Shinto

94:9.3Bud­dhism, later on, was much af­fected by Tao­ism in China, Shinto in Japan, and Chris­tian­ity in Ti­bet. Af­ter a thou­sand years, in In­dia Bud­dhism sim­ply with­ered and ex­pired. It be­came Brah­man­ized and later ab­jectly sur­ren­dered to Is­lam, while through­out much of the rest of the Ori­ent it de­gen­er­ated into a rit­ual which Gau­tama Sid­dhartha would never have rec­og­nized.

131:7.1Only re­cently had the manuscripts of this Far-East­ern re­li­gion been lodged in the Alexan­drian li­brary. It was the one world re­li­gion of which Ga­nid had never heard. This be­lief also con­tained rem­nants of the ear­lier Mel­chiz­e­dek teach­ings as is shown by the fol­low­ing ab­stracts:

131:7.2“Says the Lord: ‘You are all re­cip­i­ents of my di­vine power; all men en­joy my min­istry of mercy. I de­rive great plea­sure in the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of righ­teous men through­out the land. In both the beau­ties of na­ture and the virtues of men does the Prince of Heaven seek to re­veal him­self and to show forth his righ­teous na­ture. Since the olden peo­ple did not know my name, I man­i­fested my­self by be­ing born into the world as a vis­i­ble ex­is­tence and en­dured such abase­ment even that man should not for­get my name. I am the maker of heaven and earth; the sun and the moon and all the stars obey my will. I am the ruler of all crea­tures on land and in the four seas. Al­though I am great and su­preme, still I have re­gard for the prayer of the poor­est man. If any crea­ture will wor­ship me, I will hear his prayer and grant the de­sire of his heart.’

131:7.3“‘Ev­ery time man yields to anx­i­ety, he takes one step away from the lead­ing of the spirit of his heart.’ Pride ob­scures God. If you would ob­tain heav­enly help, put away your pride; ev­ery hair of pride shuts off sav­ing light, as it were, by a great cloud. If you are not right on the in­side, it is use­less to pray for that which is on the out­side. ‘If I hear your prayers, it is be­cause you come be­fore me with a clean heart, free from false­hood and hypocrisy, with a soul which re­flects truth like a mir­ror. If you would gain im­mor­tal­ity, for­sake the world and come to me.’”

92:6.97. Shinto.

92:6.15In­dia is di­vided among Hindu, Sikh, Mo­hammedan, and Jain, each pic­tur­ing God, man, and the uni­verse as these are var­i­ously con­ceived. China fol­lows the Taoist and the Con­fu­cian teach­ings; Shinto is revered in Japan.

94:5.6This com­pos­ite be­lief spread through the lands of the yel­low and brown races as an un­der­ly­ing in­flu­ence in re­li­gio-philo­sophic thought. In Japan this proto-Tao­ism was known as Shinto, and in this coun­try, far-dis­tant from Salem of Pales­tine, the peo­ples learned of the in­car­na­tion of Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek, who dwelt upon earth that the name of God might not be for­got­ten by man­kind.

92:6.20An­ces­tor wor­ship one­time con­sti­tuted a de­cided ad­vance in re­li­gious evo­lu­tion, but it is both amaz­ing and re­gret­table that this prim­i­tive con­cept per­sists in China, Japan, and In­dia amidst so much that is rel­a­tively more ad­vanced, such as Bud­dhism and Hin­duism. In the Oc­ci­dent, an­ces­tor wor­ship de­vel­oped into the ven­er­a­tion of na­tional gods and re­spect for racial heroes. In the twen­ti­eth cen­tury this hero-ven­er­at­ing na­tion­al­is­tic re­li­gion makes its ap­pear­ance in the var­i­ous rad­i­cal and na­tion­al­is­tic sec­u­larisms which char­ac­ter­ize many races and na­tions of the Oc­ci­dent. Much of this same at­ti­tude is also found in the great uni­ver­si­ties and the larger in­dus­trial com­mu­ni­ties of the En­glish-speak­ing peo­ples. Not very dif­fer­ent from these con­cepts is the idea that re­li­gion is but “a shared quest of the good life.” The “na­tional re­li­gions” are noth­ing more than a re­ver­sion to the early Ro­man em­peror wor­ship and to Shinto—wor­ship of the state in the im­pe­rial fam­ily.