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Chapter 24
Pride within the religious realm
But it is not only in material realms, as we have shown here, that "vanity" and "pride" are strongly expressed. In the religious realm we also see many beings that have greatly exaggerated deluded notions of their own "greatness". Here it is not so much the "rich man" or the "upper class" based on material wealth that one tries to copy or imitate, but, on the contrary, mankind's highest, cultural representatives, such as sages, prophets and world redeemers. And this attitude is in itself praiseworthy if it is a matter of making these beings models for the cultivation and humanisation of one's own consciousness. In such a case one is in extraordinarily great harmony with the laws of the world. And one's development will then be harmonious and perfect. Here there will be no question of the "guardians of the threshold" or any "fall", since no "pride" exists.
      But nothing like all beings have such an attitude to the real and natural "upper class", consisting, as it does, of these high spiritual beings. These beings' high position, their world renown or position in history, their appearance as objects of mankind's admiration and worship, has the same effect as the "rich man's" position, namely of being an extraordinarily great object for "vanity". And we thus see that multitudes of beings succumb to religious or spiritual "vanity". A whole series of beings in this religious or spiritual world, just as in the material world, succumb to glaring spiritual "pride". Indeed, this "pride" is actually organised. This organised "vanity" or "pride" is evident in an extraordinarily great majority of the so-called "religious sects". Here we must, however, understand that "pride" is not nearly as dominant or pronounced in these sects, just as we must also bear in mind that it is of course camouflaged and is expressed only by concepts that make its identity as "pride" less conspicuous and blatant, its presence in many beings being therefore quite unconscious.


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