Religion

[Russ]

Listening recently to some of James's podcasts they seem to suggest that having a religion goes hand in hand with the work. Not only do I not have a religion, I believe most recognised religions to be bordering on evil. Does everyone else have a religion of sorts? Do you think being an atheist prevents the work being useful?

[LiteScribe]

That is one thing I've struggled with for awhile. Even when I considered myself a member of religion it seems I was only studying the beliefs. The ways I've seen or imagined the4thway and religion intersecting are interesting but at the same time seem arbitrary. All religions I've peeked in on (maybe that's the problem) connect in a way, so what's the point in choosing one...or not being chosen by one?

Buddhism, often seen as atheistic, feels so similar to work principles that I've felt greater understanding by learning about both simultaneously.
Recognized religions all seem less evil to me than the actions of people who claim or try to practice them.

[Cheryl Dunkin]

Wow, I find another. I spent a my childhood as a Mennonite, after I married I had no religion, I still dont and I border on agnostic/atheist depending on the day. I have many of the same feelings on religion as you do. I think the work is useful to anyone, who wants to improve their life. I had no idea that the work was loosely tied to religion until recently, and I find it immensely helpful.

[Roger]

While I might agree that religions (in general) have done a lot of harm over time, I have learned to separate what happens at the "local" level from the organization. I believe there's a lot of good being done at local temples, churches, synagogues, etc. From feeding the hungry to providing shelter for the homeless, I see a lot of decent people trying to do the right thing.
Roger.

[Cheryl Dunkin]

I absolutely agree..

[Colin Blundell]

I’m so sorry this is so long...

One of the things that most impressed me when I first came across The Fourth Way was that you must not believe anything—you must learn. Mr O goes on to say that ‘people believe or disbelieve when they are too lazy to think. You have to choose, you have to be convinced...’ As a teenager I’d been enthusiastic about Cartesian Doubt—Descartes begins promisingly by saying that you must doubt everything which I interpreted as meaning THINK FOR YOURSELF. But then he throws in the sponge by asserting that the one thing you cannot doubt is the existence of God. I returned the book to the shelf because that seemed to me to be the place to really start doubting. Then I read Aldous Huxley’s ‘Perennial Philosophy’ which is so convincing about the fundamental root of all religions.

In chapter 4 of ‘The Fourth Way’, Mr O makes a clear distinction between ‘the religious ways’ and the Fourth Way. The first three ways of making sense of the world are ‘religious ways’; adherents of the first three ways go by the way of renunciation, they take themselves apart from the rough & tumble of life to practise—go lay on a bed of nails, to a monastery, or to hide in monuments of intellect—concentrating their efforts more or less exclusively in turn in Moving Centre, Emotional Centre and Intellectual Centre. By contrast, The Fourth Way can be followed during the course of ordinary life: ‘there is no external giving up of things, for all the work is inner’ and requires work in all Centres simultaneously. What is given up are the things that are unnecessary in the first three ways, by which I take it is meant the ornate trappings and rituals and prostrations... The first three ways are ‘not sufficiently elastic’ says Mr O. The Fourth Way itself grows with Understanding which is a function of the relationship between Knowledge and Being.

But then we find that Mr G said that the System was about Religion (not religions...). To make sense of all this I go back to Aldous Huxley whose brilliant book gets me to the root of all religion and traces the common factors in Buddhism, Esoteric Christianity, Sufism on and on. I understand that the Religion of The Fourth Way is a response to the ‘religious sense’ that’s in all of us—the feeling that there is Something Bigger than Ourselves: the sky, the sea, the moon and the stars, the Ray of Creation. It has nothing to do with the unnecessary hocus-pocus of established religion.

This last weekend I had a lot of time to myself and I picked a book from my shelves on the subject of ‘The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet’ that’s been up there a long time unread. The very first paragraph was exciting.

There are moments during life when a startling but marvellous experience leaps into mind as though coming from another world. The magic that calls it forth—as though someone had accidentally whispered the 'open sesame' that rolls the stone back from the hidden treasure— is often so fleeting as to be forgotten in the joy of the experience. It may be a thin cadence of music; a skylark bursting into song; the plash of a wave; a flute played by moonlight. It may be a grand harmony of sound, peaceful or awe-inspiring; the murmurous voices of a summer's afternoon or the fateful shrieking and drumming of a mountain storm. It maybe something seen: a lovely smile or the curve of an arm; a single gesture, form or hue of compelling beauty; a familiar scene transformed by an unusual quality of light; a majestic panorama of interweaving colours splashed across sea or sky; a cluster of rocks suggestive of enormous beings imbued with life. Or the spell may be wrought by a sudden exaltation, springing directly from the mind and jerking it, so to speak, into an unknown dimension.

The writer quite rightly calls these moments of ‘mystical intuition’ and goes on to describe the whole as ‘The Absolute’ or ‘Suchness’ by which I take it he means rock bottom apprehension of things as they really are—something like that, anyway... The Food of Pure Impressions, in Fourth Way terms. There’s an ‘I’ in me that has had these kinds of naked apprehensions ever since it can remember: newts in the garden pond, patterns of autumn leaves against a frosty sky, water left in rock pools after the tide’s gone out... Its life seems to have been strung out on such a matrix of events. This is another thing that drew me to the Fourth Way. There’s another ‘I’ that presupposes that everybody has such experiences.

Instead of giving some insights about how to experience and value such moments of magic, which can come quite simply through Self-remembering, the book wanders disappointingly between The Void, which I understand completely (I think...), and an outline of ‘deities’ and other products of False Imagination and the mantras that apparently have the power of summoning them up at will. The author describes such ‘deities’ as both ‘mental creations’ and real beings which kind of stretches one’s making sense of things a little. I understand how we create reality by plastering things with words—calling what’s up there ‘sky’ makes of it a ‘mental creation’, calling twinkles in the night sky ‘stars’ makes them a ‘mental creation’ but stars and the firmament do exist, perhaps, whereas one has to wonder about ‘deities’...

This book is as disappointing in the end as Descartes was all those years ago...

‘Deities’, with the appropriate incantation, says the author, support us in our efforts, they organise remorse for our ‘sins’, they protect us, they help us to refrain from evil and so on. The Buddhist pantheon of minor deities are, I assume, what Mr O would have dismissed as ‘unnecessary’. For me, no god is necessary. We have a squad of ‘I’s that are at different levels in us: we have Supporter-I, Remorseful-I, Protective-I, Helping-us-to-refrain-from-evil-I and hundreds of other ‘I’s which there is no need to project outwards in any way.

How to find these ‘I’s? You have something tricky that you need to do shortly... You’ll need some kind of protection while you’re doing it; you’ll need extra support; you’ll need to gather all your resources together beforehand; you’ll need to plan; you’ll have to stand back and observe carefully what’s going on; you’ll need preparedness. Find your Protective-I and ask it what it will do for you. You’ve always had a Protecting-I—ask it how it will help right now. What will Supporting-I do for you? Gathering-resources-I would be useful. Planning-I—things will be hopeless unless you engage Planning-I. While whatever it is you have to do is taking place you’ll need Observer-I to keep track of things for you. All these ‘I’s are inside you. Maybe others will come forward. Get clarity from each. Have them stand around you and feel supported in your endeavours.

If you want to call this something, ‘religious sense’ would work perhaps, but all that’s really necessary is to realise that all these ‘I’s will work for you, on your behalf. No ‘deities’ are necessary. ALL THE WORK IS INNER...

[LiteScribe]

This example will probably be far off base but that's where I usually start, so here goes.

When I began a big adventure into the STUDY OF EVERYTHING, I was too interested and eager in the leap from 'esoteric' realms to considerably more 'occult' ones. Those labels mean many different things to everyone so I'll be more specific. Within the arena of 'magickal' studies, one of the most complex system structures that's survived has been the evocation and invocation of entities. Demons, spirits, ancestors, etc, were all called upon to carry out the will of the operator. I'm probably preaching to at least a couple choir members here but it's probably important to point out these practitioners didn't participate in the manner thats typified in mainstream culture today but in a much more methodical, subtle, and less exciting manner. Alright--the PARALLEL:

From (at least) the Medieval period onward, there are surviving examples of manuscripts, grimories, and keys that included detailed descriptions of the many invoke-able and evoke-able entities. Armed with the knowledge of a particular demon's strengths, weaknesses, appearance, and calls, the magi would be able to call forth the spirit's form and instruct it on how it should intercede on the physical/mental planes. Maybe this is an obvious correlation to many, but I'm interested in the similarities between what G. called I/i's and what occultic practitioners considered spirits.

Early on, I started to feel that regardless of the pomp and circumstance, magick was easily a energy game, glasses to look through that label the energy you juggle different forms of. I know a big debate goes on in certain circles on whether people are calling forth spiritual entities from a different universal plane or more of a collection of jungian archetypes they jump through hoops for in order to experience the sought after aspects of themselves in a more raw?connected way. The term 'magic(k)' doesn't really do it for me being that it's most popular definition is something like: the art and science of causing change in conjunction with one's will. Well then it seems that every conscious move/change we make, in accord with our will, wouldn't be called magic but just living consciously, and without the false personality.

Could 'magick' just be an older cousin to the Work, to act and move consciously, changing (calling forth, observing, admonishing, instructing, banishing, charging)'spirits' ( our many selves) thus "altering" our world(psyche)? Or...clearing out the demons (i's) through exorcism (introspection, observation). It's believed that the magician's knowledge of the entity would mirror his strength in instructing it.

The Catholic Mass, (I should wiki or something) but isn't that a large scale production based on invoking Christ? An attempt to draw forth his presence into the worshipful parish? Ah, I know nothing, so this is all conjecture. Not at all interested in how successful demon-callers were/are, just if anyone see this as a possible evolution of thought...?

See, this little trip probably explains my earlier^ response on not understanding the integration or not of the work and religion. Is a simple reverence for life, all that is living, all that is, not religious enough? It's a reverence that can be made more clear, more conscious through other people's examinations, or your own understanding of your simple reverence made clearer through the 4thway clearing up your vision.

[William]

I think you are on to something. The reason I've become focused on the Fourth Way is that every time I began to study a religion (especially it's mystical practices) I found the same ideas (you aren't who you think you are, establish a Witness, the Real is hidden behind layers of masks and veils) which, when I look at the Work, I also see. Except in the Work is a more practical and hard headed approach. As to magick: yep it's doing the same stuff, just read some of the work of Crowley.

[LiteScribe]

Unfortunately I didn't read: http://solidrockvista.com/Site/Thoughts/Organizations.html until I mucked up this thread a bit, but now more questions...

I'm a hypocrite because I can remember late night chats where I'd explain the futility of life to my friends if they didn't believe in something higher. Whether or not I knew there was something higher I thought it was important. Since then I might've gotten somewhat off track but what I've been running on lately goes something like--

Maybe, EVERYTHING is 'GOD', everything is energy, everything IS. Including us.
Some of my me's ask:

If we are all connected, all being-being, then won't the work just help clear our vision enough in order to SEE this, experience it first hand?

I'll never stop learning about who and how other people have worshiped for the past few thousand years but...won't that just give me some extra detail on what I could otherwise FEEL if i just worked the work?

[Steve]

It has been my experience that one must start where they are. If you don't have a religion, or if your belief system is atheism, then that is where you are.
It has also been my experience that if one really applies this work to their life, they can't help but become different.
This work has caused me to seek something that is higher and outside of myself. I'm not interested in naming it because I'm not interested in limiting what I'm seeking. Nor am I interested in pressing upon someone who doesn't have my experience, a label that might hinder their work. I have simply verified that without outside help, I'm hopelessly lost.

[Colin Blundell]

Mr O : ‘people believe or disbelieve when they are too lazy to think. You have to choose, you have to be convinced...’

Being 'hopelessly lost' - without throwing in the towel of course - is a great place to be because it means that one is always likely to be thinking. The awkward thing is that naming things does get in the way of thinking by limiting what we think. One way to deal with that is to keep pouring words out like Mr G in the hope that some of them will by accident get us to the 'something higher' be it only stars and comets!

[William]

Giving some more thought to the question, I've realized that I make a clear distinction between esoteric and exoteric religion (a distinction I didn't always make which lead me in a lot of dead ends in the past, thinking that joining a church would lead immediately to a good mystical practice).

I spent a lot of time working with mystical forms of Christianity, but that often meant getting buried in the muck of dogma and theology and hair splitting. I've found more beneficial results in the study of Sufism (which helped bring me here), especially as Sufism proved to be more useful for someone living the life of a "good householder" (Christian mysticism less so since so many of the great mystics and writers were monks or nuns).

So I've benefitted a lot (and continue to do so) from studying Sufism, but I have no taste for the exoteric forms of Islam (or Christianity for that matter) in terms of rituals, requirements, rules of dress and private behavior, etc. so many of which seem to have little to do with the work of spiritual growth.

Exoteric teachers will often talk about how the rules are a precursor to inner growth. But you could say that about any set of rules as a way to establish self-discipline. "Don't eat pork" could just as easily be "Don't eat beef" as a discipline.

What I am finding is that you can have a religion or not and the Work can still be there as a practical path. Which I've seen in so many forms of religious practice: the inner work is the same, just the terminology differs and the exoteric form in which it's dressed.

But I wouldn't want to see the Work treated as something antithetical to any exoteric religion. The mystical perspective is often the only thing making the religion redeemable.