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<title>Value of Religious Exercises</title>

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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; text-indent:9.8pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'>
<span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'><font size="4">Value of
Religious Exercises</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>
<span
style='font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:25pt'><i>What is the value of
religious exercises (such as Japa etc.) </i>?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0'>T<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>HESE</span> things, if they
help you, are all right; if they do not, naturally they are of no use. The
value is quite relative. It is worth only the effect it has on you or the
measure of your belief in it. If it is an aid to your concentration, then, as I
say, it is wel­come. The ordinary consciousness takes to the thing through a
kind of superstition; one thinks, &quot;If I go to the temple or to the church
once a week, for example, if I say my prayers regularly, something good will
happen to me.&quot; It is a superstition spread all over the world, but it has
no spiritual value.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I have been to holy places. I have seen
monuments considered as very highly religious, in France, in Japan and
elsewhere; they were not always the same kind of temples or churches nor were
they the same gods but the impression they left on me, my experiences of them
were everywhere almost the same, with but slight differences. There is usually
a force concentrated at the place, but its character depends entirely upon the
faith of the faithful; also there is a difference between the force as it
really exists and the form in which it appears to the faithful. For instance,
in a most famous and most beautiful place of worship which was, from the
standpoint of art, the most magnificent creation one could imagine, I saw
within its holy of holies a huge black Spider that had spread its net all
around, caught within it and absorbed all the energies emanating from the de­votion
of the people, their prayers and all that. It was not a very pleasant
spectacle. But the people who were there and prayed felt the divine contact,
they received all kinds of benefit from their prayers. And yet the truth of the
matter was what I saw. The people had the faith and their faith changed what
was </p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 78<o:p></o:p></span></p>


<hr>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>bad into
something that was good to them. Now if I had gone and told them: 'you think it
is God you are praying to! it is only a formidable vital Spider that is sucking
your force,' surely it would not have been very charitable on my part. But
every­where it is almost the same thing. There is a vital Force presiding. And
vital beings feed upon the vibrations of human emotion. Very few are they, a
microscopic number, who go to the temples and churches and holy places with the
true religious feeling, that is to say, not to pray or beg something of God,
but to offer themselves, to express gratitude, to aspire, to surrender. One in
a million would be too many. These when they are there, get some touch of the
Divine just for the moment. But all others go only out of superstition, egoism,
self-interest and create the atmosphere as it is found and it is that that you
usually breathe in when you go to a holy place; only as you go there with a
good feeling, you say to yourself &quot;what a peace-giving spot!&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:9.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I
am sorry to say it. But it is like that. I tell you I have pur­posely made the
experiment to some extent everywhere. Perhaps I came across at times in
far-away small corners – like a small village church, for example – places
where there was real peace and quiet and some true aspiration. Barring that,
everywhere it is but a web of adverse vital forces that use everything for
their food. The bigger the congregation, the more portentous the vital deity.
Besides, in the invisible world it is only the vital beings that like to be
worshipped. For, as I have said, that pleases them, gives them importance. They
are puffed up with pride and are happy; when they can have a troop of people
adoring them, they reach the very height of satisfaction.</p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But if you take a truly divine being, that
is not the thing he likes or appreciates. He does not like to be worshipped;
worship does not give him special pleasure. But if he sees anywhere a fine
intuitive sense, a good feeling, a movement of unselfishness or spiritual
enthusiasm, he considers that as infinitely more valu­able than prayers and
Pujas. I tell you seriously, if you place a true god upon a chair and compel
him to remain there all the time you are doing him Puja, he can amuse himself
by letting you do it, but surely it gives him no happiness, none! He feels
neither flattered nor satisfied nor glorified by your Puja. You must get that
idea out of your head. There is an entire region between the spiritual world
and the material, belonging to the<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 79</span><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>vital
beings and it is this region that is full of such things as are liked by them,
because they are their food. They are happy, they feel important when men call
them, pray to them, make their offerings to them: the being that has the
largest number of adorers is the most satisfied, the most glorified, the most
puffed up. How can you imagine that a true god, a god even of the Overmind – although
those of this region are already somewhat touched by human frailties – that is
to say, one who has the higher consciousness, would get any pleasure out of
these things? I repeat, an act of real kindness, intelligence, unselfishness or
fine understanding or sincere aspiration is for him an altogether higher and
more valuable thing than any petty religious cere­mony. There is no comparison.
You speak of religious cere­monies. There is, for example, a being called Kali;
there are many Kalis, of many varieties, installed in temples and homes. All of
them almost are vital beings and forces, some are ugly and terrible. I have
known people who had such a fear of Kali – ­their household Kali – that they
trembled at the thought of offending her in any way, of committing the least
fault that would displease her; for that means Kali's vengeance. I know, I know
very well these entities: they are beings of the vital world, they are vital
formations – the forms are given by the human mind and what forms! To think
that men worship such terrible and demoniac things!</p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>From this standpoint it is good that for a
time humanity should come out of the religious atmosphere, full of fear and
blind superstitious submission by which the adverse forces have profited so
monstrously. The age of negation, of atheism and positivism is from this view quite
indispensable for man's liberation from sheer ignorance. It is only when you
have come out of this, this abject submission to the evil forces of the Vital
that you can rise to truly spiritual heights and then become there
collaborators and right instruments of the forces of the Truth and
Consciousness and Power. The superstitions of the lower levels you must leave
far behind to rise high.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 80</span><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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