Thus have I heard...
Civilization, Education, & Religion
“’Manners are not taught in lessons, lessons teach you to do sums, and things of that sort,’ said Alice. ‘Fan her head!’ the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. ‘She'll be feverish after so much thinking.’”
-Lewis Carroll
Why do the same ancient problems ceaselessly endure for the so-called modern civilized human being? That it is sometimes easier to understand the universe than it is to understand the conduct of a friend. And that the moment one thinks he knows himself; he denies that knowledge completely. Whereas children know themselves best because they realize that they do not really know. Being an alleged mature adult, there must be things I can observe and learn from that childlike-ness. For maturity is the grand illusion which has nothing to do with age. Maturity involves being more thoughtful, mindful, and respectful of all things, having greater humility and less impatience. Relinquishing undue biases, preconceptions, and pretenses. Impartially accepting one’s own ignorance’s so to avoid the temptation to judge people or things one does not or cannot understand. To achieve that condition in which one has reached the full use of his potential capacities and realized uninterrupted bliss; he must correctly educate himself somehow. He won’t get it anywhere else, and this leaves the mosquito biting the iron bull.
There is a rather famous “happy” quote credited to John Lennon, however its true source remains unknown, leaving the words technically unattributed. The quotation is worth paraphrasing here for it exemplifies the habitual fallacy that educational institutions disseminate through erroneous concepts which likewise constitute their didactics: “When I was five years old, my grandmother taught me that happiness was the most valuable thing I could learn in life. Later, when I went to school, the teachers asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I answered, ‘Happy.’ They told me I did not understand the question. I informed them that they did not understand life.” Here, happiness may represent or imply almost any set of spiritual or abstract values. But from infancy there is constant conflict between instructions received, things believed, and realities perceived. Thus the problem of uncivilization originates and perpetuates.
Civilization is achieved only by the advancement of consciousness, on the level of internal spiritual realization. No individual is better than he is when he is not trying to be good. He is never
more civilized, really, than when he is not trying to be civilized at all. In physics, inertia defines perfectly our uncivilization: The tendency of a body to maintain its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. Metaphysics, on the other hand, says that humanity's growth as a spiritual generation of life is a dynamic process which renders civilization accordingly and as such. Inertia is the mere possibility of human beings living together in a commonwealth of purpose, that is, if some external force happens to cause it. Civilization, therefore, can only mean one thing. Namely, that as individuals, we do cooperate in all things necessary. We do place the good of others above our own. We are working diligently in achieving the spirit of universal brotherhood within ourselves. And, henceforth, we have realized collectively that the price of maintaining these ideals is eternal vigilance in self-awareness.
If the individual cannot rely on himself to accomplish these things within himself, even in times of relative ease, what hope is there for the human collective to relieve itself from generalized patterns of emergency? Humans have always had an uncanny ability to rely on everything else but themselves. Other’s Avenue is the main thoroughfare for distributing error, receiving solution, and delivering blame, usually simultaneously, thus mortally taxing the aptly named freeway destroying it. The only way that is free is the right way. For thousands of years, we have had religion, and for several hundreds of years we have had what we call education. Instead of turning out gentle, faithful, and intelligent citizens we have churned out unkind, unfaithful, belligerent, highly skilled barbarians. We consider self-centered skillfulness a vastly improved state, far superior to those self-sufficient illiterate savages of bygone ages.
Let us not forget the great teachers who emerged from those olden times, back when the world was populated only by boors and brutes. Approximately 600 years BCE there emerged Pythagoras, Laozi, Confucius, Buddha, etc. These ones provided through demonstration philosophies and codes which entirely embarrass our capacity to live them today. It is true that we cannot go back to Buddha and Plato and Jesus. We also cannot go onward to them, as then we find only more time, and more time, and so on. We must go inward to find eternity. Largely this has not been realized. We are therefore stuck in the future which does not exist, looking outward and moving onward, arriving nowhere finding nothing. If we can outlast Scientology, assuming we can outlive the number of books L. Ron Hubbard published in terms of years, “In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, they may find.”
If we cannot rely on other people, or the longstanding prevailing religions of the world, not even Scientology, then it looks as though we are up Ship Creek without a paddle. But this is the way it has always seemed, the way it is supposed to appear. At least for anyone who believes earnestly that he is nothing more than a result, like the unwanted child, nothing more than the product of external societal pressures and delinquencies. He thinks if the world does improve someday, he may follow along with it by inheriting the fruits of a utopia that he did absolutely nothing to earn. He never considered that an unimproved world is the result of a world full of unimproved individuals. I know of people who have spent thousands of dollars training their dog. Only, they must put Rex down later anyway because he either attacked or loved someone or something desired. But who has spent thousands to train himself not to do as he pleases?
The beast, implying the nonhuman variety, may have the advantage as it knows nothing about gossip, selfishness, and ignorance. And the human being seems to be the only one in nature that can become so highly educated where its intellect exceeds its potential to recognize its own stupidity. But many make a glorious avocation out of it: In the royal court of life their stands the antic. He is the fool with cap and bells, he alone can ridicule everything and live. This chatterbox, mimic, and buffoon, with his scepter of the dunce's head, his cap and bells on, swaggering about to the amusement of the lords and ladies. He is a wicked jest of man himself. For what other creature in nature can deny the power of God, misuse every heavenly attribute, while strutting about the stage of life surrounded by infinite wasted opportunity. Standing in the midst with his, “Philosophy, and Jurisprudence, Medicine—and even, alas! Theology. From end to end, with labor keen; and here poor fool, with all his lore, he stands no wiser than before."
If one learned to read in the Middle Ages, he almost certainly learned to do so on Scripture, whether he was planning on a church career or not. But the literate population at any given time was extremely small. Nonetheless, a Serf could indeed become a cleric by means of the Church. Once they acquired that skill, they would have the best chance of studying rare texts which were unavailable elsewhere, and thus would have been unable to do this almost anywhere else. Back when people were not automatically endowed with the privilege to learn, they did what was necessary and proper in order to attain it. Now, taking this for granted, as we have it whether we desire it or not, seemingly cannot apply it to anything either proper or necessary. Before, knowing how to read and write was a byproduct of religion. These days, religion is a byproduct of the full appreciation of knowing how to form and hold onto opinion.
Early religion, in the broadest possible sense of religion, contributed substantially to the educational systems that we enjoy today. Only, in our great erudition, we have kept the three R’s and abandoned entirely all the superfluous religious overtones. Things unseen and ineffable are assumed to be completely inconsequential, as we cannot attain freedom or honesty in the same way we deal in commodities. These are abstract principles. And, evidently, making a fortune through business demands that we cannot be too highly principled, for that would end in certain bankruptcy. When we do not have money, we will do almost anything to gain it, and even more to keep it. But in all the times when we do have freedom, we do absolutely nothing to use it properly, and even less to maintain it. And if we are dishonest, we assume everyone else will still be honest with us. Regardless of what an individual’s beliefs are and where his allegiances may lie, one who is always honest is religious. If he is dishonest, then he is a heathen, and there are no other heathens.
While things are going well agnosticism and atheism are acceptable. However, in troublous times we begin to search for spiritual certainties. To teach and learn religion, whether at school, at home, at work, or in the church, mosque, synagogue, or the tabernacle in the wilderness, does not mean indoctrination into some creedal religious outfit. It simply means placing greater meaning in value and greater emphasis upon purposeful living. But the average person is not interested in becoming educated. He is only interested in career, because that assures social status, a circle of influential friends, and the probability of higher wage brackets. And schools, colleges, universities, and the like, do not offer or suggest that the highest possible reward for fully availing oneself of its advantages is that the individual will be a better human being. If they did there would be no more classes or courses, for there would be no one matriculating for that abstract motive.
If an individual turns toward a religious institution, whether it be out of necessity or with the desire to improve, he is going to face another disappointment, and that is religion itself. Because religion is a word we apply not to man’s spiritual convictions, but to certain definite learned interpretations of religion, and groups devoted and dedicated to empirical dogmatism. Institutionalized creedal rigor, religion as we have come to know it, has become a process of formalizing the problem of religion. Attempting to put a definite religious polish on the institution itself and its members. The believer, advocate, devotee, or whatever, and their overall lacking-ness in commitment to living a proper code does not matter, just do not forget the appellation, that is important. This is supposed to give added luster to the surface of all things supposedly religious, for just like the paint slogans: “Save the surface and save all; Protect the outside and preserve the rest; A colorful house is a happy house; Pick a color that reflects your personality; To achieve a perfect finish—paint it just the way you want it.”
There is only one way to solve the dilemma that arises from a crisis in ethics and seeks a panacea for the world’s woes, and that is clear demarcation between religion and theology. Between religion as a personal code of life and religion as a complicated, contradictory, arbitrary mechanism of sectarianism and denominationalism. We must realize that an individual’s religion is unquestionably his personal experience within himself. He can be assisted to become religious, but he can never be made religious by any individual, group, or situation external to himself. He may be given the opportunity to select convictions from a wide variety of world beliefs and philosophies. But the selection and application of those convictions are an intensely personal matter, and this cannot be taught or communicated in the way we would teach physics, biology, or mathematics.
Theology of today is no better than that of the Middle Ages, being an institutionalized structure that man studies, reads, memorizes, agrees with, and then magnificently ignores. We cannot approach religion as a kind of scholarship that somehow provides salvation or illumination after four years by means of an honorary endowment. Remember the endowment that is important—it costs money to huddle under a holy umbrella and argue over minutiae. Religion is an entirely different type of problem than learning our ABC’s. Religion is a way of life and not an intellectual institution. Spirituality is not conferred by scholarship. It results from the awakening of internal values of the individual and the dedication of the inner life to the service of internal convictions.
It is important to realize that even if one wants to assume an agnostic or atheistic premise, one must still sustain for his beliefs concerning the Infinite some rather strong convictions concerning the integrity of finite things. There is little dispute in the subject that honesty is essential to a civilized way of life. Honesty, however, is not a religion, it is a consequence of religion, which is the problem of revelation through internal experience of values. That we have the capacity and courage to learn what is right and live our own ideals is proof that we are a religious people. We may derive our inspiration from different places, there are numerous religions, philosophies, sciences, and many other sources. But nothing is important unless it inspires in us a consecration of purpose and stimulates an irresistible impulse to apply the rules governing integrity in the practice of our daily living. Unless religion, philosophy, and science, are vitalized by inner experience, understanding, and realization, nothing permanent has been accomplished.
But there can be no questioning what we do. It must be believed at any rate that we are doing the best we can, even though we are not. Anything to the contrary would place tremendous stress on the most fragile thing in the universe and cause it to crack or implode. The moment ego admits that it can do better—everything falls apart. Therefore, each generation we just do a little less and forget a little more. Forgetting things like the philosophy of right motive and abstract conviction, and the knowledge of ethics and of Universal Law. The result is that we can produce soldiers who can win wars but cannot produce philosophers who can administer peace. It is a sorry victory to be strong enough and brave enough to fight and die in wars, but too stupid to maintain any peace. There will be wars so long as the internal life of individuals is inadequate to dominate the external conditions of their environment.
The ancient Pagan concept of principle actually represented standards of action. A principle is not something we accept; it is something we work from and work with. We can have the highest principles in the world, so-called, but if we do not use them, they are about as much use as a porcelain hammer, a flyscreen door on a submarine, or an ashtray on a motorbike. A principle is only vital when it is used, and philosophically speaking, principles represent our knowledge of reality, a knowledge which we use to bring external existence into harmony with the laws of life. The use of knowledge is to overcome dissimilarity between the present way of action and that way of action which alone is sufficient. The possession of the knowledge of principles is static and useless, unless with that knowledge comes an irresistible impetus that uses it for the purpose of furthering those principles. Knowledge without the impulse of right action is utterly worthless.
Without science and philosophy, the most we can achieve to is a state of bigoted religious pietism. Science is the study of fact, and there are indeed many facts to contend with. Philosophy is the recognition of the significance of the intervals between facts. Philosophy is the study of the empty space between the facts, for it is the duty of philosophy to bridge that space, to determine the impact of one fact upon another. Even where the impact has not occurred, and especially where it has not occurred. If it has already occurred and has been subjected to analysis and consideration, then it becomes factual and scientific. But the effect, the probable effect, the consequential effect of the impact of dissimilars, and the administration of the consequences of that impact, those are philosophical problems. Philosophy is not some competitive abstract intellectualism, nor is it an activity for practicing mental gymnastics.
Philosophy is a direct experience within the self in terms of reconciling all apparently irreconcilable opposites. It is the duty of philosophy to find wholeness. It is the duty of philosophy to find the unity in the apparent disunities of existence. Its contribution is synthetic; not in the context of unnatural or made artificially, meaning a substitute, but as representing a synthesis or union of parts. It is not the duty of the philosopher to say that such a unity is desirable or possible; it is the province of the philosopher to say, unity is already here, it always has been here, but that we are too stupid to know it or see it. Therefore, the duty of philosophy is not to promulgate unity in nature, but to eliminate the stupidity in man. Philosophy knows that that which is necessary and good is infinitely available. The trouble is the average individual does not possess an availability credential.
The religious province is about the same in purpose. It is not the primary duty of religion to give us scrambled biblical histories. It is not the province of religion to set up a critical examination of how many schisms arose in the first five centuries of the Christian era. The function of religion is not to explain the heresies of the Arians, Marcionites, Donatists, Cathars, Docetists, Nestorians, Pelagians, or Lollards; all these things we are not interested in. This alone is enough to immunize anyone against any personal contact with spiritual values. No amount of studying religion shall ever invoke constructive results. After a thorough survey of the myriad parts that constitute religion, and after solving the great problem as to how many angels can dance on the tip of a pin, all the religious elements are long gone.
If one is the beneficiary of education from a theological seminary, he may end up with a reasonable basis in scriptural point and counterpoint. Never forget the counterpoint in religion; it gives him the ability to argue forcefully and with annihilating vehemence in favor of the particular point of controversy to which he is addicted. He is then well equipped to convert anyone who cannot outwit him. But when he is through, he will come out of this harrowing experience convinced that he is religious, which is the most disastrous thing about it. If he had only come out with the firm conviction that he did not really know anything much, all would have been well, but that blissful article of faith has long been removed. Actually, that disappeared very early on in life. He is therefore incapable of religion as an experience, and rarely will he find that his experience confirms his theory. Nearly always there will be discrepancy and contradiction.
In science we have the facts of things. In philosophy we have the facts of intervals and the relationship between things. In religion we have the facts of abstract principle itself. We know that the universe is—that is science. We see how that which governs what is, is always sufficient; that is philosophy. Consequently, we know that this very existence and sufficiency sets up an absolute code of right action, which is obedience to universal will; that is religion. Religion is the effort to interpret the morality of the Infinite. Religion is the problem of setting up of principles and living according to those principles. Religion is the practice by the individual, on the plane of individual action, of the universal principles which he recognizes as attributes of the Infinite.
Now, the good teacher, whether it be personal or impersonal, is sincere and dedicated to the sole purpose of assisting the student to achieve to that state of personal illumination and wellbeing. It is not trying to get them hooked or dependent upon anything. True Upaya, or skillful pedagogy, places integrity first then uses skill to convey enlightenment by means of a single book, sermon, or yoga, so that persons should only need to attend to the matter once. Never exploiting the possibility of distorting or withholding truth to extort people, merely because their desire to learn, improve, and grow, rendered them susceptible to such abuses.
One theologian observed in a rather lucid moment that it is better to practice principles than to know them. And as Brother Lawrence so beautifully described in his little book, “Religion is the practice of the presence of God.” To comprehend such an abstract notion more easily, we can transmute this assertion by means of some simple word alchemy; “Religion is the practice of the presence of Good.” It is true that good can also be something quite elusive and mysterious. But when compared with the hundred names of God, good becomes much easier to define and much harder to force controversy upon.
Born in the second century AD was the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna. He gets straight to the point and right at the heart of things. To explain the inexplainable, to say what cannot be said, or, to say what must not be known in order to preserve the racketeering. Nagarjuna elucidated conceptual attachment thus: “I prostrate to Gautama who through compassion, taught the true doctrine which leads to the relinquishing of all views.” The relinquishing of all views means just that. Every kind of conceivable idea or view, whether religious, irreverent, or whatever, with wise discernment are seen finally as utterly valueless fetters.
All conceptual thought is false belief. No amount of talk in the world is going to get it, and all conceptualizations about the world leads a person not toward reality but away from Truth. And the more one tries to accord the more one deviates. Everyone’s a thinker but no one is a doer. And this is the problem of religion in general and of belief in particular. Common belief is simply any unproven cognitive content held as true; a vague idea in which some confidence is placed. Therefore belief serves no purpose in the life of the individual unless it is demonstrable statement of fact. In which case, one has already vitalized his convictions adequately, being the hardest thing to believe but the only thing worth believing. Ideas lead to believing, doing leads to knowing. So if he does not know what he is doing his beliefs are nothing more than a conceptual hat-rack. And so long as the hat is fashionable, he never estimates that what lies beneath it has any importance.
We can read and memorize all the scripture and church history there is, and even pass through some of the basic sacraments; we can be dipped, poured upon, sprinkled upon, or immersed, and still know nothing about religion. Only one thing stands immutable, and that is the universe of principle.
To know the fundamental reasons for and logic behind something and reveal the justifications for its particular pattern of being-ness. This provides the only veritable basis for more enlightened thinking and a more profound realization of what living the harmonious life implies. Tacit understanding then rests finally upon Truth. And if we are in fact living daily what we know to be right, good, and proper, we are then truly educated, truly civilized, and religious enough not to mention it.
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