RELIGIOUS RITUALS AND CEREMONIES

(Dec. 1952) The diverse rituals and ceremonies of different religions and cults are intended to release divine love, but they mostly bind the soul to the repetitive mechanism of expressive forms. Attachment to the rigid forms of external expressions of love to God not only limits the love itself but creates separative divisions between one religion and another. Therefore the rituals and ceremonies often bind the soul to ignorance and illusory separateness and become an obstacle to real illumination.

The true spiritual aspirant is therefore more keen about the inner life. Inner life is based on love for God, and it is this love that annihilates all desires, keeping only one desire and longing – that of union with Beloved God. He has no obsessions for expressing his reverence in any set forms. Such obsessions twist the real life. A free soul is never entangled in any of these inessentials, and never allows itself to be overpowered by the separative tendencies released by attachment to rituals and ceremonies.

Lord Meher, Original ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 11, p. 3998