The Necessity of Religion

[Guest guest]

It has been said that too much attention to things spiritual disturbs

our practical relations in this world. As far back as in the days of

the Chinese sage Confucius, it was said, " Let us take care of this

world: and then, when we have finished with this world, we will take

care of other world. " It is very well that we should take care of

this world. But if too much attention to the spiritual may affect a

little our practical relations, too much attention to the so-called

practical hurts us here and hereafter. It makes us materialistic. For

man is not to regard nature as his goal, but something higher.

 

Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this

nature is both internal and external. Not only does it comprise the

laws that govern the particles of matter outside us and in our

bodies, but also the more subtle nature within, which is, in fact,

the motive power governing the external. It is good and very grand to

conquer external nature, but grander still to conquer our internal

nature. It is grand and good to know the laws that govern the stars

and planets; it is infinitely grander and better to know the laws

that govern the passions, the feelings, the will, of mankind. This

conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets of the subtle

workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its wonderful

secrets, belong entirely to religion. Human nature--the ordinary

human nature, I mean--wants to see big material facts. The ordinary

man cannot understand anything that is subtle. Well has it been said

that the masses admire the lion that kills a thousand lambs, never

for a moment thinking that it is death to the lambs, although a

momentary triumph for the lion; because they find pleasure only in

manifestations of physical strength. Thus it is with the ordinary run

of mankind. They understand and find pleasure in everything that is

external. But in every society there is a section whose pleasures are

not in the senses, but beyond, and who now and then catch glimpses of

something higher than matter and struggle to reach it. And if we read

the history of nations between the lines, we shall always find that

the rise of a nation comes with an increase in the number of such

men; and the fall begins when this pursuit after the Infinite,

however vain Utilitarians may call it, has ceased. That is to say,

the mainspring of the strength of every race lies in its

spirituality, and the death of that race begins the day that

spirituality wanes and materialism gains ground.

 

Thus, apart from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from

religion, apart from the comforts that we may gain from it, religion,

as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise

that the human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this

struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to get beyond the

limitations of the senses--out of matter, as it were--and to evolve

the spiritual man--this striving day and night to make the Infinite

one with our being--this struggle itself is the grandest and most

glorious that man can make. Some persons find the greatest pleasure

in eating. We have no right to say that they should not. Others find

the greatest pleasure in possessing certain things. We have no right

to say that they should not. But they also have no right to say " no "

to the man who finds his highest pleasure in spiritual thought. The

lower the organisation, the greater the pleasure in the senses. Very

few men can eat a meal with the same gusto as a dog or a wolf. But

all the pleasures of the dog or the wolf have gone, as it were into

the senses. The lower types of humanity in all nations find pleasure

in the senses, while the cultured and the educated find it in

thought, in philosophy, in arts and sciences. Spirituality is a still

higher plane. The subject being infinite, that plane is the highest,

and the pleasure there is the highest for those who can appreciate

it. So, even on the utilitarian ground that man is to seek for

pleasure, he should cultivate religious thought, for it is the

highest pleasure that exists. Thus religion, as a study, seems to me

to be absolutely necessary.

 

.... to be continued