"The concern of the founders of the great religions was not to offer man something external to himself, a body of doctrine, an institution, a something to occupy a certain place in his life to safeguard him from particular dangers and to assure him particular benfits; it was to set him upon the Way..."
from What Are We Living For? by JG Bennet

Which religions qualify for the category of "great religions"?

Or does the statement imply that all major religions were "great" but were corrupted by others who twisted the meaning of the founder's principles for their own use?

Dont organised religions/established thought systems appeal to individuals who are afraid to trash out a path on their own?

ps:Wasnt Bennett a fan of Gurdjieff?

Namaste Phaedrus,
Bennett doesn't say which religions but I believe he is referring to all the major ones such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc....
I do 'believe' that all institutional religion often misses the point and one is better off following their own path of 'religion'.
Bennett was a student of Gurdjieff and eventually went his own way and wrote many books on spirituality and religion. I feel What Are We Living For is a brilliant exegesis of the failure of modern religion and how mankind(at least modern man) misses the whole point about religion and spirituality.

I do not think that any religion began with such a high philosophical intention of 'showing the way'. They all began in simple tactics of appeasement: so called supernatural forces were requested not to bring down disease or flood, or to give victory in war or get wealth. Then, as civilization progressed, philosophical and moral matters were joined to religion.

Namaste Wu,

We concur....but for the record i am not a great fan of spiritual gurus...

HW

As mentioned and clarified later by Wu, the religions referred to in the original post are the major ones and not the primordial ones.

If people didnt believe that a particular religion showed them the way, why would they subscribe to it? Showing the way does not need to have philosophical overtones, it can be as mundane as laying down the guidelines as to how to live in that particular society. (dont lust after ur neighbour's wife, do not eat maggots or thee shall not cross the river bordering the village/town/city...etc)

I believe you are confusing 'religion' with Instituitional Religion. All religons that I can think of began with individual visions or epiphanies which were eventually corrupted by
those who wanted to control the masses.
Think about it....

I tend to agree with hinduwoman. I'm guessing that appeasing the gods came first.

My view is that religion (appeasing the gods) and spirituality/mysticism developed side-by-side -- sometimes they would influence each other, but they had largely independent starting points and purposes.

Consider this timeline:

1) People develop a religion to appease the gods so they won't be invaded or suffer earthquakes.

2) A loner goes off into the desert to pray and meditate. Several years later he returns as a mystic bearing spiritual advice.

3) This spiritual information influences the local religion, sometimes starting a "new" religion, but most of the local culture remains intact.

4) The local religion (through priests, traditions, rituals, etc) also influences the spiritual information and its use, possibly causing distortions in the information or leading people off of the spiritual path.

This process continues, with religion and spiritual influencing each other, but belonging to two fundamentally different concerns.


[This message has been edited by Eudaimonia (edited May 16, 2001).]

But weren't most of these 'Great Religions' just outgrowths of other, institutionalized faiths? Buddhism from Hinduism; Christianity and Islam from Judaism, etc.

I consider 'religion' to be inherently political and hierarchical. I would distinguish spirituality, which is I guess, similar to what HinduWoman said, or what someone else described as primordial: at its inception simply a belief system a person or group uses to try to understand and control nature around them. But Christianity and Islam, for example, were always institutionalized. They were essentially power grabs from the beginning. How can you separate Christ's teachings and the gospels from their political context, e.g., the relative power of the Pharisees and Saducees, the political power of Jews throughout the diaspora, etc.

I would agree that the purpose of spirituality is to find "the Way". And I think many believers of "Great Religions" truly wish to find "the Way". But I sincerely doubt that the origins and leaderships of today's "Great Religions" had much to do with spirituality - I think their purpose is mainly political.

Umm. I seriously dont understand it. Apart from semantics how different is what Wu said from "Eudaimonia" and "apm" said? The founder were not interested in politics, it is the other parasites who follow the founders who do that....

ps: and btw apm...just read what wu quoted in the first post, he/she was referring to the founder's intention, not what those religions have become today.

LOL...Perhaps they were not paying attention...?

As was said in Cool Hand Luke, 'What we have here is failure to communicate.'

namaste,