By E. G. Schulze (Sadananda Svami) from The Harmonist (Shree Sajjanatoshani) VOL. XXXII, MARCH 19, 1936, No. 14
(1) Social life is made possible either by a mutual reasonable, general adjustment of differences accruing from the conflict of interests uphold by the individuals incorporated into the respective society, or by a voluntary or enforced submission to special laws and rules established by a minority or majority of people. But as soon as an individual, a group of people within the national social compound, or a nation amidst other nations is agitated by special extreme interests, the laws and rules are violated and liable to be upset. Therefore is the social system based on a latent balance of selfish interests and is not likely to supply the platform for a general peaceful living together of individuals, groups or nations. It is a seemingly stable system of organised selfish interests which is established by the necessities of the certainty of life and interests at a special time and may be broken down or revolutionised if it stands in the way of the extensive and progressive brute-force of special interests. Those who are tired of this kind of association, or better, isolated dissociation, take refuge in the so-called religious community.
(2) A so-called religious community differs from the ordinary social system in that it presupposes the good-will of the individual to allow his brute-force to be sublimated and transformed into a permanent endeavour to shape the own life according to rules and laws which, either accepted as dictations of a higher authority than the general human consent or as promoting the eschatological benefit of the individual – are followed enthusiastically and make the individual and communal move be pointed towards a training-place or hot-house for religious sentiments and selfish ethical (?) meritorious (?) interests. To “serve” (?) others becomes the vehicle to attain personal religious benefit – as the egoistic brute-force is regulated and the religious interest stimulated – and to get reward at the same time for ecce-paradoxon (see how paradox) cultivating selfish interest in rewards. To associate with such a community means to give up some so much liked habits and interests, to do also some work. Why? Is it thought to be meritorious? The principle of a religious community is based on a form of sublimated selfishness covered under the mask of “love” for one’s “Godbrother” or even for “God”. But is it possible at all to call an attitude of expecting reward for some pseudo-renunciation of some selfish interests by the name of “love”? Practically everything is done on payment. Even religions that contain some hint at the implicit truth of nature of the spiritual Subject, objects and their relation, follow this method of ethical and emotional materialism in their practices. We are expecting material profit and are strengthened in the tendency by the injunctions of the Scriptures of these religions. The individual is even ready to undergo certain kinds of punishment ordained by the head of the institution or by representatives if he has been trespassing theological or communal restrictions – the only motive being fear of punishment after death or in course, the further life in the form of disease and all kinds of decay, and last but not least, the hope for reward by getting access to higher planes (i.e. those that are congenial to his present temperament) than that on which he is enjoying or suffering now. Strictly regulated routine life and work is the characteristic of the religious community’s automatism of attitude and inclination for the purpose of all training. As a matter of fact this kind of association is a hot-house for religious sentiment and neuroses. The individual soul has been curtailed for an absolute purpose and the movements have become automatical. Man becomes a machine, functioning very properly like a bull running if only sufficiently trained by whips and pulling the cart in expectation of food at the terminus. But also this kind of association cannot satisfy the longing of the soul or the living together with true servants of God. And by the Grace of God he may chance to hear from devotees about the true spiritual association, the Math.
(3) In the religious community one whose nature proper is that of an infinitesimal absolute, has become dependent on non-absolute factors. His true functions are curtailed by secondary heterogene agents. The only explanation for these facts is the ignorance of the true function between the Absolute Subject and the absolute objects. If the knowledge is really acquired or the supposition agreed to that we are in our proper essence spirit, not matter or mind, then it becomes immediately unreasonable to follow the dictations of non-spiritual agents. Why should we submit to their dictations? Why should I believe in the authority of a man erring like myself only because he holds a special position in the so-called religious community? Why should I glorify the “meritorious” endeavours of hypocrites who make God a supplier of their so-called temporary “merits” in cash? Is it really rational to accept the command to repeat prayers to God as a form of punishment for certain trespasses? The Math is the spiritual association of those who serve or pray to be allowed to serve in surrendering mood under the Spiritual Absolute Agent and as such it is distinctly different from all sorts of so-called religious communities. Its structure is in the form of a pyramid the augmentation of which is established by new cells which have no other inclination than to be the lowest ingredients of the whole. The entelechia or the moving motive is the longing for being accepted as proper ingredients, fostered by the realised or heard eternal spiritual inclination of the spiritual object towards the Absolute Subject. Any one who introspects into the life of the Math will find the opposite of any automatisms and artificial growth. No “serving” attitude under the garb of selfish interests is producing a so-called “serving” attitude in the neophyte, but everyone is trying to regard himself as the most unworthy and unfit member, is avoiding to accept services from others under all circumstances, but striving after any form of service leaving aside all hierarchical considerations. That such an association of devotees can exist at all – facing the variegatedness of types – is to be explained by the fact that they incite each other by the conduct of submitting unconditionally to the will of the Spiritual Absolute Agent in the explicit knowledge or implicit faith that He alone knows one or the other to serve the Supreme Lord in such and such a way which may be quite intelligible to the objective person himself. Criticism is meant for regulating the non-absolute tendencies and agencies. It is not meant for the spirit itself. The Subject is the Spiritual Absolute Himself, full dependence on whom means full independence from all non-absolute influences of the mental or physical plane. Punishment as in the religious community is without question, because it is intelligible to everyone that to withdraw oneself from the inner prompting to serve means dependence on and slavery to the non-absolute. Such an association does not take place on the mundane sphere, though it seems to be like that. That we have still the fortune to see in an analogical way such an association is due to the fact that it is really spiritual and absolute and supported by the seeming mundane aspect by the analogy again. The spirituality is not to be understood but in the practical grades of advancement of unconditioned surrendering service; otherwise the spirituality would be exposed to the operation distorting human mentality. This process seems to be quite irrational for him who stands at the gate and waits to have a peep into the inner aspect. It is only numerically enclosed in the exoteric plane for his future benefit. It is to be realised by the causeless Mercy of the Transcendental Divine Master who is the medium who makes it an opaque act and fact transparent in directing the attitude of the individual who is willing to serve in this way through the agency of the Transcendental Sound. By listening and chanting in words, actions and deeds, the relative plane is transcended and the Math understood as permanent association of the spiritual loving serving attitude, as the association of the Devotee, whose temper has been described by the Supreme Lord Himself. “My own never accept the different forms of salvation, e.g., attainment of My realm, attainment of dwelling near Me, even the favour of becoming one with Myself; all of which privileges I offer them unreservedly. They want nothing but My Service.”