6. What Religious Associations Should Do

General Theology - the Science about God / 6. What Religious Associations Should Do

6. What Religious Associations Should Do

6:1. Ritual forms of religious practice can be well used by beginners. But one should understand that rituals are useful only for helping people remember about God’s existence. Participating in ceremonies — whatever they are called or whatever value people assign to them — cannot by itself solve the problem of realization of our purpose of life.

6:2. Activities of religious associations should not be limited just to performing rites. It is necessary to explain people what God is, tell them about the meaning of their lives and the way of its realization. Great focus should be on ethical work involving discussions on ethical principles, practice of conscious and sincere repentance, and collective analysis of ethical problems — using specific examples from life, books, newspapers, films, and other sources.

Aesthetics, including attunement to the subtlest manifestations of living nature and to certain works of art, can be extremely helpful. Sublime and inspiring beauty of human body may also play an important part in this work.

The spiritual work will be much more effective when complemented by lessons on ecology, sport training, lectures, and discussions about healthy lifestyle, as well as mastering healing and self-healing methods.

The methods of psychic self-regulation should be taught with the emphasis on mastering functions of the spiritual heart.

6:3. Serious meditative techniques must not be taught to children and ethically and intellectually immature adults, especially the methods related to the power aspect of development of consciousness. Breaking this rule can lead to serious mental disorders, which stop positive evolution of a given soul.

Initiations to spiritual knowledge should be done strictly on a step-by-step basis — new stages should be given only after disciples have mastered the previous ones.

6:4. The following considerations may serve as a basis for assessment of activities of religious associations:

As we have already discussed, the main attributes of God in the aspect of the Creator are Love, Wisdom, and Power. Thus, the one who seeks the Perfection has to develop these qualities in oneself. In the spiritual work there are three closely connected directions for developing these qualities: ethical, intellectual, and psychoenergetic.

Only a few spiritual organizations and Schools have knowledge about the correct psychoenergetic aspect of development, without mastering which it is impossible to make significant progress.

It is the same with the intellectual aspect: only a few spiritual Schools understand correctly the essence of the Divinity and know the complete methodology of spiritual advancement.

There is also an important point: God encourages the activity of religious groups and organizations which are “young” in terms of the level of the knowledge they possess, — but only provided that they go in the ethically right direction: i.e. if they aspire toward seeking and cognizing the Creator through Love.

The ethical aspect of development is the main one on the Path of spiritual perfection, on the Path of approaching God and cognizing Him.

Therefore, it is the basic ethical principles of a religious organization that should serve as the criterion for assessing whether its religious orientation is correct or incorrect.

The motto “God and Love” is the correct one.

Hatred toward anyone, preaching of violence, making killing of people or other innocent beings a “norm”, alcoholism and using other kinds of drugs, as well as self-interest, aggressiveness, self-admiring, falsity, and arrogance of leaders — this is wrong, this is evil, is not of God and does not lead to God.

6:5. Thus, the main principle of the evolutionary development is multi-aspect Love, which begins with compassionate attitude to all manifestations of life, is directed by the true understanding of the religious and philosophic aspect of our existence, and is based on the development of oneself as a spiritual heart [1-9].