The
Illusion of the Separation of
Church and State
an Essay by
Avatar Adi Da Samraj
Modern societies generally acknowledge the principle of
the separation of Church and State. The origin of this common principle
was in the early conflicts that arose between traditional religious institutions
and the emerging powers of secular scientism and technology. In the historical
transition of mankind from the “cultic” religious basis of ancient societies
to the scientific and technological basis of modern secular societies,
the old religions balked at some of the implications of the “new knowledge”.
Therefore, if scientific technology were to provide the basis for the new
era of mankind, the dominance of the social order by the authority of official
“cultic” religion had to be brought to an end.
The principle of the separation of Church and State is
simply the “civilized” device created to permit the transition from a religious
to a secular order of society.
Ever since this principle became the working norm, “cultic”
religion itself has been gradually diminished in power and secularized
in its content. And the “new knowledge” of science, which provides the
dogmatic basis for what is in effect a new “Church” (or “official” way
of knowing and living), has become more and more a critic of “cultic” religion.
Indeed, the scientific establishment and its spawn of university intellectualism
and large-scale technical and industrial enterprise have displaced the
ancient culture of religion. In fact, the principle of the separation of
Church and State is itself only a strategy for excluding conventional,
or “cultic”, religion from the creative position of authority over the
proceedings of society in general. Truly, that principle does not apply
to the official “Church” of secular society.
The secular State is always in league with the official
“Church” of scientific materialism in all modern industrial societies.
And the authority and authenticity of every religion other than science
is fundamentally excluded by the dominant “Church”. The rule of science
moves over the world with the heavy hand of State power, creating scandal
and doubt and fear in every area of independent cultural creativity. And
all religions are forced to suffer the plundering by this new “Church”or
else convert and be transformed into a species of the “new faith”.
As a result, one finds that certain religious “cults”
have submitted to a high degree of containment by the secular forces, and
so they have been granted a kind of “official” status as “allowable cults”.
Such is true of mainstream Christianity and Judaism in much of the Western
world. However, even these (along with the other “cults” of the “great
religions”) are the subjects of oppression in those secular societies in
which the “Church” of scientific materialism is most clearly in power,
based on its intimate association with the secular State, or the practical
idealism of political materialism. (Such oppression is true in the absolutist
secular States of communism.)
The trend of the new “religion” of scientific materialism
is to exclude the mystical, developmental, and independent cultural motivations
of all peoples, and to establish a political ideal of materialistic work-effort
in every area of society. Therefore, wherever this trend succeeds, human
beings are devoted to individualistic motives and collectivist hopes for
material progress that will, ultimately, permit every future individual
to enjoy a prolonged life span of pleasurable self-fulfillment.
Wherever conventional “cultic”, or “old-style”, religions
are permitted to survive in secular societies, they are able to survive
only by adapting to the new social and political idealism and the new knowledge.
Thus, “cultic” religion has become more and more a merely poetic restatement
of “humanistic” psychological interpretations of mankind. And the “mysteries”
of religion have become merely prescientific allegories for natural events
that have now become banal truisms, or “closed cases” in the continuing
“detective story” of science. Certain “fundamentalist” religious beliefs
remain at the less sophisticated levels of popular society, but such religious
beliefs are generally regarded as a kind of harmless and ridiculous intoxication
that has no real significance in the daily world of sober social effort.
I am not criticizing that archaic religious institutions
have ceased to be able to freely dominate mankind via intimate association
with powers of State. I am Criticizing that a new, aggressively anti-religious,
secular, and materialistic philosophical trend is everywhere in league
with the secular State. And the true religious or developmental Spiritual
Wisdom-Teaching of the world’s great Adepts of every degree is being prevented
from achieving Its rightful role as the dominant cultural motive of mankind.
Indeed, the new “Church” of scientific materialism is not, in this regard,
any different from the old exoteric religions that were previously in league
with secular State powers.
The religious institutions that anciently achieved legitimacy
and dominance through political association were exoteric “Church” institutions
that supported ideals compatible with the secular motives of the State.
Those religious institutions are still present today as the “allowable
cults” of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so forth. But the more basically
secular “religion” of scientific materialism has superseded the authority
of exoteric religion, and, therefore, in most societies, the secular State
is now designed in separation from the old “cults”, and, in many cases,
the secular State and its new “religion” are in direct opposition to the
old “cults”.
Truly, the exoteric religions of the old world are archaic,
and they are fast becoming obsolete. The obsolescence of the ancient exoteric
religious conceptions is inevitable and not inherently wrong or regrettable.
However, what is wrong and regrettable is the continued disposition in
the institutions of popular secular society to exclude the esoteric Wisdom
of the developmental Spiritual Teaching of true Adept-Realizers of every
significant degree, ancient and modern.
The exclusion of true or esoteric religion has been the
business of the secular State since ancient times. At first, this was done
via the establishment of the popular idealism of exoteric religious institutions
in league with the secular State. But in modern times the same process
is done by the strategic exclusion of conventional religious cultism, mystical
idealism, and greater developmental Wisdom from the mechanisms of popular
culture.
“Consider” all of this carefully. Observe the dominant
powers that influence, propagandize, and rule in your daily life. Examine
the strategies of your own opinions. Criticize the motives of your own
desiring. Then you will see how urgent is the need that mankind awaken
to a new cultural destiny.
In the realm of popular culture, scientific and politic
materialism is in power. And the essence of official popular propaganda
is fundamentally anti-religious and devoted to an exclusively materialistic
interpretation of Man and cosmic Nature. The “allowable”, or semi-official,
“cults” of the yet remaining religious establishment continue to serve
as exoteric religious extensions of the secular State. But all non-establishment
cults of free religious, mystical, and Spiritual experimentation and practice
are constantly the subjects of negative propaganda in the popular communications
media. And “intellectual leaders” are constantly agitating against esoteric
and non-establishment religious cultismand especially against the possibility
that any religious or Spiritual leader achieve a position of widespread
influence and power in the midst of the secular order. (Therefore, university
intellectualism and popular criticism generally oppose, or at least work
to maintain the disposition of doubt relative to, religion, religious institutions,
mysticism, and the naturally dominant role of Real God and true Spiritual
Masters in the esoteric culture of true religion.)
I am deeply Dismayed by the trends of popular culture
in this day, and I have grave Concerns about the immediate future of the
human world. The modern machines of political power and “official” propaganda
are immense, and the common mind of even the most considerable intellects
of our day is monstrously deficient in Spiritual understanding and purpose.
The people are full of righteous needs, but they are otherwise possessed
by aggressively self-indulgent motives and all of the self-deluding conventions
of the mob-mind.
I have Revealed another understanding than the one that
now and traditionally has motivated and controlled the human world. But
I can do no more than Teach and Bless, by My Word, by the Stories of My
Life and Intimate Demonstration, and by My literal Heart-Transmission of
Divine Blessing Power. I have no worldly power to change mankind. My only
Power is the Truth That I have Taught and That I Reveal directly to the
heart, and the love or sympathy that any man or woman may be moved to grant
Me as they “consider” My Wisdom-Teaching, and practice the only-by-Me Revealed
and Given Way of Adidam, and change in heart-Communion with Me and in the
context of the community of all My devotees. Therefore, I can only Plead
and Beg for your attention and for your understanding of the ego-transcending
and esoteric Spiritual, Transcendental, and Divine Way of Adidam That I
have Revealed. And if many listen to Me, then perhaps together you can
demand real changes in the cultural basis of the social order, so that
Divine Wisdom will, at long last, become the Guiding Master-Principle of
Church and State.
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The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya Pty Ltd.,
as trustee for The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya,
claims perpetual copyright to all photographs
and
the entire Written (and otherwise recorded)
Wisdom-Teaching of Avatar Adi Da Samraj and
the Way of the Heart, or Adidam.
© 2000 The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya Pty Ltd.,
as trustee for The Da Love-Ananda Samrajya.
All rights reserved.
Used in DAbase by permission.
note to the reader
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