{"id":1146,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:54","slug":"60-the-religion-of-humanity-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/60-the-religion-of-humanity-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-60_The Religion of Humanity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nCHAPTER <\/font><\/b>
\nXXXIV<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe
\nReligion of Humanity<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/span>A<\/font><\/span> RELIGION of humanity may be either an intellectual and
\nsentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual, psychological and
\npractical effects, or else a spiritual aspiration and rule of living, and
\npartly the sign, partly the cause of a change of soul in humanity. The
\nintellectual religion of humanity already to a certain extent exists, partly as
\na conscious creed in the minds of a few, partly as a potent shadow in the
\nconsciousness of the race. It is the shadow of a spirit that is yet unborn, but
\nis preparing for its birth. This material world of ours, besides its fully
\nembodied things of the present, is peopled by such powerful shadows, ghosts of
\nthings dead and the spirit of things yet unborn. The ghosts of things dead are
\nvery troublesome actualities and they now abound, ghosts of dead religions,
\ndead arts, dead moralities, dead political theories, which still claim either
\nto keep their rotting bodies or to animate partly the existing body of things.
\nRepeating obstinately their sacred formulas of the past, they hypnotise
\nbackward-looking minds and daunt even the progressive portion of humanity. But
\nthere are too those unborn spirits which are still unable to take a definite
\nbody, but are already mind-born and exist as influences of which the human mind
\nis aware and to which it now responds in a desultory and confused fashion. The
\nreligion of humanity was mind-born in the eighteenth century, the m<\/i>\u00e3nasa
\nputra <\/i>1<\/i><\/sup> <\/span>of the rationalist thinkers who brought it forward as a
\nsubstitute for the formal spiritualism of ecclesiastical Christianity. It tried
\nto give itself a body in Positivism, which was an attempt to formulate the
\ndogmas of this religion, but on too heavily and severely rationalistic a basis
\nfor acceptance even by an Age of Reason. Humanitarianism has been its most
\nprominent emotional result. Philanthropy, .social service<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> <\/font>Mind-born child, an idea
\nand expression of Indian Puranic cosmology<\/span>.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-541<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nand other kindred activities have been its outward
\nexpression of good works. Democracy, socialism, pacifictsm are to a great
\nextent its by-products or at least owe much of their vigour to its inner
\npresence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The
\nfundamental idea is that mankind is the godhead to be worshipped and served by
\nman and that the respect, the service, the progress of the human being and
\nhuman life are the chief duty and chief aim of the human spirit. No other idol,
\nneither the nation, the State, the family nor anything else ought to take its
\nplace; they are only worthy of respect So far as they are images of the human
\nspirit and. enshrine its presence and aid its self-manifestation. But where the
\ncult of these idols seeks to usurp the place of the spirit and makes demands
\ninconsistent with. its service, they should be put aside. No injunctions of old
\ncreeds, religious, political, social or cultural, are valid when they go
\nagainst its claims. Science even, though it is one of the chief modern idol~,
\nmust not be allowed to make claims contrary to its ethical temperament and aim,
\nfor science is only valuable in so far as it helps and serves by knowledge and
\nprogress the religion of humanity. War, capital punishment, the taking of human
\nlife, cruelty of all kinds whether committed by the individual, the State or
\nsociety, not only physical cruelty, but moral cruelty, the degradation of any
\nhuman being or any class of human beings under whatever specious plea or in
\nwhatever interest, the oppression and exploitation of man by man, of class by
\nclass, of nation by nation and all those habits of life and institutions of
\nsociety of a similar kind which religion and ethics formerly tolerated or even
\nfavoured in practice, whatever they might do in their ideal rule or creed, are
\ncrimes against the religion of humanity, abominable to its ethical mind,
\nforbidden by its primary tenets, to be fought against always, in no degree to
\nbe tolerated. Man must be sacred to man regardless of all distinctions of race,
\ncreed, colour, nationality, status, political or social advancement. The body
\nof man is to be respected, made immune from violence and outrage, fortified by
\nscience against disease and preventable death. The life of man is to be held
\nsacred, preserved, strengthened, ennobled, uplifted. The heart of man is to be
\nheld sacred also, given scope, protected from violation, from suppres-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-542<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nsion, from mechanisation, freed from belittling
\ninfluences. The mind of man is to be released from all bonds, allowed freedom
\nand range and opportunity, given all its means of self-training and
\nself-development and organised in the play of its powers for the service of
\nhumanity. And all this too is not to be held as an abstract or pious sentiment,
\nbut given full and practical recognition in the persons of men and nations and
\nmankind. This, speaking largely, is the idea and spirit of the intellectual
\nreligion of humanity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>One has
\nonly to compare human life and thought and feeling a century or two ago with
\nhuman life, thought and feeling in the pre-war period to see how great an
\ninfluence this religion of humanity has exercised and how fruitful a work it
\nhas done. It accomplished rapidly many things which orthodox religion failed to
\ndo effectively, largely because it acted as a constant intellectual and
\ncritical solvent, an unsparing assailant of the thing that is and an unflinching
\nchampion of the thing to be, faithful always to the future, while orthodox
\nreligion allied itself with the powers of the present, even of the past, bound
\nitself by its pact with them and could act only at best as a mode- rating but
\nnot as a reforming force. Moreover, this religion has faith in humanity and its
\nearthly future and can therefore aid its earthly progress, while the orthodox
\nreligions looked with eyes of pious sorrow and gloom on the earthly life of man
\nand were very ready to bid him bear peacefully and contentedly, even to welcome
\nits crudities, cruelties, oppressions, tribulations as a means for learning to
\nappreciate and for earning the better life which will be given us hereafter.
\nFaith, even an intellectual faith, must always be a worker of miracles, and
\nthis religion of humanity, even without taking bodily shape or a compelling
\nform or a visible means of self-effectuation, was yet able to effect
\ncomparatively much of what it set out to do. It, <\/b>to some degree, humanised society, humanised law and punishment,
\nhumanised the outlook of man on man, abolished legalised torture and the cruder
\nforms of slavery, raised those who were depressed and fallen, gave large hopes
\nto humanity, stimulated philanthropy and charity and the service of mankind, encouraged
\neverywhere the desire of freedom, put a curb on oppression and greatly mini-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-543<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nmised its more brutal expressions. It had almost
\nsucceeded in humanising war and would perhaps have succeeded entirely but for the
\ncontrary trend of modern Science. It made it possible for man to conceive of a
\nworld free from war as imaginable even without waiting for the Christian
\nmillennium. At any rate, this much change came about that, while peace was
\nformerly a rare interlude of constant war, war became an interlude, if a much
\ntoo frequent interlude of peace, though as yet only of an armed peace. That may
\nnot be a great step, but still it was a step for- ward. It gave new conceptions
\nof the dignity of the human being and opened new ideas and new vistas of his
\neducation, self- development and potentiality. It spread enlightenment; it made
\nman feel more his responsibility for the progress and happiness of the race; it
\nraised the average self-respect and capacity of mankind; it gave hope to the
\nserf, self-assertion to the down- trodden and made the labourer in his manhood
\nthe potential equal of the rich and powerful. True, if we compare what is with
\nwhat should be, the actual achievement with the ideal, all this will seem only
\na scanty work of preparation. But it was a remarkable record for a century and
\na half or a little more and for an unembodied spirit which had to work through
\nwhat instruments it could find and had as yet no form, habitation or visible
\nengine of its own concentrated workings. But perhaps it was in this that lay
\nits power and advantage, since that saved it from crystallising into a form and
\ngetting petrified or at least losing its more free and subtle action.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But still
\nin order to accomplish all its future, this idea and religion of humanity has
\nto make itself more explicit, insistent and categorically imperative. For
\notherwise it can only work with clarity in the minds of the few and with the
\nmass it will be only a modifying influence, but will not be the rule of human
\nlife. And so long as that is so, it cannot entirely prevail over its own
\nprincipal enemy. That enemy, the enemy of all real religion, is human egoism,
\nthe egoism of the individual, the egoism of class and nation. These it could
\nfor a time soften, modify, force to curb their more arrogant, open and brutal
\nexpressions, oblige to adopt better institutions, but not to give place to the
\nlove of mankind, not to recognise a real unity between man and<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-544<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nman. For that essentially must be the aim of the
\nreligion of humanity, as it must be the earthly aim of all human religion,
\nlove, mutual recognition of human brotherhood, a living sense of human oneness
\nand practice of human oneness in thought, feeling and life, the ideal which was
\nexpressed first some thou- sands of years ago in the ancient Vedic hymn 1
\n<\/sup>and must always remain the
\nhighest injunction of the Spirit within us to human life upon earth. Till that
\nis brought about, the religion of humanity remains unaccomplished. With that
\ndone, the one necessary psychological change will have been effected without
\nwhich no formal and mechanical, no political and administrative unity can be
\nreal and secure. If it is done, that outward unification may not even be
\nindispensable or, if indispensable, it will come about naturally, not as now it
\nseems likely to be, by catastrophic means, but by the demand of the human mind,
\nand will be held secure by an essential need of our perfected and developed
\nhuman nature. <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But this
\nis the question whether a purely intellectual and sentimental religion of
\nhumanity will be sufficient to bring about so great a change in our psychology.
\nThe weakness of the intellectual idea, even when it supports itself by an
\nappeal to the sentiments and emotions, is that it does not get at the centre of
\nman’s being. The intellect and the feelings are only instruments of the being
\nand they may be the instruments of either its lower external form or of the
\ninner and higher man, servants of the ego or channels of the soul. The aim of
\nthe religion of humanity was formulated in the eighteenth century by a sort of
\nprimal intuition; that aim was and it is still to re-create human society in
\nthe image of three kindred ideas, liberty, equality and fraternity. None of
\nthese has really been won in spite of all the progress that has been achieved.
\nThe liberty that has been so loudly proclaimed as an essential of modern
\nprogress is an outward and mechanical and unreal liberty. The equality that has
\nbeen so much sought after and battled for is equally an outward and mechanical
\nand will turn out to be an unreal equality. Fraternity is not even claimed to
\nbe a practicable principle of the ordering of life and what is put forward as
\nits substitute is the outward and mechanical principle of equal association or
\nat the best a comradeship <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> <\/font>
\nRig Veda, X. 191<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Page-545<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nof labour. This is because the idea of humanity has
\nbeen obliged in an intellectual age to mask its true character of a religion
\nand a thing of the soul and the spirit and to appeal to the vital and physical
\nmind of man rather than his inner being. It has limited his effort to the
\nattempt to revolutionise political and social institutions and to bring about
\nsuch a modification of the ideas and sentiments of the common mind of mankind
\nas would make these institutions practicable; it has worked at the machinery of
\nhuman life and on the outer mind much more than upon the soul of the race. It
\nhas laboured to establish a political, social and legal liberty, equality and
\nmutual help in an equal association.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But though
\nthese aims are of great importance in their own field, they are not the central
\nthing; they can only be secure when founded upon a change of the inner human
\nnature and inner way of living; they are themselves of importance only as means
\nfor giving a greater scope and a better field for man’s development towards
\nthat change and, when it is once achieved, as an outward expression of the
\nlarger inward life. Freedom, equality, brotherhood are three godheads of the
\nsoul; they can- not be really achieved through the external machinery of
\nsociety or by man so long as he lives only in the individual and the communal
\nego. When the ego claims liberty, it arrives at competitive individualism. When
\nit asserts equality, it arrives first at strife, then at an attempt to ignore
\nthe variations of Nature, and, as the sole way of doing that successfully, it
\nconstructs an artificial and machine-made society. A society that pursues
\nliberty as its ideal is unable to achieve equality; a society that aims at
\nequality will be obliged to sacrifice liberty. For the ego to speak of
\nfraternity is for it to speak of something contrary to its nature. All that it
\nknows is association for the pursuit of common egoistic ends and the utmost
\nthat it can arrive at is a closer organisation for the equal distribution of
\nlabour, production, consumption and enjoyment.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Yet is
\nbrotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The
\nunion of liberty and equality can only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood
\nand it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-546<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nsoul and by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For
\nthis brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital
\nassociation or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is
\nthe freedom of its self-development, the self-development of the divine in man
\nin all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom
\nequally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead in all
\nhuman beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal
\nfreedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind and
\nfeeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity. These three
\nthings are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the
\neternal attributes of the Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this
\ntruth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to
\nlive from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion,
\nand it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can
\nfulfil itself in the life of the race.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-547<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXXIV The Religion of Humanity   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A RELIGION of humanity may be either an intellectual and sentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual, psychological…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}