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In the previous segment, we discussed polytheist, monotheist, and
dualist religions, which despite many differences, all share the belief in
Gods. But during the first million BC religions
of an altogether new kind began to spread through Afro-Asia.
The newcomers were religions such as Jainism and Buddhism in
India, Daoism and Confucianism in China And
stoicism, cynicism, and epicurianism in the Mediteranean
area, religions which were characterized by their disregard of Gods.
These religions maintained that the super human order
governing the world is the product of natural laws.
And not the product of divine wills and whims.
Some of these natural law religions continued to believe in
the existance of Gods but their Gods were considered to be
subject to the laws of nature just like humans and animals
and plants. Gods had their niche in the ecosystem
just as elephants or porcupines had theirs.
But the gods could not change the laws of
nature, just as elephant and porcupines couldn't change them.
A prime example of these new religions natural law religions is Buddhism,
which was probably the most important of the ancient natural law religions.
And which remains even today one of the major faiths of the world.
The central figure of Buddhism is not a God but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama.
According to Buddhist tradition Gautama was heir to a small
kingdom in the Himaleya mountains in northern India about 500 BC.
The young
prince was deeply impressed by the suffering which we, which he saw all
around him in his kingdom, and city and in the world at, at large.
He saw that men and women, children and old people, they all suffer, not just
from occasional calamities such as war or plague but they suffer constantly.
From anxieties,
frustrations, and discontent, all of which seemed to
be an inseparable part of the human condition.
You can end all wars and plagues, but people
will still suffer from all these anxieties and discontentment.
What Gottamer saw was that people pursue wealth and power.
They acquire knowledge,
they acquire many possessions, they beget sons and
daughters, they build houses and palaces and whatever.
But no matter what humans achieve, they are never content.
They are never satisfied.
Those who live in poverty naturally dream about being rich.
Those who have managed to gain a million, they now want 2 million.
Those who have 2 million, they now dream about having 10 million.
Even the rich and famous, like his own family
the, the royal family, even they were rarely satisfied.
They, too, are haunted by ceaseless scares and worries,
which doesn't end until sickness, old age and death put an end to it.
And then,
everything that one accumulated and pursued throughout his or her life.
Everything vanishes just like smoke.
Life it seems to Gautama was a kind of
pointless rat race but what other way was there?
Was there any way to escape this endless rat race which ends only with death.
When Gautama was
29, according to Buddhist tradition, he decided that answering
this question is the most important thing in life.
He left in the middle of the night.
He slipped away from his palace, he left behind his family.
He left behind his possessions, his kingdom, everything.
And he traveled as a homeless vagabond throughout Northern India,
searching for a way out of suffering. Not only out of
wars and plagues, but out of all anxieties and frustrations and, and discontent.
Gautama spent six years meditating on the essence,
the causes and the potential cures for suffering.
And in the end he came to the re, realization that
suffering is not caused by ill fortune like some earthquake.
Suffering is not caused by social injustice and suffering is
not caused by divine whims, by the whim of some God or Goddess.
Rather Goetema discovered suffering is caused by, by
the behavior of patterns of one's own mind.
Gautama's big insight was that no matter what the mind
experiences it almost always reacts with craving.
And craving always results or involves dissatisfaction.
When the mind experiences something unpleasant, like you
experience pain, you crave to be rid of it.
And when the mind experiences something pleasant, it still craves,
it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify.
And therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied
and restless, always craves for something more.
This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things such as pain.
As long as pain continues,
we obviously want to get rid of it.
Yet even when we experience pleasant things
according to Gautama's findings, we are never content.
We either fear that the pleasure might disappear
or we hope that the pleasure will intensify.
For example people who dream for years about finding love.
And being in a relationship.
When they finally get what they want, this pleasant thing of
finding love and being in a relationship, they're rarely completely satisfied.
Either some people, they are all the time afraid that
yes, I have it now but I may lose it.
Maybe he or she are going to leave me.
Whereas other people they say, yes, I have it
but I could have, maybe some, got something better.
Why settle for this guy or for this girl, I could get something better.
And some people they are torn by both problems simultaneously, they
both fear that he or she are going to leave me.
And, they're all the time having this annoying thought, I could
have got something met, better, maybe I should keep looking keep searching.
Great Gods can send
us love. They can send us rain.
social institutions can provide us with justice, with good
health care, and lucky coincidences can turn us into millionaires.
But none of these things can change the basic patterns of the mind.
Consequently, even the wealthiest and the most powerful people are never satisfied,
they are constantly fleeing from unpleasant experiences.
And they are forever chasing after greater and greater
pleasures, they are not satisfied with their present condition.
Gautama found that there was one way to escape this
vicious circle in mitch, in which humans are all caught.
If when the mind experiences something, pleasant or unpleasant
it simply understands and accepts things as they are then
there is no suffering. If you experience sadness
without craving the sadness go away, you continue to feel sad, you continue
to feel sadness but you don't suffer from it.
There can actually be much richness, much insight in the sadness.
If, on the other hand, you experience
joy without craving that this joy should linger
and intensify then you continue to feel joy but without losing your piece of mind.
And you can be completely satisfied with the
joy, whatever amount it is, with the joy
that you have. But how to do it?
How do you get the mind to understand and accept things exactly
as they are, without craving for something else or some, something more?
How can you accept sadness is sadness, pain is pain, joy is joy?
To do that Gautama developed a set of meditation
techniques that trained the mind to experience reality as it
is without craving so, for something different or something more.
These meditative practices trained the mind to
focus all its attention on the question.
What am I really experiencing right now?
And not on the question what would I rather
be experiencing instead?
It is very difficult to achieve this state of mind, but it is not impossible.
Gautama also grounded these meditation techniques in a
set of ethical rules which are meant to make
it easier for people to focus on the actual
experience of the present while avoiding falling into all
kinds of fantasies and cravings and fears. Gautama instructed his followers
to avoid killing, to avoid promiscuous sex, to avoid theft.
Not because some great God forbade it but because such acts like
killing and stealing and so forth, they necessarily increase the fires of craving.
Of craving
for power, sensual pleasure and wealth. So they make the mind less
and less satisfied. When the flames of craving
are completely extinguished however craving is replaced by a
state of perfect contentment and serenity, which
is known in Buddhism as nirvana. The literal meaning
of the word nirvana is the extinguishing of the fire.
Extinguishing the fire of craving that all the time burns
in the mind and creates all this dissatisfaction and misery.
According to Buddhist ideas those who have managed to obtain nirvana
are fully liberated from all suffering. They experience
reality with the utmost clarity without any fantasies and any delusions.
They might still encounter a lot of unpleasantness.
Even out of pain in their lives.
But such experiences do not cause them misery, because they have no craving
for the pain or unpleasantness to go away. A person who
does not crave simply cannot suffer. According to
Buddhist tradition, Gautama himself managed to attain nirvana
and was fully liberated from all suffering and henceforth he was known as Buddha.
The meaning of the word Buddha is the enlightened one.
And Buddha, after freeing himself
from all suffering, he spent the rest of his life explaining
his discoveries to others so that everyone could also
be free from suffering. And Buddha en, encapsulated
in all of his teaching, in a single law a law which
says that suffering arises from craving. The only
way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully
liberated from craving. And that the only way to be liberated from
craving is to train the mind to experience reality as
it is without craving for reality to be something else.
This law which is known in Buddhism as dharma or
dhamma is seen by Buddhists as a universal
law of nature that suffering always
arises from craving is true everywhere for everybody,
just as in modern physics E always equals mc squared.
This is a law of nature.
And
Buddhists are people who believe in this particular law of
nature and make it the center of all their activities.
Belief in Gods on the other hand is of minor importance to Buddhism.
Whereas the first principle of monotheist religions says,
God exists, what does he want from me?
The first principle of Buddhism says, suffering exists, how do I get out of it?
Gods have little to play, have little influence on, on this.
Buddhism does not deny the existence of Gods, they are often described
in Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist stories as powerful beings who can do such
things as bring rain or bring victory in war.
But Gods, according to Buddhism, have no influence on the law of nature.
Suffering and happiness are an outcome of a natural law which works
in complete independence of the Gods. If the mind of a particular person is free
of all craving, no God in the universe can make this person miserable.
Conversely, once craving arises in the mind of a person
all the Gods in the universe combined cannot save this person from suffering.
Because craving inevitably leads to suffering.
This at least is the Buddhist theory.
Yet, much like the monotheist religions,
the pre-modern natural law religions, such as
Buddhism, never really managed to rid themselves
completely of the worship of various Gods.
Buddhism acknowledged the existence of the Gods.
And the, and their efficacy in bringing rain
and victory and cure for disease and so
forth, Buddhism told people that they, however,
should aim for the ultimate goal of complete liberation from
suffering, and not settle for all kinds of
lesser aims like economic prosperity or political power.
However, 99% of Buddhists did not obtain nirvana, and 99% of Buddhists,
even if they hope, someday, maybe in a future lifetime, to
be completely liberated from suffering, they devoted most of their present
life to the pursuit of mundane achievements, like economic prosperity or
political power, and therefore most
Buddhists continued to worship various Gods.
Such as the Hindu Gods in India,
the Bone Gods in Tibet, the Shinto Gods in
Japan, and all kinds of new Buddhist Gods and saints.
This is something that has characterized all the traditional natural law religions.
Not just Buddhism.
Also Daoism and Jainism and others.
Even though in theory, they gave little importance to Gods.
In practice, the worship of different Gods continued to be
of considerable importance to Buddhists and Daoists and Jains and so forth.
The Gods finally lost their power and importance
only with the coming of the modern age.
However, the weakening of the Gods did not mean the disappearance
of religion.
Because religion and Gods are very, very different things.
When the Gods became weak and less important what happened
is that natural law religions, religions that believes in
laws of nature that people should, should obey, these religions were finally
freed from all these worship of Gods and they became even
more important than ever before. I'm not talking
about the old natural law religions, like Buddhism and Daoism.
But about a number of new natural law religions that
emerged over the last 300 years and became extremely important
in the modern world. The last 300 years are often
depicted as an age of growing secularism.
In which religion increasingly loses its importance and centrality.
And if we are talking about these religions, religions that
focus on the worship of Gods then this is largely correct.
Gods have become less and less important over the last few centuries.
But,
if we take into consideration natural law religions,
then the modern age turns out to be an age of
intense religious fervor, unparalleled missionary
efforts and the bloodiest wars of religion in history.
Because the modern age have witnessed the rise of a number of new natural law
religions such as liberalism, communism, capitalism,
nationalism, and Nazism. These creeds, they do not like
to be called religions and they prefer to call themselves ideologies.
But this is just a semantic exercise.
If, as we defined in the beginning of this lesson, if a religion is a system
of human norms and values, which is founded on belief in a superhuman
order then communism is no less of a religion than Islam.
Islam is of course very different from
communism, because Islam sees the laws of the
universal order as emanating from a great creator
God, that created the whole universe, whereas communism
does not believe in any Gods.
however, the belief in God, as we said earlier, is not so essential for religion.
Buddhism too, at least in it's pure forms gives very little
importance to Gods and as we commonly classified Buddhism as a religion.
Like Buddhists, communists believe in a super
human order of natural and immutable laws
that govern the world and, and hu, and humanity which should guide human actions.
Whereas Buddhists believe, that the law
of nature was discovered by Siddhartha Gautama.
Communists believe that the law of nature, a different law of nature of course, was
discovered by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
And the similarities
do not end there.
Like other religions, Communisms, Communism too had its Holy Scriptures
and prophetic books such as Karl Marx's Das Kapital,
which prophesized, it foretold that history would soon end
with the inevitable victory of the proletariat over the capitalist system.
Communism had its holidays and festivals, such as the 1st of
May of the anniversit, anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Communism had theologians adept at Marxist dialectics
and every unit in the Soviet red army
had a chaplain called the commissar, who monitored the piety and the beliefs of the
soldiers and officers.
Communism also had mountains and holy
walls and even heresies, such as Trotskyism.
In the Soviet Union Trotskyism was considered a terrible, horrible heresy.
communism was fanatical and missionary religion.
According to communist ideology, a real devout communist could not be at
the same time a believer in Christianity or
Buddhism, and was expected to spread the true
word, the gospel of Marx and Lenin, even at the cost of his or her own life.
In order to understand the logic more deeply of calling communism
a religion let us take a look at this diagram which explains
what a religion is. As we said previously, a religion is a
system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a super human order.
Now, not every belief in a super human order is a religion.
For example, as we said the theory
of relativity believed in a super human order,
an order that humans did not invent and cannot change at will.
Yet it is not a religion because there are
no human norms and values that are founded on it.
Nobody says that it is wrong to *** or
to steal because it violates the theory of relativity.
So this is why it is not a religion. Conversely, not every system
of human norms and values is a religion. As we said football
is not a religion because nobody argues that the rules of football
reflect superhuman edicts or, or super or superhuman order.
Islam, Buddhism and Communism, they are all
religions because they are all systems of human
norms and values that are founded on a belief in super, in a superhuman order.
Now, note very carefully the difference between superhuman and supernatural.
The Buddhist law of nature and the Marxist laws of history, they are
super human since they were not legislated by humans, and humans
cannot change them.
However, they are not supernatural, they are not outside nature.
They are the laws of nature.
Now some of you may feel, despite all these explanations some
of you may feel uncomfortable with this entire line of reasoning.
If it makes you feel better you are of
course free to go on calling communism an ideology.
And not a religion, it makes no difference, it's just semantics.
We can if you want, we can divide creeds into
religions which are centered on belief in Gods and ideologies
which have no Gods and claim to be based on natural laws.
What is crucial however is to realize that modern ideologies
function in wuch, in much the same way as traditional religion.
They give super human legitimacy to human norms and values.
This is the, the main thing that is important to understand.
Now of all the new ideologies and religions that emerged in the modern era,
we cannot discuss all of them because there are many.
But I would like to discuss the most important ones.
And the most important ones are the humanist ideologies or humanist religions.
These ideologies or religions they, of humanism, they have
switched from worshipping Gods to worshipping humankind itself.
These humanist religions, the religions that worship humankind,
they today are the dominant religions in the world, they dominate the
world. In the next segment of this
lesson, will be dedicated to examining
the central beliefs and practices
of the humanist religions.
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