Follow Jesus Christ

Any religion, Christianity included, is a set of dogmas and rules: imperatives and prohibitions. “A dog on a leash” is a very apt illustration of how religion works. Any believer is, figuratively speaking, the dog, and religion is the leash that grants a certain freedom but at the same time restricts it. A household dog left to itself can run and do whatever it likes within a certain area, but as soon as it tries to go beyond the bounds set by religion, the leash tightens and prevents movement. Inner contradictions arise in the person’s psyche, and, aware of the transgression, he stops and returns to the “allowed zone.” If there is no leash, the dog does whatever it wants and often becomes “wild,” running off into the wilderness.

Now turn our gaze to the person who holds the leash. This is, so to speak, a higher person. They are clearly intellectually superior to the dog. Here lies a genuine existential problem, connected to the difference between higher and lower minds. The dog’s problem (again, figuratively) is its animal mind. It follows its instincts and does not always understand what it is doing. The being that holds the leash has nothing in common with dog instincts: of course it understands the dog, knows what it can do, knows the full range of needs of its beloved animal, but this being is immeasurably, qualitatively above the animal—just as a human is above a dog.

The problem is how the mind of the dog on the leash can become comparable to the mind of a more developed being, that is, how it can ascend to a higher level of awareness. Some will say there is no need to move to a new level, that a person who is saved and given eternal life already possesses all rights and достоинства [virtues/privileges]. But can a being with a low, imperfect mind and heart truly exist in eternity surrounded by angels or by the infinite God Himself? That is problematic. Lower human instincts have no place in heaven. What if natural instincts, fears, and delusions make up, say, fifty percent of a Christian’s consciousness? How to solve that problem: by surgically removing half the person’s personality? Or by totally replacing the earthly mind? Then not much of the old person would remain. Let us leave to God the right to decide what to do with His creatures. Still, it should be mentioned that Jesus once explained the possibility of transforming the “dog’s heart.”

The core of Jesus’ Gospel is the right and real possibility for every person to become like the angels and even God Himself through spiritual rebirth and growth. Jesus said that a person will live in heaven like the angels; that one must strive for the absolute perfection of the Heavenly Father; that a slave of sin cannot receive eternal life, and that it is received only by an exalted “son of God.” Jesus’ heaviest conflict on earth was precisely with the “servants of religion,” who presented salvation as the fruit of total obedience—being on God’s “short leash.” Jesus taught that obedience alone is not enough. As a natural creature, a person will always err, fall, and need external control. As long as there is someone holding the leash (God / an angel / the Law / fear / judgment), the person remains at the level of the animal—albeit a “religious animal.” To be compatible with eternity, one must cease to be an object of governance and become a subject, equal in level—to move from external obedience to ontological likeness. This is not merely “obedience,” but a transformation of one’s very mode of being. And this is precisely what Jesus called for in his teaching.

The idea of the “dog on a leash” has always been present in Christianity. For example, Athanasius the Great taught that “God became man so that man might become God”—not a submissive slave or a dog, but a sharer in the divine nature. In Eastern theology, salvation is not a juridical forgiveness, as in Protestantism or Catholicism. There, salvation is a change of ontological level; it is healing, deification. As long as a person remains a “fallen nature on a leash,” he is not yet saved but only restrained. It is not surprising that thoughts of this level were never fully grasped by ordinary people. In Western theology Meister Eckhart said, “As long as a man seeks God outside himself, he has not found Him,” or: “Where I am what I was in God before creation, there is neither obedience nor command.” Eckhart explicitly denied an eternal “subordinate state.” He held that religion is needed temporarily, that fear, law, and control are merely pedagogy, and that the final aim of the spiritual life is the identity of God and man in the level of being.

Therefore the conclusion is paradoxically simple. The leash of religion is neither a curse nor salvation, but merely a transitional tool—like crutches for those who have not yet learned to walk. But crutches are not eternal. The goal is not to remain forever a trained animal at God’s feet, but to become a being capable of walking alongside, acting freely and consciously without coercion. Christ did not call us to become trained dogs—He revealed the way of transformation, of becoming and growing in spirit. And at some decisive moment the choice will sound with utmost clarity: either we remain creatures who require external control, or we dare to become free, godlike, mature. Religion restrains, but the Gospel invites to flight: from the leash to consciousness, from submission to participation in the very Divine being.