B
BRAHMACHARI
Guest
The following is an excerpt of a dialogue between a popular Thinker who lived in the 20th Century and his follower, published in a magazine:
Question:
What have you to say regarding religion and philosophy as educative factor in the life of an individual? How far, according to you is religion of any value to the understanding of truth? Is religious leadership compatible with true spirituality? What is your conception of God?
Answer:
Religion or philosophy is a system to mould the mind. I say that truth cannot be found through a system, through a guide. Religion cannot show the path to truth, because truth or God or life, whatever name you give that reality, can be realized only through individual awareness. Religion and philosophy but superimpose the ideas of others on your mind and thereby dull and cripple your thought. They set up ideals and standards to which you try to conform. Because your thought is limited by tradition, by imitation, by fear, your action also must be limited, and therefore out of that action there springs sorrow. It is only through the intense awareness of mind and heart, through the clear perception of thought, that you can come to the freedom from sorrow and to the realization of that which is eternal.
Truth cannot be realized through any organized form of thought. You have perhaps heard the story of how the devil and his companion were walking one day, and they say a man pick up something, look at it intently, and put it in his pocket. The companion asked the devil, 'What was it that he picked up?' The devil replied, 'Oh, he picked up a bit of truth'. The companion said, 'That is bad business for you, is it not?' The devil replied, 'Not at all, I shall help him organize it'.
You cannot organize truth, because realization is purely an individual matter. Where mind and heart are pursuing a system and are not relying entirely on their own strength, on their own integrity, there is ever confusion.
So an organized system of thought, a spiritual authority, is to me the utter denial of truth, becase truth, the Godhead of understanding, cannot be realized through a system or through another. No one can save man except himself; and this is his greatness, viz., that in himself, in his own fullness of action, lies the realization of truth.
If you were to ask a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muhammadan or a Hebrew to describe God, each of them would try to give expression to his particular conception. That is, each one would contrive to give shape to God in accordance with his particular fancy, his particular predilection or prejudice.
Now God or life or truth cannot be conceived of or described. If you had never beheld the sea and someone were to come and describe it to you, you could but imagine it, and your idea would not convey to you the reality.
- Star Bulletin, March-April 1933
Question:
What have you to say regarding religion and philosophy as educative factor in the life of an individual? How far, according to you is religion of any value to the understanding of truth? Is religious leadership compatible with true spirituality? What is your conception of God?
Answer:
Religion or philosophy is a system to mould the mind. I say that truth cannot be found through a system, through a guide. Religion cannot show the path to truth, because truth or God or life, whatever name you give that reality, can be realized only through individual awareness. Religion and philosophy but superimpose the ideas of others on your mind and thereby dull and cripple your thought. They set up ideals and standards to which you try to conform. Because your thought is limited by tradition, by imitation, by fear, your action also must be limited, and therefore out of that action there springs sorrow. It is only through the intense awareness of mind and heart, through the clear perception of thought, that you can come to the freedom from sorrow and to the realization of that which is eternal.
Truth cannot be realized through any organized form of thought. You have perhaps heard the story of how the devil and his companion were walking one day, and they say a man pick up something, look at it intently, and put it in his pocket. The companion asked the devil, 'What was it that he picked up?' The devil replied, 'Oh, he picked up a bit of truth'. The companion said, 'That is bad business for you, is it not?' The devil replied, 'Not at all, I shall help him organize it'.
You cannot organize truth, because realization is purely an individual matter. Where mind and heart are pursuing a system and are not relying entirely on their own strength, on their own integrity, there is ever confusion.
So an organized system of thought, a spiritual authority, is to me the utter denial of truth, becase truth, the Godhead of understanding, cannot be realized through a system or through another. No one can save man except himself; and this is his greatness, viz., that in himself, in his own fullness of action, lies the realization of truth.
If you were to ask a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muhammadan or a Hebrew to describe God, each of them would try to give expression to his particular conception. That is, each one would contrive to give shape to God in accordance with his particular fancy, his particular predilection or prejudice.
Now God or life or truth cannot be conceived of or described. If you had never beheld the sea and someone were to come and describe it to you, you could but imagine it, and your idea would not convey to you the reality.
- Star Bulletin, March-April 1933
