Q: What is the purpose or mission of your religion?
Let us consider the basics of growth as it takes place on this earth. The sun shines and warms the earth and the seeds in the earth. This stimulates the life principle in the seeds and they grow upward into the light. It is a very natural thing. Here, too, we would think someone crazy who would sit out in a field and yell at the plants to grow, promising rewards if they do and threatening punishments if they do not.
When we are dealing with human beings we are dealing with potentially infinite consciousnesses, with gods in embryo. We consider that we are dealing with a spark of God’s own life, because we do not believe God created the spirit. We believe that each individual spirit has existed eternally within God. So we consider that we are dealing with a potential god, and act accordingly. Gods should not be poked, pinched, and pulled.
A real-life example
Maria Montessori came to see that children should not be coerced to learn any subject. She proved that a subject need only be presented to them and when they are ready for it they will respond–until then they will not, and should not. Our present system of education fails because it assumes that chronological age determines readiness for learning. Maria Montessori, being a believer in reincarnation (though a Roman Catholic) understood that this was a matter of evolution, and that everything would come to pass in its own good and right time. This is why no child goes through the Montessori system and comes out having not learned. It is successful because it is based on the evolutionary nature of things.
We follow the same procedure. We present. The response is up to the individual. And any response, Yes, No, or Maybe, is fine. Certainly there are those who at their present stage of evolution need what we offer. But they have to recognize that themselves; it is not for us to tell them. It is definitely our duty to be there for those who need us, and we should let ourselves be visible. Beyond that it is their hands.
I learned something very early in my first visit to India. The fake teachers were more than volunteering their “wisdom,” they were cornering people and forcing it on them. But the real teachers had to be asked for instruction. Otherwise they just conversed affably on unimportant matters. Their insight was that only when the question arises in the mind of the seeker is he ready for the answer. Until then the teacher can do nothing worthwhile.
Simply presenting the truth
Consider the material on our website: it is a matter of simple presentation, of visibility. If someone reads the material and says that they believe what is in them because they “convinced” them, we are not satisfied. That means they are simply spinning in the realm of the intellect and not in touch with their real inner self–something that has to be for conscious spiritual growth. Also, they should not be accepting our ideas. It should be a matter of their own conviction that arises from deep within. We cannot eat or digest for other people, and neither can we reveal wisdom to them. What we can do is present wisdom, and they can recognize it through their own inner response.
So what do we want people to say about the web material? We want them to say the truth. It they think it is nonsense, that is perfectly all right. For them it IS nonsense. We do like someone to say: “I had never thought of it before, but when I read what you wrote I realized that it was the truth and that I had always believed it somewhere in the back of my mind.” In other words, we did not convince them of the truth, they recognized it as already being part of their inner intuition that had not heretofore been verbalized.
The word “education” comes from the Latin, its literal meaning is “to lead out” That is, real education is the process of evoking the student’s innate knowledge, of bringing it out so he can consciously work with it. It is a reminding him of what he really already knows. Not many people are educated, then, nor are many people authentically religious or spiritual. And we cannot make them so. They have to grow into it. Then we can help further their growth by showing them how to pass from natural automatic evolution into intentional evolution.
Controlling evolution
From the lowest form of life up to and including a great deal of the human experience, evolution happens automatically with no intention or effort on our part. We just live and it happens. But a time must come–the real time of “conversion” or being “born again”–when the individual must take control of his own evolution and consciously direct and produce it. For at that point it will no longer come automatically. It is somewhat like a child who at a certain age must learn to dress himself and in time make his own living. He must finally do on his own, for himself, what others had heretofore done for him.
The earlier “child” evolution is natural or automatic. The “adult” evolution is completely in the purview of the individual. A religion that cannot show a person how to do this is not of much use to an awakening person. The wandering spirit has forgotten itself and its attendant realities. It does not need to be taught, it need only be reminded, profound as that experience is. That is the sole purpose of Sanatana Dharma.
Further reading:
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