[continued from previous message]   
      
   The alternative motivation is quite the opposite – it is the Principle of   
   Selfish Pleasure. All of the influential social, economic and political forces   
   today are guided by dogmas, most of which are based on this Principle of   
   Selfish Pleasure. People,    
   even very intelligent people, readily accept dogmas –with the justification   
   that whether these dogmas be logical or illogical, whether they do good or bad   
   to others, still they bring me some pleasure. And with this short-term,   
   short-sighted mentality,    
   people go on enslaving themselves in the iron shackles of unreason and   
   inhumanity.   
      
   Go to seek out the source of these dogmas, the wellspring of human slavery,   
   and we need look no farther than our neighborhood church, temple, synagogue or   
   mosque. I do not claim that all the world's dogmas are religious in nature –   
   actually dogmas have    
   permeated every walk of life. But, at the root of all evil is the absence of a   
   truly cosmic outlook, and for this the religions of the world must be held   
   responsible. Even if the religious leaders could not give proper guidance,   
   they need not have taken    
   such pains to mislead the people. Yet this is what they did, and they did so   
   to satisfy their purely selfish motives.   
      
   It may be that most propagators of popular religion were or are unaware of the   
   deleterious effects of their work. But can we imagine that those cunning   
   intellectuals who laid claim to divine revelation, and announced new doctrines   
   to deceive the people,    
   really themselves believed that a few drops of water on the head, or even a   
   full bath in the river Jordan (or Ganges), could wash away all of a woman's or   
   a man's sins? Imagine the extent of corruption to which these religious   
   hucksters gave indulgence    
   in the name of God! Only a few hundred years ago priests in the Catholic   
   Church offered safe transit from purgatory to heaven in exchange for the   
   proper donation. [8] Even if we accept all the claptrap and bunkum about   
   heaven, purgatory and Hell (for    
   which dogmas not a single peg can be implanted in the hard ground of logic and   
   reason), can we also believe that those priests who fixed the fees for   
   assorted indulgences truly thought that their prayers had power not only to   
   influence but actually to    
   command God – and that this power became effective only after receipt of the   
   appropriate bribe? To those priests, not only the unwary public but also and   
   even God was taken as nothing but a tool to be used for their own ruthless   
   aggrandizement. And, sad    
   to say, even today one notable branch of the Christian Church carries on this   
   outrageous practice, based solely on greed and the slanderous supposition that   
   God is amenable to “religio-political graft”. [9]   
      
   Sentiment   
   Dogmas tend to capitalize on three particular types of human sentiment. First   
   is geo-sentiment, the attachment which arises out of love for a specific   
   geographical region. Geo-sentiment may be confined to devotion towards one's   
   own homestead, or may be    
   expanded to include one's entire homeland or country. [10] It is exceedingly   
   rare to find anyone with geo-sentiment extended beyond her or his national   
   borders, though occasionally one feels attracted to a few “special” places on   
   the planet, notably    
   religious locations. Thus we find Moslems turning always toward Mecca in   
   performance of prayer, as if God can hear only prayers spoken in that   
   direction; Jews dream about celebration of the Passover in Jerusalem; and   
   Christians, strange as it may seem,    
   make their holy pilgrimages to Rome and such other out-of-the-way places as   
   Santiago de Compostela in Spain. True spiritualists throughout the ages, at   
   least for the past seven thousand years since the time of Sadashiva, [11] have   
   maintained that there    
   is no value in wandering hither and thither, from holy place to holy place.   
   The real temple is the human body. The real pilgrimage is to travel the inner   
   paths of human mind to attain realization of one's own union with the Supreme.   
   To search for God in    
   this or that shrine, ignoring one's own soul, is as foolish as looking here   
   and there for food, forgetting the sweet fruit which one has in one's very   
   hand.   
      
   The second type of sentiment is known as socio-sentiment, derived from one's   
   love for a particular community. Instead of concerning oneself with the   
   welfare of a particular geographical area, one thinks in terms of the   
   well-being of a specific community,    
   even to the detriment of all other communities. [12] The Jews, the Christians,   
   the Moslems, the Hindus, the Buddhists – all religions have propagated that   
   their community is the only one traveling the high road to God. All have tried   
   to maintain the    
   purity of their community by exterminating any religious competition, often   
   declaring their barbaric efforts at genocide to be nothing less than' virtuous   
   deeds. This socio-sentiment starts with family (exploited so cleverly by the   
   Church with regard to    
   salvation of ancestors as mentioned earlier) and extends potentially to all of   
   the human race. [13] When socio-sentiment reaches the maximum degree of   
   extension, we would normally call it general or ordinary humanism. [14]   
      
   This general humanism is the third type of sentiment. It is also a bogus   
   creed. The humanist pays lip service to the suffering humanity while carefully   
   protecting her or his own life style and bank account. Long ago I visited a   
   Christian monastery. After    
   a sumptuous meal (which I declined to eat because it was non-vegetarian), we   
   retired to a large, well-heated living room. There, as we all sat comfortably   
   on expensive leather-covered easy chairs, I told stories to the novices in the   
   hope that their eyes    
   might open to an expanded vision of practical spirituality. At length one very   
   bold young man confessed, “You see, we take vows of chastity, poverty and   
   obedience – we are here to help save humanity – but somehow it does not seem   
   that we are undergoing    
   any hardships, much less poverty.” He then asked me, “What do you suggest we   
   do?” Well, the answer was so obvious that I felt embarrassed to say it, for   
   even Jesus had advised the rich man to sell his possessions and to distribute   
   the proceeds to the    
   poor. [15] So long as one million people are dying of starvation every month,   
   most of them little children, a few monks or priests or rabbis speaking   
   high-sounding words from the snug harbor of their luxurious homes will hardly   
   help to solve the problem.    
   Rather, they set the worst possible example, inclining people toward   
   indifference to the miserable plight of their less fortunate sisters and   
   brothers.   
      
   Neo-Humanism   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)