{"id":3134,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3134"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","slug":"36-the-religion-of-human-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/36-the-religion-of-human-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-36_The Religion of Human Unity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE RELIGION OF HUMANITY<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n A<\/font>
\nRELIGION<\/font> of humanity may be either an intellecutal
\nand sentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual, psychological and practical effects, or else a spiritual aspiration and rule
\nof living and partly the sign, partly the cause of a change of soul
\nin humanity. The intellectual religion of humanity already to a
\ncertain extent exists, partly as a conscious trend in the minds of a
\nfew, partly as a potent shadow in the consciousness of the race. It
\nis the shadow of a spirit that is yet unborn, but is preparing for
\nits birth. This material world of ours, besides its fully embodied
\nthings of the present, is peopled by such powerful shadows,
\nghosts of things dead and the spirit of things yet unborn. The
\nghosts of things dead are very troublesome actualities and they
\nnow abound, ghosts of dead religions, dead arts, dead moralities,
\ndead political theories, which still claim either to keep their
\nrotting bodies or to animate partly the existing body of things. Repeating
\nobstinately their sacred formulas of the past they hypnotise backward looking minds and daunt even the progressive
\nportion of humanity. But there are too these unborn spirits
\nwhich are still unable to take a definite body, but are already
\nmind-born and exist as influences of which the human mind is
\naware and to which it now responds in a desultory and confused fashion. The
\nreligion of humanity was mind-born in the eighteenth century, the manasa putra*<\/i> of the rationalist thinkers who
\nbrought it forward as a substitute for the formal spiritualism of <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\nPage-309 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\necclesiastical 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
\nacceptance even by an Age of Reason. Humanitarianism has
\nbeen its most prominent emotional result. Philanthropy, social
\nservice and other kindred activities have been its outward expression of good works. Democracy, socialism, pacificism are to a
\ngreat extent its by-products or at least owe much of their vigour
\nto its inner presence. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe fundamental idea is that mankind is the godhead to be
\nworshiped and served by man and that the respect, the service,
\nthe progress of the human being and human life are the chief
\nduty and chief aim of the human spirit. No other idol, neither
\nthe nation, the State, the family nor anything else ought to take
\nits place; they are only worthy of respect so far as they are images
\nof the human spirit and enshrine its presence and aid its self-manifestation. But where the cult of these idols seeks to usurp
\nthe place of the spirit and makes demands inconsistent with its
\nservice, they should be put aside. No injunctions of old creeds,
\nreligious, political, social or cultural, are valid when they go
\nagainst its claims. Science even, though it is one of the chief
\nmodern idols, must not be allowed to make claims contrary to its
\nethical temperament and aim, for science is only valuable in so
\nfar as it helps and serves by knowledge and progress the religion
\nof humanity. War, capital punishment, the taking of human
\nlife, cruelty of all kinds whether committed by the individual,
\nthe State or society, not only physical cruelty, but moral cruelty,
\nthe degradation of any human being or any class of human beings under whatever specious plea or in whatever interest, the
\noppression and exploitation of man by man, of class by class, of
\nnation by nation and all those habits of life and institutions of
\nsociety of a similar kind which religion and ethics formerly tolerated or even favoured in practice, whatever they might do in
\ntheir ideal rule or creed, are crimes against the religion of humanity, abominable to its ethical mind, forbidden by its primary
\ntenets, to be fought against always, in no degree to be tolerated. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-310 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nMan must be sacred to man regardless of all distinctions of race,
\ncreed, colour, nationality, status, political or social advancement.
\nThe body of man is to be respected, made immune from violence
\nand outrage, fortified by science against disease and preventible
\ndeath. The life of man is to be held sacred, preserved, strengthened, ennobled, uplifted. The heart of man is to be held sacred
\nalso, given scope, protected from violation, from suppression,
\nfrom mechanisation, freed from belittling influences. The mind
\nof man is to be released from all bonds, allowed freedom and
\nrange and opportunity, given all its means of self-training and
\nself-development and organised in the play of its powers for the
\nservice of humanity. And all this too is not to be held as an
\nabstract or pious sentiment, but given full and practical recognition in the persons of men and nations and mankind. This,
\nspeaking largely, is the idea and spirit of the intellectual religion
\nof humanity. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nOne has only to compare human life and thought and feeling a century or two ago with human life, thought and feeling in
\nthe prewar period to see how great an influence this religion of
\nhumanity has exercised and how fruitful a work it has done. It
\naccomplished rapidly many things which orthodox religion failed
\nto do effectively, largely because it acted as a constant intellectual
\nand critical solvent, an unsparing assailant of the thing that is
\nand an unflinching champion of the thing to be, faithful always
\nto the future, while orthodox religion allied itself with the powers of the present, even of the past, bound itself by its pact with
\nthem and could act only at best as a moderating but not as a
\nreforming force. Moreover, this religion has faith in humanity
\nand its earthly future and can therefore aid its earthly progress,
\nwhile the orthodox religions looked with eyes of pious sorrow
\nand gloom on the earthly life of man and were very ready to bid
\nhim bear peacefully and contentedly, even to welcome its crudities, cruelties, oppressions, tribulations as a means for learning
\nto appreciate and for earning the better life which will be given
\nus hereafter. Faith, even an intellectual faith, must always be a
\nworker of miracles, and this religion of humanity, even without <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-311 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ntalking bodily shape or a compelling form or a visible means of
\nself-effectuation, was yet able to effect comparatively much of
\nwhat it set out to do. It to some degree humanised society, humanised law and punishment, humanised the outlook of man
\non man, abolished legalised torture and the cruder forms of slavery, raised those who were depressed and fallen, gave large hopes
\nto humanity, stimulated philanthropy and charity and the service of mankind, encouraged everywhere the desire of freedom,
\nput a curb on oppression and greatly minimised its more brutal
\nexpressions. It had almost succeeded in humanising war and
\nwould perhaps have succeeded entirely but for the contrary tend
\nof modem science. It made it possible for man to conceive of a
\nworld free from war as imaginable even without waiting for the
\nChristian millennium. At any rate this much change came about
\nthat, while peace was formerly a rare interlude of constant war,
\nwar became an interlude, if a much too frequent interlude of
\npeace, though as yet only of an armed peace. That may not be a
\ngreat step, but still it was a step forward. It gave new conceptions
\nof the dignity of the human being and opened new ideas and
\nnew vistas of his education, self-development and potentiality.
\nIt spread enlightenment; it made man feel more his responsibility for the progress and happiness of the race; it raised the average self-respect and capacity of mankind; it gave hope to the serf,
\nself-assertion to the down-trodden and made the labourer in his
\nmanhood the potential equal of the rich and powerful. True, if
\nwe compare what is with what should be, the actual achievement
\nwith the ideal, all this will seem only a scanty work of preparation. But it was a remarkable record for a century and a half or
\nlittle more and for an unembodied spirit which had to work
\nthrough what instruments it could find and had as yet no form,
\nhabitation or visible engine of its own concentrated workings.
\nBut perhaps it was in this that lay its power and advantage, since
\nthat saved it from crystallising into a form and getting petrified
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>at least losing its more free and subtle action. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut still in order to accomplish all its future, this idea and
\nreligion of humanity has to make itself more explicit, insistent <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-312 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand categorically imperative. For otherwise it can only work
\nwith 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
\nlife. 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
\nof class and nation. These it could for a, time soften, modify,
\nforce to curb their more arrogant, open and brutal expressions,
\noblige to adopt better institutions, but not to give place to the
\nlove of mankind, not to recognise a real unity between man and
\nman. For that essentially must be the aim of the religion of humanity, as it must be the earthly aim of all human religion, love,
\nmutual recognition of human brotherhood, a living sense of human oneness and practice of human oneness in thought, feeling
\nand life, the ideal which was expressed first some thousands of
\nyears ago in the ancient Vedic hymn and must always remain
\nthe highest injunction of the Spirit within us to human life
\nupon earth. Till that is brought about, the religion of humanity
\nremains unaccomplished. With that done, the one necessary
\npsychological change will have been effected without which no
\nformal and mechanical, no political and administrative unity
\ncan be real and secure. If it is done, that outward unification
\nmay not even be indispensable or, if indispensable it will come
\nabout naturally, not as now it seems likely to be, by catastrophic
\nmeans, but by the demand of the human mind, and will be held
\nsecure by an essential need of our perfected and developed human nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut this is the question whether a purely intellectual and
\nsentimental religion of humanity will be sufficient to bring about
\nso great a change in our psychology. The weakness of the intellectual idea, even when it supports itself by an appeal to the
\nsentiments and emotions, is that it does not get at the centre of
\nman’s being. The intellect and the feelings are only instruments
\nof the being, and they may be the instruments of either its lower
\nexternal form or of the inner and higher man, servants of the ego
\nor channels of the soul. The aim of the religion of humanity was <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-313 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nformulated in the eighteenth century by a sort of primal intuition; that aim was and it is still to recreate human society in the
\nimage of three kindred ideas, liberty, equality and fraternity.
\nNone of these has really been won in spite of all the progress
\nthat has been achieved. The liberty that has been so much proclaimed as an essential of modem progress is an outward and
\nmechanical and unreal liberty. The equality that has been so
\nmuch sought after and battled for, is equally an outward and
\nmechanical and will turn out to be an unreal equality. Fraternity
\nis not even claimed to be a practicable principle of the ordering
\nof life and what is put forward as its substitute is the outward
\nand mechanical principle of equal association or at the best a
\ncomradeship of labour. This is because the idea of humanity has
\nbeen obliged in an intellectual age to mask its true character of a
\nreligion and a thing of the soul and the spirit and to appeal to the
\nvital and physical mind of man rather than his inner being. It
\nhas limited his effort to the attempt to revolutionise political and
\nsocial institutions and to bring about such a modification of the
\nideas and sentiments of the common mind of mankind as would
\nmake these institutions practicable; it has worked at the machinery of human life and on the outer mind much more than upon
\nthe soul of the race. It has laboured to establish a political, and
\nsocial and legal liberty, equality and mutual help in an equal
\nassociation. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut though these aims are of great importance in their own
\nfield, they are not the central thing; they can only be secure
\nwhen founded upon a change of the inner human nature and
\ninner way of living; they are themselves of importance only as
\nmeans for giving a greater scope and a better field for man’s
\ndevelopment towards that change and, when it is once achieved,
\nas an outward expression of the larger inward life. Freedom,
\nequality, brotherhood are three godheads of the soul; they cannot be really achieved through the external machinery of society
\nor by man 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, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-314 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthen at an attempt to ignore the variations of Nature, and, as the
\nsole way of doing that successfully, it constructs an artificial and
\nmachine-made society. A society that pursues liberty as its ideal
\nis unable to achieve equality; a society that aims at equality, will
\nbe 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
\nknows is association for the pursuit of common egoistic ends,
\nand the utmost that it can arrive at is a closer organisation for the
\nequal distribution of labour, production, consumption and enjoyment. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nYet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the
\nidea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only
\nbe achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot
\nbe founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the
\nsoul and by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom,
\nit is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development of
\nthe divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what
\nit is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition
\nof the same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it
\nstrives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind
\nand feeling, founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the
\nSpirit. It 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
\nhis soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must
\narrive before it can fulfil itself in the life of the race. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-315 <\/font><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXXIV   THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY    A RELIGION of humanity may be either an intellecutal 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":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ideal-of-human-unity","wpcat-63-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134","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=3134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}