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‘Religion is fine if it gets you through the day, or through some crisis, otherwise it is only excess baggage./’
I cannot remember where I read the above but they certainly are very thought-provoking, with most definitely a kernel of truth./ The fact is, even as humanity now stands in the 21st century, orthodox, conventional religion still holds its priestly authoritarian grasp over mankind, still predicating that men and women can only find spiritual salvation through the medium of the priesthood, that only the priest or minister, Rabbi or Imam has the authority, or is able to guide and reveal the way to the Godhead. The fact is that this was necessary and indeed vital for infant humanity, for a humanity just emerging from the stone age and beyond who were only then concerned with physical survival. Even right through to the era’s of ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia and India, era’s of the most wonderful and incredible knowledge and wisdom, even then, men of those times had still to be led and guided by the priests and sages. Although great and enlightened men walked and taught openly amongst the
people of those times the great majority of men and women still looked to the priesthood for guidance in almost every aspect of their lives.
The racial conscience, the stage of evolution attained by men was such that humanity still needed the crutch of the priesthood even though those who made up this body were in the main enlightened initiates, wonderful healers, scientists and mathematicians. The vast majority
of mankind then were just not ready from an evolutionary level to take that huge jump in consciousness.
As the centuries passed this great wisdom possessed by the initiate-priests of old disappeared eventually degenerating to what it is now, an ecclesiastical secular body cleaving to the letter of the law and devoid of all true spirituality and wisdom, the blind leading the blind and very often accruing vast wealth and material power and indeed glorying in that power with its trappings of elaborate ritual and crystallized, long dead traditions, deluding themselves and the people with meaningless prayer by rote. Of course, this does not apply to every priest; there are those few who are more true spiritual teachers and healers than “bible punching advocates’./ The priesthood have conveniently forgotten, and choose to ignore the stupendous words uttered by the Master Jesus 2000 years ago, “within you is the kingdom of God”, what the ancient Hebrew mystics termed the ‘Shekinah’, the inner light, the Godself within each and every individual.
It was no doubt, part of Christ’s mission then to reveal to men of that dark and destructive Roman era, that the light of God could be touched and known. There was a slim possibility that Christ’s mission would succeed; it did, but in part only, so great was the evil and cruelty, so deeply ingrained in the psyche of mankind then, with, as well, a priesthood enmeshed in greed, selfishness, and filled with a vast arrogance.
This has remained in the psyche of men and this dark priestly inheritance passing down through the centuries has wrought untold harm in the struggling spiritual sphere of mankind.
Religion has done more throughout the centuries to separate men than anything else in this world; the conflict, persecution and bloodshed perpetrated in the name of religion, is incalculable. It still goes on today and one need look no further than for instance to fanatical Islamists, and not so long ago the terrible violence in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Africa.
However, all is not doom and gloom. As humanity progresses through this Aquarian age its heartening to see ever increasing numbers of people beginning to seriously question the validity of religion and beginning their own inner, spiritual journeys. New age groups and teachings are proliferating and thousands are discovering the joy and wonder of meditation as the royal road to true communion with the spirit-self and with the Godhead and the Masters of light. People are realizing that they are their own priests and have no need for the medium of a church or temple or synagogue. Religion as we still know it today, will not exist in the enlightened humanity of the far future, for it will have served its purpose and will naturally fall away making way for the next stage on a higher turn of the spiral of mans spiritual evolution. The many who are even now treading the inner way are the pioneers, the trail blazers, and they are the hope for a glorious and radiant future.
Robert Gresak
South Africa.
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