however, a great number of people who believe implicitly that there is no survival of personality after death; and an even greater number who are in an honest state of doubt as to that point. Nevertheless, possibly the great majority of these people are possessed of true religion as we have defined it, and that religion does, in spite of themselves, contain its due faith in continuity. "In their case very clearly you will get an illustration of what was said as to the real judgment being based upon results. These people will almost invariably be found actually to be living a life which is utterly devoid of any reasonable explanation unless its actions be referred to an ultimate faith in continuance. A life wholly devoid of that faith would be rationally one of opportunism solely. If death actually ended, wiped out the individual existence, and the fact was not merely believed, but actually and scientifically known, the individual would be mad not to live for the moment only, since the moment is certainly all there is. Duty, altruistic effort, the obligation to others - all those higher moral efflorations that adorn the higher types would be, not only useless, but silly. To adduce such considerations as that the individual acts as he does through 'self-respect' or a 'desire to do the job,' or whatever you please, is beside the mark. Such qualities themselves owe their existence to the hidden faith that personality continues. So, however vigorously held or strongly expressed is the belief in extinction, that belief is given the lie by the whole foundation-building aspect of the present life. It is an excellent example of the comparative unimportance, of the form of intellectual belief, as contrasted with the trend and direction of the hidden life currents. "So in examining any man's religion by the criteria of the essential simplicities, we must not examine his formulated belief, but should determine whether in essence his life is not logically and rationally conducted as one would conduct his life, did he avow a formalized belief in continuity." |
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"The second Essential Simplicity which must, in some degree and in some form, be a part of Religion, is a faith in the intelligence of, and a purpose in cosmos. "The outward translation of this is most diverse. It may be graduated from the head of a savage's hierarchy of lesser deities, through a partisan Jehovah, up to the widest pantheism or metaphysical concepts of which the highest minds are capable; but it must always be an intelligence of wider scope than those who live under it, look up to it, possess; and it must have a purpose of some sort that extends beyond the comprehension of the believer. "In the lower forms this translates itself merely in terms of a powerful superman with all man's attributes; and the purpose becomes sometimes almost willful caprice. But the believer is always subject to the power, and must be carried along with and assist in the fulfillment of the purpose. In the higher forms often times the intelligence translates itself into an orderly arrangement, subject to orderly laws; and while the ultimate purpose is itself obscure, the direction of the purpose is that of mechanical evolution. Nevertheless, even in the religion of such scientific materialists the essential is present. It is dim and small and flickers in the wind of chill intellectual understanding, but it is still alight. The intelligent scheme is even here beyond the complete grasp, and the man is acknowledgedly in and subject to the current of mechanical evolution which represents to him the purpose." |
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"The third and fourth of these Simplicities essential to religion are closely akin to one another. In the cruder aspects their exact significance is not so readily to be discerned as are those of the first two. "It is necessary that man should realize his inner identity with his God. "Among the primitive religions this is so diluted that it becomes a partisan or tribal affair. His God is as the head of a clan or family, dispensing reward or punishment as a father to his children, demanding obedience and loyalty, imposing rules and regulations, and even fighting tooth and nail with the Gods of other peoples. In this respect he stands as the patriarchal head of a family, and the attenuated realization of man with this highest conception of which he is capable, is the same feeling of identity experienced by one who knows himself a member of a specific group. "Truth to tell, almost every formal religion now widely held on earth, from that of the crudest savage to that of the supposedly highly civilized members of enlightened communities, are still of this type. In some this relationship has refined. The God no longer admits of rivals against whom to war, and a certain mystical communion sometimes draws the relationship a trifle closer. But actually, whatever the degree, the kind of identifying relationship is of the primitive sort; there is on one hand the Godhead, and on the other the multitude of children of that Godhead. "Only recently and to a comparative few has come the beginning of conscious realization of this identity - has become known the conception of each living organism, each individual and separate consciousness, as actually part of, as actually sense perceptions of, organs of, so to speak, manifestations of, awareness-mechanisms of, the Absolute, or All-consciousness. Nevertheless, this conception, turned backward, obscured and diluted by lack of development, is an ingredient of all religions that have been. "The fourth Simplicity is the necessity - to speak still in theological terms - of 'loving God.' "The utter savage 'loves his God' only in the sense that he fears him, and desires favors. That is the first germ of any love; the desire of favors, and the wish for a friendly rather than an inimical attitude. As mankind goes on in development and his religious ideas also expand, this feeling is formalized into a command or an admonition that he should love his God - generally, in truth, with a penalty for not loving his God. And still later in the higher forms of primitive religion which are but just in the process of passing, he actually does enter into a mystic communion with that something, still outside himself, which he looks up to as his Deity. Also, as a corollary which he imagines wholly a separate thing, he is admonished to love his neighbor. This counsel is particular only to the later and higher forms. But with the illumination which shall bring him to a full realization of his essential identity with his Gods must come also the realization that in that respect he must share that unity with all created things; so that in obeying the old admonition to love his God, he will find that he is really admonished to cherish all living things that be, as though they were himself. "This meaning, also again diluted and restricted by lesser development, has nevertheless been an ingredient of all religions that have been. "These four are Religion. The growing understanding of them, the growing capacity for realization of them, is what raises, purifies and will make universal unity in, religions. The outward forms of which, sometimes in one proportion, sometimes in another, sometimes but trickingly, and at others almost with a flow, are only the measures of man's advancement in diversity. As he rounds the circle, these diversities, like all complexities in the cosmos, will resimplify into a perfect understanding, a more perfect realization of these four simple but fundamental things." |
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"My purpose in these little talks is two-fold," said he. "First to indicate the value of all sincerely conceived outward religions, no matter what their apparent inconsistencies, or even absurdities. Second, to call your attention to the fact that the most unlikely people - classes of people - do possess true Religion, complete in all essential parts; and often in spite of themselves. "The individual," he added, "who does not possess a faith - not a belief that comprises in some form or degree, these essential simplicities that make Religion, is stopped and stationary and a definitely destructive thing, which can hope from an orderly cosmic order scant toleration."
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