The most subtle "solution" which we can apply is an intellectual speculation called "rationalization". It is an attempt to picture reality in such a way that it does not represent an unpleasant sensation.

If somebody is rude to us, for example, it often happens that if he hits our head with a branch, that will probably lead us into temptation to react in a sinful way. We will be inclined to respond with rage and rudeness.

But if we are inspired with true love we shall have an appropriate reaction. We are most likely to leave such a person alone. The feeling of sorrow and sometimes the feeling of justified anger will be an opportunity to express the motive of love (meekness, longsuffering), not hatred towards the person with such a hostile attitude.

Those who do not want to free themselves from sin but want to remove this negative manifestation of sin in their emotions and behavior, will tend to use mechanism of rationalization. This means that our "enemy" should be represented in such a way that he, with his hostile attitude, is not considered to be an enemy anymore. With this trick we can avoid the negative experiences representing a temptation for a man in the state of sin. That is how this defensive mechanism of rationalization works.

The psychologist would counsel:

"Try to understand this man in order to accept him the way he really is. He is not guilty! Who knows how difficult the circumstances were, in which he had grown up. Maybe, when he was a little child, his mother used to punish him on his head!"

Religious advice would be a little different:

"You should comprehend that God lives in him as he lives in you, so you can't hit him back because he would hit even the part of you that lives in him! Your essential problem is ignorance. The perfect peace is hidden in the cognition of the fact that God is in everything!"

So, we are trying to explain and understand to rationalize the idea of ourselves and the others in such a way that it does not represent an unwanted temptation. But this only means that we will remove the occasion for the manifestation of our sinful nature but not sin itself. In their essence all psychological answers on human psychological problems are based upon removal of the reason (complexes, traumas, frustrations ...) instead of the cause (the sin). The reason (provocation) is not the cause. (Psychologists remove the reasons and the psychiatrists the symptoms of the problems). In order to become aware of the cause (root) of the very problem we need a real criterion which will show that the cause itself is bad, instead of the superficial criteria which will lead us to take reasons and symptoms as problems, which should be solved. The required criterion is the moral law of God. It defines our sinning state as the which is bad in and of itself.
 

When, at the beginning of my Christian experience, someone asked me: "How do you imagine God when you pray? What does He look like?", I felt surprised and confused. Surprised, because I didn't imagine God at all, and confused because I didn't notice the lack of faith. When I asked the same question to some persons with rich spiritual experience, I realized that not one of them imagines God. Soon I found the answer in the Bible:

"Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:13-14)

We do not have a need to imagine God because He Is. Do we have a need to imagine ourselves as we walk on the street, while walking on the street? No! There is no need, because we really do it. If we have a need to imagine God, it shows that we do not know Him, that we do not have a relationship with Him. And we are seriously tempted to form an invented faith, in an invented god.

Many people are afraid of realization of real relation with God. They fear that high notion of His goodness and justice would rebuke them for their sins, and humiliate them before their loftiness. They try to create an image of God which won't disturb their conscience, which won't make them feel responsible and obliged.

That is how they try to escape from God who Is, so they imagine god with whom they'll awake feeling of happiness, safety and power for themselves. What they do not have in their essential being, they try to compensate in the area of experiences and feelings. In their religiousness they provoke their feelings by religious-magical rituals, or misusing pictures, statues or music, meditating or maybe something else. They keep adding something of their own between God and themselves, which will give them psychological security (They do not make difference between spiritual and psychological).

Our relation with God can be manifested in our feelings, but it should never be based on them, because then it turns into perfidious form of idolatry. Man's relation with idols is always based on feelings, while relationship of man and God is based on faith. If we are not satisfied with simple faith, but look for feelings as its affirmation, it proves that we do not have a real relationship with God. Faith based on feelings is pure selfishness (toward God).

If we stick to instruction of God's Word, we will avoid temptations that lay between God's face and ours, and which are therefore an obstacle in establishing a relationship with God. It is impossible to form an imagined faith in God if we accept Him the way He is discovered in the Bible, because He does not fulfill basic psychological conditions to be able to have a role of an idol.

Man could never invent such God, because He does not suit dispositions of his sinful nature. Man is not only unable to invent Him, but such notion of God disturbs him very much. I think that every rational atheist psychologist, after reading these lines, if at all honest, would reconsider his atheistic attitudes. Because, if God was not invented, then He is real. Anyone who does not believe in real God, has to choose some false god, because there is nothing else he could choose. Only the real God can satisfy the thirst of our soul and free us from our need for having false gods. Only if our desires are deeply satisfied, we will be free from the need for feeling happy and secure.

Let's note how Jesus speaks of human nature:

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13)

When apostle Paul speaks of his nature, he says:

"I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:18-21)

As opposed to Biblical, other spiritual authorities sometimes have an unusual vision of a man and the salvation plan:

"This is the only way to achieve the goal; to say to ourselves and to all others that we are perfect. And while we continually repeat it, the strength will be coming. ... Let your body be imbued by this only idea: I am absolutely clean, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, radiant I which is being born and doesn't die." (Vivekananda)

"Repeat in your thoughts: I am not a body, nor intellect, no feelings... Body is covering of its own I which is clean and perfect. I am endless, unlimited, eternal core. I am always free, I am eternally present. I am who am." (S. Yesudian in "Yoga and health")

If I am not my body, then the sins of my body do not make me loose my basic moral value. And why is this important to me? Because with this "trick" I try to substitute the lack of the real love for myself and others.

I must find some value to love people, because with my selfish love I can't accept them the way they are (sinful and guilty). That value I find in their "divine essence".

That's how I can justify everyone, and forgive everyone in order to love them:

"That murderer and criminal is essentially very good person. Only, this goodness is very deep in his being so it can not be seen. He is not bad, only his body is - but it is only the covering of his perfect being!"

Sri Cinmoj say:

"Now you love your child unlimited. After a meditation of few years you are going to love it much more, because you are going to feel a presence of God in it. Now you do not feel all the time the presence of God in your child. If the child break something you are angry and say: 'No this is not the God, but devil!' The time will come when you see only the God in your son, whatever he do or say." (Meditation, 127)

"Then we are going to serve to everybody, because we know and feel that God is in it. If we do not see the God, truth or light in our actions, our physical mind is not going to be convinced in value of everything we are doing. Today we are going to serve to somebody, but tomorrow we are going to say: 'Oh, he is a real fool. He does not have a nice characteristics. Why would I serve to him?'" (Meditation, 179)

We must have in mind Jesus' example. He didn't have a forgiving attitude forward the sinners in order to be able to love them but because he loved them. We shouldn't try to understand people to be able to love them, but understand them because we do love them.

If we have to find some cause for loving someone, it does not only show that our love is selfish, it reveals that we think that God loves us with selfish love. We think that God looks for some values in us, to be able to love us, and then we think that the cause of His love for us is in our "divine essence" or some other attribute.

Many Christians think that God loves the whole world because He sees His children in everybody. But, Bible teaches us that all the people are not God's children (1 John 3:9-20, Romans 8:14), only those among people who make just and act in accordance with God's Spirit. But, still, God loves everybody.

"He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)

The cause why God loves us is not in us, but in Him; in His love.

By nature we are all sinful and guilty rebels. We are not worthy neither of God's love, nor salvation, and so we have not any value for which God could love us. We are worthy only because He already loves us.

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)

When we will love people with a real love we are going to accept them like they are. Only then we can help them, when we are aware of their sins and guilt, so when we are aware of their real spiritual needs.

Thinking that man can behave sinful and, at the same time to have correct (just) essence of hi being is nonsense "for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander" (Matthew 15:19). In human mind and feelings there are only reasons (occasion) for expressions of sin, which have origin deeply in the heart. If the heart is just it is not possible to hide a human goodness: "You are light for the world. It is not possible to hide a city which is sitting on a hill." (Matthew 5:14)

So, if we want to discover the real human being, if we want to find out is his nature divine or sinful, let's see how he acts while tempted. The condition is that we are watching a human being "following the path of least resistance" because we are interested in the reaction of his nature and not in the will. (The best example is to take a spontaneous reaction of an "sinless" child who does not have defense mechanism). Then we are going to see that a human being is influenced by pleasant and unpleasant events and acts spontaneously with sin (selfishness and worrying) instead with love (grace and goodness). Human being acts with something he has inside. If the human nature were divine, then temptation would build and would not humiliate his character. There would be love and not sin in his heart from birth.

"Therefore, brothers, we shouldn't live by following our human nature. If you do, you will die. If you use the Spirit to kill the evil deeds of the body, you will live. All people who are being led by God's Spirit are sons of God." (Romans 7:12-14)

Sin limits man's ability to correct understanding of spiritual notions. In different religions' concepts we meet the same spiritual notions but they are differently explained, so mutual similarities have only formal nature.

LOVE

Many sorts of selfishness (egoism, idolatry, nationalism, ...) as well as the fanaticism of feelings (being in love, false spiritual experiences) are called love.

True love is defined as spiritual state which is in accordance with God's moral law:

"Love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10)

SIN

The notion that the majority of people have about sin does not surpass the one accepted by the members of the Satanic church:

"Sin is not sin in case it is expressed in natural way and in case it does not destroy other people." (A.S. La Vejv)

Holy Bible defines sin as breaking God's moral law:

"Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." (1 John 3:4)

HAPPINESS

People usually think of happiness as of a pleasant event, and also pleasant experiences. We concluded before that to feel happiness and to be happy is not the same. Feeling happy can not satisfy the thirst of soul. Outer happiness has no sense if we are still unhappy. Only God can satisfy desires of our heart. Criterion of real happiness (or our satisfaction) is in motivations that move us. And they are defined in God's moral law.

FREEDOM

The idea of freedom is usually considered as freedom of expressing our own thoughts, feelings and actions. But, it has no meaning if those thoughts, feelings and actions are under the rule of inner limits. Spiritual freedom is more important than outer freedom.

One is in spiritual bondage as long as there is must. And must lasts as long as he is essentially discontent. He must seeks happiness. Only if the desires of our heart are already satisfied - we are free. Then everything we do, we do because we are happy, out of happiness, and not in order to be happy.

MEANING

"I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, man's delight. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:8-11)

The meaning of his existence a man sees in the seeking of the happiness, and the meaning of the existence of other people, things and creatures as well as God, he usually sees as the answer to his selfish motivations. When he finally realizes that the life does not fulfill his anticipated picture of the meaning, he in his desperation thinks of suicide. It looks as if he wants to say by that:

"God, you did not give me the meaning of my existence!

I do not have my place under the Sun! I do not have anything of my existence and efforts and nothing of your love!"

But, the question which that person tries to suffocate and which is posed by his own consciousness, is as follows: "And what did you do for this world to be nicer and better? If the darkness is all around you why are not you the light to the world? ... If you are seeking the happiness in life, you will be disappointed! You are created to have it in God and to give it to others and not to want it from others!"

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools." (Psalm 84:5-6)

Everything that is created has only one purpose of it's existence, which is to love, to serve and with its goodness to reveal and glorifies God.

"And whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:44-45)

However, in the state of sin we are not capable to offer anything more than our misery, our discontent. What we call the meaning of life is only an excuse for our selfish and self justified motives of behavior.

God wants to reveal to us the truth about himself. By His Holy Spirit He affects our intellect, heart and conscience to enable us to recognize spiritual truth in spiritual notions.

However, we choke the work of the Holy Spirit when we assign to spiritual notions the meaning that does not belong to it, and deny what belongs to it. So the idea that we have about God reveals our real relations to Him.

What idea has an atheist about God? He believes that God does not exist. It is the most apparent human attempt to avoid meeting with one's life responsibility. Maybe we understand it hard?! Just because we are afraid of meeting with our life responsibility!

Let us suppose to have a small child committed to be cared about. The child contained enormous potentials. It could have become a great blessing for this world. But, by our irresponsible behavior we deteriorated his powers to act for good. We made his life senseless and he does not have attributes for which he could be immortalized eternally. Are we not responsible for what was committed to us to take care of?

God committed us to care about and build our life, our own abilities and powers, time and possibilities by our choice to immortalize it for eternity or humiliate it to death. Are we not responsible for ourselves before Him who gave life to our souls? And naturally we want to hide us from His face. We need His approval, but we are afraid of facing our (ir)responsibility. We fear of being proclaimed our own killers. For this reason we are trying to forget Him, and when we do not succeed in doing so, then to destroy Him. Sometimes we fought against Him whom we claimed to be non-existing. It's easier to believe in mother-nature than in God Father, because mother-nature is impersonal and before her we are irresponsible.

Perhaps we were by revealing of the truth "forced" to recognize God as a person, but we are still not re conciliated with Him. Then we continue to distort the idea about Him, but on another level:

We try to present His character in such a light in which we would not recognize ourselves as culprits. We distort Him attributing to Him our own moral values.

When we talk about God's love we present it as affectionate sentimentality that does not distinguish good and evil. We interpret it as God's readiness to satisfy our selfish motives.

Our hearts are not happy about revealed God's light, magnitude and righteousness, which we find in God's Word. These are for us "dark" parts of the Bible. We fear descriptions of God's righteousness and God's law. Why they do not make us happy? For we, because of our compromise with sin, are still under their condemnation.

The presence of guilt caused by sin manifests also in those philosophies which quite deny its existence. So Sai Baba says:

"The cause of mass unrest among people is in their non having a right idea about their nature. Never name yourself a sinner or a culprit!"

How could people lose their peace if they really had it, if they were really morally right?

We can lose peace only if it is apparent, if we recognize ourselves in the notion "sinner". Real peace is not based on some belief or opinion, but on the real cleanliness of heart and intentions.

Sai helped us to understand that the cause of mass unrest among people is just in their guilt caused by sin. Sai helped us to understand one mechanism of defense against guilt. He presented us a system of choking and sublimation of guilt. How does that trick function?

In order not to be able to recognize themselves as culprits, many distortedly present their nature, as if they are not sinners in the depth of their souls, but their core is righteous (divine). So Sai Baba says:

"Love your work even if they hate you, for in your nature is to love and forgive."

With unclear conscience caused by his sins, one is prone to choke by imitation of his own righteousness. Selfish and self-righteous motives spring from his heart. He wants to legalize them as a spark of deity in himself. He tries to build up a nice opinion about himself and his motives. But, if he were lit by the light of God's face, he would understand that all his justice is dirty clothes. He would understand that it is in conflict with Christ's justice and that it is an enemy to the latter.

Those who are characterized by guilt-choking systems are prone to use euphemisms. It is a phenomenon of using notions that does not contain category of responsibility in its meaning. It reveals one's immaturity for facing one's own responsibility.

For instance, thieves instead of the term theft often use the term borrowing. Irresponsible politicians instead of the term strike use the term work stop, and instead of crisis - complex state etc.

When the use of euphemisms manifests on the spiritual level, it reveals spiritual pathology. Such persons, burdened with their self- righteousness, do not dare to use the term sin but saying error. Instead of lost they use the term imperfect, instead of salvation - enlightenment, or higher degree of spiritual development and instead of guilt which term do they use? None! That's just what they are trying to escape from. About guilt they are mainly silent, but it's visible in them. Together with pride, that is to many the main strength of their "spirituality".

Without Jesus' blood they succeed to get rid of the feeling of guilt, but not of the guilt itself. It remains and continues to be manifested in their lives and their philosophy of life. If they really had peace they would not be burdened anymore by the realization of "a higher degree of spiritual development".