Fleeing Through Northern Galilee

155:5.1This mem­o­rable dis­course on re­li­gion, sum­ma­rized and re­stated in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, gave ex­pres­sion to the fol­low­ing truths:

155:5.2While the re­li­gions of the world have a dou­ble ori­gin—nat­u­ral and rev­e­la­tory—at any one time and among any one peo­ple there are to be found three dis­tinct forms of re­li­gious de­vo­tion. And these three man­i­fes­ta­tions of the re­li­gious urge are:

155:5.31. Prim­i­tive re­li­gion. The sem­i­nat­u­ral and in­stinc­tive urge to fear mys­te­ri­ous en­er­gies and wor­ship su­pe­rior forces, chiefly a re­li­gion of the phys­i­cal na­ture, the re­li­gion of fear.

155:5.42. The re­li­gion of civ­i­liza­tion. The ad­vanc­ing re­li­gious con­cepts and prac­tices of the civ­i­liz­ing races—the re­li­gion of the mind—the in­tel­lec­tual the­ol­ogy of the au­thor­ity of es­tab­lished re­li­gious tra­di­tion.

155:5.53. True re­li­gion—the re­li­gion of rev­e­la­tion. The rev­e­la­tion of super­nat­u­ral val­ues, a par­tial in­sight into eter­nal re­al­i­ties, a glimpse of the good­ness and beauty of the in­fi­nite char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven—the re­li­gion of the spirit as demon­strated in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.6The re­li­gion of the phys­i­cal senses and the su­per­sti­tious fears of nat­u­ral man, the Mas­ter re­fused to be­lit­tle, though he de­plored the fact that so much of this prim­i­tive form of wor­ship should per­sist in the re­li­gious forms of the more in­tel­li­gent races of man­kind. Je­sus made it clear that the great dif­fer­ence be­tween the re­li­gion of the mind and the re­li­gion of the spirit is that, while the for­mer is up­held by ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity, the lat­ter is wholly based on hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.7And then the Mas­ter, in his hour of teach­ing, went on to make clear these truths:

155:5.8Un­til the races be­come highly in­tel­li­gent and more fully civ­i­lized, there will per­sist many of those child­like and su­per­sti­tious cer­e­monies which are so char­ac­ter­is­tic of the evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gious prac­tices of prim­i­tive and back­ward peo­ples. Un­til the hu­man race pro­gresses to the level of a higher and more gen­eral rec­og­ni­tion of the re­al­i­ties of spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, large num­bers of men and women will con­tinue to show a per­sonal pref­er­ence for those re­li­gions of au­thor­ity which re­quire only in­tel­lec­tual as­sent, in con­trast to the re­li­gion of the spirit, which en­tails ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of mind and soul in the faith ad­ven­ture of grap­pling with the rig­or­ous re­al­i­ties of pro­gres­sive hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

155:5.9The ac­cep­tance of the tra­di­tional re­li­gions of au­thor­ity pre­sents the easy way out for man’s urge to seek sat­is­fac­tion for the long­ings of his spir­i­tual na­ture. The set­tled, crys­tal­lized, and es­tab­lished re­li­gions of au­thor­ity af­ford a ready refuge to which the dis­tracted and dis­traught soul of man may flee when ha­rassed by fear and tor­mented by un­cer­tainty. Such a re­li­gion re­quires of its devo­tees, as the price to be paid for its sat­is­fac­tions and as­sur­ances, only a pas­sive and purely in­tel­lec­tual as­sent.

155:5.10And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fear­ful, and hes­i­tant in­di­vid­u­als who will pre­fer thus to se­cure their re­li­gious con­so­la­tions, even though, in so cast­ing their lot with the re­li­gions of au­thor­ity, they com­pro­mise the sov­er­eignty of per­son­al­ity, de­base the dig­nity of self-re­spect, and ut­terly sur­ren­der the right to par­tic­i­pate in that most thrilling and in­spir­ing of all pos­si­ble hu­man ex­pe­ri­ences: the per­sonal quest for truth, the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of fac­ing the per­ils of in­tel­lec­tual dis­cov­ery, the de­ter­mi­na­tion to ex­plore the re­al­i­ties of per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, the su­preme sat­is­fac­tion of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the per­sonal tri­umph of the ac­tual re­al­iza­tion of the vic­tory of spir­i­tual faith over in­tel­lec­tual doubt as it is hon­estly won in the su­preme ad­ven­ture of all hu­man ex­is­tence—man seek­ing God, for him­self and as him­self, and find­ing him.

155:5.11The re­li­gion of the spirit means ef­fort, strug­gle, con­flict, faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion, love, loy­alty, and prog­ress. The re­li­gion of the mind—the the­ol­ogy of au­thor­ity—re­quires lit­tle or none of these ex­er­tions from its for­mal be­liev­ers. Tra­di­tion is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fear­ful and half­hearted souls who in­stinc­tively shun the spirit strug­gles and men­tal un­cer­tain­ties as­so­ci­ated with those faith voy­ages of dar­ing ad­ven­ture out upon the high seas of un­ex­plored truth in search for the far­ther shores of spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties as they may be dis­cov­ered by the pro­gres­sive hu­man mind and ex­pe­ri­enced by the evolv­ing hu­man soul.

155:5.12And Je­sus went on to say: “At Je­ru­sa­lem the re­li­gious lead­ers have for­mu­lated the var­i­ous doc­trines of their tra­di­tional teach­ers and the proph­ets of other days into an es­tab­lished sys­tem of in­tel­lec­tual be­liefs, a re­li­gion of au­thor­ity. The ap­peal of all such re­li­gions is largely to the mind. And now are we about to en­ter upon a deadly con­flict with such a re­li­gion since we will so shortly be­gin the bold procla­ma­tion of a new re­li­gion—a re­li­gion which is not a re­li­gion in the pres­ent-day mean­ing of that word, a re­li­gion that makes its chief ap­peal to the di­vine spirit of my Fa­ther which re­sides in the mind of man; a re­li­gion which shall de­rive its au­thor­ity from the fruits of its ac­cep­tance that will so cer­tainly ap­pear in the per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence of all who re­ally and truly be­come be­liev­ers in the truths of this higher spir­i­tual com­mu­nion.”

155:5.13Point­ing out each of the twenty-four and call­ing them by name, Je­sus said: “And now, which one of you would pre­fer to take this easy path of con­for­mity to an es­tab­lished and fos­silized re­li­gion, as de­fended by the Phar­isees at Je­ru­sa­lem, rather than to suf­fer the dif­fi­cul­ties and per­se­cu­tions at­ten­dant upon the mis­sion of pro­claim­ing a bet­ter way of sal­va­tion to men while you re­al­ize the sat­is­fac­tion of dis­cov­er­ing for your­selves the beau­ties of the re­al­i­ties of a liv­ing and per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in the eter­nal truths and su­preme grandeurs of the king­dom of heaven? Are you fear­ful, soft, and ease-seek­ing? Are you afraid to trust your fu­ture in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you dis­trust­ful of the Fa­ther, whose chil­dren you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the cer­tainty and in­tel­lec­tual set­tled­ness of the re­li­gion of tra­di­tional au­thor­ity, or will you gird your­selves to go for­ward with me into that un­cer­tain and trou­blous fu­ture of pro­claim­ing the new truths of the re­li­gion of the spirit, the king­dom of heaven in the hearts of men?”

155:5.14All twenty-four of his hear­ers rose to their feet, in­tend­ing to sig­nify their united and loyal re­sponse to this, one of the few emo­tional ap­peals which Je­sus ever made to them, but he raised his hand and stopped them, say­ing: “Go now apart by your­selves, each man alone with the Fa­ther, and there find the un­emo­tional an­swer to my ques­tion, and hav­ing found such a true and sin­cere at­ti­tude of soul, speak that an­swer freely and boldly to my Fa­ther and your Fa­ther, whose in­fi­nite life of love is the very spirit of the re­li­gion we pro­claim.”

155:5.15The evan­ge­lists and apos­tles went apart by them­selves for a short time. Their spir­its were up­lifted, their minds were in­spired, and their emo­tions might­ily stirred by what Je­sus had said. But when An­drew called them to­gether, the Mas­ter said only: “Let us re­sume our jour­ney. We go into Phoeni­cia to tarry for a sea­son, and all of you should pray the Fa­ther to trans­form your emo­tions of mind and body into the higher loy­al­ties of mind and the more sat­is­fy­ing ex­pe­ri­ences of the spirit.”

155:5.16As they jour­neyed on down the road, the twenty-four were silent, but pres­ently they be­gan to talk one with an­other, and by three o’clock that af­ter­noon they could not go far­ther; they came to a halt, and Pe­ter, go­ing up to Je­sus, said: “Mas­ter, you have spo­ken to us the words of life and truth. We would hear more; we be­seech you to speak to us fur­ther con­cern­ing these mat­ters.”