Principles of a new religion
by David R. Griffiths
It is the duty of a being when they reach a high level to start a new religion, and while I have quite a few thoughts about what passes for religion, I don't seek to stop other religions, I'm not like that please, that's what I am against. There is a realm of unexistance, a realm of argument, above that discussion, and beyond that there is existence where all else is irrelevance. We can ignore the realm of argument, but discussion is ok. I was brought up in a Minister's household but always felt that Christianity needed some adjustments. I studied other religions and found Scientology. I retain a fondness for the rest in different ways. Truth is something that you find, many people misunderstand religion and think those things contrary to their own views are "wrong". In many respects religion is created reality in the most positive sense. We are talking about the dignity of the being, human or otherwise, when we discuss religion. Notwithstanding that, I do have comments on matters of fact which I do not wish to shove in other people's faces, but nevertheless truth is truth, and outside of ideas there is existence, where all else is irrelevance.
Laugh if you will, it will probably go through a few revisions. I have wanted to do this for some time and today sorted a few thoughts and I am fairly happy with the results.
I don't seek to be worshipped, I'm not sure too many others really did either yet their followers through perversity, (read Nietzsche on this), always seem to want to blame somebody else for existence.
I am for life rising up, the spirit being liberated, the bum becoming a God, not in name but in essence. While this is Scientology, it has earlier origins. ( "Pythagoras taught that the soul is immortal, ... a fallen divinity imprisoned in the body as in a tomb" http://www.lycos.com/info/pythagoras--souls.html) Scientology has a strict doctrine on its own practice and methods, but is free on ideas. Thus having become free of the mire, I offer a few.
I am a Scientologist, maybe not the best, but it has guided my life in rewarding ways the past 35 years and I have reached high levels of knowledge in it and also acted in public affairs for it at one time. I am a gnostic, a mystic all my life. I didn't choose wordly success, I can be the guy at the edge of the stage unnoticed, playing the game but not believing in it too much, seeing through the illusion. I am not a cynic. Alternatively I can be the guy leading the charge. It is a high sprititual state to recognise life is a game. A game involves pretense, creation of identity. The spirit of a game on a high level is a remarkable thing. It could be described as the emotion of God. Yet even games are relative. If I worship anything it is the good I see in others.
Religion frequently ends up turned on it's head. If Buddha came back to see the idols erected to him he would most likely laugh, or cry. Similarly Mohammed might view Islam, and who knows what Christ would think of Christianity. If God made man in his own image, man in a debased state makes God in human image. It seems the more you try to perfect religion the more it becomes prone to reversal. So I don't offer rules but I have put together a few principles for mortals, and for Gods.
Principles for mortals
The problem of death is the entrance to religion. It occurred to me while thinking about the murder of a man, while he slept in his car at the side of the road: “What does this all mean?”
Life is a mosaic One life is part of a cosmic mosaic. Be (or see) the mosaic. To understand the rules of the game is to be free of it's traps. Buddha said all that we are is a result of what we have thought.
Life seems to appear in a non linear fashion. Truth exists in the moment, a moment is infinity. Comingness is also goingness, existence coexists with its contradiction. But form is not essence. Be faith. When the cosmic kaliedescope changes – roll with the punches and come out stronger. Of course this seems rough in the face of death, we want to hold onto terminals, we wish the actor to remain on stage when their role has finished. Probably what the Buddha described as "attachment". This too is illusion. Man believes in the illusion and fails thereby. Somebody said to me "all we can know is ourselves, and love", a very fine comment, but even at the receiving end of life we are part of the process and can know of it. Essence is the reality that contains no contradiction.
There are many Gods. This dissertation could be titled “Rules for Gods, Rules for Mortals” here I am drawing on Mohammed's advice to men and Jinn, but while I have taken an interest in Sufi thought, the failing is the over emphasis on the one whose name they invoke. However at its best it is a wonderful aesthetic religion. Does God exist or is he a human construct, in some respects it doesn't matter. If we respect other people then we respect their beliefs as part of them, whether we share them or not. It was a medieval argument that God would be more perfect if he existed. Similarly I argue God would be more perfect if there were many Gods and many universes.
Nietsche said “God is dead”. I would say He is a criminal in so far as “You shall have no other Gods before me”. The source of this statement is the Ten Commandments. Scholars have shown that this document is written in the style of Hittite treaty. The Hittites added firm controls over the international relations of the people they conquered. (The Wycliffe Bible translates this as: Thou shalt not have alien gods before me. [Thou shalt not have foreign, or other, gods in place of me/instead of me.]) This I feel was the source point of intolerance which comes and goes in the three religions that came from the Book. But rather than simply blaming parts of that book, it can be said that in many respects people make religion into their own image. The undoing of Rome was the destruction of its Gods - and its tolerance of other religions - when Christianity became the state religion (although Christianity was also changed at this point into a doctrine that could be enforced on people and considerable materials were deleted from it at this point). But these facts should not invalidate moments of fineness in that stream, just as a rock in the stream disturbs the water but it is not the water. There is a flow of "spirit" and there is existence where all else is irrelevance.
Religion should not belittle. We can be a part of a whole, in the way we are part of a football club, one can take a more active role, eg leader or player, or more passive, supporter. The spirit runs through the whole, but we exist on many levels, we can subscribe to many groups and also our own identity. There are too many rules in some religions, people seek rules so that they do not have to be responsible for moral choices. What is moral choice, it is the willingness to be as a representation of an idea in life, to be a rock in the stream of events. One also has to be able to be the stream. Sometimes one takes a stand for a principle, but one must also be wary of separating off, so do this lightly or with force but we aware that to create change creates also its reverse and if one goes out of communication in doing so one become less. To do nothing shrinks beingness. One can extend ones beingness to others, this is the key to religion. Thus to be in communication and be able to perceive is key.
A lower grade expression of this idea is “do one to others as you would like done to you”. The problem with rules is that they spiral down and become their opposites. Therefore I don't presume to give rules.
I am proud of my own achievments, I could always do more and better. I equally pour praise on admirable things I observe in others. What are these? Qualities, different aspects of Truth.
Truth comes after action. As L. Ron Hubbard pointed out in Scientology religious philosophy, the physical universe tends to stop an individual, or he agrees with it and becomes it, with a scale from free infinity down to stopped solid. Many or most religious people have stopped activity to seek truth, this more often results in further agreement with the physical universe and obsession with bodies.
Keep bodies to a minimum, that is use them to the hilt with discipline and a certain spartan attitude which must be reversed from time to time with the pursuit of pleasure. The simple aim is not be encumbered but as reversals apply when you shrink from the whole, this is how truth spirals down to its opposite.
Seek order. It is better to be orderly than chaotic, so while I may eschew all rules, usually I don't because of the effects on others.
Be willing to act, “Vengence is mine saith the lord”, rubbish, that is how evil gets away with it when good men do not act fast enough or with enough resolve, they are 'so good', the whole group can sink as has been the miserable history of earth as complete lunatics who are not so restrained because they are compulsive, move in and take over. They often destroy a whole culture, but of course they go down too and somehow someone starts up anew, a spark of ultimate truth. We have to act, but not to focus on the enemy such as not to see our own faults. It is better therefore to focus on truth than error.
Principles for Gods
These are a set of connected ideas, if one seems hard to understand, read the next as the ideas here flow through.
Establish the zone.
Pretty much what Gods do really.
Play “music”.
There are many universes, spirit appears in different places, not at the same time, as time only applies to one place. Just as an author is to a novel, Gods are to existence. Let there be more! Gods are a capricious lot and don't take to being given advice. Existence is the music of the gods. Perhaps when that music reaches its crescendo all time and space will be reshaped. My message: being, survival, not death is how to bring on "the last judgement".
Use the efforts of evil to destroy it.
(Kung Fu in a mortal sense is holy writ, yet in practice it has ended spiraling down to effort. It applies equally to politics as to fighting and war. One should be willing to fight, controlling the wider scene, and so in most cases not have to, by diverting things before they occur.) In essence there is only truth or being. Do Gods frustrate man for their amusement, as in the Greek legends? Efforts is probably the wrong word for the decisions and conceptions of Gods, if a thing is its own contradiction then conception rephrased is power.
Find the spark of truth in evil and be truth.
That bum that has about the life of an ant was once a god who through the traps of the present order, and of course his own action, seems nought. Should God respect God?
It is time to
reshape
the game.
Most of existence in
this universe has been to make things solid and persistent, but it
lacked an "un do" key. Is there a way out? Some have said so.
Or is this universe a one way trap? The illusion is really
the game. Opposite is a manisfestation of truth, is illusion.
Contradiction is the nature of action in this universe, there is
existence where all else is irrelevance.
