Two Paths

If you see yourself as a moral person and accept the reality of the world (i.e. do not regard the world as some form of illusion) there are really only two paths before you and you must choose the one in which you walk. The first is the path of the love of humanity or what is called love. Whether it is or not is a different matter. It is probably just a question of putting the perceived good of humanity first and not love at all but let us leave that quibble aside. This path involves seeking universal good and relieving, as much as possible, suffering though only suffering on a physical or psychological level. Spiritual suffering, which exists, is ignored because if acknowledged it would put the truth and relevance of the whole project at risk.

The proponents of this path want to make human beings, all human beings, happy. That is the rationale for everything. No one must be left behind. There must be no inequality. The reasonable nature of this seems indisputable. Those who oppose it must be bad people. But what if it is based on a false vision? What if the happiness it seeks to provide is a spurious happiness which merely satisfies the material side of human nature and ignores the spiritual? To be sure, some kind of therapeutic spirituality might be included in the overall package but this would be as a sop for the emotions only or a means to bring about some kind of psychological effect, whether that be thought of as balance or control or the stimulation of pleasure. It would not be a genuine spiritual understanding which is necessarily rooted in the vision of man as a spiritual not a material being. He is a soul using a body not a body (which term includes the brain) with a soul, whatever a soul might be in the latter case. It certainly could not be primary or body and brain would have to be seen in its light.

The path of humanity is the one we are on. It is the way practically all modern discourse tends but it is based on a lie. I call it a lie rather than a falsehood because a falsehood might just be an honest error but the roots of this path go back to deliberate denial of truth. This path has a destination, as do all paths, and its ultimate destination is into nothingness, the dark world of spiritual separation and emptiness. This is because it denies the reality of what we are. It restricts us to our material selves.

The path of humanity is humanism and humanism is just a pretty way to describe atheism. That is the grinning skull reality that the humanistic mask covers up. The mask quickly rots away and you are left with the empty skull. Humanism is basically nihilism.

The second path is the path of the love of God. This acknowledges our spiritual roots and does so in a way that shows our dependence on a Creator. Self-sufficient spirituality, popular today among those who tire of material things and want spiritual ones, is a contradiction in terms. But because there are many levels of reality between the purely physical world and the properly spiritual one, it is relatively easy to mistake something beyond the physical for the spiritual. Following the path of the love of God, which is the path of humility and gratitude, helps protect against this error. That is not to say that spiritual humanists will not find something approximating to the spiritual or their idea of it. "In my Father's house there are many mansions". But at best they will only enter into one of the outer spheres of creation. They will not know the Creator and they will not enter the Kingdom of God which is only open to those who love him.