The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 17

I have given a few brief quotations among hundreds recorded by Jacolliot as to the respect and veneration accorded to woman in early Vedic times, and in the Laws of Manu.

"The Brahman may not approach the altar of sacrifice _but with a soul pure, in a body undefiled_.

"Spirituous liquors beget drunkenness, neglect of duty, and they profane prayer.

"The antiquity of India stands forth to establish its priority of religious legislation in prohibiting to priests the use of spirituous liquors, and especially in forbidding the pleasures of love when they are about to offer sacrifice.

"The woman whose words and thoughts and person are pure is a celestial balm.

"Happy shall he be whose choice is approved by all the good.

"It is ordained that a devotee shall choose a wife from his own cla.s.s.

"The Brahman who marries a woman who is not a virgin, who is a widow, or divorced by her husband, or who is not known as a virtuous woman, cannot be permitted to offer sacrifice, for he is impure, and nothing can cleanse him from his impurities."

And Jacolliot adds, "It is not recorded, says the divine Manu, that a Brahman has ever, even by compulsion, married a girl of low cla.s.s.

"Let the Brahman espouse a Brahmine, says the Veda.

"Let him take a well-formed virgin, of an agreeable name, of the graceful carriage of the swan, or of the young elephant, whose body is covered with light down, her hair fine, her teeth small, and her limbs charmingly graceful."

Jacolliot compares these early Vedic injunctions with Leviticus, Chapter XXI, and the absurdities introduced by Moses as to a "crooked nose or a squint eye."

Woman here in the West is just emerging from the slavery and degradation of ages, and she _ought_ to know that that degradation was not the handicap of barbaric and undeveloped races, so far as the Aryan race is concerned, but a demoralization and degradation inst.i.tuted by priests, in the name of religion, through which they have sought to rule the world, and so far as inst.i.tutional religions are concerned, woman has had to progress _in spite of them_.

Without the aid and influence of woman to-day, neither Protestant nor Roman Church could exist at all, as witness almost any Sabbath service where women outnumber men often ten to one.

One day woman will be wise enough and brave enough to dictate terms, as she did ages ago in old Aryavarta. When that day comes, and the really Divine Motherhood planted in every true woman's soul is recognized by man and woman alike, G.o.d grant that she may thenceforth hold the fort till the Kali-Yuga is at full tide, and the Spiritual Evolution of our present Humanity is fully accomplished.

In the meantime the world will have learned to _know_ Jesus, who and what he was, and how he became the Christ, and will have joined in his Divine Mission to man, as the teeming millions joined in old India under Christna ages ago.

CHAPTER IX

HERO WORs.h.i.+P AND FOLKLORE

The history of every people, of all time, and of every religion of which we have any record, reveals a similar origin, course, and destiny.

We of the present day have the advantage of these records upon which to inst.i.tute comparisons, ascertain relations, and draw conclusions.

True, the partisans and postulants of all these religions at the present day will claim exception in favor of their own cult, and regard as sacrilegious and profane any attempt to inst.i.tute comparisons and draw general conclusions.

Any attempt to persuade them of their error would be useless.

The essentials of their religion will not be called in question, but on the other hand, they will find that it is impossible to escape from the habitual and universal tendencies in which they are involved.

However veritable may have been the original revelations, the tendencies and habits of weaving around them the traditions and superst.i.tions of folklore seem to have been inevitable and universal.

It is the province of Science to ascertain the facts in any given case, to inst.i.tute comparisons, and to draw deductions and generalizations dispa.s.sionately and relentlessly.

It is thus that every tradition, superst.i.tion, creed, dogma, and revelation comes under review, and is placed on trial.

True science has no preconceived notion, no foregone conclusion. Each subject examined must tell its own story and in its own way, and stand or fall measured by intrinsic evidence and revealed fact.

To this tribunal every episode in the life of man and the history of the human race must at last come.

What are the _facts_? What do they reveal and signify?

To most religionists this method and aim of science seem as relentless and dogmatic as their own creed or dogmas.

It is a sifting and discriminative process, that, while relentless, is in the end eminently Just, and in the end will be found to be the revealer of all that is essential and true in religion itself.

In itself, science is not and never can be a religion.

It is a _method_ only, which, like a search-light, reveals all religions in all their essentials, and places them in their true light.

Religion _per se_ is an essential element in the nature and life of man and of the human race.

Science is a method, a way of procedure in the intelligent mind of man in its search for truth.

Religion is vital, essential, basic. It is born of the relation which inheres in the kins.h.i.+p of the individual intelligence to the Universal Spirit of Nature and of all life.

Science is the intelligent and rational use of the mental powers of man.

Religion is intuitional, spiritual perception, involving the heart, the affections. Man aspires, wors.h.i.+ps, adores, and by the light of Faith or intuitive conviction, recognizes that which he cannot explain and cannot get rid of if he tries.

Science is the just weight and measure of things seen, and of the natural causes of phenomena.

Religion--the evidence of things unseen. Religion, as a _fact_, can never be explained away by Science.

The so-called science that a.s.sumes or undertakes to do that, is materialism and nescience.

Superst.i.tion is the false interpretation of religion, and folklore and tradition are the accretions that gather around the foundations and original revelations of religion, and lead at last to obscuration and the need of a new revelation.

Each genuine new "revelation" is but the rehabilitation of the primeval religion in which accretions, false interpretations, and dogmatic a.s.sertions are cast aside.

Religion represents man's endeavor to apprehend and interpret the unseen; that "something more" and "something beyond" the visible, the sensuous, and the tangible.

It is this conscious _awareness_ of something more and something beyond the visible and the tangible, that furnishes man with a conception of G.o.d and of the human soul. This is a natural intuition, inseparable from the _awareness_ of self. It lies at the foundation like man's self-conscious ident.i.ty, and can neither be explained nor explained away.

Here lies the root of all religions. The imagery of man's imagination, in his effort to apprehend the unseen, and to formulate the unknown, gives rise to myths, allegory, tradition, folklore, and in the end, to superst.i.tion, creed, and dogma.

Then come priestcraft, oppression, persecution. The death of religion, the deification of the revealer or _Avatar_, and the subst.i.tution of the priesthood as of divine authority, in place of the _revealer_ or the revelation.

Jove, Orpheus, Jehovah, and at last Jesus, are enthroned beyond the clouds, and priest or church a.s.sume the earthly prerogative, speak in their place, a.s.sume dogmatic authority, promise heaven and happiness for obedience, and dire penalties for disobedience, and resort to persecution to maintain their authority.