In all ancient religions which have come down to us at the present day, we find one claim made – that they are all metaphysical. The origin is not the human brain, but somewhere outside of it.
Some believe that ancestor worship is the beginning of religious ideas: humanity wants to keep up the memory of relatives and think of them as living even when the body is dissolved. The other is that religion originated in the personification of the powers of nature. The dawn, the evening, the hurricane, the gigantic forces of nature, its beauties have fascinated the human mind and it aspires to go beyond.
In both of these, we see that the real germ of religion seems to be the struggle to transcend the limitations of the senses. We are not satisfied with the senses, we want to go beyond them.
The search began and the search went inward, and humanity continued enquiring more deeply into the different stages of the mind and discovered higher states than waking and dreaming. In all organised religions, their founders, prophets and messengers, are declared to have gone into states of mind that were neither waking nor sleeping, in which they came face to face with tremendous spiritual discoveries. Hindus call incredible individuals who can do this, Rishis – the great ‘seers’ – the ones who can see beyond the realm of the senses
They realised things there much more intensely and with greater clarity than we realise facts around us in our waking state.
These facts are the basis of all the religions of the world. Of course we have the right to challenge these facts. Nevertheless, all the existing religions of the world claim for the human mind this tremendous power of transcending the limits of the senses
So we find that humanity has to ultimately give up the plane of matter and rise to other spheres to seek a deeper expression of reality. This endeavour belongs entirely to religion.
The great prophets who bring a mass of magnetism into the world, and whose spirit works in hundreds and in thousands, whose lives ignite others with a spiritual fire, have that spiritual background. Their motive power came from religion.
In building up character, in making for everything that is good and great, in evolving our spiritual being; religion is a tremendous motive power, and therefore ought to be studied from that standpoint.
In developing a vast, ethereal and deeper understanding of ourselves, and our universe, humanity must continue overstepping the bounds of matter. Which makes us wonder: if we think this world of matter is so beautiful, then just imagine the beauty of the reality behind it