Rodan of Alexandria

160:5.1You have told me that your Mas­ter re­gards gen­uine hu­man re­li­gion as the in­di­vid­ual’s ex­pe­ri­ence with spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties. I have re­garded re­li­gion as man’s ex­pe­ri­ence of re­act­ing to some­thing which he re­gards as be­ing wor­thy of the homage and de­vo­tion of all man­kind. In this sense, re­li­gion sym­bol­izes our su­preme de­vo­tion to that which rep­re­sents our high­est con­cept of the ide­als of re­al­ity and the far­thest reach of our minds to­ward eter­nal pos­si­bil­i­ties of spir­i­tual at­tain­ment.

160:5.2When men re­act to re­li­gion in the tribal, na­tional, or racial sense, it is be­cause they look upon those with­out their group as not be­ing truly hu­man. We al­ways look upon the ob­ject of our re­li­gious loy­alty as be­ing wor­thy of the rev­er­ence of all men. Re­li­gion can never be a mat­ter of mere in­tel­lec­tual be­lief or philo­sophic rea­son­ing; re­li­gion is al­ways and for­ever a mode of re­act­ing to the sit­u­a­tions of life; it is a species of con­duct. Re­li­gion em­braces think­ing, feel­ing, and act­ing rev­er­ently to­ward some re­al­ity which we deem wor­thy of uni­ver­sal ado­ra­tion.

160:5.3If some­thing has be­come a re­li­gion in your ex­pe­ri­ence, it is self-ev­i­dent that you al­ready have be­come an ac­tive evan­gel of that re­li­gion since you deem the su­preme con­cept of your re­li­gion as be­ing wor­thy of the wor­ship of all man­kind, all uni­verse in­tel­li­gences. If you are not a pos­i­tive and mis­sion­ary evan­gel of your re­li­gion, you are self-de­ceived in that what you call a re­li­gion is only a tra­di­tional be­lief or a mere sys­tem of in­tel­lec­tual phi­los­o­phy. If your re­li­gion is a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, your ob­ject of wor­ship must be the uni­ver­sal spirit re­al­ity and ideal of all your spir­i­tu­al­ized con­cepts. All re­li­gions based on fear, emo­tion, tra­di­tion, and phi­los­o­phy I term the in­tel­lec­tual re­li­gions, while those based on true spirit ex­pe­ri­ence I would term the true re­li­gions. The ob­ject of re­li­gious de­vo­tion may be ma­te­rial or spir­i­tual, true or false, real or un­real, hu­man or di­vine. Re­li­gions can there­fore be ei­ther good or evil.

160:5.4Moral­ity and re­li­gion are not nec­es­sar­ily the same. A sys­tem of morals, by grasp­ing an ob­ject of wor­ship, may be­come a re­li­gion. A re­li­gion, by los­ing its uni­ver­sal ap­peal to loy­alty and su­preme de­vo­tion, may evolve into a sys­tem of phi­los­o­phy or a code of morals. This thing, be­ing, state, or or­der of ex­is­tence, or pos­si­bil­ity of at­tain­ment which con­sti­tutes the su­preme ideal of re­li­gious loy­alty, and which is the re­cip­i­ent of the re­li­gious de­vo­tion of those who wor­ship, is God. Re­gard­less of the name ap­plied to this ideal of spirit re­al­ity, it is God.

160:5.5The so­cial char­ac­ter­is­tics of a true re­li­gion con­sist in the fact that it in­vari­ably seeks to con­vert the in­di­vid­ual and to trans­form the world. Re­li­gion im­plies the ex­is­tence of undis­cov­ered ide­als which far tran­scend the known stan­dards of ethics and moral­ity em­bod­ied in even the high­est so­cial us­ages of the most ma­ture in­sti­tu­tions of civ­i­liza­tion. Re­li­gion reaches out for undis­cov­ered ide­als, un­ex­plored re­al­i­ties, super­hu­man val­ues, di­vine wis­dom, and true spirit at­tain­ment. True re­li­gion does all of this; all other be­liefs are not wor­thy of the name. You can­not have a gen­uine spir­i­tual re­li­gion with­out the su­preme and su­per­nal ideal of an eter­nal God. A re­li­gion with­out this God is an in­ven­tion of man, a hu­man in­sti­tu­tion of life­less in­tel­lec­tual be­liefs and mean­ing­less emo­tional cer­e­monies. A re­li­gion might claim as the ob­ject of its de­vo­tion a great ideal. But such ide­als of un­re­al­ity are not at­tain­able; such a con­cept is il­lu­sion­ary. The only ide­als sus­cep­ti­ble of hu­man at­tain­ment are the di­vine re­al­i­ties of the in­fi­nite val­ues res­i­dent in the spir­i­tual fact of the eter­nal God.

160:5.6The word God, the idea of God as con­trasted with the ideal of God, can be­come a part of any re­li­gion, no mat­ter how puerile or false that re­li­gion may chance to be. And this idea of God can be­come any­thing which those who en­ter­tain it may choose to make it. The lower re­li­gions shape their ideas of God to meet the nat­u­ral state of the hu­man heart; the higher re­li­gions de­mand that the hu­man heart shall be changed to meet the de­mands of the ide­als of true re­li­gion.

160:5.7The re­li­gion of Je­sus tran­scends all our for­mer con­cepts of the idea of wor­ship in that he not only por­trays his Fa­ther as the ideal of in­fi­nite re­al­ity but pos­i­tively de­clares that this di­vine source of val­ues and the eter­nal cen­ter of the uni­verse is truly and per­son­ally at­tain­able by ev­ery mor­tal crea­ture who chooses to en­ter the king­dom of heaven on earth, thereby ac­knowl­edg­ing the ac­cep­tance of son­ship with God and broth­er­hood with man. That, I sub­mit, is the high­est con­cept of re­li­gion the world has ever known, and I pro­nounce that there can never be a higher since this gospel em­braces the in­fin­ity of re­al­i­ties, the di­vin­ity of val­ues, and the eter­nity of uni­ver­sal at­tain­ments. Such a con­cept con­sti­tutes the achieve­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of the ide­al­ism of the su­preme and the ul­ti­mate.

160:5.8I am not only in­trigued by the con­sum­mate ide­als of this re­li­gion of your Mas­ter, but I am might­ily moved to pro­fess my be­lief in his an­nounce­ment that these ide­als of spirit re­al­i­ties are at­tain­able; that you and I can en­ter upon this long and eter­nal ad­ven­ture with his as­sur­ance of the cer­tainty of our ul­ti­mate ar­rival at the por­tals of Par­a­dise. My breth­ren, I am a be­liever, I have em­barked; I am on my way with you in this eter­nal ven­ture. The Mas­ter says he came from the Fa­ther, and that he will show us the way. I am fully per­suaded he speaks the truth. I am fi­nally con­vinced that there are no at­tain­able ide­als of re­al­ity or val­ues of per­fec­tion apart from the eter­nal and Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

160:5.9I come, then, to wor­ship, not merely the God of ex­is­tences, but the God of the pos­si­bil­ity of all fu­ture ex­is­tences. There­fore must your de­vo­tion to a su­preme ideal, if that ideal is real, be de­vo­tion to this God of past, pres­ent, and fu­ture uni­verses of things and be­ings. And there is no other God, for there can­not pos­si­bly be any other God. All other gods are fig­ments of the imag­i­na­tion, il­lu­sions of mor­tal mind, dis­tor­tions of false logic, and the self-de­cep­tive idols of those who cre­ate them. Yes, you can have a re­li­gion with­out this God, but it does not mean any­thing. And if you seek to sub­sti­tute the word God for the re­al­ity of this ideal of the liv­ing God, you have only de­luded your­self by putting an idea in the place of an ideal, a di­vine re­al­ity. Such be­liefs are merely re­li­gions of wish­ful fancy.

160:5.10I see in the teach­ings of Je­sus, re­li­gion at its best. This gospel en­ables us to seek for the true God and to find him. But are we will­ing to pay the price of this en­trance into the king­dom of heaven? Are we will­ing to be born again? to be re­made? Are we will­ing to be sub­ject to this ter­ri­ble and test­ing pro­cess of self-de­struc­tion and soul re­con­struc­tion? Has not the Mas­ter said: “Whoso would save his life must lose it. Think not that I have come to bring peace but rather a soul strug­gle”? True, af­ter we pay the price of ded­i­ca­tion to the Fa­ther’s will, we do ex­pe­ri­ence great peace pro­vided we con­tinue to walk in these spir­i­tual paths of con­se­crated liv­ing.

160:5.11Now are we truly for­sak­ing the lures of the known or­der of ex­is­tence while we un­re­servedly ded­i­cate our quest to the lures of the un­known and un­ex­plored or­der of the ex­is­tence of a fu­ture life of ad­ven­ture in the spirit worlds of the higher ide­al­ism of di­vine re­al­ity. And we seek for those sym­bols of mean­ing where­with to con­vey to our fel­low men these con­cepts of the re­al­ity of the ide­al­ism of the re­li­gion of Je­sus, and we will not cease to pray for that day when all man­kind shall be thrilled by the com­mu­nal vi­sion of this su­preme truth. Just now, our fo­cal­ized con­cept of the Fa­ther, as held in our hearts, is that God is spirit; as con­veyed to our fel­lows, that God is love.

160:5.12The re­li­gion of Je­sus de­mands liv­ing and spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Other re­li­gions may con­sist in tra­di­tional be­liefs, emo­tional feel­ings, philo­sophic con­scious­ness, and all of that, but the teach­ing of the Mas­ter re­quires the at­tain­ment of ac­tual lev­els of real spirit pro­gres­sion.

160:5.13The con­scious­ness of the im­pulse to be like God is not true re­li­gion. The feel­ings of the emo­tion to wor­ship God are not true re­li­gion. The knowl­edge of the con­vic­tion to for­sake self and serve God is not true re­li­gion. The wis­dom of the rea­son­ing that this re­li­gion is the best of all is not re­li­gion as a per­sonal and spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. True re­li­gion has ref­er­ence to des­tiny and re­al­ity of at­tain­ment as well as to the re­al­ity and ide­al­ism of that which is whole­heart­edly faith-ac­cepted. And all of this must be made per­sonal to us by the rev­e­la­tion of the Spirit of Truth.

160:5.14And thus ended the dis­ser­ta­tions of the Greek philoso­pher, one of the great­est of his race, who had be­come a be­liever in the gospel of Je­sus.