Is a religious life possible?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Is a religious life possible in this modern world? Which does not mean becoming a monk or joining an organized group of monks. We will be able to find out for ourselves what is really, truly, a religious life only when we understand what religions actually are and put aside all that, and not belong to any religion, to any organized religion, to any guru, and not have any psychological or so-called spiritual authority.

There is no spiritual authority whatsoever. That is one of the crimes that we have committed—we have invented the mediator between truth and ourselves. So you begin to inquire into what is religion, and in the very process of that inquiry you are living a religious life, not at the end of it. In the very process of looking, watching, discussing, doubting, questioning, and having no belief or faith, you are already living a religious life.

That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 71-72

Here is my reflection:

To inquire you must have no belief, and the groundwork for this is to understand everything in yourself that gives authority to another, that cedes your intelligence to another's memory and conditioning. Can you do all this is what K is asking here? Can you be a light to yourself?

The very idea of a mediator between you and truth, which is the priest, the teacher, the parent, etc., is akin to Nietsche's account of morality in On The Genealogy Of Morals. The weak, physically and morally, create religion to make the 'strong' feel guilty for being what they are. Morality is then the weapon of the weak. Nietsche pints it in stark terms but his basic premise is correct: religion is not about finding God or Truth; it is about power and control; subordination and domination. It is the weapon of those who live with and by fear, those who cannot - in K's term - stand alone.

For K the religious experience can never come with mediation. It can only come directly when, for example, we see it in a sunrise, in nature; not through the memory, motives, ambitions, and jealousy of another. When you can simply look at something and observe it in itself, whether that is a chair or your wife or husband, that is a religious experience. To do this you need to look very seriously at how you look, where you look from, your images of that person or thing; your pre-conceptions and all of that stuff that makes you feel secure in your world, your consciousness.

To live with that attention is to take responsibility for your own life.

Best wishes

Robert