| Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, Northern Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Saivism, Saktism, Christianity and Islam all
belong to this stage. All of them regard God as a Personality whose qualities are revealed
to the loving hearts of the worshippers either independently or through the medium of a
prophet, savior, Avatar or Bodhisattva. Finally, when loving worship is followed by an
inner union, a stage is reached in which God may be regarded not only as an object of
devotion, but also as an inward light. This stage
gives rise to the so-called mystical religions or rather the secret doctrines in all great
religions. Vedantic Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christian Mysticism and Islamic Sufism belong
to this stage. Thus the order of development of the religious consciousness in men is, as
it were, recorded in the prevailing religions of the world and gives us a principle by
which we may classify them thus:-
- Primitive Religions
- Ethical Religions,
- Theistically Religions
- Mystical Religions. But these are only types, No
historical religion is ever exclusively ethical or exclusively theistically or exclusively
mystical.
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