Религия в модерне и пост-модерне

Религия в модерне и пост-модерне

Many of us, according to modernists and postmodernists, are led astray from the real meaning of this precept by their understanding of the word " heart " (a religious symbol)—they think it means the love nature. But this is not the meaning— occultism does not teach killing out true love—it teaches that love is one of the greatest privileges of man, and that as he advances his love nature grows until, finally, it includes all life. The " heart " referred to is the emotional nature, and the instincts of the lower and more animal mind. These things seem to be such a part of us, before we develop, that to get rid of them we seem to be literally tearing out our hearts. We part with first one thing and then another, of the old animal nature, with pain and suffering, and our spiritual feet becomeliterally washed in the blood of the heart. Appetites—cravings of the lower nature—desires of the animal part of us—old habits— conventionalities—inherited thought—racial delusions— things in the blood and bone of our nature, must be thrown off, one by one, with much misgivings and doubt at first— and with much pain and heart-bleeding until we reach a position from which we can see what it all means. Not only the desires of the lower self are to be torn out, but we must, of necessity, part with many things which have always seemed dear and sacred to us, but which appear as but childish imaginings in the pure light which is beginning to be poured out from our Spiritual Mind2.
This awareness of the " I Am " has come to many people, but those who have this consciousness, as a rule, say nothing about it, for fear that their friends, relatives and neighbours would consider them abnormal and mentally unsound. And, indeed it is not always wise to relate these experiences to others, for those who have not reached the same plane cannot understand, and seeing in another a thing of which they can have no comprehension, are apt to consider him irrational. It is a strange thing—an amusing thing—that in a world made up of people who claim to believe that each man is (or " has " as the term goes) an immortal soul, one who claims to really know this to be a fact is regarded as abnormal. The belief of the race is only skin-deep—the people are as much afraid of death, or more so, than the man who believes that death ends all. They reject all evidences of other planes of existence, considering those who teach of and believe in them as being either impostors or lunatics. They live and act as if this earth-life were all, in spite of all their claims and expressed beliefs. They half-believe certain old religious teachings, but have no real knowledge, and deny that anyone else may possess that which they themselves lack.