The Future of Religion

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the land in a moment you'll be hearing another talk from the future religion series that our watches discussing these weeks first we want to remind you that if you want the alan watts spoken word catalog you can get up
by writing to him he a box three o three sausalito california nine four nine six five will be repeating the address at the end of today's broadcast now here is lecture to from the seminar future of religion by alan watts while now
the next question that arises in discussing the future of religion
is whether
judaism and christianity
can in some way be saved
this is the question with many aspects to it doesn't only a question of the re-interpretation of doctrine
the water pope paul pope john called iona mento the updating of christianity
the question of the institution what are we gonna do with a church building what are we gonna do with the organization what about all these people employed a minute for function have they could they have
in the future development of religion if
now we agree to the idea of the golf ball
there's no longer good news but the ball
is there any way in which the can with whole thing can be salvaged

i've had myself different changing views about this
i would say that down
the function of the priest is to destroy the church
because the church and that way if we can i can restate this you see in the classical terms of christian theology
the church is the body of christ
what does that mean
well it could go back to
classical christian theology
here's your idea
what is christ christ is the incarnation of god the son the second person of the trinity
the second person of the trinity
well we have to go back and explain the trinity
you have to have a trinity conception of god if you think in a language based on sentences whether the subject verb and predicates
because the the basic structure of the sentence
is i love you
so i is one aspect of it new is the contrary aspect of it and love is the joining aspect
so if god is love then i is the father you is god the son and love is god the holy spirit
all the reasoning about the trinity why there was a doctrine of the trinity goes back to that
and you see that we're all the thoughts that were moving in the minds of those added theologians they didn't understand this themselves they didn't realize that they were hooked on a three part sentence and therefore had to think that way
that's why it emerged and so if you're a wise theologian you don't knock down the doctrine of the trinity
you may realize the obvious reasons why it arose
because
if god was only one
god could not be love unless the object of god's love where his creations
but if his creations where the object of his love then he could not be love without his creation
therefore god was not a self supporting system
therefore they had to find out reasons for god being love in his own right that meant the trinity
and
the that led to endless complications
which i will sidestep at the moment
go on with the main thing
that jesus of nazareth was supposed to be
the second person of the trinity god as the object of his own love
and of his own knowledge
embracing and becoming finite the finite state the humans state with a suffering with the difficulties with the limitations that all that involved and this is called in greek theology can can notice k n o as i have twins shelf
abandonment or self emptying
now by virtue of that
the whole physical universe is
believed to be altered
in so far as the creator became the creature through the body the physical body of christ all physical bodies whatsoever i touched
so that i am
st paul uses
the resurrection of christ and he calls it the first fruits of those who slept
the top christ rises from the dead
overcomes death by accepting death
and by this means than all the physical universe is in process of being changed into
the body of christ that is to say the union of creator and creature
and so the church doesn't mean buildings it doesn't mean clergyman the church the ecclesia meaning the assembly of those called together the original idea of it is that this is the levin
like you put yeast into bread and eleven leavens the whole lump using visa his own illustrate the church is the eleven
at the organization or lets better say the organism through which the entire universe is in process of becoming converted into the divine
you call this apotheosis
meaning the demonisation of something
and so when that the the original meaning behind the christian mysteries is that when a person is baptized
he is
i joined to this leavening process
which is ultimately going to extend not simply to people but to weeds and grubs and birds and
stones that ultimately it through the leavening influence of the church the whole physical universe will be converted into christ
where the word christ means
not only that historical character jesus of nazareth who is regarded as the beginning the process
but where christ means
the created world and the divine world in perfect harmony bunion
so here you see is is is a fundamental notion of christianity that the
the world is in process of becoming
the body of christ
so
then the question see that as opposed to the beginning is
that the priest of the church
i'll be institutional church will in fact further this process of becoming the body of christ by destroying the institutional church
why
because the institutional church
has become a purely political power
what do you do
let's let's take this problem in a very practical way where i speak from long experience
i have a friend a good friend who is the
rector vicar or whatever of the episcopal church here in sausalito
and he's a wise man
but what a his problems
he has an expensive plan that he has to maintain not only a church building but a parish hall for him martin and he has to be sure that there are enough people in the community who annually pledge so much money to maintain this operation
therefore he's interested in upholding the building
and yet he knows in his own heart but that's not the way things should work
so then
i've often wanted to preach a sermon at the laying of the foundation stone of a church
well the stone is ceremony of delayed and i will take us my texts from the gospel of st matthew if a man's son asked him bread will he give him a stone the answer is yes that was a
you will find again and again but if you want to raise money for a project you can find more easily raise money for the erection of a building and you can for the support of living people in their work of scholars or priest positions
or psychiatrist or whatever it may be that they do you can't get money for people you can get money for buildings
and so
the the priest then has to say
we must destroy the church
burn the buildings down
the deny all the doctrines because the whole symbolism is that it was by the breaking of the body of christ that the salvation of the world was delivered
davis predicted his own death to his disciples they were scandalized and they said but it is written in the tradition that the messiah is not subject to death
this is in the gospel of st john
and jesus replied
if a grain of corn does not fall into the ground and die it remains lifeless and isolated but if it dies it brings forth much fruit
so therefore it is only through letting go of the process of clinging to life which is all our fixation on immortality on preserving the valuable things etc this huge anxiety that we hold on
so he was saying let it go
so then when the priest celebrate mass what happens
melissa will rebel group to understand this we have to go back to the very meaning of the mass in the civilization of the ancient near east the mediterranean world
the staple food was bred
from wheat
yeah i'm a staple drink was wine you didn't if you were in your right mind drink water
because it was polluted
and therefore an alcoholic content in the water was a safeguard against infection
so they had a way of making wine not quite like our wine today it was a very thick mixture
it was like concentrated port
and they served at table what is called a cartier from which we get our word crater
which was a
a shallow bowl like cup and they poured wine into this and they mixed it with water
and this was the staple drink as today children in greece in france always drink wine they don't consider it alcoholic luxury they consider it food
so then in in this state of civilization bread and wine with a staple food and drink now bread is made from crushed wheat and wine is made from crushed grapes
so there's an idea of sacrifice that i'm
the life of the wheat and the life of the grapes his sacrifice that we may live
and therefore jesus identified himself with this sacrifice for the universal process of biology whereby all biological beings live in a mutual eating society and we are only sustained by feeding on other forms of life but he switched it instead of saying
this is a situation in which we are predators and we cover these other forms of life and though alas you know he put himself in the position of everything probert
and said i am all those creatures that you destroy and eat therefore taking the bread this is my body which is given for you
do this
in remembrance of me and then taking the cup
this is my blood of the new testament that is to say the new
a testament means
relationship really
drt key in greek the new dialogue the new interchange between
man and reality
and the new testament is that it's not that you clobber the way
and feel terribly guilty because you've eaten fish and cows and wheat but the i god give myself to you through the wheat through the grapes through the cows so the blood is shed for you for the remission of sins in other words please
take this offering and don't feel guilty about it anymore
because the i
in the form of the victims give myself to voluntarily
so then
the idea of the mass of holy communion or whatever we want to call it is the breaking of the bread and the crushing of the grapes
that through the the sacrificial act with the destroying act life is given
therefore when a priest repeat the sacrifice and at the altar he takes the bread in the form of the host and breaks it and pause out the blood pours out the wine all that becomes merely ridiculous symbolism
if he is not also ready to break up the church
that means to knock down the idols first of all that is to say the dogmas upon which people rely and lean
suddenly discover
the death of god is he
suddenly discover
the historical jesus is something you can put your finger on maybe the resurrection didn't happen
you know was nothing to claim to no miracles possible bad break it up and above all
a break up the organization which is a political institution with enormous property owning
generally exploiting the public
then i'm on those conditions if then if the clergy of the ministry work so to break up the church the church would come to life it would become a significant and institution again which is now is not

so
the next thing is this there's another aspect to the breaking up of the church
i've spent some time this morning on going through the political analogy
our the kingdom of god
god as the big boss whom everyone must obey
now there are two themes in christianity
one of which is political and the other of which is organic
the political images the kingdom of god the organic image is the body of christ all the symbolism of the vine
i am the vine and you are the branches indeed one of the most extraordinary books in the bible with that love poem called a song of songs
and has a theme of a love relationship between the creator and creature in which all the imagery is vegetative as distinct from urbane
so a transformation of the church from the political urbane institution to the vegetative organic institution where the image of the government or the law not the government let me say the order of the world changes from that of the palace
the city the kingdom to that of the vine and the body the organism
this is the inner meaning of the incarnation of the union of god and man while god and men are naturally united then order must be imposed from above
when god and man are truly united
in the spirit of the prophet jeremiah who said no more show everyone teaches brother thing
no god
but they shall all know me for i will write my law in their hearts
and the law written in the heart you see is entirely different from the law imposed from above
the law written in the heart means what comes naturally
now jesus was a very clever guru
and in order to get people to have the law come naturally he parroted
the law imposed
and he did this in the gospel of matthew
which
is never read correctly
you know how it begins with the be attitudes
and when he says blessed are the pure and art in mackay ross in greek means happy not blessing the name of punctual sense which that weren't as an english
ah the pure it doesn't mean the people who don't tell dirty jokes pure mean clear
transform
hip
aware on hung up
think
now he then does a very strange thing
he says that
i have not come to destroy the law in the profits
not to destroy but to fulfill
for i tell you
that not one ornamental saraf or punctuation mark shall be taken away from the law until the end of the world
therefore you've got to obey all those forms
the for the scribes and pharisees pride themselves because they obey the law very thoroughly
but you must be more righteous than they are unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees you will not be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven
so to underline this and exemplified you have heard it said of old time
are there are theories now have a crimes
one is to be angry with your brother
another crime is to call him
something that would correspond to
our way of seem to post new path
another way would correspond to our way of thing to someone you're a fool
obviously to be very angry is the major crime
so what he does is he reverses the order of course we might say we have a magistrate's court
all let's say we have the marine county courts in san rafael we have the state of california superior court in san francisco and we have the federal courts leading up to the supreme court
now what he does is the funny thing he switches the order
the
for the major crime which is being really angry he assigns you to the lowest court
is the the minor crime which is calling someone a fool he assigns you to the major chord which is held by ghana
and then if you keep reading on in the gospel you know everybody reads in the king james bible whoever says thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire and because they instead of using quotation mark produces a capital letter for the beginning about what would ordinary be enclosed people think
we've saying our pool means calling god a fool
doesn't mean that at all it is a means in if you read it in greek my re in the evocative means fool thing to some your brother fool you shall be in danger of fire
but later on in the same gospel he addresses the whole crowd and uses the same expression in the plural mouride your foods and blind following blind guides
to see he doesn't even obey his own precept so is precept must be taken ironically he is a humorous to go you think

you pharisee few you think you are so great because you obey the law
oh look i'm gonna give you a law
and you will obey that our the the technique and reductio ad absurdum because what does he do next he says son
you've heard it said of old time
that gun
you shall not commit adultery
haha but i tell you that anybody who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery and is hot
it's all his pious fakes think oh we shouldn't have lustful thoughts about women that's awful
who doesn't have lost your thoughts about when you're gonna always have to act them out
the so then he goes on and this joke therefore if your i offend you know you you looked at that girl and kind of the block it out
as better view that you enter into the kingdom of heaven one i rather than have to go to hell with two eyes
yeah really this the minister who fill out and have absolutely no you buy at all
what the whole thing as a joke so likewise your adversary week doing that wants to take away your coat on giving your plug also
if you're gonna be
so he says you know god
is absolute perfection makes his sun to shine on the evil on the good and sends his reign on the dust and on the unjust you do the same thing for nobody can
can you love your enemy
can you take no thought for the morrow
can you be as carefree as the birds and the be
phil can you really sincerely love god and your neighbor with all your heart with all your soul and all your mind who can see here's the thing he is doing he challenges he throws this whole thing as you as go on pretending it the commandment
and everybody in christianity has tried sincerely obey these things except that every minister gives up on that take no thought for the morrow bitten says it's not practical
why the so the meaning of it is it is to you shall love god
you shall love your neighbor and no faking please
that is a fake command
it's a test

it's a it
it's a reductio ad absurdum of the whole idea of law
of enforced goodness because one must obey out of the fear of divine power
because if you were bay out of the fear of divine power your actions are not significantly moral your actions are significantly moral only if they're done out of love
and love would not be motivated by fear
how are we to love
you can't love
possibly not possibly while you're while you're still think you're an ego
while you still think your separate from other people in the rest of the world you can't love at all
how then you overcome being an ego why obviously you can only overcome it if you in some experimental way find out
that the ego is a delusion
so therefore jesus proposes as a way of finding out that your ego is an illusion
that you live up to these ideas
i can go on further
i don't have anybody reads the bible anymore whether this means anything to you but
st paul
in the epistle to the romans has an argument which is very clever
he says that god did not give noses the law
with the expectation that it would be obeyed
indeed he says i learned sin through the law
i had not known covetousness except the law had said thou shalt not covet
then he poses this funny problem shall we then sin that grace may abound
he says they'll know heaven forbid
mifi benito
huh
by using now look the reason why god gave the law was to convict us of sin it was not in the expectation that the law would be obeyed but only to show us how far short we fell of the divine life
so exactly the same reasoning must therefore apply to the precepts of jesus
not given in the expectation that they would be obeyed but in the expectation that through trying to obey them we would discover
that we were in a man for some kind that we couldn't debate well why not why can't you do it why can't you love
really genuinely completely
the answer is your hung up
on the idea that you ah
a separate ego
cut off alone
you really believe your that so let's test this ie go out
by trying to get it to do this and trying to get it to do that all those things that supposed to be capable of doing you'll discover that you're not capable of doing them and the reason you're not capable of doing them as that few was the separate individual don't exist
you're a hallucination in that sense and that's what has to be discovered that you can't find that out by the telling people that it felt
they they won't believe it
you can only dissolve an illusion by getting people to act on it as if it were true and act on it consistently persistently and thoroughly
when it all falls apart it doesn't work
so in a in this way jesus is using a guru technique
well like a zen master gives a call on
what is the sound of one hand
who are you authentically and genuinely before your father and mother conceived me show me
in other words act perfectly and field
without any social conditioning want your parents told you were sensitive to
nobody can do it why can't they do it
because there's no authentic separate you
when you find that aren't naturally know that what you really are
is your one with the universe like jesus would say i am the father are one
before abraham was i am
i am the way the truth and life that's what you really are
only then the whole christian church managed to circumvent this and shut it up it was too true to be good
and they said i only jesus was the way the truth and life not you baby not do not jew
but in a way
that puts such a burden on western man
and it's taken just under two thousand years to see through it and the changes coming say
everybody is beginning to realize
what the whole trip was about
jesus
you see was an individual who got enlightened
only you it was in the context of the hebrew world and he had the puzzle of how to express his state of consciousness in terms of his own time
he couldn't very well come out and say directly i have just discovered that i am the lord god
not in a context of jewish theology
because of the political imagery
if he said in the context of jewish theology i am the lord god
that would have been like saying you all should bow down and worshipping
when some people including many of his disciples caught on that he was indeed the lord god that was their response fee
they bow down worshipped money tried to turn them off that saying why do you call me good that has done good but god
why he insistently prevented them from the political involvement which was that if he was truly the son of god which means simply our means of the nature of
why didn't he lead the revolution against the roman empire and he a all other side of the temptation and exactly the same way as the buddha through aside all magical powers
and down don't wear for sidetrack that doesn't lead to understanding
when now
the buddha was walking along a stream monday there was a yogi who suddenly started walking across the water
because of his miraculous powers and the buddha said in a a come back
does afford just fifty yards up the river

so in the same way jesus would not give fines of
divine dominance to those who asked for them
about the church
in later times you see has put him on a pedestal
so that the whole doctrine is rendered ineffective
just like that
and as tried and tried and tried and tried to insist that these commandments
you must love god you must take no thought for the morrow
it's tried equivalently at that to say these are commandments
and you ought to feel terribly guilty because you don't love god with all your heart you do take thought for the mark you don't really trust in god
huh
two thousand years it's taken
to realize that them
maybe jesus had a sense of humor
who's ironical
i was trying to get his students disciples to realize they were just as much incarnations of garden he was
because he said when
they jews took up stone to stone him this again and the gospel of st john
they said many good works i have shown you for what do you stone
and they said we don't stone you for a good work but for blasphemy
because you'll be in a man make yourself god
and he replied as it not written in your law quote i have said you are gods
these quoting the eighty third psalm
well it says sam
you are gods and the children of the most high but you shall die like men
he said if
i say i am a son of god which means his son of in hebrew
or an arabic it means of the nature of when you say we say you're a son of a bitch it means a your you you bitchy
so when they say ebony gala which means son of a dog ibn el my son of a donkey
our son of belial the main off the nature of so son of god means like son of a bitch and the opposite way your divine
it has nothing to do with paternity
it's simply an expression
so when he said if i say i am a son of god and then the king james translation it's all last up by calling i am the son of god which is not in the original greek
she'll simply i am a son of god so you
oh you can't realize this the your son of god while you're still cooked up on the idea of legal righteousness that you can buy the effort of your own separate conscious will do the divine act
you have to let go of yourself you have to abandon that situation before you can be enthused transformed and inflamed with the divine spirit
so what he does throughout that whole sermon on the mountain is to make a character tour
of legal righteousness
one of the funniest ways in which he did this but when the parable of the pharisee and republican
and the most endearing he tells a story a fee of the fallacy goes into the temple go straight up to the front seat stands up before the order and says oh god i am not as other men are i've paid my tithe regularly i fulfil this obligation
station and then i'm feeling very good about it
hmm you know just like the senior warden of the vestry in the episcopal church or a knight of columbus
then he says republican is a disreputable character creeps into the back of the synagogue beats himself on the breath and says god be merciful to me as and them
i tell you that batman went down to his house justified rather than the pharisee
now what happened everybody tries to imitate republican
now the therapies creep into the back of the church made themselves on the bed and thank god be merciful to me as enough because a big that's the way to do it
ah now you see telling that story
has an effect
it has taken away the possibility of being the genuine public them as distinct from the phony pharisee because now the moment you're trying to be genuine you're being phony
and i don't know i've never seen anybody except i think roddick
who who's riding on this showed me the idea who saw through what a subtle teacher jesus was
but you have to read between the lines you have to get the humor of it you have to get all the plays that are going on in this
because he's fully aware of the effect that his stories have on his audience
all they didn't know what to do with it
i just had to get rid of him

that laugh and the preceding talk where by the late alan watts
it was part to from the seminar future religion
which is number nine six one one in the alan watts take catalog and remember if you want that catalog should send a self-addressed legal size down below to m e a box three o three sausalito california nine four nine six five
it's emmy a box three o three and the zip code very important nine four nine six five thank you this is kay has a and in san francisco