May 9, 2012 – Religion and True Spiritual Life

The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself;
but is the Theist any other ? Well, perhaps;
for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 33)

Religion and True Spiritual Life

Religion exists almost exclusively in its forms, its cults, in a certain set of ideas, and it becomes great only through the spirituality of a few exceptional individuals, whereas true spiritual life, and above all what the supramental realisation will be, is independent of every precise, intellectual form, every limited form of life. It embraces all possibilities and manifestations and makes them the expression, the vehicle of a higher and more universal truth.

A new religion would not only be useless but very harmful. It is a new life which must be created; it is a new consciousness which must be expressed. This is something beyond intellectual limits and mental formulae. It is a living truth which must manifest.

Everything in its essence and its truth should be included in this realisation. This realisation must be an expression as total, as complete, as universal as possible of the divine reality. Only that can save humanity and the world.

The Mother

The Great Adventure, P 23