{"id":3048,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:37","slug":"61-the-religion-of-humanity-vol-25-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/25-the-human-cycle\/61-the-religion-of-humanity-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-61_The Religion of Humanity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter XXXIV <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Religion of Humanity <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA <\/font>RELIGION<\/b> of humanity may be either an intellectual and sentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual,
\n psychological and practical effects, or else a spiritual
\naspiration and rule of living, partly the sign, partly the cause of a change of soul in humanity. The intellectual religion of
\nhumanity already to a certain extent exists, partly as a 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 is preparing for its birth. This material world of
\nours, besides its fully embodied things of the present, is peopled by such powerful shadows, ghosts of things dead and the spirit
\nof things yet unborn. The ghosts of things dead are very troublesome actualities and they now abound, ghosts of dead religions,
\ndead arts, dead moralities, dead political theories, which still claim either to keep their rotting bodies or to animate partly
\nthe existing body of things. Repeating obstinately their sacred formulas of the past, they hypnotise backward-looking minds
\nand daunt even the progressive portion of humanity. But there are too those unborn spirits which are still unable to take a definite body, but are already mind-born and exist as influences of which the human mind is aware and to which it now responds in
\na desultory and confused fashion. The religion of humanity was mind-born in the eighteenth century, the
\nmanasa putra<\/i>1<\/sup> of the
\n\u00af<\/i> rationalist thinkers who brought it forward as a substitute for
\nthe formal spiritualism of ecclesiastical Christianity. It tried to give itself a body in Positivism, which was an attempt to formulate the dogmas of this religion, but on too heavily and severely rationalistic a basis for acceptance even by an Age of Reason.
\nHumanitarianism has been its most prominent emotional result. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1<\/sup> Mind-born child, an idea and expression of Indian Puranic cosmology.  
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 564<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPhilanthropy, social service and other kindred activities have been its outward expression of good works. Democracy, socialism, pacificism are to a great extent its by-products or at least owe much of their vigour to its inner presence. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe fundamental idea is that mankind is the godhead to be worshipped and served by man and that the respect, the
\nservice, the progress of the human being and human life are the chief duty and the chief aim of the human spirit. No other idol,
\nneither the nation, the State, the family nor anything else ought to take its place; they are only worthy of respect so far as they
\nare images of the human spirit and enshrine its presence and aid its self-manifestation. But where the cult of these idols seeks to
\nusurp the place of the spirit and makes demands inconsistent with its service, they should be put aside. No injunctions of old
\ncreeds, religious, political, social or cultural, are valid when they go against its claims. Science even, though it is one of the chief
\nmodern idols, must not be allowed to make claims contrary to its ethical temperament and aim, for science is only valuable
\nin so far as it helps and serves by knowledge and progress the religion of humanity. War, capital punishment, the taking
\nof human life, cruelty of all kinds whether committed by the individual, the State or society, not only physical cruelty, but
\nmoral cruelty, the degradation of any human being or any class of human beings under whatever specious plea or in whatever
\ninterest, the oppression and exploitation of man by man, of class by class, of nation by nation and all those habits of life
\nand institutions of society of a similar kind which religion and ethics formerly tolerated or even favoured in practice, whatever
\nthey might do in their ideal rule or creed, are crimes against the religion of humanity, abominable to its ethical mind, forbidden
\nby its primary tenets, to be fought against always, in no degree to be tolerated. Man must be sacred to man regardless of all
\ndistinctions of race, creed, colour, nationality, status, political or social advancement. The body of man is to be respected, made
\nimmune from violence and outrage, fortified by science against disease and preventable death. The life of man is to be held
\nsacred, preserved, strengthened, ennobled, uplifted.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 565<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe heart
\nof man is to be held sacred also, given scope, protected from violation, from suppression, from mechanisation, freed from
\nbelittling influences. The mind of man is to be released from all bonds, allowed freedom and range and opportunity, given all
\nits means of self-training and self-development and organised in the play of its powers for the service of humanity. And all this
\ntoo is not to be held as an abstract or pious sentiment, but given full and practical recognition in the persons of men and nations
\nand mankind. This, speaking largely, is the idea and spirit of the intellectual religion of humanity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne has only to compare human life and thought and feeling a century or two ago with human life, thought and feeling in
\nthe pre-war period to see how great an influence this religion of humanity has exercised and how fruitful a work it has done.
\nIt accomplished rapidly many things which orthodox religion failed to do effectively, largely because it acted as a constant
\nintellectual and critical solvent, an unsparing assailant of the thing that is and an unflinching champion of the thing to be,
\nfaithful always to the future, while orthodox religion allied itself with the powers of the present, even of the past, bound itself by
\nits pact with them and could act only at best as a moderating but not as a reforming force. Moreover, this religion has faith
\nin humanity and its earthly future and can therefore aid its earthly progress, while the orthodox religions looked with eyes
\nof pious sorrow and gloom on the earthly life of man and were very ready to bid him bear peacefully and contentedly, even
\nto welcome its crudities, cruelties, oppressions, tribulations as a means for learning to appreciate and for earning the better
\nlife which will be given us hereafter. Faith, even an intellectual faith, must always be a worker of miracles, and this religion
\nof humanity, even without taking bodily shape or a compelling form or a visible means of self-effectuation, was yet able to effect
\ncomparatively much of what it set out to do. It to some degree humanised society, humanised law and punishment, humanised
\nthe outlook of man on man, abolished legalised torture and the cruder forms of slavery, raised those who were depressed and
\nfallen, gave large hopes to humanity, stimulated philanthropy and charity and
\n\t\t\tthe service of mankind, encouraged everywhere the desire of freedom,
\n\t\t\tput a curb on oppression and greatly minimised its more brutal
\n\t\t\texpressions.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 566<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt had almost succeeded in humanising war and would perhaps have succeeded entirely
\nbut for the contrary trend of modern Science. It made it possible for man to conceive of a world free from war as imaginable
\neven without waiting for the Christian millennium. At any rate, this much change came about that, while peace was formerly
\na rare interlude of constant war, war became an interlude, if a much too frequent interlude of peace, though as yet only of an
\narmed peace. That may not be a great step, but still it was a step forward. It gave new conceptions of the dignity of the human
\nbeing and opened new ideas and new vistas of his education, selfdevelopment and potentiality. It spread enlightenment; it made
\nman feel more his responsibility for the progress and happiness of the race; it raised the average self-respect and capacity of
\nmankind; it gave hope to the serf, self-assertion to the downtrodden and made the labourer in his manhood the potential
\nequal of the rich and powerful. True, if we compare what is with what should be, the actual achievement with the ideal, all
\nthis will seem only a scanty work of preparation. But it was a remarkable record for a century and a half or a little more
\nand for an unembodied spirit which had to work through what instruments it could find and had as yet no form, habitation or
\nvisible engine of its own concentrated workings. But perhaps it was in this that lay its power and advantage, since that saved
\nit from crystallising into a form and getting petrified or at least losing its more free and subtle action. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut still in order to accomplish all its future this idea and religion of humanity has to make itself more explicit, insistent
\nand categorically imperative. For otherwise it can only work with clarity in the minds of the few and with the mass it will be
\nonly a modifying influence, but will not be the rule of human life. And so long as that is so, it cannot entirely prevail over its
\nown principal enemy. That enemy, the enemy of all real religion, is human egoism, the egoism of the individual, the egoism of
\nclass and nation. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 567<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThese it could for a time soften, modify, force
\nto curb their more arrogant, open and brutal expressions, oblige to adopt better institutions, but not to give place to the love of
\nmankind, not to recognise a real unity between man and man. For that essentially must be the aim of the religion of humanity,
\nas it must be the earthly aim of all human religion, love, mutual recognition of human brotherhood, a living sense of human oneness and practice of human oneness in thought, feeling and life, the ideal which was expressed first some thousands of years ago
\nin the ancient Vedic hymn and must always remain the highest injunction of the Spirit within us to human life upon earth. Till
\nthat is brought about, the religion of humanity remains unaccomplished. With that done, the one necessary psychological
\nchange will have been effected without which no formal and mechanical, no political and administrative unity can be real
\nand secure. If it is done, that outward unification may not even be indispensable or, if indispensable, it will come about naturally,
\nnot, as now it seems likely to be, by catastrophic means, but by the demand of the human mind, and will be held secure by an
\nessential need of our perfected and developed human nature. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut this is the question whether a purely intellectual and
\nsentimental religion of humanity will be sufficient to bring about so great a change in our psychology. The weakness of the intellectual idea, even when it supports itself by an appeal 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 and they may be the instruments of either its lower
\nand external form or of the inner and higher man, servants of the ego or channels of the soul. The aim of the religion of
\nhumanity was formulated in the eighteenth century by a sort of primal intuition; that aim was and it is still to re-create human
\nsociety in the image of three kindred ideas, liberty, equality and fraternity. None of these has really been won in spite of all the
\nprogress that has been achieved. The liberty that has been so loudly proclaimed as an essential of modern progress is an outward, mechanical and unreal liberty. The equality that has been so much sought after and battled for is equally an outward and
\nmechanical and will turn out to be an unreal equality. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 568<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFraternity
\nis not even claimed to be a practicable principle of the ordering of life and what is put forward as its substitute is the outward
\nand mechanical principle of equal association or at the best a comradeship of labour. This is because the idea of humanity has
\nbeen obliged in an intellectual age to mask its true character of a religion and a thing of the soul and the spirit and to appeal to
\nthe vital and physical mind of man rather than his inner being. It has limited his effort to the attempt to revolutionise political
\nand social institutions and to bring about such 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 human life and on the outer mind much more
\nthan upon the soul of the race. It has laboured to establish a political, social and legal liberty, equality and mutual help in an
\nequal association. But though these aims are of great importance in their own
\nfield, they are not the central thing; they can only be secure when founded upon a change of the inner human nature and inner way
\nof living; they are themselves of importance only as means for giving a greater scope and a better field for man’s development
\ntowards that change and, when it is once achieved, as an outward expression of the larger inward life. Freedom, equality,
\nbrotherhood are three godheads of the soul; they cannot be really achieved through the external machinery of society or by
\nman so long as he lives only in the individual and the communal ego. When the ego claims liberty, it arrives at competitive
\nindividualism. When it asserts equality, it arrives first at strife, then at an attempt to ignore the variations of Nature, and, as the
\nsole way of doing that successfully, it constructs an artificial and machine-made society. A society that pursues liberty as its ideal
\nis unable to achieve equality; a society that aims at equality will be obliged to sacrifice liberty. For the ego to speak of fraternity
\nis for it to speak of something contrary to its nature. All that it knows is association for the pursuit of common egoistic ends
\nand the utmost that it can arrive at is a closer organisation for the equal distribution of labour, production, consumption and
\nenjoyment. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 569<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be
\nachieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul
\nand by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association
\nor of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development of the
\ndivine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of
\nthe same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of selfdevelopment on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual
\nunity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit.
\nIt is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his
\nsoul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive
\nbefore it can fulfil itself in the life of the race.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 570<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter XXXIV   The Religion of Humanity   A RELIGION of humanity may be either an intellectual and sentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25-the-human-cycle","wpcat-58-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","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=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}