The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul Part 18

The traditions, mythologies, and folklore of all the past have thus arisen. The creeds and dogmas of the present const.i.tute the effort of man to a.s.sume exclusive dominion, and to exercise divine authority over the ma.s.ses of mankind. It is only another form of the ambition of individuals for wealth, fame or power, lifting them to a "cla.s.s" above the toiling, suffering, and sorrowing ma.s.ses.

There are exceptional individuals all along the way, who conceive, hold, and exercise the spirit of the Master, and sink self in the service of man, and but for these the organized priesthood would be execrated by mankind long before.

The organized church deifies, where the true disciple humanizes and helps mankind in the name and in the spirit of the Master.

This is the spirit, the origin, the genius and the history of every Avatar, of Christna, and all the Buddhas, the Saviors and Redeemers of history.

The orthodox Christian of to-day, whether Catholic or Protestant, will be likely to admit the foregoing outline except as it applies to his own religion. Whereas it is abundantly proven to-day regarding his own religion as nowhere else in history.

The histories of former religions are vague, distant, and so covered over by tradition, myth, and folklore, as to be difficult to trace.

The beginnings, history, and progress of the Christian religion are comparatively nearer at hand, and the process above outlined readily demonstrable.

Not only so, but the recognition of the facts and processes is everywhere in evidence.

This fact, however, by no means ends the controversy.

Traditions, creeds, and dogmas die hard, and fight to the last extremity.

Nothing else known to man fights so desperately and dies so hard as an organized priesthood, and beyond this, they are upheld by the ignorance, superst.i.tion, the fear, and the faith of the ma.s.ses.

Their adherents often believe and a.s.sume that they have discovered final truths, essential and unalterable verities. They undertake to support and to maintain these by dogmatic authority, a holy book, a "thus sayeth the Lord."

"There it is, down in black and white." No further evidence is required.

To question such authority is to be d.a.m.ned. To believe, accept, and to conform, is to be _saved_.

Difference of opinion and of interpretation inevitably arise, even among those who dare not question the ultimate authority and genuineness of the original revelation. Hence arise sects, schisms, and theological warfare.

Notwithstanding all this, the original revelation becomes a matter of thorough investigation and of criticism.

The so-called "higher criticism" had already discovered errors in translation, and contradictions in interpretation, resulting in a "revised edition" of the sacred books, while under the name "_Pragmatism_," certain metaphysical writers and accredited teachers have undertaken to determine essential meanings and interpretations, and to submit religious revelations, creeds, dogmas, and theologies to critical a.n.a.lysis.

How far this a.n.a.lysis has gone, and how little of the original interpretation actually remains, only they are aware who keep abreast of current thought, and who with open mind care more for the simple truth than for custom, tradition, theologies, and the folklore of the past.

Dogmatic theological authority is completely undermined, and its days are numbered.[1]

With the ma.s.ses there is the habitual unrest, the feeling of uncertainty, the social upheaval, with the inevitable tendency to confusion and anarchy. A new religion is already in the formative stage, a new Avatar inevitable.

It is to be less a repudiation than a revision and rehabilitation of the old religion.

People everywhere are looking for the new revelation, for the coming of _Christos_, for the new Avatar, and few are aware that he is already here.

It should be borne strictly in mind that in every instance in the past, the advent of the Avatar has been unattended by signs and wonders, has come upon the stage of human action in the most commonplace way, and that myth, miracle, and folklore have followed as time went on.

To the people of his time Jesus was the "son of the carpenter," whose family was obscure. He came "eating with publicans and sinners."

Jesus, the demiG.o.d of to-day, was unknown and undreamed of in Galilee.

Philo Judaeus seems never to have heard of him.

What and who Jesus was, and what he did, is separated from what the church and theologians have made of him by a gulf that seems almost impa.s.sable, and yet this gulf has already been bridged and pa.s.sed.

The new Avatar has for its mission the rehabilitation of Jesus as he actually existed, divested of all myth and miracle, while the mission for which he came, and the doctrines for which he lived and died are to be completely restored to mankind in their purity.

The old Hindoos would call this transformation a "reincarnation of Vishnu," a "new Avatar."

It will mean Jesus the divine Man, the master, _Christos_, restored to the heart of Humanity from the mysticism and miracle of monks and theologies, from the superst.i.tions and folklore of the mult.i.tude.

This means a reconstruction and a restatement of the religion of Jesus.

Jesus remaining what he actually was and is, it will be the province of Natural Science to explain and to demonstrate by natural and spiritual law, how, without mystery or miracle, Jesus became the Master _Christos_ and so remains to-day.

Natural Science is not the invention of man, more than is the law of gravitation, the law of equilibrium, or the binomial theorem. Man may discover these laws from the phenomena of Nature, and demonstrate their existence and mode of operation like any others.

It is a question of dispa.s.sionate and intelligent apprehension and demonstration.

All actual progress of man up to the present time lies along these lines.

Beyond this all is conjecture and guess-work. Natural Science, however, is far more than modern physical science so-called. It includes physical, mental, moral, and spiritual science.

Its _methods_ everywhere and at all times are the same.

It may theorize, but never dogmatize, and it must _demonstrate_ at every step. Facts must not only support the theorem, but demonstrate the conclusions as inevitable, and the basis of all such actual demonstration must be a verifiable individual experience, with formulated laws and processes for its repet.i.tion, just as in physical science, in chemistry, and mathematics. Nothing less than this on any plane or in any department of investigation can enable the individual to declare "_I Know_."

Demonstration is the sign manual of knowledge; Dogmatism the arrogance of ignorance.

It is impossible to make these radical distinctions too clear and specific.

When this method of Natural Science is applied to the investigation of religions, tradition is separated from fact, dogma from demonstration, miracle from natural law, mythology and folklore are found to be the fabric woven by the imagination of mankind around the receding revelations, deifying their authors, and mingling fact with fable, till the originals become unrecognizable.

Romance and superst.i.tion become subst.i.tutes for simple Faith, moral law, and social Justice.

To question or to repudiate the dogmas of superst.i.tion becomes a "mortal sin," even when the most plain and specific moral or ethical obligations are entirely subverted or reversed by dogmatic authority.

It is thus that the original revelation is subverted and at last overthrown.

From first to last, the whole fabric is claimed to be "sacred and divine,"

and to question it, "sacrilege" and "profanation of holy things." Thus, that which seemed originally as wings to the toiling, sorrowing children of men, becomes at last a "millstone about the neck," a "burden grievous to be borne."

Then comes protest, repudiation, reform, and usually a new revelation, embodying the primitive faith, and adapting it to modern times and conditions.

This is, in brief, the history of the Avatars of Ancient India, the Buddhas and the Zoroasters of later centuries; of the Greek Orpheus; of the legends and folklore cl.u.s.tering around many of the sages of Israel, and though in a less miraculous fashion, of Confucius and Laotse. But most patent of all does this principle apply to the founder of the Christian religion, because less ancient and more readily verifiable.

Though no new Avatar is yet recognized, the _spirit_ of _modern science_ does not hesitate to repudiate myth, miracle, and superst.i.tion, and to insist on fact and natural law.

[1] See President Eliot's latest utterances.