Early Cultural Writings

Passing Thoughts - I

13-March-1922

Religion in Europe

There is no word so plastic and uncertain in its meaning as the word religion. The word is European and, therefore, it is as well to know first what the Europeans mean by it. In this matter we find them,—when they can be got to think clearly on the matter at all, which is itself unusual,—divided in opinion. Sometimes they use it as equivalent to a set of beliefs, sometimes as equivalent to morality, coupled with a belief in God, sometimes as equivalent to a set of pietistic actions and emotions. Faith, works and pious observances, these are the three recognized elements of European religion. From works, however, the ordinary work of the world is strictly excluded. Religion and daily life are, in the European opinion, two entirely different things which it is superstitious, barbarous, unenlightened and highly inconvenient to mix up together. Altruistic works are sometimes brought under religion, sometimes excluded from it. The idea of knowledge being part of religion is a conception which the European cannot receive into his intellect; religion and knowledge are to him two things absolutely and eternally unconnected, if not opposed and mutually contradictory of each other. The place of knowledge is taken by faith or belief stripped of any reason for the belief. The average Christian believes that the Bible is God's book, but ordinarily he does not consider anything in God's book binding on him in practice except to believe in God and go to Church once a week; the rest is only meant for the exceptionally pious. On the whole, therefore, to believe in God, to believe that He wrote a book,—only one book in all these ages,—and to go to Church on Sunday is the minimum of religion in Europe; on these essentials piety and morality may supervene and deepen the meaning.

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Religion in India

Religion in India is a still more plastic term and may mean anything from the heights of Yoga to strangling your fellow man and relieving him of the worldly goods he may happen to be carrying with him. It would therefore take too long to enumerate everything that can be included in Indian religion. Briefly, however, it is dharma or living religiously, the whole life being governed by religion. But again what is living religiously? It means, in ordinary practice, living according to authority. The authority generally accepted is the Shastra; but when one studies the Shastra and Indian life side by side, one finds that the two have very little to do with each other; the Indian governs his life not by the Shastra but by custom and the opinion of the nearest Brahmin. In practice this resolves itself into certain observances and social customs of which he understands neither the spiritual meaning nor the practical utility. To venerate the Scriptures without knowing them and to obey custom in their place; to reverence all Brahmins whether they are venerable or despicable; to eat nothing cooked by a social inferior; to marry one's daughter before puberty and one's son as soon as possible after it; to keep women ignorant and domestically useful; to bathe scrupulously and go through certain fixed ablutions; to eat on the floor and not at a table; to do one's devotions twice a day without understanding them; to observe a host of meaningless minutiae in one's daily conduct; to keep the Hindu holidays, when an image is set up, worshipped and thrown away,—this in India is the minimum of religion. This is glorified as Hinduism and the Sanatana Dharma. If, in addition, a man has emotional or ecstatic piety, he is a Bhakta; if he can talk fluently about the Veda, Upanishads, Darshanas & Puranas, he is a Jnani. If he puts on a yellow robe and does nothing, he is a tyagi or sannyasin. The latter is liberated from the ordinary dharma, but only if he does nothing but beg and vegetate. All work must be according to custom and the Brahmin. The one superiority of average Indian religion is that it does really reverence the genuine Bhakta or Sannyasin provided he does not come with too strange a garb

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or too revolutionary an aspect. The European almost invariably sets him down as a charlatan, professional religionist, idle drone or religious maniac.

The Real Minimum

Turning away from this sorrowful debris of ancient religious forms in India and Europe, we may fix the genuine minimum of religion at this,—to know God, to love and to serve him. The Europeans think that to fear God is a noble part of religion, forgetting the dictum of the Bible that perfect love casteth out fear and that the devils also believe and tremble. Perfect knowledge, perfect service also cast out fear. One may know, love and serve God as the Master, Lover, Friend, Mother; or as the Higher Self; or as Humanity; or as the Self in all creatures. If it be objected that this gives scope to Atheism, it must be remembered that Buddha also has been termed an Atheist. The average Hindu is right in his conception of religion as dharma, to live according to holy rule; but the holy rule is not a mass of fugitive and temporary customs, but this, to live for God in oneself and others and not for oneself only, to make the whole life a sadhana the object of which is to realise the Divine in the world by work, love and knowledge.

The Maximum

There is a maximum as well as a minimum, and that is to rise beyond this life into a higher existence, not necessarily for oneself alone or in order to leave the world and vanish into the Universal, but as the highest have done, as God Himself habitually does, to bring down the bliss, illumination and greatness of that higher existence into the material world of creatures. All that rises beyond the minimum to the maximum, even though it may not attain it, is the Para Dharma; the minimum is the apara. To be a good, unselfish and religious man is the apara or lower dharma; to reach God revealed and bring Him down to earth where He hides Himself, is the higher. This is the Secret

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Wisdom, which defeats itself if it remains for ever secret. For this the great Avatars, Teachers and Lovers come, to reveal Him in divine knowledge, to reveal Him in mighty action, to reveal Him in utter delight and love.

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