Such ideas are frequent in Eastern thought, although they do not represent its deepest meaning. To most of us they are abstract and incomprehensible. Nevertheless, countless religious people maintain that the end and aim of our life here on earth is an eternal condition whose characteristics may be described in one of the following ways. First, a state beyond death wherein the beauties of life are greatly magnified and all its pains and limitations overcome. Second, a state in this life wherein earthly pains and limitations have been overcome by the exercise of human reason and skill, inspired by the Grace of God. Third, a state attainable either in the body or out of it where human consciousness has been raised above the limits imposed upon it by the personal self and its five senses, wherein all diversity of form, all pairs of opposites, have been merged into the infinite and formless divine essence from which they originally came.
Abolishing the Universe
All these three have certain elements in common. There is a distaste for the world as it is, implying that the wrong is not so much in the external world as in one’s own imperfect self, which is either doomed to live in this world on account of those imperfections or else which sees that world falsely, being deluded by imperfect senses. There is also the hope for an eternal state in which good things are made permanent or abolished altogether along with the evil. And, most significant of all, there is the implication that one of these religious states is the ultimate purpose of our earthly existence, from which it must follow that appropriate religious activities are fundamentally the only worthwhile pursuits for mankind. All other pursuits must therefore be considered subordinate and ephemeral, and in this view art, literature, music, politics, science, drama, exploration, and sport become vain and empty unless they are regarded simply as means of keeping body and soul together in reasonable comfort, or unless they are used for specifically religious purposes. Apart from these two uses they become simply the trimmings of life, the mere gilt on the pill, mere “relaxations” to assuage in as harmless a manner as possible our carnal nature lest its sufferings become too great for us to bear.
The direction of this kind of religion is even more apparent when we consider the various ways and means prescribed for attaining such ideals. Among civilized peoples there are two principal ways of approach to the religious ideal, both of which have various common elements. Both are founded on the idea that the search for spiritual happiness in worldly pleasures is a snare because those pleasures are impermanent; they do, perhaps, impart a certain happiness, but because that happiness is entirely dependent on external circumstances it disappears as soon as those circumstances change. But there is something in man which makes it exceedingly hard for him to avoid the pursuit of earthly pleasures, and this tendency religion attempts to vanquish by a strongly hostile attitude to them. Hence the general antipathy in religion to all that pertains to the senses, and especially to the most elementary and important of earthly pleasures which are to be found in the sexual functions.
The first of the two ways of approach to the religious ideal is found mainly in Christianity. It is the way of mortification of the flesh in order that the eyes may be turned from the snares of the world to the eternal glories of the world beyond. By prayer, fasting, and acts of charity, by abstinence from fleshly delights, man may make himself fit to receive, feel, and rejoice in the Grace of God which senses deluded by earthly things cannot appreciate. If the senses are coarsened by carnal pleasures, man becomes incapable of entering either now or hereafter into that realm of supernatural glory to which the Grace of God belongs. By its light he is not illumined but burned because of his impurities, for only those things which have been refined of all evil can exist within it.
The second way is similar in most respects, save that it is a way of self-development, wherein the individual relies not on God, but on his own power of willing. It is found in Buddhism and Vedanta, and consists of exercises in mortification and meditation whose object is similarly to refine the senses, to turn them away from the snares of the world, and finally to root out from the soul the sense of personal identity and self-sufficiency and its desire to find happiness in the forms of life.
Obviously we are discussing some of the more extreme forms of religious theory and practice; generally speaking, their outward forms have been increasingly modified in the course of years. But there has been little change in the underlying philosophy, which amounts virtually to the complete denial of life as we understand it. For according to this kind of teaching the world of the senses has been made for the sole purpose of encompassing the human soul with a variety of snares. Even the “highest” delights of the senses such as are to be found in the arts are “trimmings,” and the less refined joys of eating and sex are just tolerated insofar as they are used only for the purpose of maintaining and reproducing life. Today the harsh attitude of religion to these things has been appreciably softened, but this softening is rather a concession to human nature than an attempt to alter the fundamental premises of religious doctrine. And a mere concession to human nature it will remain while so many types of religious philosophy regard the material and spiritual worlds as irreconcilably opposed.
The problem is important because it affects the usefulness of religion to the greater part of mankind. The belief is still generally prevalent that those who wish to “go furthest” in religion must practice extremes of fasting and chastity and other forms of cumbersome discipline to acquire the necessary spiritual sensitivity for making contact with states of consciousness and mystical insight which less refined senses can no more experience than a jaded palate can taste the subtleties of a fine wine. But this refining and exaltation of consciousness by means of asceticism is obviously a vocation for the very few, for even if it were practicable for the majority it would not be altogether desirable to have the world converted into a vast Tibet. It would be wiser to heed the warning of Lucretius, “Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,” or “Too much religion is apt to encourage evil.”
But if the highest illumination of the spirit is only attainable by such means, of what use is religion to the ordinary run of mankind? It may encourage them to a greater morality; it may even teach them to love one another, though the course of history does not suggest that there has been much success in this. It may also give them a sense of the reality of a Father God to whom they can pray as “a very present help in time of trouble.” But this does not begin to exhaust the possibilities of religion because it comes nowhere near to the real essentials of religion; it scarcely touches what is called “religious experience,” without which doctrines, rites, and observances are the emptiest shells. It cannot be assumed that because most religious people are moral, moral people are therefore religious. As Wilde said, “When I am happy I am always good, but when I am good I am seldom happy,” and this becomes more true than ever if by happiness we mean the state that arises from religious experience.
The Religious Experience