Volume I  Page 112  §  Action and Inaction

DISCOURSES by Meher Baba

Action and Inaction

ALL action except that which is intelligently designed to attain God-realisation, creates a binding for consciousness. Action might add to accumulated ignoranceIt is not only an expression of accumulated ignorance, but a further addition to that accumulated ignorance
        Religious forms and ceremonies as well as rituals and injunctions of different creeds and spiritual institutions have a tendency to encourage the spirit of love and worship. Ceremonies a side-tracking on path As such they are helpful to a limited extent in wearing out the ego-shell in which human consciousness is caught. But if they are unintelligently and mechanically followed, the inner spirit of love and worship gets dried up. Then they only result in hardening the ego-shell rather than wearing it out. Therefore, rituals and ceremonies cannot carry a man very far on the Path, and if they are unintelligently followed they create as much binding as any other unintelligent action. Deprived of all inner life and meaning, they might be said to be even more dangerous than other forms of unintelligent action, because man pursues them with the belief that they are helpful for God-realisation, whereas in fact they are far from being helpful. Owing to this element of self-delusion, lifeless