Pope Benedict XVI’s Universal Message for Secularists: Exegesis- Secular Idols Veil the Path of Truth
K.Wong
Introduction
Pope Benedict XVI made a 12-15 September visit to France which strictly advocates the political philosophy of the separation between the state and church or religion. French political DNA of secularism and post-modernism have, in fact, almost brought France into the verge of Catholic collapse. It is reported that less than ten percent of the traditional French Catholics are regular Sunday Church goers. The dramatic shortage of Catholic priests, the growth of Islam and Buddhism accelerate the decline of the traditional Catholicism further in France. I would to assure the people of France that all world’s major religions, such as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are equally effective edifyingly and soteriologically. No one religion is above the others in terms of its edifying and soteriological power.
Positive Secularism
Fortunately for the French Catholic youth, the current religiously wise French President, Nicholas Sarkozy advocates positive secularism. Positive secularism is secular life that is injected with spiritual and religious values. The president opined that modern secularism, totally isolated from religion, is insanity. He affirmed that human dignity and moral decision are important in dealing with economic decisions or scientific choices. Religion plays an important role in moral judgement and decision of an individual or group. Self-centred moral judgement and decision, unguided by religious or spiritual wisdom, may be fallible and vulnerable. Being aware of thee potential moral pitfalls, the religious president recommends that secularism ought to be spiritualized with religious wisdom and inculcated with ethical values in public sphere. He wants religion to be allowed to play a greater role in public life. He recommends state subsidies to be granted to religious organizations, Christian and non-Christian. The president already raised the importance of religion when he was an Interior Minister a few years back before assuming the present post of the presidency. Therefore, he advocates positive secularism for the citizentry of France so that they are not excessively obsessed with hedonism and become hopeful citizens. I esteem the religious wisdom of the president because religion, properly instructed and learned, will silence the chatter of the human mind. France is blessed with such a president.
Pope Benedict XVI recognized and applauded the president’s appropriate choice of ‘Positive Secularism’ as a beautiful expression of his vision of a spiritualized secular state. The president was humble to tell the Pope that he had a duty to listen to what he was going to say. The president posited that as cultures are getting more intertwined, secularism can not be isolated from religion. In actual fact, perennial philosophy reveals that the secular phenomenal world is intimately related to the God. The phenomenal world is the mirror of the God. Human external behaviors reflect his or her inner mind. The inner mind is the hidden or unmanifest dimension of God.
Faith and Reason
The Pope asserted that he is worried that faith and reason are divorced in current religious beliefs. Faith, unsupported by reason, is blind faith. Blind faith becomes idolatrous. Even reason or logical thinking using the intellectual, conceptual mind of the head in one’s religious life does not suffice. It ought to be fulfilled and consummated with intuitive discernment of Truth using the intuitive mind of the inner Heart. Truth can not be discovered by intellectual thought alone. It is to be realized and consummated by intuitive discernment.Religion is more than mere pure ethical education which is half truth. It is the recovery of the communal Truth of Wisdom applicable to all religions. The Truth relates the world with the God or the appearance with Reality. The whole Truth lies in the relationship between the phenomena and the principle.
Secularism and Spiritualism
Theoretically, President Nicholas Sarkozy concurs with the political secularists that there should be a separation between the state and church or religion. However, the president recommends a middle path to spiritualize the deeply rooted culture of political secularism. He encourages that while state and religion are to be separated, polity and religion cannot be separated. His wisdom mirrors the importance of ethical or righteous politics in which polity and God is inseparable. Self-awareness of the relation between secularity and spirituality makes one a wiser and more ethical or responsible secularist. Positive secularism annihilates the disadvantage of secular state in which spiritual wisdom is deficient or neglected. It also obliterates the drawback of excessive external material renunciation of a lay spiritualist which may impede economic development of the nation. Positive secularism strikes a happy medium between secularism and spiritualism which is actually the middle path of religious philosophy promulgated by the Prophets an and the Tathāgatas. The middle path is full enlightenment or full awareness of the Truth.
Separation of State and Religion
The main drawback of a pure secular state is the neglect of the importance and pragmatic value of religion in terms spiritual insight or wisdom. The current epic clashes of civilizations internally and externally mirror the weakness of a pure secular state. However, the greatest strength of secularism is its tolerance of multiculturalism in which democracy, respect for fundamental human rights, religious freedom and so forth thrive with less political or bureaucratic obstacles. Unfortunately, democracy has been abused and fundamental human rights are violated in many countries in the east and the west. The shortcoming of a religious state is that there is potential propensity of the state to discriminate against the citizens who adhere to religions distinct from the official state religion. Furthermore, citizentry not adhering to state religion are either knowingly or unknowing discriminated or disadvantaged in education, civil service, state-owned corporations, and national politics by bureaucrats who are religious fanatics. Of course, any form of discrimination, prejudice and bias separates one from the God or Truth. Whoever separates oneself from God or Truth is an infidel or a fallen man.
More Hopeful
French President Nicolas Sarkozy asserts that religious people are more hopeful than the non-religious ones. Religiously motivated politicians become more virtuous and therefore, better political leaders. Religiously perfumed or spiritually inspired citizentry become more harmonious, cohesive and therefore more hopeful citizens. Pope Benedict XVI supported the president’s stance which motivated him to visit Paris to resurrect the religious wisdom and values of the declining French Catholicism. His visit as pontiff also invigorated the earlier effort of Pope John. Pope John came to Paris to resurrect Catholicism in France in 1997 as France’s political DNA is deeply embedded in secularism.
Power, Posssessions and Money
Pope Benedict XVI preached to the audience of about 250,000 comprising youngsters, families and elderly couples at Paris’s lawns of the Esplanade des Invalides. The sermon is not only applicable to the people of France but also is equally applicable to the world’s populace at large.The Pope condemned uncontrollable lusts for power, possessions and money as modern day diseases or plagues. Power, possessions and money are modern idols which obsess the modernists so much that they have been derailed from the Path of God or Truth. They have gone astray. Religion is the shepherd which guides them back to their inner Heart. Secularism emphasizes the intellectual power of the ‘Head’ whilst spiritualism stresses on the wisdom and compassion of the ‘Heart ‘. An equilibrium between the Head and the Heart is positive secularism. From the neoro-scientific perspective, there should be an equilibrium function of the left and right brain so that human IQ (Intelligent Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient) are developed holistically and integratedly.
We ought not to misinterpret and mispresent the Pope’s stance on power, possessions and money. Otherwise, such religious sermon will frighten away many would-be or prospective religious adherents in a modern society entrenched with secularism. If power, possessions and money are capitalized to glorify one’s self-centric ego, these three super-desires are potentially destructive. In this sense, the Pope spoke against such lustful, selfish desires. However, if these three super-desires are utilized basically to support oneself and the members of one’s family for their basic well-being and wellness, and are generously or philanthropically utilized for the interests of others especially for the needy, they are commendable. in fact, such altruistic and selfless desires are to be promoted and fostered. In fact, religion guides us to avoid evils and to do good. Most importantly, it purifies the mind. It resurrects the Holy Spirit (Buddha-mind). Whoever knows religion loves the Truth ( God, Buddha etc). Whoever is ignorant of religion is fearful of it and shuns it. Those who shun it become perverse and ethically defective.
If a political leader capitalizes his power to raise the standard of living of the citizentry, such power is esteemed and encouraged. If a millionaire or billionaire utilizes his vast possessions of personal wealth for humanitarian aids, such possessions are extolled and encouraged. If the money earned by a father is utilized to furnish quality overseas education for his children, such wholesome usage of money is commendable and encouraged. Power, possessions and money are like neutral jungles. It is human’s manner of earning, protection and utility of them which determine whether or not they are evil or not evil. Power, possessions and money are certainly the roots of all evils in the hands of the sinful ones. However, they are sources of benevolent loving-kindness and altruistic compassion in the hands of those philanthropists.
When the secular pursuits were worshipped as idols, the cravings for power, possessions and money would backfire and scourge us. The most excellent insurance to avert the scourges is none other than spiritual wisdom and virtue. With spiritual wisdom and virtue, we are able wisely to avert greed, hatred and delusion. Worshipping the God as an external idol is already spiritually impeding to oneself. The worship of power, possessions and money is potentially more damaging as they may injure oneself as well as others physically, emotionally and spiritually if the self-centric ego directs and empowers all one’s activities. When power, possessions and money are sought as ends and not as means for altruistic purposes, they are akin to the worship of pagans of antiquity. Such criticism of the Pope might be a bit severe but it is highly edifying for secular modernists or materialists, who are either Christians or non-Christians, to reflect upon the Truth seriously.
The worship of God is actually very lofty and highly philosophical. It is the discovery and worship of communal Truth of religious Wisdom. The discovered Truth and the resultant divine Wisdom are to be used to obliterate one’s moral fallibilities and vulnerabilities so that one becomes perfectly wise and virtuous. Religion is a means to develop Wisdom to promote and foster an ethical society. It is a call to order which is essential in life. The call to order to live in unity and harmony in a single human family wherever we are.
In a separate meeting with some 700 politicians, artists and religious leaders, the Pope warned that if humanity rejected religion, it would be doomed to self-destruction or would face catastrophes, such as the natural disasters created by global warming and climate change rooted in irresponsible and unfriendly behaviours towards the natural environment. He stressed that human culture ought to be constructed upon the Truth of God. Obviously, the Pope took the opportunity of his visit and his homily as pontiff to support the president’s proposal of Positive Secularism to inject spiritual values into a strictly secular society like France.
Do Good
The Pope warns that western economic affluence has turned modern materialism into a kind of religion and has ignored the traditional roots of spiritual values. Worship of modern materialism is equally rampant in the east especially in the developing and developed Asian nations. The Pope affirmed that the most meaningful life is to continue doing good courageously. He also admonished us not to tire in doing good and we ought not turn to the icons of modenization and worship them as idols. Power, possessions and money are not to be worshipped as idols. They ought to be utilized to do good untiringly and help the needy. In the midst of post-modenity, one should remember to turn to God always. Turning to God is using the mind of God to avoid evil, do good and purify the mind. The mind of God in Christianity is the Holy Spirit.(The mind of Buddha is the original True Self or Dharma Body of Man).
Holy Spirit (or Dharmabody) is synonymous with the pure, infinite consciousness of the inner Heart in contrast to the ordinary, defiled consciousness of the ordinary worldling. Monotheistically put, it is the spirit of God. It is the spirit empty of self-centric ego. Dissimilar religions employ dissimilar expedient means to obliterate the self-centric ego. This explains why a huge collection of diverge scriptures from dissimilar religions exist in the world today. They are actually the treasures and great assets of mankind if the divine message of Truth is properly comprehended.
Truth of Order
God is the eternal Truth from which permanent bliss is derived. The Truth gives us progress, wisdom, joy and understanding. The God is not an external al-mighty power from which human blessings are derived externally. It is the eternal Truth by which cosmic Order of the universe is sustained. True blessings are derived from acting as God acts, speaking as God speaks and thinking as God thinks.In other words, a saved believer acts according to the Truth or Cosmic Order of the universe. Seeing God is the discernment of Truth so that the spirit of God or the Holy Spirit directs and empowers all the six sense activities. The Holy Spirit comes into one’s life if and only the self-centric ego has been obliterated after hearing and understanding the Word of God or the Bible. Holy Spirit connotes that the selfless and delivered mind perceives the eternal Truth of ‘the One in the many and the many in the One’. One of the possible reasons of the decline of western Christianity is because the western Christians have neglected or abandoned the perennial philosophy of eastern Christianity. This may explain the growth of Islam in the west. Buddhism is growing rapidly in the west and flourish soon in western soils. The western process and perennial philosophy will fuel the growth of Sufism and Buddhism in the west because Sufi and Buddhist mysticism or gnosis are rational, scientific and empirical. They are compatible with the western philosophy of logical positivism.
Oneness of the World
The many is the multiplicity of the world and the One is the Unity of the world. It is liberating, divine state in which a saved Christian has gained the union with God. The union with God is synonymous with the mind of Unity or Non-duality – seeing the oneness and acting in the oneness of the world. It is the manifest of the mind of God. The delivered believer is said to be born of God. The Mind of God is the selfless mind. The selfless mind is the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God. Selfless mind defeats the selfish mind in order for a saved believer to love the Truth of God and to love the neighbours as he or she loves himself or herself.
Conclusion
Modernists are enamoured with material icons of post-modernity that they forget the God. Positive secularism is a life of secularism unceasingly invigorated by the Truth of God. Knowing the Truth of God preserves the Mind of God at all times in all places. The Holy Spirit is always there to purify and to protect him from moral downfall. Genuine faith in any religion is constructed upon the knowledge of Truth. The mere passionate or emotional love for God unsupported by the knowledge of Truth has resulted in many internal as well as external clashes of civilizations witnessed in the increasingly imperiled world today. All religions preach a communal message – we are all inherently peaceful and the crucial goal in life is to redeem it. There is only one world and one dream which is lasting peace. Today, that the world is not so peaceful mirrors that secularists or modernists have distanced themselves from God. Consequently, we reap the ailing and agonizing crisis of politics, economy, wars, rising crimes, unemployment, human right violations, personality demonization, financial credits, surging oil, gas and food prices, diseases, global warming, climate change and so on. Behind these modern woes are the ugly human behaviours. Three of the most serious plagues are greed or corruption, hatred and delusion. Fortunately, there is a savior for all – any genuine world’s religion properly learned and understood.
Editor’s Note:
Pure secularism should be replaced with positive Secularism to construct an ethical society. Secular humanism should be spiritualized so that modernists will not be derailed from the Truth in the process of extreme secular development amid the life of hedonism. Secularism is phenomenal. Phenomenalism is the image of the absolute Truth or God. It is an intrinsic part of the Unity of God. The secular life is like a branch of the grapevine and the grapevine is like the God. When the branch is separated from the gradevine, it could not grow and bear the grapes. This is what Jesus Christ or the Bible expounds.
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