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The psychological
problems of religion are worthy of serious
consideration. There is such a thing as
religious experience distinguishable from the
other kinds of experience listed in general
psychology. It reveals a new attitude to reality
and this has been described as ‘conversion’.
Conversion technically would mean reversed and
the attitude that man has to the world around
him undergoes a change or reversal. Things which
appeared valuable and worth-seeking seem
suddenly to have become valueless and unworthy
of pursuit. This is the characteristic feature
of religious conversion – the world may become
an illusory thing, shadows and the relationship
with men and women becomes almost cut off. One
enters into a silence of solituide becomes a
monk and homeless one : to him the welfare of
his own being or self means to renounce the
world and all attachments (vairagya): A new
vision (viveka) or discrimination arises and
that only leads him in search of ultimate values
everywhere, wandering from shrine to shrine,
sect to sect and belief to belief and practice
to practice. This is not mere curiosity but an
earnestness to find a new way of life or finding
it to pursue it till the end or goal is reached.
A study of conversion among the saints and
prophets will reveal this dynamic change in
attitude towards the world and towards the other
world.
This conversion may
come about through a mystic awakening – a
struggle against bondage and slavery and defeat.
It may come about as a vision or intuition of
something that has called one to that stage.
Mystic experiences are the most individual
occasions of conversion. The conversion has been
technically stereotyped in the religious
institutions and one gets converted without
inward change and this of course does not lead
anywhere. As in every thing the method of
educating one into religion through habits of
training etc. rites and so on, is almost a case
of putting the cart before the horse. Natural
conversion is a matter of a different order from
the conversion technique of religious
institutions.
Prayerfulness of the
seeker after religious experience or one who has
been touched by the religious attitude
interiorly is a factor of great importance. One
naturally turns to the Ultimate God in all
matters and depends on God for everything.
Prayer is the acceptance of guidance from the
Ultimate with which one feels a personal
relationship of dependence. Worship is the act
of expression of this adoration of the Divine or
illuminating principle in one’s life and
activity. One turns to God when one has found
oneself in all things utterly helpless and
unequal to the Universal situation. Indeed every
small thing becomes a matter for God-help and
God-guidance. One already feels oneself in a new
Universe, all the old constructions of oneself
having fallen to pieces. The Divine is thus the
illuminating principle and power (div; to shine,
to illuminate).
It is true that
psychologists have listed that men fall into
types. Some psychologists have stated that there
are healthy minded souls and unhealthy or sick
minded souls. The religion of the healthy minded
is objective and is manifestative of social
commitments whereas the sick minded is one who
is subjective. This division is or course very
unsatisfactory and yokes religion to societal
demands as such. The second kind or devision of
man would be into the tough-minded and soft
minded. This division like all other divisions
of this kind is not aware of the
tough-mindedness of the introspective monk in
respect of ultimate values and the soft-minded
or weak-mindedness of the extravert social
man.Many do not recognize any but the
psychological views of some of the
psychologists. Indian typology is clearly not
canvassed by him. The divine and the titan
division of the men as pointed out by the Gita
or his own division of men as satva (equable)
rajas (activities) and tamas (ineatia) also
helps the appreciation of the religious types:
The satva type is seeking only the Divine, the
rajas seeks the divine but does not known who
the divine is and thus pursues even the titan,
because the later reveals more activity than the
former who revels in silence and calm and
balance. Whereas the tamasic person either is
objectively worshipping and praying in the usual
tribal or traditional way without seeking that
inward experience that is the sine qua non of
religious experience. Some writers have
suggested the typology of mystic and monk, the
mystic being held to the prophetic in his
impulse towards the transformation of the
society, whereas the monk is a recluse and
solitary and individualistic and even
pessimistic about the society, and its
redemption.
The study of the
sub-conscious levels of the human consciousness
or life is seen to throw considerable light on
the psychology of religious beliefs. This has
been shown to be so by writers like Freud, Jung
and others. However we have also to take into
consideration the vast amount of mistakes that
such a study of the sub-conscious origins of
religion can give. They may throw some light on
the symbolic erruptions in terms of vision and
dream of the religious man and even the
practicant of the religious life. As Sri
Aurobindo pointed out dream consciousnessor the
sub-conscious is a vast area wherein the
super-conscious and sub-conscious meet.
Religious experiences unless disciplined by
earlier training can give rise to dreams and
visions which are incapable of being
universalised in their meaning or suggestion.
The psycho-analytic method has undoubtedly
proved this point also. Religious life and
experienced have been considered to be
regressive and pathological however universal
may be this pathology. Prayer and worship are
indeed conditioned by society to those
experiences by tradition and custom and this had
led to the speculative inclusion of religious
experiences under sub-conscious and unconscious
headings of psychology. Religious consciousness
aims at integration with a higher consciousness
whereas the integration that is sought for by
the unconscious is with the conscious life and
this leads to disintegration rather than
integration, for whilst it achieves perhaps an
integration with life it brings about
disintegration in the physiology of man, his
brain and so on. Thus Brightman’s inclusion of
subconscious as the source of our religious
yearnings is confused.
Religious life reveals
a double valuation of society: it discovers that
the society as it exists is valueless and turns
its back on it: but in a different sense after
it attains its own ultimate realisation it seeks
to change the society from within and without.
This unfortunately is not the whole of religion
according to some extraverted thinkers on
Religion. They consider that societal
transformation is rendered possible at the very
beginning itself by the social work or service
or humanitarianism practiced by the aspiring
religious novice. Social transformation is
offered as the means to individual religious
attainment: this surely is a fine example of
putting the card before the horse; the means
becomes the end and the end is utilised as a
means.
Thus the humanistic
psychologies and sociologies of Religion have
been unable to clearly perceive the goal and
value or religion as an ultimate value. It is
true that society is impatient of results from
its religious individuals who have almost
forsaken it for the attainment of the
unattainable. It offers the work of changing it
to the religious seekers and demands that the
goal is identical if not superior to that got by
the monk - the sannyasin: Modern sannyasa has
itself undertaken this change: to live in the
world and for the world with the spirit of
Godliness and detachment. This humanism is
undoubtedly as social philosophy of religion
today. But the sannyasin has become a peculiar
kind of samsarin or worldly man, and his
yearning for God has been replaced by his
yearning for man, and man becomes Saint by such
means today. The psychology of man in society is
called sociology and the attitude of humanism
has facilitated this aspect of religion.
Religion has its
dealings with man and his institutions. It is an
important question how far religion has dictated
the shape and form of social institutions like
marriage, family life and children and education
in society, and caste system and so on.
Religious life in so far as it is a dedication
to God and His service subordinates all
institutions to this ideal, and renounces all
that is contrary to it. Thus the lay society is
influenced by the religious attitude and
institutions of the society are sometimes
half-way house (sarai) towards fuller
religious expression and institutions.
The prophetic religious
constantly has to come to terms with the common
people who hardly hearken to the universal voice
in clear and distinct measures. They always seek
a compromise with the inflexible ideal of the
prophetic messiah. Thus compromise is the
essential fact in the sociological expression of
the prophetic ideal.
Economic forces also
determine the nature of the religious life. The
conflict between the classes described as haves
and have not has been one of those which
fissured the religious. Religion transcends the
economic world and values: in fact later people
tried to make religion take part in economic
equilibrium and egalitarianism. But the
eceonomic values are subordinate to inward value
of ultimate experience. However modern religious
movements have more and more turned towards the
problem of economic life. Bread is important as
the element of religious peace, prayer and
contemplation. Equality in the social life such
as abolition of caste-divisions, and
class-divisions is considered to be one of the
ideals of religion: To this fact almost all
religious prophets have appealed on account of
the acceptance of God as the Creator of all, and
as the Father of all. Thus social reform in
terms of abolition of the barriers and obstacles
for the experience of God and His worship as
between, man and man, man and women led later to
the extension of the scope of religious equality
to areas of social institutions also.
Indeed the great
slogans of the French Revolution equality,
liberty and fraternity are definitely referable
to the religious mystic awareness of the
spiritual world whose extension to social life
was deemed utopian or only limitedly applicable.
The socialistic pattern of society though now
sought to be explained in a materialistic
economic language owes its basic drive to the
application of idealism to the context of
society. The great dictum of Hegal that the real
is the rational was made to apply to the
realistic efforts to make the rational the real.
This may well be called idealistic also, for the
attempt is also incapable of being perfected
with men who have not awakened to the inward
realization of God as the Ultimate value.
Socialism is a godly effort but without the
subjective inward emphasis on realization or
Vision of the ultimate value of man in God and
God in man, it is likely to wither away.
Thus the sociology of
Religion is undoubtedly important but only its
importance will be studied in the context of the
impact of religious consciousness of attitude on
society and its economic institutions and
class-formations and this is of course in the
context of the past. Today few religions live by
the Vision and indeed they live by the
rationalized corollaries from such premises as
they have concretely formulated for the sake of
institutional religion. The study of
instituionalised religion of course is different
from a study of true inward religious attitudes,
which have the direct force of Vision.
An inspection of
several religions has shown that there are eight
chief beliefs :
i) There
are great and permanent value experiences
ii) There is
belief in One God or many gods (Higher Powers)
iii) There is
eveil in this world also along with value.
iv) Man is a
soul, or spiritual being and not merely a
physical being of organism.
v) There is
in creation purpose and in our existence there
is purpose.
vi) Soul is
immortal, though its body is mortal
vii) There
are valid religious experiences
viii) There is
belief in religious action.
The Religious Experience is something that one cannot but seek in himself
and of which he has again and again evidence.
That the realisation of these religious
experiences involves struggle in alas too true.
What opposes this ascent is an evil. Relativity
of evil is of course to be accepted and the
existence of absolute evil is of course a
different matter.
For this purpose religion accepts the thesis of a finite God for his
evidence reveals the undissolved conflict
between the good and the bad or evil (the sadhu
and asadhu, sukrta and duskrta, saint and
sinner, and accordingly Gods like Ahura-maza and
Ahirman, Rama and Ravana, Narayana and Naraka,
and so on.). The immortality of the soul is
believed in two ways: as a continuous rebirth by
a soul, that is a soul takes new bodies after
the earlier ones have perished owing to
sacrifice or old-age or death in battle, and ii)
as a soul even when going beyond the body with a
spiritual nature or god-body. The belief in the
eternal preservation of values in one’s life of
struggle, or even to preserve it grants
immortality. Lastly all religions do pay heed to
work for God, as service of God in man, of
Values in the world, or rites and rituals etc.,.
Karma in Indian
religion is the constant performance of
prescribed duties or dharma for the welfare of
oneself in respect of ultimate values of moksa
and nisreyas. |
