Is the intellectual study of religion the way to God?
In order to answer this question, we must be able to make a distinction between the intellect and spirit, between the material world and the spiritual world. We also must come a little closer to the understanding of the nature of God. We must also be able to distinguish between the physical body and the spiritual man.
It is pertinent for us to reach the conviction that man is not just the physical body. Man is essentially spirit with the physical body given to him as a tool he needs for his experiencing on earth. He needs the sense organs which the physical body afford him in order for him to fully experience life on earth. Within the physical body is the intellect which belongs to it and unconditionally remains behind once he steps out of his physical body at earthly death.
Since man is spirit, it stands to reason that he must have his origin in a spiritual world. He does not have his origin on earth. The origin of his physical body, including the intellect is of the earth but his core which is spirit is derived from a special realm in Creation referred to as the spiritual realm. This realm is situated at the highest level in Creation, whereas the earth is situated at the lowest level.
His purpose in life is to live in such a way that he can one day find his way back to his origin, which lies in close proximity to God. It is clear that what he needs in order to achieve this are teachings which show him the way and how to adjust himself so as not to lose his way. These teachings must of necessity be spiritual teachings since they are to lead him back to his spiritual home. He is not meant to live for the purpose of remaining on earth.
Every human race on earth has had such teachings revealed to it many times, but all of these teachings have been robbed of their lustre and turned into religions by mankind. All mobility that accompanied these teachings have been removed and what is left are the externals of do’s and don’ts which have nothing to do with the ascent of the spirit back to its origin.
Because most of these teachings have been robbed of their spiritual mobility and have been made earthly, they therefore do not appeal to the spirit anymore since thy do not point the way to the realm of the spirit. The spirit has no use for such rigid teachings. They, however, appeal to the intellect since through been made earthly, the intellect played a great role in this. It took what was of spiritual origin and brought it down to its level of understanding. In doing this, it robbed it of that which was most essential to man. It has therefore become impossible for man to ascend spiritually through the study of such teachings.
That is why today it is possible to speak of “experts” in religion and so much else. This is, however, a contradiction because where the word “expert” is used, intellectual mastery is referred to and usually meant. But what has intellectual mastery got to do with that which concerns the spirit?
The intellect, due to its origin is unable to understand anything of the spirit which is what in reality religion is all about. Intellectual study of religion therefore is out of the question where the spiritual ascent of mankind is concerned. It is completely out of place. Instead, we should use a tool which is designated for such study: the intuition. It is this which is able to soar above the earthly division of space and time since it derives its own origin from the spirit.
We all have this tool within ourselves. It appears as if we do not but we do. The reason why we do not feel it is because we have buried it. We have not allowed it to function. We have for a long time ignored it so that it is weakened in most people and in many it is no longer audible at all.
It is this tool that we must use to study our various religious teachings. It will then not be difficult to discover what has been added or left out by man. In this way, we will be able to rediscover the treasures contained therein making our ascent back to our origin a natural thing without much laborious study.