Religion
The state, being closely intertwined with the church, has always found it easy to control the masses thru religion: these were the very tools that allowed for the direction of individuals (telling them what to do and what not to do) based on blind faith in something. And for the state, “blind faith” is not just a beautiful phrase.
Religion & Faith
Throughout history and under various regimes, the state has tried to cooperate closely with the church on many issues, and sometimes even completely subordinated these legalized institutions of faith to itself, along with priests, parishes, church property, and so on.
Perhaps that’s why the term “religion” doesn’t evoke any elevated feelings in the minds of many: because of its strong connection to power structures?
And that’s true both in the past and today. Nothing has changed, after all. Only the form and methods have changed (they have become more elaborate, modernly unscrupulous) of the religious “hydra’s” influence on the human psyche. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with faith or a person’s true spiritual search. Therefore, in this context, I would distinguish between the concepts of “religion” and “faith” as not being entirely identical, although they largely stem from each other.
Religious faith and culture are inherently different things, yet they appear as a unity and can only be adequately understood as such.
Religious culture grows out of faith and without faith disintegrates like a body from which the soul has departed; but faith without religious culture is, so to speak, “unembodied” (Alexander Men, “History of Religion,” Volume 1).
It seems that here, by the concept of religious culture, A. Men meant precisely religion in the context of its relationship with faith. Personally, for me (perhaps unlike many others), religion is strongly associated with faith, with something spiritual-mystical and unshakable.
But it’s not so straightforward here. Let’s not paint everything black or, conversely, just white. Everything has its nuances, shades, and half-tones. The difficulty lies in the fact that for many, perhaps even most, the path to faith in God inevitably leads thru one religion or another, or thru their own spiritual experience. After all, faith isn’t just accepting something “on faith”: it’s also knowledge, which is present in all of us in one form or another.
And if so, there must be some intermediate stage between atheism and complete disbelief in the divine, and faith itself. Historically, religion has taken on this difficult burden. And it has been carried on its back for many millennia, undergoing changes and transformations, sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable (compare, for example, modern Christianity or Buddhism with their original, “unedited” versions – author) throughout all of recorded human history.
What is Religion?
Religion has been called many things throughout the centuries: some have vividly dubbed it the “opium of the people,” others associate religion with sectarian philosophy and alternately confuse it with science, culture, or some other mundane concept of human existence… We will assume that religion, from the Latin word “religare,” means to bind or connect something.
I would define the term “religion” as “a return to the origins.” To the origins of something true and right, unconnected to the context of our daily lives, everyday concerns, and the problems of mortal human existence.
You could say that if an ordinary person looks at his life thru “ordinary glass,” someone who cannot imagine his existence without religion, faith in God, and spiritual self-improvement (for me, all three of these concepts are identical – author) views the surrounding reality of the Matrix as if thru a coloured or rainbow-coloured lens. That is, for him, the System doesn’t seem like such a terrible and hopeless place: on the contrary, this experience of life on the physical plane for a developing man is filled with new meanings, emotions, and impressions. Human’s very existence on Earth makes it deeper and more meaningful.
And at the end of the “path,” when human leaves this world and goes to other dimensions, the experience of his physical life helps him navigate and understand himself better and more clearly on other, more subtle planes of reality (it’s important not to confuse the reality of the Matrix, in which we are currently living and to which the reality of other, higher worlds has nothing to do – author). In this sense, Religion, in its universal manifestation, appears to us as a “saving island,” freeing man from the heavy shackles of the System and leading him to eternity. And, by the only road out of all possible ones.
What is Religion watching from the side of the System?
But what is Religion from the perspective of the Matrix? For as long as humanity has been on Earth, religion has also existed. It existed in its most primitive forms as far back as Neanderthal times (whose excavated burials bear certain ritual marks), accompanying humans from birth to death like a ghost or shadow: some were frightened by this shadow and spent their lives trying to escape it, while others paid no attention to it due to the multitude of other matters and the hustle and bustle that consume most of a human’s physical life.
But always, throughout all times, there have been people who, as if, rose above themselves and their mortal existence and surveyed the entire process from a bird’s-eye view. Can such people be called “fully” or “partially awakened”? Let us think a little about this.
“The Matrix’s influence on such people is STILL strong enough to prevent them from completely breaking free from its orbit and setting sail; but, fortunately, it is NO LONGER strong enough to hinder awakening, personality change, progress, and, as a result, leaving the System.
These people are an intermediate stage between the Matrix’s conditional agent and the “enlightened one” who has finally left the System’s pull and flown into the far reaches of freedom, harmony, and happiness. Formally, “awakened” individuals are those who are not yet fully ready to accept the new reality that has been revealed to them, but who have nevertheless seriously changed their perspective on many questions and problems of existence.
First: it is logical to assume that Religion (the phenomenon itself) cannot and should not in any way develop a person spiritually from the System’s point of view. Especially since showing him any ways out of the Matrix. That would be unnatural and completely unacceptable for the System.
The second point is that, as the human race developed, with each new turn of the historical cycle, the System invented an ever-increasing number of different religions and pseudo-religions, cults, teachings, or simply outright sectarian false doctrines, whose main purpose was to confuse people, knock them off their footing, lead them onto the “true path,” which in reality was not such, and so on.
Throughout the centuries, absolutely all significant religions and movements, without exception, have accumulated various dogmas, concepts, myths, and ceremonies that set the tone for traditions and culture, essentially serving only as beautiful embellishments and decorations for the true processes for which religion was originally intended.
The third important aspect of Religion (if you look at it thru the “binoculars” of the Matrix) is that religion is the thing which divides: it sets a conditional dividing line between what was “before” and “after.” After all, according to Christian treatises, man was created by God and communicated with Him directly before the Fall. After the Fall, communication with God was broken, but God continued to reveal Himself to humanity thru Revelations that came directly from Him, as well as thru various intermediaries: prophets, apostles, and the holy fathers of the Church.
The fourth characteristic of Religion as part of the Matrix is that Religion and the Church in general have become increasingly secular over time, deeply interwoven into the fabric of people’s daily lives, “mimicking” and disguising themselves as people’s main friend, ally, and primary hope in difficult times – the last resort to which a person could turn to solve his problems when nothing else could help.
This colossal adaptability to various situations, flexibility, aura of mystique, and stunning resilience over many centuries and millennia have allowed Religion to become one of the most powerful tools of the System, which it has used and continues to use to enslave the most sacred human feelings, including strengthening its “monopoly” on faith.
5 centres of the power
Ultimately, after decades of the Matrix experimenting with Religion and its impact on the souls of Homo sapiens, the System decided to settle on the four or five largest religious teachings (let’s call them the “five centers of power”), whose followers, as of today, constitute the largest percentages among the Earth’s total population of 7-8 billion: these are Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and… Atheism.
However, I want to clarify right away that by the words “the Matrix decided to stop at four or five large power centers,” I don’t mean that the System literally created or was the author of these very religious teachings. No, the “patent” here doesn’t belong to the Matrix at all, but to various prophets, god-men, and Teachers of Wisdom (just think of Prince Gautama Buddha or the Prophet Muhammad), who “came” to our sinful earth at different historical periods to “awaken from their slumber” the vast, unwieldy masses of the “sleeping people” thru self-sacrifice, spiritual perfection, and informational enlightenment.
Universal Religion
In every religion, there is definitely something bright, positive, and developmental. But until we take the most valuable aspects from each of them and place these treasures in one chest, humanity will be divided: split into several opposing camps, each with its own personal truth, its own “personal” Savior. Thus, progress will indeed occur, but it will be extremely slow: humanity, like a turtle, will crawl along until it finally realizes that all countries and continents urgently need to unite into a single global community and create a unified World Superpower. A state where a single, unifying Universal Religion (hereinafter, UR) or a Super Religion would prevail — a blend of the best elements from the major existing religions, as well as from other wise systems of self-improvement.
The aforementioned “centers of power” can serve as a basis, and around them, the core of the future planetary Religion can be formed. But before the “global rapprochement,” one of the serious challenges for humanity will be the feat of changing itself, as well as overcoming an immense amount of preliminary work. First and foremost, it will be necessary to unite and combat the common global “evil” — terrorism. Then, abandon all internal wars and, at least temporarily, reconcile the various previously conflicting parties (who had disagreements on religious, cultural, territorial, and other issues). Until a new world order is established and the UR finally forms its structure and gains strength.
For the sake of a higher future goal, and in principle, for the survival of the human race, I think we can make an effort to forget past grievances and contradictions. Because there is no single teaching that is absolutely true, one hundred percent perfect, and complete for all times and peoples: God, who created the Universe and humanity, is One; all prophets, spiritual leaders, and Teachers of Wisdom spoke and preached the SAME Truth, simply doing so in different eras, in different ways, among diverse races and cultural strata of the population. Humanity, in its own way, has distorted and perverted the sacred knowledge that was graciously bestowed upon it “from above.”
Perhaps what I am talking about now (specifically, about Universal Religion) may seem to some as a utopia that is impossible or, at least, very difficult to implement in practice in the current social-economic, religious, and political realities. However, robots and computers were once a fantastic dream of certain futurists and science fiction writers, and, for example, before the advent of Christianity, paganism and idol worship were the norm.
Meanwhile, while people of the world will be thinking and pondering what is a utopia and what is not, time may be completely lost, and a decisive decision will have to be made in the conditions of a “nuclear winter” (this is just an example), which will naturally complicate the already difficult task of “bringing nations together” and creating a Unified World Syncretic Religion.
In my opinion, when creating the UR, it is also important to adopt the doctrine of the one God, the Creator, who permeates our entire Universe like a Ray —from microscopic quanta to vast meta-galaxies. The doctrine of the invisible, yet simultaneously all-pervading, Supreme Creator of all existing.
The friendliness and willingness to engage in dialog of the followers of Eastern teachings, as well as the concept of the One God (which would undoubtedly be a balm for the souls of all Muslims and Christians), would become a powerful factor uniting all four “centers of power” into a single, global religious space. Atheists and materialists, in all these processes, seem to be “left out”.
American writer Foster Bailey, for example, believes that Universal Religion has already existed in the history of humanity and that it is modern Freemasonry, with all its contradictions and diversity, that is a fragment of that universal magnificence: that “mirror” shattered into countless sparkling fragments at the dawn of the 5th human race. Or maybe it happened many millennia earlier.
“Masonry with its allegorical rituals, symbols, and numbers—this is all that remains for us from the first world religion, which thrived in an ancient time so distant that it is impossible to establish a date. It was the first unified world religion. Then came the era of the branching off of many religions, the era of sectarianism. In our time, we are once again moving towards a world unified religion” (Foster Bailey, “The Spirit of Masonry”).
The importance of a single and universal teaching for all is hard to overestimate in conditions where the world is ruled by many incomprehensible forces, each of which practically claims absolute world domination. Now or in the future, it doesn’t matter much.
Even if the development and implementation of a ready-made project for a global religion costs humanity hundreds of thousands of hours, billions of lost nerve cells, conflicts, disputes, and the incredible efforts of several generations, this “sacrifice” will still not be in vain.
The Book of Your Life
“Stepping outside the System is not an open, destructive war. It is the creation of an underground, far-reaching network of free people united by a single noble goal.”