The magical value of any sacrament lies not in itself but in the faith it arouses, the reverence it suggests, and the reminder it gives. If a man can believe, revere, and remember God by any other means, such as reading, for instance, and if the sacrament has no effect upon him, he is not obliged to participate in it. But if a sacramental form helps him to either the remembrance or the aspiration of divine reality, why should he not take advantage of it? It is true that ritual which helps man to concentrate on a value higher than the material ones is certainly useful to him. But it is not indispensable to him. At the last, no sacramental symbol, no external rite can give what a man's Overself alone can give. Although the chief function of external rites is to direct the mind towards internal ideas, a mechanical ceremony of itself has no moral value. One may ask how far do the collective incantations and public prayers of organized religion lead to any tangible results? The mistake is not in creating or continuing these ceremonial systems themselves, these processions and observances, but in forcing them upon people who have no inner affinity with them, who feel no need for them and no help from them. Liturgical symbolism and ecclesiastical rite may exalt and satisfy the emotions but they do not go beyond this. They do not carry out their claim to constitute for the participant a direct sacramental means of grace. Those who administer such sacraments are invested with no higher authority than a merely human one. We must not believe that any paid professional has a better right to assume the status of intermediary between God and man than does an unpaid amateur. In fact, it often is better to believe the opposite. The confusion of clerical power with authentic spirituality is a common mistake. There is no real relation between the two. This is because it is not the ethics of a holy man which clerics seek to spread, but the power of a worldly institution. It is not faith in an immaterial reality whose propagation is their prime aim, but faith in a material hierarchy. When it has become outworn, the inner mental attitude which gave it birth and the accompanying feeling which gave it justification are no longer active. Consequently, its followers do not know why they are following it and act mechanically or, quite often, hypocritically. A ceremonial observance which carries no inner meaning and gives no mental uplift to those who partake in it becomes even worse than useless. It becomes a deception. There is a further danger when ceremonial symbolism becomes more important than moral principle. It is then that a religion falls into risk of betraying itself. Philosophy appreciates the services of organized religion and objects only when it loses itself in mere externals, when it sets up its own ecclesiastical organization and liturgical forms as all-important to man's salvation. The greatest dangers to its purity are the corrupt forms that men give to it and the selfish institutions that men set up in it. The seeds of destruction are implanted by karma and germinated by time whenever a religious form fails to serve humanity.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 2 : Organization, Content of Religion > # 98
