On Religion
Chapter 15, P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous
AMONG the talks of the period I am describing, that is, the end of 1916, G. several times touched upon questions of religion. And when anyone asked him anything connected with religion G. invariably began by emphasizing the fact that there is something very wrong at the basis of our usual attitude towards problems of religion.
“In the first place,” he always said, “religion is a relative concept; it corresponds to the level of a man’s being; and one man’s religion might not be at all suitable for another man, that is to say, the religion of a man of one level of being is not suitable for a man of another level of being.
“It must be understood that the religion of man number one is of one kind; the religion of man number two is of another kind; and the religion of man number three is of a third kind. The religion of man number four, number five, and further is something of a kind totally different from the religion of man number one, number two, and number three.
“In the second place religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he ‘lives’ his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy. Whether he likes it or not he shows his attitude towards religion by his actions and he can show his attitude only by his actions. Therefore if his actions are opposed to those which are demanded by a given religion he cannot assert that he belongs to that religion. The vast majority of people who call themselves Christians have no right whatever to do so, because they not only fail to carry out the demands of their religion but they do not even think that these demands ought to be carried out. “Christianity forbids murder. Yet all that the whole of our progress comes to is progress in the technique of murder and progress in warfare. How can we call ourselves Christians? “No one has a right to call himself a Christian who docs not carry out Christ’s precepts. A man can say that he desires to be a Christian if he tries to carry out these precepts. If he does not think of them at all, or laughs at them, or substitutes for them some inventions of his own, or simply forgets about them, he has no right whatever to call himself a Christian.
“I took the example of war as it is the most striking example. But even without war the whole of life is exactly the same. People call themselves Christians but they do not realize that not only do they not want, but they are unable, to be Christians, because in order to be a Christian it is necessary not only to desire, but to be able, to be one. “Man in himself is not one, he is not ‘I,’ he is ‘we,’ or to speak more correctly, he is ‘they.’ Everything arises from this. Let us suppose that a man decides according to the Gospels to turn the left cheek if somebody strikes him on the right cheek. But one ‘I’ decides this either in the mind or in the emotional center. One ‘I’ knows of it, one ‘I’ remembers it—the others do not. Let us imagine that it actually happens, that somebody strikes this man. Do you think he will turn the left cheek? Never. He will not even have time to think about it. He will either strike the face of the man who struck him, or he will begin to call a policeman, or he will simply take to flight. His moving center will react in its customary way, or as it has been taught to react, before the man realizes what he is doing.
“Prolonged instruction, prolonged training, is necessary to be able to turn the cheek. And if this training is mechanical—it is again worth nothing because in this case it means that a man will turn his cheek because he cannot do anything else.”  P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous
Recent Comments