Pure religion, undefiled and spiritually focused,
is the higher expression of the sixth ray (working as is ever
the case under the influence and potency of the second ray) and
for us Christianity in its earlier days was the great and inspiring
symbol.
In the same connection, among the lower aspects of the
sixth ray are to be found all forms of dogmatic, authoritative
religion as expressed by the organized and orthodox churches.
All formulated theologies are the lower expression of the higher
spiritual truths because they embody the mind reactions of the
religious man, his confidence in his own personal mind deductions
and the surety that he is obviously right. They do not embody
the spiritual values as they truly exist. Consequently the dreadful
nature of the lower expressions of the sixth ray and the control
by the forces of separateness (which are ever the outstanding
characteristic of the lower sixth ray activity) can be seen
[40] nowhere more potently than in religious and Church history
with its hatreds and bigotry, its pomp and luxurious appeal
to the outer ear and eye, and its separateness from all other
forms of faith as well as its internal dissensions, its protesting
groups and its cliques and cabals. The Church has wandered far
from the simplicity which is in Christ. Theologians have lost
(if they ever possessed it) the "mind that is in Christ"
and the outstanding need of the Church today is to relinquish
theology, to let go all doctrine and dogma and to turn upon
the world the light that is in Christ, and thus demonstrate
the fact of Christ's eternal livingness, and the beauty and
the love which it can reflect from its contact with Him, the
founder of Christianity but not of Churchianity.
I generalize. There are those in the Church today who do express
all that I have stated and who are reflections in the truest
sense of the living Christ. They relegate theology and authority
to their rightful place and regard the discussions of theologians
as simply expressions of perhaps needed mental gymnastics and
as incentives to thought, but they do not regard them as conditioning
factors, determining man's salvation or not. They know that
man's salvation is determined by the processes of evolution
and is not a question of ultimate achievement but simply one
of time; they know that the life within a man will bring him
ultimately to his goal and that the experiences and the type
of incarnation will inevitably lead him to "his desired
haven." His salvation is not determined by his acceptance
of some dogma, formulated by men who have lost their sense of
proportion (and consequently their, sense of humor) and who
deem themselves capable of interpreting the mind of God for
their fellowmen.
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