If we seek the answer to the ques­tion of why someone chooses athe­ism, fun­da­ment­al­ist views, an authen­t­ic reli­gi­os­ity or even an enlightened spir­itu­al­ity as his basic intel­lec­tu­al stance, then our sus­pi­cion must fall on the qual­ity and quant­ity of spir­itu­al vir­tues and exper­i­ences of the spir­it, and on the pres­ence or absence of a state of grace. As long as con­scious awaken­ing looks only upon the won­ders of the world, it will live under the world's spell and find its joy there. If the prop­er pre­par­a­tion is there, it is easy to believe; if it is not, one eas­ily begins to believe in one's own unbe­lief. Every­one chooses his spir­itu­al nour­ish­ment accord­ing to his inner inclin­a­tion, and will feel at home in the place that suits him. If people live without vir­tue, faith is lost to them – a reas­on­able explan­a­tion, but a ter­rible pro­spect… or rather a dread­ful present. An emin­ent mas­ter of recent times, Swami B. R. Srid­har, a respec­ted teach­er of the Bengali Vaish­nava tra­di­tion, writes:

A man awakens as a res­ult of his pre­vi­ously accu­mu­lated pious deeds, his inner read­i­ness to adapt, and the divine grace that des­cends upon him. A cer­tain attrac­tion arises in him, and thanks to this attrac­tion he finds the envir­on­ment that suits him. He chooses his sur­round­ings accord­ing to his inner inclin­a­tion. He will be guided by his attrac­tion and led by his intu­ition. Intu­ition works on the mater­i­al plane and in the godly life alike – it is the soul's as yet undis­covered inner tend­ency, which will do the work of selec­tion, of leav­ing old ideas behind and accept­ing new ones. (Swami B. R. Srid­har: The Golden Stair­case 4. Trial, Taste, Tri­umph)

When devi­ation becomes the main­stream, the devi­ant becomes the nor­mal, and the nor­mal becomes the devi­ant. The state of con­scious­ness and mor­als of our time would have been unthink­able in, say, the Goth­ic age: that people should not believe in God, that their faith should not determ­ine their view of the world and their con­duct, that they should not strive for etern­al life in the world bey­ond? Meas­ured against the main­stream think­ing and world­view of that time, this would have been a pat­tern of beha­viour so devi­ant as to be incom­pre­hens­ible, just as it is to a good many thinkers today that one should shape one's own life by faith. In cer­tain ages and cul­tures reli­gion is the main­stream, and athe­ism the devi­ant. At other times this pro­por­tion seems to be reversed, and what had until then been an aber­ra­tion – namely the deni­al of God – now occu­pies the place of the respect­able main­stream, and who­ever still believes is classed as a piti­able wan­der­er gone astray, or even as a dan­ger­ous dis­sid­ent hos­tile to the sys­tem, and is branded a devi­ant. But as is well known, there are no athe­ists on a fall­ing plane…

It may be that the concept and prac­tice of reli­gi­os­ity must be cleansed of the faults, errors and trap­pings that have built up on it. Let us not con­fuse ideo­lo­gic­al dis­tor­tions with pure tran­scend­ence, human weak­nesses with divine real­ity, blind­ness with enlight­en­ment, phys­ics with meta­phys­ics! Let us judge reli­gion and faith not in the dark­ness of his­tory's shad­ow, but in the pure light of full enlight­en­ment!

There­fore the renewed reli­gion above reli­gions must be an abid­ing spir­itu­al exper­i­en­cing, afforded by a coher­ent sys­tem based on a true recog­ni­tion of the fun­da­ment­al prin­ciples of exist­ence, con­scious­ness and bliss – an exper­i­en­cing foun­ded on man's highest intel­lec­tu­al fac­ulties, sup­por­ted by per­son­al insights and inner real­isa­tions, con­clus­ively con­firmed by its effect­ive applic­a­tion to the prac­tic­al needs of life, and in accord with the norms of the sac­red tra­di­tion.