HOW TO FILL THE CHURCHES?

 

I have travelled six, seven, or eight months a year. I have visited churches, mosques, and temples and have been asked to speak there. Invariably, I found that the churches, synagogues, and mosques were becoming emptier and emptier and emptier. The younger generation today, for example, would rather go to a disco club than go to a church. It is not a matter of castigation or condemnation; it is an observation, and what can be done about it is that every person who goes to a theological seminary to become a priest should be put through certain practices to experience it themselves.

If these Doctors of Divinity, as if Divinity requires doctoring, while studying are put through certain spiritual and meditational practices, they could gain that inner experience, feel that inner joy, that inner Divinity, and then when they speak from the pulpits you will find that people will gain something by it. It is not only words that are important, but also the spiritual force a spiritual leader can impart to people. That is important, and that is unfortunately very much lacking in Christian Churches, Hindu Temples, Moslem Mosques, and Jewish Synagogues. It is general, everywhere that is happening. So, if these priests had some experience, every word they spoke would contain so much power and force to pierce and open the hearts of the listeners.

It is not condemnation or castigation. It is an observation, and what can we do about it because I would like to see our Churches and Temples and Mosques become more and more fuller.

A TRUE MAN OF GOD CAN MAKE YOU FEEL SO MUCH BETTER

Some good ones are very true. But the statement is not complex; it is observation and what is happening. To speak from the mind may have a specific value, but to speak from the Heart, from inside, has a far greater value. When we say Heart, I do not mean the organ, but I mean the very core of your personality, which is Divine itself, and this is where all our revelations have come from. When Sages have reached deep inside them and become one with the Kingdom of Heaven within, and when they speak from that level, every word is revealed as a revelation. There are good Priests, Pastors, Rabbis. There are some good ones, but the majority are just doing a job like a motor mechanic would do, an accountant would do, or a lawyer would do, just a job to make a living.

Of course, our duty as church members is to provide the priests with a living. They also have to have bread to live, exist, and survive. As the saying goes, they cannot just live on love and fresh air; in return, spirituality should be given.

A true man of God can make you feel so much better just by a touch, just by glancing into your eyes. Buddha used to teach by giving a sermon, but there came a time in Buddha’s life when he never said a word. He would just sit there, close his eyes and be in total silence, and the people that came to sit around him left the place feeling different. Some realisation dawned in their minds without Buddha even saying one word.

That is the force and the power I am talking about. All the Priests, Pastors and Ministers cannot reach the stage of Buddha, perhaps, but if they have experienced something within themselves, at least they would be more qualified to teach. I believe in one thing: I will never talk of God if I have not known or experienced Him. For if I do, then I am a hypocrite.

MEDITATION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION

It is not a matter of being hard on anyone. It is a matter of how people’s lives can be transformed, how this world could become a better place to live, and how you can love your neighbour as yourself. I have seen, and I have heard some Ministers just wailing, “Oh, when is this damn sermon going to end?” I have seen that and had a long chat with this Minister. I said, you are just rushing through; do not do that. After I talked to him for about an hour, he was pretty convinced, and his whole style changed, and he started meditating. In fact, in Las Vegas, the year before last, I think they asked me to speak at a Unitarian Church there; I cannot remember the name. Two or three hundred people were in attendance, and after I finished the talk, the Priest came up to me and asked me, “Can you teach me to meditate.” I said yes, and we taught him to meditate. After that, he introduced meditation to his entire congregation.

Meditation and spiritual practices have nothing to do with religion. You can believe whatever you like, like the little hymn we sing, “Some call Him by Christos, some Ishvara, some Allah.” Believe whatever you want because you cannot throw away the culture in which you were brought up. Meditation is a scientific way, a scientific method where you gradually go deeper and deeper within yourself. You find peace, and when you see that peace, your whole understanding of religion will change.

THROUGH MEDITATION, YOUR AWARENESS WILL EXPAND

After being a meditator for a little while and reading the same passage in the Bible that you read, say, five years ago, it will have a different meaning to you because your awareness has expanded. You can ask some of our old meditators that when they today again hear Satsangs of mine, which they listened to three years ago, they find something different in it. Same Satsang, exact words. Because through meditation, their awareness has expanded.

This reminds me of a little boy who said, “My father knows nothing”. But when the boy of fourteen reaches the age of twenty-one, he says, “You know my father knows something”. Who has grown? Not the father. The boy has grown in understanding. You see like that.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1983- 11