False Gods And Graven Images

Sep
15thFalse Gods And Graven Images

by Ernest L. Norman

Throughout the works of UN.AR.I.U.S., there are many admonitions against certain religious practices, chieﬂy that of the common subterfuge called prayer. Like Jesus, who said, “Do not pray as does the heathen on street corners and in synagogues, or temples”, etc., the Moderator (of UN.AR.I.U.S.) does not believe in prayer, and there are many important facts and considerations which point out the falseness of this practice (or for that matter, in religion itself). First, any person who prays to some god, lord, Jehovah, or any other (so-called) saint or intercessor, etc., is praying to a false image. There are no such gods, and any person who prays to one or more of them is deluding himself with a common image constructed under the pressure of an escape mechanism. It is true, there are spiritual agencies and Beings who are sufficiently powerful or developed to be able to bring about certain changes in peoples’ lives when prayed for; however these agencies and Beings are far too intelligent to grant such prayers as they are asked for, and under their specified conditions.

The wholesale granting of prayers would quickly turn the world into wild chaos, far worse than can be imagined; for, if you think a moment, granting all such prayers would be impossible without dire results. All people who pray do so selfishly motivated, even though they may think they are praying for other people or objectives. They are, in reality, only trying to achieve their own ends, to exercise power, and to differentiate right and wrong for other people and conditions of life. Two armies going into battle pray for victory over each other; that would be difficult for any god to solve, but not nearly as difficult as answering the hundreds of millions of people all praying for, not only themselves but that their god should change the world to suit their personal needs, or what they believe to be a better world. They could not recognize the obvious fact that in changing either themselves or other people through prayer, they would be changing the normal course of evolution for all involved, thus cheating themselves and others out of the beneficial advantages of a normal course of evolution.

Prayerful people do not see other obvious facts: that Infinite Intelligence has, in creation, an inflexible law or principle which equalizes all things, good or evil, and makes progressive evolution possible to a more intelligent way of life. For every evil, small or large, there is an equal amount of good, plus a 10% bias which insures progression. People who pray do not recognize certain psychological implications which are involved. The granting of prayer, individually or collectively, would tend to morally weaken any individual and make it more difficult for him to determine his own course of life. Collectively, it could develop into a great hypocrisy, for the granting of prayer on a mass scale would induce even the most vile and iniquitous people to pray for their own ends and would result in great moral prostitution.

Therefore, any spiritual agencies or Beings who would have power to grant prayer, do so only on very rare occasions when circumstances are such that it justifies such changes and when such a prayer can be granted under conditions which do not generally appeal to the masses of people or that they cannot capitalize upon it, or that it cannot be tangibly proven to all, etc. Under such conditions then, prayer and any benefits from it still remain too intangible to be an effective threat against a normal course of evolution. Individually or collectively, the average prayerful supplicant does not know that in prayer, he is actually confessing his sins to himself, even though he is directing his conversation to some supposed god or deity. This confession does have some beneficial effect; it temporarily diverts the straight thought line of certain negations from the repetitious oscillating process which tends to increase itself with each counter negative reversal. There is also a slim chance that sooner or later, the supplicant will recognize the fact that he is in self-confessional; and in a more expanded concept of life, he will realize that all his trials, troubles and tribulations are really those of his own making. He committed them in ignorance and perpetrated them in increasing numbers and forms in the same ignorance of life. In this way then, through self-confessional, any person can by such objectivism, develop a strong personal moral responsibility, one which is free from false gods and deistic intercessions, for such personal moral integrity must be built upon a firm foundation of self-realization, one’s own personal position in the scale of evolution—what creation is—and the determinant which makes life possible at any point in this evolution.

The most difficult task any person encounters in his personal evolution is in obtaining for himself an honest objective self-confession or analysis; and before that point is reached, all people fight like madmen, commit heinous crimes, invent endless subterfuges, suffer endless tortures before they finally corner themselves—so to speak—and begin to admit that they individually, are morally responsible for their thoughts and actions, their conditions in life, and by the same admission, their future.

Today’s chaotic state of the world is, in a very broad sense, the ultimate result of such endless fighting against self-realization; and as of today, there is an even greater variety, a more endless chain of circumstantial evidence which every human now presently living is using to avoid the inevitable ultimatum which he must some day arrive at, or face gradual and eventual self-destruction.

Today’s religious and political systems are all part of this self-invented machination which man has contrived to avoid the inevitable. Just as a prayerful supplicant attempts to justify his ignorance, his wrongful conduct, his poverty, his pain, etc., before some fancied deity, so the world, too, indulges itself in mass hallucination that there will be peace and good will among nations; for how can there be such when each person is a veritable volcano of suppressed desires and emotions. They live in an atmosphere of carnal lusts and desires; and they are literally mired to their very chins in the cesspool-like mud and slime of insecurity which has been cast as offal into the material world by those who live it and all its temporal materialism.

Perhaps you personally might attempt to validate prayer, that it is a relief valve or that it temporarily deviates destructive oscillating processes. If you do, remember such excuses or vindications, such as prayer, are only moral opiates, they are habit forming because you acquire a dependency upon them; and like opium, or other narcotics so continuously indulged in, moral opiates will destroy you just as quickly and much more thoroughly than do any of the chemical opiates.

If you wish to become a better person, to live a better life, then you must do so by first learning how such a life is lived; that such a life is possible in one of the many mansions. This is your personal task; but more than a task—for only in its accomplishment will you find immortal life. And so the next time that you rail against your circumstances or that you bemoan the evils in your life, your sickness, poverty, the indispositions of others toward you, don’t get down on your knees to some false god and pray to be relieved of these conditions, or to change other people; but instead, get yourself off in the quiet corner and have an honest objective face to face talk with yourself. Try to analyze and realize that any circumstances in which you find yourself, are there because you realized and conceived them in your own mind; you believed in them to the extent that you became subjective to them; and, conversely, realize that when you have instituted new circumstances, new conditions, etc., and believe in them, just as completely as you have done with your past circumstances, then these new circumstances will form your life.

It is almost needless to point out that these new circumstances should be more desirable and less fraught with evil indispositions than are your now present circumstances. These simple elemental metaphysics have been repeatedly stressed throughout the works of UN.AR.I.U.S.. They are a fundamental logical approach to self-realization and a better life. These same concepts were taught by the Nazarene; they have been taught in a similar form many times by other Avatars and this concept of self-realization will form the cornerstone in whatever you achieve in the future.