For nearly fifteen centuries many millions of human beings have been tortured, oppressed, burnt hanged, quartered for holding certain religious views that were not in conformity with the unscientific dogmas of the established religion. Millions of human beings have suffered death in vain on account of the devilishness of religious agitators.
Religion is a thing of the heart, and it is beyond the power of man to go into the heart of other people. To oppress a human being for his inner convictions is diabolical. Bruno was burnt at the stake by the muddle headed ignorant ecclesiastics of Rome, and today we know that Bruno was right and the Vatican wrong.
Man is a thinking being, and he is changing every second in body and mind. He is not the same in thought for two consecutive minutes. The child of today who is ignorant of higher mathematics after he enters the higher form in the college may know to solve deep problems.
To persecute a human being for religion is most inhuman. But the dogmatists, who adopted methods of persecution, had no knowledge of psychology, and of the psychical changes taking places in the human mind. Psychology was never a part of animistic religion. Dogma and psychology never go together. A religion without psychology is unfit for the thinker.
The only religion with a complete psychology from beginning to end is the Arya Dharma enunciated by the Lord of Mercy, Sakya Muni, the Tathagata Buddha. In renunciation the Blessed One found freedom from pride, selfishness and anger, and love came to live on earth, and the earth was happy, for the bloody religions had not yet been born.
Fair Aryavarta was then purely Aryan, and the religion of love taught freedom to man by psychological methods. Men and women learnt the science, and they did not want priests, gods, and animal sacrifice to realize emancipation from passion, anger, and ignorance. What was wanted was effort and uprightness, and freedom from hypocrisy.
The desire to gain the higher wisdom was developed, and the low desires for selfish gain were by effort annihilated. This Wonderful Doctrine perished from the land of its birth with the degeneration of the people who neglected the teachings of wisdom and love.
The generation that lived when the final disappearance came were given to luxury and sensual indulgence. Two thousand years of prosperity made the later generations of the people to become indolent and luxurious. Laziness and luxury were responsible for the decline of the people of India.
Aryan psychology as enunciated by the Blessed One analyzed the human mind and classified the feelings, perceptions and volitions thereof into categories of Good and Evil. To the Good belonged the meritorious thought, and to the evil the demeritorious thoughts.
Man was taught that in his hands lay his own salvation, and that he is a responsible rational being, and that by controlling his senses, evil thoughts shall not arise, and that it is within his power to live a life of perfect holiness here.
By the diffusion of the Doctrine of Love, brotherliness was established, animals received kindness at the hands of man, animal sacrifices ceased; and wisdom reigned. Psychological contentment is spiritual wealth.
The 148th birth anniversary of Anagarika Dharmapala will be observed on September 17
Anagarika Dharmapala
