religious revolution now 255
scriptural canon, an or ga nized community of belief, and an identifi ca-
tion with a people or with many nations.
Th is discourse is not itself the religion of the future, not even part of
what such a religion might be. In the absence of the life- giving marriage
of visionary teaching with exemplary action and of the transformation
of individual thought into collective experience, it remains dead words
on the page.
Such an undertaking is dangerous. Its dangers are contained by the
rigors of its truthfulness and justifi ed by the endeavor that it is intended
to support: an ascent untainted by illusion about either the fl aws in our
existence or the reach of our insight.
of the Future 6. Deep Freedom: The Politics of the Religion
Th e reasons for a religious revolution, explored in the preceding pages,
prefi gure its direction. Chapters 6 and 7 of this book explore this direc-
tion. One piece of the argument concerns the way in which we can
wrench ourselves out of the sleepwalking— the abandonment to
belittling routine— in which we risk consuming our greatest good:
life in the present moment. A second piece has to do with our self-
transformation: the way we live and the way we view our existence. A
third piece regards change in the or ga ni za tion of society and in the
character of our relations to one another. A fourth piece deals with our
reward and with the disharmonies that we must face in pursuit of this
prize: the countercurrents that beset it, as a result of the relation be-
tween its ambitions and our situation and natures.
In the order of pre sen ta tion, I address the third part— reconstruction
of society— before turning to the other three parts of this program:
awakening from the diminishment of existence, affi rmation of life in
the way of living it, and understanding of what we are entitled to
hope for.
At the center of the idea of the religion of the future lies a simple and
powerful longing: the longing for a larger existence. Th is longing can
be misdirected in a number of ways that have been the object of earlier
arguments in this book. Such indirections shadow every part of the
spiritual program that I am about to discuss.