RELIGIONS AND HUMAN NATURE: WHAT PLACE DO YOU OCCUPY IN ALL OF THAT?

(This article was written by Alsibar, who has studied spiritual guides extensively, and the original text in Portuguese can be read at this link.)

How does a person choose their religion? What is the relationship between religion and our tendencies and level of intellectual and spiritual development? Where do you stand on this? Let's reflect on this.

To say that we choose religions or paths according to our level of spiritual development may seem absurd at first glance. But spiritualist literature is full of statements that corroborate this thesis.

Gurdjieff said there are seven levels of men, and each person chooses their path according to the level they are at. Thus, there is a religion for so-called "ordinary" men, those at levels 1, 2, and 3.

Gurdjieff explained that the religion of the Level 1 man is based on rituals, sacrifices, and ceremonies. The religion of the Level 2 man is based on emotion, worship, faith, and enthusiasm. The religion of the Level 3 man is based on theory, intellect, arguments, and rhetoric.

Regarding the religion of man at level 4 and above, Gurdjieff explains, taking Christianity as an example:

« In fact, Christian number 1, 2, and 3 are nothing more than a superficial imitation. Only man number 4 strives to become a Christian, and only man number 5 can truly be a Christian.

Because to be a Christian, one must possess the essence of a Christian, that is, live according to the precepts of Christ. Men number 1, 2, and 3 cannot live according to the teachings of Christ because for them everything "just happens." They are driven by chance, adrift. They are not masters of themselves, and consequently, even if they decide to be Christians, they cannot truly be so. » 

(Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, Ouspensky)

Another source that clarifies this is the Bhagavad-Gita. Krishna says that men's faith can be of three types according to the modes of nature that each one acquires: goodness, passion, and ignorance. Krishna states:

« Men in the mode of goodness worship demigods; those in the mode of passion worship demons; and those in the mode of ignorance worship ghosts and spirits.»

Then Krishna explains in detail the devotional practices and paths for each individual, according to their nature.

Leaving aside the quotes from sacred books—which served as an introduction to this study—let us reflect together on the question: religion versus level of spiritual development, always remembering that the objective here is not to defend a radical and absolute position, but rather to contribute to a free and impartial reflection on this topic.

However, it seems to me that there aren't just seven or three types of men according to their spiritual and intellectual level, but rather various types, levels, and sublevels. Obviously, when figures like seven or three are established, there is a clear concern for the simplicity and pedagogy of what is taught.

But when we observe reality and the facts, we realize that just as there are so many different kinds of people, there are also so many different paths and religions. However, the fundamental question is: are these varieties of religions harmful or beneficial to humanity? To what extent can we consider the various paths, movements, sects, and religions as something detrimental to human beings?

It all depends on the point of view and the points of reference adopted. From a more general and superficial perspective, we could say that all religions play an important role in guiding, orienting, and enlightening humanity. And perhaps this explains the existence of so many different paths. But should everyone follow only one path?

As much as we might want to claim that there is only one true path, we know that in practice, this is not the case. All religions and sects say the same thing. All gurus and leaders proclaim the superiority of their paths over others.

So what really happens?

An infinity of routes, of paths, that the layman finds in his search, without knowing for sure where to go.

Let's consider, for example, Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal Christian religions. These cater to a specific mindset—a need that, if absent, could leave many people lost and adrift.

Therefore, in general, there is a predominance of former drug addicts, former alcoholics, former drug dealers, former addicts, etc. The path they follow and defend is presented as a lifeline against many evils and vices detrimental to their professional, social, and family lives. Without this "tool," without the support that religion provides, what would become of these people?

Many of them, through a religion that strengthens their faith and self-esteem, manage to give new meaning to their lives and obtain the strength and energy to overcome obstacles, achieve prosperity and be "happy", according to their own conception of happiness.

Similarly, there are other religions and paths that people follow according to what they find convenient and appropriate for their own lives. Thus, when a Pentecostal leaves the Catholic Church, for example, they consider themselves more "evolved" because they have renounced the images, saints, and ecclesiastical authority of the Catholic Church; this gives them a sense of renewal and of truly following Christ "now." And so on.

People follow what they believe will bring them benefits such as peace, tranquility, happiness, renewal, prosperity, meaning in life, and so on. From this perspective, each religion has its own function, serving a niche or segment of people, according to their needs, trends, types, and levels.

Whether we believe it or not, this is what actually happens in the world. We perceive, therefore, that on the path of our spiritual evolution, religions function as stepping stones that propel us to the next level.

So, everything's perfect, right? In some ways, yes. In others, not so much. The thing is, the different paths generally raise your spiritual level. However, they don't usually raise you to a level higher than their own, which leads to a kind of stagnation.

In other words, it's better to be a Pentecostal Christian than a drug dealer. However, if I don't seek to elevate my spiritual level, I risk becoming stuck in readings, sermons, and proselytizing, forgetting inner transformation and the true experience of Christ's teachings.

The framework of religions versus human nature

From this perspective, I created the following scheme, from 1 to 10. Remember that this scheme only seeks to organize things from a subjective and personal perspective. The apparent gradation is not absolute, but simply a way to organize the information, facilitating visualization and understanding.

With this framework, I aim to help those who are searching for themselves but feel lost in this vast array of paths and information. May each person find their own way, and may those who have already found it analyze and reflect upon it.

I accept disagreements, but I want to reiterate that what I publish here does not impose any kind of authority. I don't own the truth, and I believe no one does. However, I advocate for a search based on reflection, research, discovery, and constant learning. May each person find their own light and their own path!

10. Total denial of beliefs, books, gurus, techniques, disciplines and “paths”: focus on meditation, research and self-knowledge: appeals to freedom, independence and total autonomy of man.

9. Following the teachings and practices of ancient esoteric organizations to develop the mind, spirit, and “hidden” powers: they approach an ideal of freedom, but still operate within the sphere of the EGO, of the known.

8. The practice of techniques and the following of gurus appeal to psychological dependence and the search for security and inner stability.

7. Religions that advocate practice combined with actions, such as charity, appeal to hope, to practice allied with rational faith through the cultivation of virtues.

6. Religions that defend proselytism, the authority of sacred texts and blind faith: they appeal to belief, blind faith and material and spiritual ambition.

5. Religions that advocate the worship of saints, images, and obedience to the hierarchy appeal to fear, obedience, and spiritual authority.

4. Monism, for example Christianity, advocates for the unification of beliefs and practices under the rule of a single God.

3. Polytheism (e.g., pagan religions) appeals to human passions.

2. Animal sacrifices, for example, in ancient Brahmanism, appeal to superstition and fear.

1. Human sacrifices, for example, in pre-Columbian tribal religions. It appeals to fear.

KING SOLOMON EXAMINED BY NICHOLAS ROERICH

 

(This is chapter 24 of the Nicholas Roerich's book Shambhala.)

 

 

 

KING SOLOMON

 

Legends of the Orient—how unexpected they are! And what modern thought they reveal to us. How stirring it is to feel, in the myths of the remote places of Asia, a concept so related to our own aspirations and to our own enthusiasms.

 

For example in some legends, they tell of strange diseases now appearing and every Western physician will share the interest in the still-undiscovered processes of the human organism.

 

The legends speak also of underground rivers and one’s mind follows the modern systems of irrigation and rejuvenation of the deserts.

 

They speak also about the hidden treasures yielded to humanity by nature. And you smile, looking at Asia’s rivulets of oil and admiring the iron and copper mountains.

 

It is as a fairy tale.

 

Today the front pages of all our newspapers are devoted to the daring attempts to conquer space and air. And in the sandy deserts your guide, rhythmically plodding along on his camel, tells you of the flying apparatus of King Solomon!

 

In these old symbols you do not feel only out-worn superstition. No, there is a thought of beauty and a feeling for evolution. The best images are collected by the people around these beautiful possibilities and in the name of evolution.

 

Up till now, in the people’s conception, King Solomon soars on his miraculous flying device over the vast spaces of Asia. Many mountains in Asia are crowned either with ruins or stones bearing the imprint of his foot or of his knees, as evidence of his long-enduring prayers. These are the so-called thrones of Solomon.

 

The Great King flew to these mountains, he reached all heights, he left behind him the cares of rulership and here refreshed his spirit. The Mountain of Solomon, the hidden treasures of Solomon, the wisdom of Solomon, the mysterious power of the ring of Solomon, the seal of Solomon, with its power to discriminate between Light and Darkness— to whom else has Asia paid so much admiration and so much respect?

 

 

 

The fable of the hoopoes

 

The greatest mysteries and fables are attributed to the name of Solomon. The hoopoe, considered the most occult of birds, is also linked by legend to King Solomon. The hoopoes guarded King Solomon’s rest at the time of his great work. Returning from his labors, the King asked his birds what they desired as a reward. They replied:

 

-        “Give us, O King, your golden crown. It is so beautiful and we have seen nothing more wondrous than yourself when you don the crown.”

 

The King smiled and said:

 

-        “But, my dear ones, my crown is heavy. How could you wish to take such a burden?”

 

However, the birds continued to beseech him for his crown and the King ordered his goldsmith to make miniature crowns, exact copies of his own, and these were set upon the heads of the birds. Only a short while after the birds came again to the King with their little heads drooping under their golden crowns. And they appealed to the King:

 

-        “O King! Free us of these crowns. You were right, in your wise warning. What can we know, we little ones? Can we know that behind the glitter and charm, there lie such burdens? Free us, O King!”

 

The King replied:

 

-        “Now you see where your desire to take a burden upon yourself has led you. Let it be as you wish! The golden crowns will be removed—but you must wear a remembrance of your senseless yearning for a crown. From now on, you will wear a crown of feathers. These will not overburden you, but will only be a crown of the secret kingdom, that you knew when serving my work.”

 

And so it came to pass that the hoopoe, the most occult bird, knowing many secrets, still wears a crown of feathers. And whenever this bird follows a caravan or boat, people say:

 

-        “This will be a fine voyage—the bird of King Solomon knows!”

 

 

 

The fable of the ants

 

Other animals also served the King. A Moslem who came to Kashmir with his caravan across the Afghan border, told us that even ants helped the Great Suleiman to build the temple. Beginning with great Jinns, the spirits of the air and of the fire, down to ants, all labored upon the building. And in ceaseless prayer, King Solomon controlled without interruption, the work of the forces of nature for the creation of the wonderful Temple. When the strength of the King began to fade and he knew that his time to pass into another world was near, he commanded the Jinns to complete the building without him, but the tempestuous elemental spirits replied that on earth they would agree to submit themselves only to him, but that without him they were freed.

 

Then King Solomon, strengthening himself spiritually and leaning on his staff, remained in the Temple, summoning all his powers to the task. Although at that moment his spirit departed, the body remained motionless and erect so that the tempestuous Jinns might not fly away. And no living being nor any Jinn knew that the spirit of the King had already departed, nor did they dare approach the motionless Ruler. But each one strained himself to the utmost to finish the building. And the Temple was completed, but the Ruler remained immobile. Who would dare to disturb him in his aspirations! But the smallest co-worker of the King—the ant—began to gnaw at the staff of the King until the wood, having been eaten through, the body of the King fell and all saw that his Spirit had departed. But the Great Temple remained!

 

 

 

Others fables

 

But King Solomon is not a celestial ruler alone. He goes down to the people and, as other rulers of the East, he changes his garments and mixes with the crowd in order to penetrate all the secrets of their life. His ring with the miraculous stone, in which is laid the foundation of the World, King Solomon left in safe-keeping with his wife, the Princess of Egypt. But cunning and artful was the Egyptian high priest, who, disguised as the King, took possession of the ring. And now the Ruler is condemned to many years of wandering, until Truth is restored.

 

Thus the people connect everything unique and extraordinary with King Solomon. He ascended the mountains, he descended under the earth, he met kings and he disappeared in the crowds of people.

 

 

In the old kingdom of the Uighurs, where now live the true-believing Moslems, the name of Solomon is linked with that of Alexander, or with the great Akbar. Sometimes one recognizes the same legends which adorned the King-Unifier of India:

 

-        “It seems that the same things are also told of Akbar, called the Great?”

 

The old gray-bearded Moslem in his green turban, who has fulfilled his pilgrimage of repentance to Mecca, bows his head low:

 

-        “Both Rulers were wise and great. When seeing two snowy mountains, how would you attempt to describe their differences? Both glitter under the rays of the sun. To approach them is equally difficult. Who would dare to ascribe to one Ruler what may be common to both? True, the Great Akbar did not leave the boundaries of India. He strengthened the land from within and we do not know what Jinns served him. Of King Solomon every one knows that he flew throughout the earth and that he learned the Truth in all lands and that he had even been on the far-off stars. But who can judge from below of two snowy summits? We even wear dark glasses to protect our weak eyes from their glitter.”

 

Talai-Pho-Brang, 1928.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT WAS THE RELIGION OF THE ATLANTEANS AND LEMURIANS?

 

On this matter The Secret Doctrine says the following:

 

What was the religion of the Third Root Race (Lemurians) and the Fourth Root Race (Atlanteans)?

 

In the common acceptation of the term, neither the Lemurians, nor yet their progeny, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, had any, as they knew no dogma, nor had they to believe on faith. No sooner had the mental eye of man been opened to understanding, than the Third Race felt itself one with the ever-present as the ever to be unknown and invisible ALL, the One Universal Deity.

 

Endowed with divine powers, and feeling in himself his inner God, each felt he was a Man-God in his nature, though an animal in his physical Self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom; a struggle for life between the spiritual and the psychic, the psychic and the physical.

 

Those who conquered the lower principles by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the “Sons of Light.” Those who fell victims to their lower natures, became the slaves of Matter. From “Sons of Light and Wisdom” they ended by becoming the “Sons of Darkness.” They had fallen in the battle of mortal life with Life immortal, and all those so fallen became the seed of the future generations of Atlanteans. ⁽¹⁾

 

At the dawn of his consciousness, the man of the Third Root Race had thus no beliefs that could be called religion. That is to say, he was equally as ignorant of “gay religions, full of pomp and gold” as of any system of faith or outward worship. But if the term is to be defined as the binding together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher than ourselves, of piety – as a feeling expressed by a child toward a loved parent – then even the earliest Lemurians had a religion – and a most beautiful one – from the very beginning of their intellectual life.

 

 

Had they not their bright gods of the elements around them, and even within themselves? ⁽²⁾

 

Was not their childhood passed with, nursed and tendered by those who had given them life and called them forth to intelligent, conscious life?

 

 

We are assured it was so, and we believe it. For the evolution of Spirit into matter could never have been achieved; nor would it have received its first impulse, had not the bright Spirits sacrificed their own respective super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each of his inner principles with a portion, or rather, a reflection of that essence.

 

The Dhyanis of the Seven Heavens (the seven planes of Being) are the NOUMENOI of the actual and the future Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven Powers of nature – the grosser effects of which are perceived by us in what Science is pleased to call the “modes of motion” – the imponderable forces and what not — are the still higher noumenoi of still higher Hierarchies.

 

It was the “Golden Age” in those days of old, the age when the “gods walked the earth, and mixed freely with the mortals.” Since then, the gods departed (i.e., became invisible), and later generations ended by worshipping their kingdoms – the Elements.

 

It was the Atlanteans, the first progeny of semi-divine man after his separation into sexes – hence the first-begotten and humanly-born mortals – who became the first “Sacrificers” to the god of matter.

 

They stand in the far-away dim past, in ages more than prehistoric, as the prototype on which the great symbol of Cain was built, ⁽³⁾ as the first anthropomorphists who worshipped form and matter.

 

That worship degenerated very soon into self-worship, thence led to phallicism, or that which reigns supreme to this day in the symbolisms of every exoteric religion of ritual, dogma, and form. Adam and Eve became matter, or furnished the soil, Cain and Abel – the latter the life-bearing soil, the former “the tiller of that ground or field.”

 

Thus the first Atlantean races, born on the Lemurian Continent, separated from their earliest tribes into the righteous and the unrighteous; into those who worshipped the one unseen Spirit of Nature, the ray of which man feels within himself – or the Pantheists, and those who offered fanatical worship to the Spirits of the Earth, the dark Cosmic, anthropomorphic Powers, with whom they made alliance.

 

These were the earliest Gibborim, “the mighty men of renown in those days” (Gen. vi.); who become with the Fifth Race the Kabirim: Kabiri with the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, Titans with the Greeks, and Rakshasas and Daityas with the Indian races.

 

Such was the secret and mysterious origin of all the subsequent and modern religions, especially of the worship of the later Hebrews for their tribal god. At the same time this sexual religion was closely allied to, based upon and blended, so to say, with astronomical phenomena.

 

The Lemurians gravitated toward the North Pole, or the Heaven of their Progenitors (the Hyperborean Continent); the Atlanteans, toward the Southern Pole, the pit, cosmically and terrestrially – whence breathe the hot passions blown into hurricanes by the cosmic Elementals, whose abode it is. The two poles were denominated, by the ancients, Dragons and Serpents – hence good and bad Dragons and Serpents, and also the names given to the “Sons of God” (Sons of Spirit and Matter): the good and bad Magicians.

 

This is the origin of this dual and triple nature in man. The legend of the “Fallen Angels” in its esoteric signification, contains the key to the manifold contradictions of human character; it points to the secret of man’s self-consciousness; it is the angle-iron on which hinges his entire life-cycle; – the history of his evolution and growth.

 

On a firm grasp of this doctrine depends the correct understanding of esoteric anthropogenesis. It gives a clue to the vexed question of the Origin of Evil; and shows how man himself is the separator of the ONE into various contrasted aspects.

 

The reader, therefore, will not be surprised if so considerable space is devoted in each case to an attempt to elucidate this difficult and obscure subject. A good deal must necessarily be said on its symbological aspect; because, by so doing, hints are given to the thoughtful student for his own investigations, and more light can thus be suggested than it is possible to convey in the technical phrases of a more formal, philosophical exposition.

 

The “Fallen Angels,” so-called, are Humanity itself. The Demon of Pride, Lust, Rebellion, and Hatred, has never had any being before the appearance of physical conscious man. It is man who has begotten, nurtured, and allowed the fiend to develop in his heart; he, again, who has contaminated the indwelling god in himself, by linking the pure spirit with the impure demon of matter. And, if the Kabalistic saying, “Demon est Deus inversus” finds its metaphysical and theoretical corroboration in dual manifested nature, its practical application is found in Mankind alone.

 

(SD II, p.272-274)

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

1. The name is used here in the sense of, and as a synonym of “sorcerers.” The Atlantean races were many, and lasted in their evolution for millions of years: all were not bad. They became so toward their end, as we (the fifth) are fast becoming now.

 

2. The “Gods of the Elements” are by no means the Elementals. The latter are at best used by them as vehicles and materials in which to clothe themselves.

 

3. Cain was the sacrificer, as shown at first in chap. iv. of Genesis, of “the fruit of the ground,” of which he was first tiller, while Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock” to the Lord. Cain is the symbol of the first male, Abel of the first female humanity, Adam and Eve being the types of the third race. (See “The Mystery of Cain and Abel.”) The “murdering” is blood-shedding, but not taking life.