Adi
Da Books
Online——Adi
Da Audio Online—
The Dogmas of Social Morality Versus The Esoteric
Spiritual Teaching That Is At The Origin of Traditional
Religions (sections 1 – 2) (pages 55 – 65) THE ALETHEON (Final Ruchira-Sannyasin-Order-Authorized
Edition) – Author: Adi Da Samraj THE DOGMAS OF SOCIAL MORALITY VERSUS THE ESOTERIC SPIRITUAL TEACHING THAT IS AT THE ORIGIN OF TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS 1. The principal Scripture (or holy book) of the tradition
of the Western “world is the New
Testament. The New Testament communicates
principles and ideas and beliefs that, more than those
communicated by any other book, are responsible for
conventional Western ideas about religion and
Spiritual life. Although Western culture includes
religious traditions other than Christianity,
the dominant religious text which, in the West,
tends to inform all popular notions about
religion and Spirituality is the New
Testament. If you grew up in the Western (and predominantly
Christian) cultural sphere, you are perhaps influenced by
the New Testament more than by any other
religious book. Even if you are not very
familiar with the New Testament, you have
(nevertheless) been impressed, over the years, with certain
conventions of religious presumption of which
the New Testament is the source. The conceptions
associated with the traditional interpretation of the
New Testament are not only part of the
religious teaching of Christian churches, but
part of Western culture in general. Through your schooling,
through your childhood religious training, and
through the influence of those with whom you were associated
as a childeven though they might not have spoken of
religionyou have been greatly influenced
by these conceptions, some of which are directly
communicated in the New Testament itself and
others of which are simply traditions that are, by
extension, associated with New Testament
religion. Everyone is dominated, to one or another degree, by
conceptions of life that have their origin in exoteric
religious culture. Even though scientism (or
scientific materialism) is tending to displace exoteric
religion as a way of knowing,
exoteric religion still tends to be the basis
for present-day morality and social conceptions. In fact,
exoteric religion has traditionally always been
associated with moral and social conceptions. Thus, if you
are, by birth, a Westerner, and even if you were not brought
up as a Christian, you have, since your birth, been exposed
to propaganda that is, at least in its origins, both
conventionally religious and specifically
Christian. And the basic intention of all such
conventionally religious propaganda has been to
convince youand, thus, the collective of
everyonethat certain kinds of behaviors are
appropriate and other kinds of behaviors are not
appropriate. Every present-day legal systemand even the entire
body of social contracts by which people are related in
their daily liveshas its justification in the
tradition of exoteric religion. Therefore, in a
time when the legitimacy of exoteric religion as
a way of knowing is being undermined by
scientism, so (likewise) is the political and social order
simultaneously being undermined by scientism. This is not
only a time when individuals are moving from exoteric (and,
thus, collectively enforced) religious ways of
knowing toward materialistic and secular and
even individualistic ways of knowing, but this
is also a time when society as a whole is becoming corrupted
and made chaotic by those same tendenciesand,
therefore, new political forces are arising in immediate
coincidence with the new cultural forces. Human beings are more and more impinged upon by the
forces of political materialismwhile, at the same
time, they are impinged upon culturally by the forces of
scientific materialism. The way of knowing in a
culture cannot be changed unless the way of keeping order is
changed at the same timeand Western society has kept
order for many centuries through exoteric
religious belief, exoteric religious
presumptions, and exoteric religious conventions
of behavior. If, all of a sudden, exoteric religion is
discovered to be untrue, and if, as a
replacement for the point of view of exoteric
religion, the point of view
communicated through scientific materialism dominates the
present culture, then the traditional justifications for
so-called moral behavior have, as a consequence,
been abandonedand not yet replaced with a viable
public alternative. Therefore, how will the necessary public
order be maintained? A new political force is, under the
circumstances, required, to replace the moral programs of
exoteric religion. Thus, all kinds of political
idealisms arose in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuriesrevolutionary ideas, communistic ideas,
egalitarian ideas, socialistic ideas, capitalistic ideas,
all kinds of political experimentingthe basic purpose
of which is to keep people in order, to keep material
production going, to maintain public peace, to make life
somehow acceptable to the people, so that the people will
not rise in revolt, or go mad, or create chaos. The rise of new political idealisms is coinciding with
the new cultural circumstance, and not only is all of this
dominant in the West but it is, likewise, dominant all over
the Earthwhich is now everywhere
Westernized, both East and West. This change in
the orientation of the mind of humankind has gradually been
developing since the Renaissance era in Western (European)
culture. The conventions of human orientation began to
change in the period of the Western Renaissancefrom a
sacred orientation to an orientation to the human
individual, from Deity-centeredness to ego-centeredness,
from ecstasy and sainthood to Narcissism and
ego-possession, from sacred culture to secular culture, from
a dominantly right-brained culture to a now dominantly
left-brained culture. As this transformation has occurred in the
world, the ancient cultural supports have lost
their legitimacy. This does not mean that the ancient
exoteric religious cultural supports did not
have anything to do with what is right. Those exoteric
religious supports were, in a rudimentary (and
Reality-objectifying) sense, based upon the
general (and, in principle, right and positive) intention to
make life sacred. It is simply that the ancient exoteric
modes of the objectification of Reality have
(themselves) nowand rightlylost their legitimacy
in peoples minds. However, as a result of that change
of mind, the principle of the sacred (or of the
understanding and managing of life based upon the intrinsic
Truth of universal prior unity) has alsoand not at all
rightlybeen lost. A way of thinking that had only secondary importance in
the ancient world has now become dominant.
Human-centeredness has become the acceptable convention of
mind. Human knowing is now devoted to analytical
reductionism, or the process of reducing everything to the
individual human being, to human processes, to humankind in
the lowest, most rudimentaryor materialsense.
Many social and cultural enterprises remain valuable, with
the potential to improve the condition of humanity, yet a
profoundly destructive (materialistic, analytical,
disunitary, and anti-sacral) philosophical enterprise is
also operative at the same time. It is this latter
development that I Criticize. Science as a conditional method of enquiry,
as an effective practical method of
investigation for the sake of acquiring natural
knowledge (and subsequent power to control
natural conditions of existence), is, obviously, legitimate.
Yet, science, from the beginning, has also (and otherwise)
been associated with the ego-centered orientation (and,
thus, with the fixed point of view perspective)
and, altogether, with the ancient (conventional and naive)
philosophy of materialismand it has, on that basis,
also been associated with the arising of co-emerging
political movements. Present-day humankind is being both
culturally and politically controllednot only by
science itself (which has an inherent, but also inherently
limited, legitimacy), but also by the philosophy of
materialism (which is inherently ignorant, gross, merely
analytical, de-constructive, reductionistic, exclusivistic,
and naively oppressive). And, as science and the philosophy
of materialism progressively exclude all other forms of
knowing, human beings are becoming more and more
dominated by political materialismor the forces that
are keeping order independent of sacred (or unitive)
consciousness and authority. This is not to say that the cultural means whereby order
was kept in the past were entirely benign. Exoteric
religious authority is not necessarily (or even
characteristically) associated with anything that has
remotely to do with the Truth, or with Reality Itself, or
with Divine Self-Realization, or even with the transcending
of egoity. In the Western world particularly, the
institutional (or corporate) authority of the
exoteric Christian Church has been the principal means
whereby the State creates political and social order. Now
that the State is associated with scientific materialism and
not with religious doctrine, the State must find
other means for creating order. Thus, the State is,
generally speaking, no longer basing its own (corporate)
authority on the (corporate)
authority of the official Church.
And, for the most part (even though some still cling,
nostalgically, to the old days, of obedience to
corporate exoteric religious authority), people
are no longer politically and socially controlled (or,
otherwise, willing to be controlled) by exoteric
religious authorityat least, not
sufficiently to keep order. In its origins, what later became institutionalized (or
corporate, and official)
Christianity was a small cult (or sect) of
cultural outsiders, with its inner
circle associated with an esoteric Spiritual teaching.
Outwardly, however, in its public preaching, even that
essentially esoteric sect was associated with more general
religious and social principlesand,
through the process of that public preaching, people were
gradually brought into the inner core of the esoteric life
of the sect. In the early centuries of the Common Era, there
were, everywhere, many sects which were (fundamentally)
esoteric sectsto one degree or another revolutionary
(or of a critical, or outsiders,
disposition) in relation to the religious
exotericism of the official religion of the
public institutions and the then-current political
conventions of the State. After about three centuries (by which time much of the
esoteric Spiritual basis of the original
pre-Christian sect had been lost), the Emperor
(Constantine) engineered the cultural-historical shift that
formally established the dogmatic basis for the
institutionalizing of an official version of
(exclusively exoteric) Christianity, and that eventually
(within a few decades) resulted in that exoteric institution
of (thus dogmatically defined) Christianity becoming the
official religion of the Roman State. Since that
time, either official (exoteric) Christianity
has functioned as an arm of the State, or (otherwise) the
State has, in some sense, functioned as an arm of the
official (exoteric) Christian Church. As
centuries passed, the relationship between Church and State
changedsuch that the exoteric Christian Church now
plays a remarkably different role, and is gradually being
excluded, having lost its previous presumed legitimacy and
public authority. However, the exoteric Christian Churchs loss of
power in the political and social realms is a relatively
recent development. With the original union between
official Christianity and the State of Rome,
Christianity became the force whereby political and social
order was developed and maintained in the Western
world. To maintain order (and not Truth) was its
function as an institution. Obviously, such an institution
is not intended to be communicating esoteric teachings to
the massessince esoteric communications are intended
to serve the higher, and greater, and (characteristically)
Spiritual or (otherwise) Transcendental purposes of
Truth-Realization (in the case of, necessarily, more mature
people, who have already out-grown the boundaries of merely
exoteric, or public, schooling). Because
esoteric teachings take off where exoteric teachings have
come to a developmental end, esoteric communications do not
tend to enforce political and social order. On the contrary,
esoteric (and, generally, ecstatic) teachings tend not to
bring about a conventional political and social
orderbecause esoteric teachings presume a prior (or
already achieved) state of order, at least within the heart
and mind and life of the individual esoteric
practitioner. As a case in point, Jesus of Galilee3 proclaimed an
ecstatic, esoteric Spiritual message. His message was not a
program for bringing order to politics and general
societynor was such order the purpose of the earliest
institutionalized Christians, who were purposed to
religious devotion (and even to mystical life),
and who were, in any case, in no position to command the
State of Rome. Because their guiding purpose was not of this
world (and, therefore, of no political use as a tool
of social order), Rome regarded the early Christians as
enemiesand the early Christians were persecuted by the
State, as various other (similarly unusable)
religious sects were. But when the Christians
eventually came into power as the official
authority, those features of Christianity that are
oriented to the conventions of public (and altogether
exoteric) religionthe purpose of which is
to maintain political and social orderbecame the
dominant communication of official Christianity.
When that officialdom took hold of Christianity,
its otherwise more esoteric dimensionswhich were the
real (inner-circle) force at its
originwere systematically eliminated, primarily
because esoteric teachings have nothing to do with managing
either a great State or any kind of larger common social
entity (of ordinary, and, generally, immature, or only
exoteric-ready, and not at all esoteric-ready, people). A
religion that is to be the official
religion of a great State (or even any larger common
social entity) must be essentially exoteric, and, thus,
fundamentally oriented to maintaining social principles,
social morality, conventions of behavior that maintain
political and social order, and productive participation in
work life, and positive participation in the larger
collective of community life, and, altogether, universal
subordination to the parent-like State (and to the
parent-like official State-religion)
and, thus, universal conformity to the will of the
hierarchical political (and “religious)
authority (or authority-structure)
of the time. Therefore, the New Testament (and the
tradition of Christi-anity as a whole) must be seen in
relation to both the esoteric sect from which it arose and
the exoteric institution that largely replaced it (and even
all esotericism) with the systematic exotericism of ordinary
political and social purposes that has, traditionally, been
served by public corporate religion in the
Western world. 2. The New Testament has a long history of
interpretation. This scripture is interpreted anew by every
generation, in every time and place. Consequently, the
interpretations tend to reflect the mood, the state of mind,
or the leading (and generally characteristic) presumptions
of the time. However, as a general rule, all the traditional
interpretations of the New Testament tend to be
oriented toward the development of a politically defined
social consciousness. Thus, it could be said that, in terms
of its most common traditional interpretation, the New
Testament is a social (rather than an esoteric
Spiritual) gospel. The text of the New Testament
was originally compiled from (and, altogether, invented by)
a wide variety of sources, and it was constantly
propagandistically transformed over the centuries, always to
represent a point of view (and a message) that
is predominantly social and political in nature. The process of reducing the New Testament to
a social gospel began before institutional Christianity
became the official religion of Rome. The
process was certainly intensified when exoteric Christianity
became the official religion (and
authoritative religious corporation) of the
State, but even the process of gathering (and inventing) the
early materials and making a New Testament out
of them began early on, as the Christian cult became more
and more conscious of its conventional social
rolewhich is to keep order, to inspire people to be
civil in relation to one another, to function positively and
productively with one another, to live a conventionally
moral life, and, on that basis, to look forward to the
cults official conception of rewards after
death. Thus, even before it became an official
Church corporation, the cult (or newly emerging sect) of
Christianity was becoming more and more the servant of the
ordinary social (or worldly) life of its
members. As the Christian sect acquired more members,
assumed more responsibility, and had more social order to
create, it began to play the role of social enforcer more
and more exclusively. Thus, the newly emerging Christian
culture more and more embraced the very same limitations (of
exoteric official religiosity) that Jesus of
Galilee had himself criticized. Exoteric religion is primarily a
communication that intends to bring political and social
order to the public world. Exoteric
religion is primarily a social gospel. Esoteric
ecstatics, on the other hand, are very difficult to
controlin the usual (conventional) sense. It is
virtually impossible, for example, to interest ecstatics in
being socially productive for its own sake. Ecstatics
generally value the practice of being civil in relation to
other peoplebut it is very difficult to get them to
labor in factories and bureaucratic business organizations
merely for the sake of worldly success, or,
otherwise, to get them excited about the mundane purposes of
a great State! Therefore, exoteric religion
tends to eliminate all aspects of “religious
communication that suggest anything but how to be a
productive and positive social personality. To reinforce
these qualitiesand even to suppress ecstatic
qualitiesis the guiding purpose of exoteric
religion. Even though Christianity is, in its origins, an esoteric
movement, it was reduced to an exclusively exoteric
religion as it became more expansive and
eventually achieved the status of the official
(or politically enforced) State-religion of the
West. Christianity thus became an exoteric (or
conventionally social) institution, and it reduced the
teaching of Jesus of Galilee to a social gospel. The result
is that now everybody commonly assumes that, since the
New Testament is, historically, the primary
religious influence in the Western
world, religion is supposed to be a
social gospel, and Jesus must (therefore) have taught a
merely social gospel. In this late-time (or dark
epoch)when even all cultures are being moved toward
the way-of-knowing represented by scientific
materialism, and all cultures are losing their sacred basis
for order, and are tending to be dominated (more and more)
by the forces of political materialismthe interpreters
of the religious texts of cultures other than
the culture of the West are, likewise, moving more and more
toward an exoteric interpretation of esoteric teachings.
India, for example, has, since the later nineteenth century,
been undergoing a kind of renaissance of Hinduism. The
Bhagavad Gita is a principal text in this movement in
Indiaand one of the dominant tendencies of current
interpretation conceives the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita
as a kind of social gospel. In other words, the Bhagavad
Gita is, now, publicly interpreted as a source of exoteric
instruction about how to live the way of good
works, rather than the mystically interiorized
esoteric way of life that is characteristic of traditional
Indian Spirituality. Thus, the Bhagavad Gitawhich, in its origins, is an
esoteric teaching about Spiritual and Transcendental
Realizationis being used, more and more, to support a
cultural, political, and social movement of an exoteric
kind. In this manner of religious interpretation
within the Indian cultural sphere, the Bhagavad Gita is
being interpreted (and, thus, used) in a manner that is very
similar to the traditional exoteric interpretation (and even
the earliest exoteric inventing) of the New
Testament in the West. To the degree that they are religious at all,
people all over the Earth now commonly conceive of
religion as a kind of social message. It is
commonly presumed that religion is reducible to
a kind of humanismeven a kind of atheistic humanism
(or a humanity-centered, rather than Deity-centered,
positive social life)or, at least, that
religion is totally compatible with the
world-oriented, humanity-oriented,
socially-oriented propaganda of the time. You are constantly TVd into the
presumption that you are born for the sake of being born,
that you are born into this world for the sake
of this world. The presumption conveyed by TV
(or the pervasive conventional mentality) is that life is an
end-in-itself, and one is supposed to be enthusiastically
involved with things of this world. Luckily (so
the usual person presumes), there is science, technology,
and a certain amount of freedomand, therefore, it is
possible to be rightly enthusiastic about conditional
existence. People have a great deal of hope that, during
their lifetime, they will achieve more and more pleasure,
leisure, and fulfillment of their human functions. All over
the Earth now, everyone is being propagandized into social
consciousness, the positive social gospel that is now coming
from the realms of scientific materialism and its political
arms around the world. If current secularizing
trends continue, sacred texts such as the New
Testament and the Bhagavad Gita are in danger of
becoming obsolete. If that occurs, then positive and
enthusiastic social principles or ideals will, more and
more, be communicated all over the Earth completely
independent of any kind of religious
authorityand, of course, entirely removed from
any kind of esoteric teachings. However, it is important to understand that the teachers
and the teachings that are at the origins of the true
scriptures of humankind (and of the various cultural
movements associated with those scriptures) are not of an
exoteric nature. Those teachers and teachings were not about
the social gospel which the State has traditionally looked
to religion to generate. If you understand the
real fundamental (and esoteric) teaching underlying the
New Testament and other traditional scriptures,
you will see that those scriptures are not exoteric social
gospels at all. Rather, those scriptures are esoteric
communications about transcending the egoic self
and the world and Realizing True Communion (and,
ultimately, egoless Self-Identification) with the Divine
Self-Condition. The social gospeland the socially positive
point of view that the State wants to generate
and to support by various meansis not at all about
transcending the world by Realizing the Divine
Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State of Reality
Itself. Likewise, that social gospel is not about
transcending the apparently individual self by
self-sacrifice in the Divine Self-Nature,
Self-Condition, and Self-State of Reality Itself. The State
is purposed to have people transcend their otherwise egoic
(or even Godward and ecstatic) inclinations by
means of productive work. In other words, the State likes
the ideal of individuals who are transcending
themselves by being devoted to the purposes of the
State. The State generally tolerates the large-scale
communication of religion only if the message is
exoteric (or socially oriented). The ideal must lead the
common individual to be a good social
personalitydoing his or her job, being honest, not
making trouble, not creating disorder, not being lazy. The State is not interested in any kind of teaching about
transcending the egoic self and the
world in Communion with the Divine Self-Nature,
Self-Condition, and Self-State of Reality Itself. The State
is not at all in that business, nor does the State like such
teachings. The Stateand its official cult
of the timedid not like Jesus of Galilee. One could
say that present-day official Christianity also
does not like Jesus of Galileeand for the same reason.
The official Church has never liked the ecstatic
Jesus, who taught everyone to be an ecstatic, like himself,
and so to transcend the selfish self and the
world (or the flesh) in the
Spiritual Divine. Nobody has ever really liked Jesus of
Galilee, except those people who are able to respond to the
Truth in Spiritual terms. Such people have always been
relatively rare. “The Dogmas of Social Morality Versus The Esoteric
Spiritual Teaching That Is At The Origin of Traditional
Religions (sections 3 – 4) (pages 66 – 75)” From THE
ALETHEON (Final Ruchira-Sannyasin-Order-Authorized Edition)
– Author: Adi Da Samraj The Dogmas of Social Morality Versus The Esoteric
Spiritual Teaching That Is At The Origin of Traditional Religions 3. If you are truly Transcendentally Spiritually Awakened,
then you intrinsically transcend the (apparently separate)
ego-self and the (apparently
objective) worldin every
moment. Even if the machine of the body-mind-complex is
active in one or another manneras it inevitably is,
because it is born in the frame of space and timeno
action need bind you in any manner whatsoever, if you will
rightly understand the nature of the
body-mind-self and the world, and if
you will practice life on the basis of that right
understanding. This is the logic of the teaching of Jesus of Galilee,
and (indeed) the logic of the teaching of all the great
Spiritual Adepts. The great Spiritual Adepts do not come
into the world merely to guarantee social order,
nor can their teachings rightly be reduced to a social
gospel. The teachings of Jesus of Galilee are not reducible
to the Ten Commandments and some sort of
socially positive emotion that is called
love. The conception of worksor performing
action for the sake of becoming holy, sinless,
deserving of heaven after death, happiness, fullness,
success while aliveis discussed in the New
Testament, just as it is discussed in the Bhagavad
Gita and other traditional scriptures. If you understand the
esotericism represented by such figures as Jesus and Krishna
(or by the essential teaching communicated by the texts in
which such figures are the principal characters), you will
see that no traditional scripture recommends the way of the
social-personality-for-its-own-sake. In other words, no true
traditional scripture is a merely social gospel, or a gospel
that (ultimately) is merely a justification for a positive
social personality whose salvation lies in
works, or the cultivation of positive behaviors.
In fact, the traditional scriptures (such as the New
Testament and the Bhagavad Gita) all teach the
transcending of bondage to works, the
transcending of the necessity (and the effects)
of all ordinary action. The society of the Jews at the time of Jesus of Galilee
was officially based on exoteric
religious laws. The Mosaic law, or the Ten
Commandments, was preeminentbut there were also
all kinds of other lawsincluding laws of the temple,
as well as many and various forms of conventional
religious belief and social morality that were
propagated by the various sects among the Jews. The Judaic
laws were, first of all, forms of intentional action, or
causes that produced culturally acceptable
effects. You were instructed about actions that
were appropriate for you in your stationactions that
would produce positive results. These became the laws, the
conventions of social morality, the behavioral rules and the
systems of behavior and action and idealism that were
associated with each of the social classes (or states of
life, birth, and social status). Jesus of Galilee was teaching Jewish people, in the
context of a society founded on the observance of a sacred
system of laws. In that social context, it was assumed that,
in general, people were going to act according to the laws
or conventions of behavior that were communicated in the
sacred culture. However, the great Spiritual teachers have
always called people to notice that the laws of sacred
culture tend to be misused and misappliedbecoming
(thereby) the basis for bondage rather than Divine
Realization, and the basis for unhappiness and seeking
rather than Spiritual Happiness and Freedom. Thus, the
New Testament does not merely teach the Mosaic
laws, or even a new and summary principle of social morality
that could be called love. In other words, the
New Testament is not merely teaching social
morality, via the idea of love as a general
social concept. Nor is the New Testament
teaching the Law of love-in-this-world for the
sake of this world merely. Rather, the New
Testamentat least in its underlying original
contentsis primarily teaching the esoteric Spiritual
Mystery of the Kingdom of God (or the
Divine domain). The fundamental teaching of Jesus of Galilee is about how
to enter, in every present moment, into the Spiritual
Condition of the Divine Reality, Which Is the
Source-Condition (or Matrix) of conditional self
and conditional Natureand such that there is the
inherent transcending of all sin (or all
separation from the Divine Spiritual Condition of Reality
Itself, or all bondage to mere causes and
effects). Thus, the esoteric method
(or the Way of right life, rather than the
corporate social and altogether exoteric
religion) that is the underlying practice
recommended in the New Testament
Gospelsand in all true scriptureis the release
of all clinging to separate self and
world, and the relinquishment of all seeking for
results of any kind, by means of a total bodily and lifetime
submission to the Spirit (or Pneuma,
or Breath)4 That Is the Divine Reality. Jesus
taught that, on the basis of always present
self-surrender into Spirit-Breathing
Spiritual Communion with the Divine Itself (or the Spiritual
Reality-Condition That Is Inherently Divine), you should
live as if you have been completely forgiven, and as if
there are no binding necessities or unhappy obligations, and
as if no sin is effective in your life. Thus, the fundamental principle underlying the New
Testament tradition is an esoteric principle. That
principle is the always-present transcending of conditional
self and conditional world via
ego-surrendering Spiritual Communion with the Divine
Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State of Reality
Itself. Most of the insti-tutional overlay of communication
in the New Testament is exotericsocially
oriented toward the world of public laws, the
world of ordinary purposive action, and the
world of commonplace relations. Yet, if you
examine the gospel stories, you will find evidence, here and
there, of the underlying esotericism that is the
root-teaching of Jesus of Galilee. Perhaps the primary example (or demonstration) of the
esoteric activity of Jesus of Galilee is the conversation
between Jesus and Nicodemus (in chapter three of the
Gospel of John). I will quote this passage to
you, from the translation in The Jerusalem Bible: There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a
leading Jew, who came to Jesus by night . .
.5 In other words, Nicodemus came secretly. He did not want
to be observedbecause the official
religion, like the State, is interested in exoteric
matters, which do not stimulate the populace,
and which do not (by any distracting means)
deter ordinary people from being merely socially positive
personalities. Nicodemus could have gotten in trouble for
coming to Jesus, who was associated with a message other
than the established dogma, for coming to hear a mysterious
message from a man who was doing mysterious things. Nicodemus . . . came to Jesus by night and said,
Rabbi,which is another word for
teacher, or Guru, in that
settingwe know that you are a teacher who comes
from God; for no one could perform the signs that you do
unless God were with him. Jesus answered: I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from
above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said, How can a grown man be born? Can he
go back into his mothers womb and be born again?
Jesus replied: I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born
through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God: what is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must
be born from above. The wind blows wherever it pleases; you
hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or
where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born
of the Spirit.6 This quotation is one of the principal summaries of
Jesus fundamental point of view. Jesus of
Galilee tells Nicodemus the secret teaching, the
teaching one could hear from Jesus only in secret, the
esoteric teachingnot merely the public message that
encourages everyone to be a more positive social character.
Nicodemus is receiving the secret teaching from
Jesus, the teaching for the inner circle. What is the secret teaching about? It is about the
Mystery of the Kingdom of God (or the
Divine domain)and the Kingdom of
God is esoterically interpreted to mean a
transformation of the individual from existence in the
flesh (or as an ego possessed by the
conventional purposes of this world) to
existence in and as the Living, Eternal, and Free
Transcendental Divine Spirit. The idea of the Kingdom of God already
existed in Israel before the reported time of Jesus of
Galileebut it was commonly conceived in terms of a
worldly destiny, and identified with a
religious, social, and political State
corporation, primarily made up of the righteous believers
among the Jews. The Kingdom was to be created in this
world by the God of the Jews through
a messiah, a Divine messenger, who would come into the
world and conquer all of the enemies of Israel
and establish Israel in peace and fullness, wherein all of
the laws again produce pleasurable and good results. Jesus of Galilee was reportedly teaching in a time when
this ideal, this prophecy of the Kingdom of God,
was already present. In the passage from the New
Testament that I just quoted, Jesus is teaching a
person from the temple, Nicodemus, who is well aware of the
prophecies of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is
saying that the Kingdom of God, or the
Divine domain, is not of this world.
It is not externally evident in this world, and
it is not to come in this worldexcept,
perhaps, as a natural expression of the Spiritual Awakening
of humankind as a whole. The Kingdom of God is a
Mystery about being bornor
Awakenedinto a state of Oneness with the Divine
Spirit-Breath. You can be born again in the Spirit, even
though you have already been born in the flesh. And that
which is born (or Awakened) in the Spirit is Spirit
Itself. Thus, the esoteric teaching of Jesus of Galilee is that
you must become the Divine Spirit-Breath. In other words,
you must become That Which Is Divine. You must enter into
the Domain, the Condition, the Kingdom, of the
Divinein this present moment. That is the process, the
Mystery, whereby a person can Realize the Truth that Jesus
came to teach. He did not teach about a worldly
kingdom that he would establish as a political messiah,
either now or in the future. Jesus is not coming again in
order to be the political messiahhe did not come the
first time in order to be a political messiah! The teaching
of Jesus is specifically about the transcending of that
expectation. Jesus taught about the Kingdom of
God as an esoteric Spiritual Mystery, not as a
convention of worldly seeking. Now, it is true that, if everyone did Spiritually enter
into the Kingdom of God, then, as time went on,
as history developed, the Divine Spirit would be more and
more effectiveand, eventually, perhaps something like
a non-utopian Divine Kingdom on Earth might appear. That
possibility is, indeed, latent in such instruction.
Nevertheless, Jesus point of view is
definitely that such a Kingdom will not come about by any
means other than a right life of Spiritual Communion with
the Divine Condition of Reality. Jesus is not merely coming
again to take over this failed world that
refuses to be born in the Spirit. The Spirit
cannot take over from outside. The Spirit is effective in
this world only through the esoteric process of
Spiritual Communionnot through mere belief, but
through worship of the Divine in Spirit, worship of the
Divine in Truth, until the flesh (or the
conditional ego-self and its world)
is utterly transcended in Spiritual Fullness. Jesus of Galilee was saying that the Kingdom of
God is Realizablebut not through social laws of
any kind, and not through any transformation or perfection
of conventional behaviors. In any case (as Jesus taught),
the purpose of the Kingdom of God does not
relate to this world. Rather, the Kingdom
of God is the Spiritual State of Utter Unity, or
Eternally Prior Oneness, with the Divine. And,
Jesus is saying, that Condition is Realizable now,
even under the rotten conditions here in
Israelor at any other time, and in any other
place. Such Realization is a matter of Awakening in
Spiritual terms. In other words, instead of clinging to
behavioral laws, beliefs, rituals, expectations, and
worldly inclinations, instead of depending on
the effects that you can create or that any
God-idea can create in terms of ordinary human
possibility, cling to the Spiritual Divinealways
presently. Enter into the Spiritual Divine, and Realize the
Spiritual Divine. In the passage that I just quoted, Jesus of Galilee is
clearly communicating something about the Nature of the
Divine. For Jesus, the Divine is not the abstract God
of our fathers, the God of rote belief in
the temple. For Jesus, the Divine Spiritual Condition of
Reality is the Divine Source-Condition (or One True
God) of the fathers (or the ancestors)not the
God-idea particular to any particular historical
time, but the Ever-Living Reality That Is Divine. The Living
Divine Is the Spirit-Breath of Reality. The Living Divine
Pervades the world and all beings As the
Spirit-Breath. Therefore, Spirit-Breath Re-Union with the
Living (or Inherently Spiritual) Divine Is the Kingdom
of God. In another passage, Jesus of Galilee says that the
Kingdom of God is not outside you but within
you7in other words, inherent in every moment of
existence. Thus, the Kingdom of God is inherent
in this moment of existence. The Kingdom of God
is not to be sought by any strategic means, not to be sought
outside yourself, not to be conceived as
missing, or elsewhere in time and
space. The Kingdom of God is a Principle. The
Spiritual Divine Condition IsItselfthe
Kingdom of God. Thus, Jesus of Galilee is saying: Abandon all
conventional principles and cling to the Spiritual
Divineand, thus and thereby, transcend all separation
from the Divine Condition of Reality. 4. In Jesus teaching, the Divine Law is stated in
contrast to the merely social (and political) laws. It is
not a new social law that Jesus of Galilee is teaching, but
the Law, the Divine Law. He is recommending not the law of
love as opposed to the Mosaic law, but the Law of
Spirit-birth. Conventional Spirituality, even in its esoteric forms, is
often oriented to the way of works (or right actions),
because works can include not only social works but also
works that are performed in private and that produce results
which could be regarded to be positive from a conventionally
Spiritual point of view. Mysticism, for
instance, depends upon such action. In the Hindu tradition,
for example, forms of Yoga (such as Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga,
Raja Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, and Jnana Yoga8) are
traditionally conceived in these same conventional
termsas actions that produce results. Thus, since the
most ancient days, all over the Earth, there has existed
this tradition of action, the way of works, the way of
action as a kind of magical activity. In the traditions of the way of works, action is
conceived as something that always produces
resultsand, therefore, it is recommended that one
perform only those actions that produce good
results. In contrast to the conventional way (or
magical method) of works (or
causative action), however, stands the true
esoteric way that has been indicated and pointed to by all
the great Spiritual Adepts. The great Spiritual Adepts are
traditionally associated with all kinds of lore about their
origin, and many models of the universe were reflected in
the stories of how a great Spiritual Adept appears and how
he or she relates to the Divine Condition of Reality.
Structures of the universewith much
aboveness and belowness and
middleness, and many
planeshave always been part of the
esoteric traditions. The great Spiritual Adepts are
typically presumed to have come down from the
highest point in the scale of things into this
lower plane, to bring the esoteric teaching down
from on high, and, thus, into the middle and lower
worlds. Whatever the model of the universe in the context of
which any Spiritual Adept is conceived to arise in the human
plane, the teaching of the great Spiritual Adepts (whether
historical or legendary) always speaks in contrast to the
conventional wisdom (or popular culture), and
(therefore) in contrast to the way of social morality for
its own sake, or the conventional way (or magical
method) of action-leading-to-results. Jesus of Galilee taught people about the all-embracing
principle of love as the right and essential motivation
behind all social lawsyet, ultimately (and more or
less in secret), he was teaching people about the Spiritual
Kingdom, or Freedom through Spiritual
Realization of the Divine Condition (or Spirit-Breath) of
Reality. The teaching of the New Testament could
be summarized as: Repent from sin.
That is to say, understand and renounce all forms of
self-enacted separation from the Divine
Condition of Reality and be established in the Kingdom
of God, or the Divine Source-Condition That Is the
Spiritual Divine. Renounce sinful (or ego-bound
and ego-binding) actions, let all actions be performed in
surrender to the Divine Condition of Reality, and (thus)
fulfill the Law of Inherence in the Spiritual Divine. Religious law is conventionally (or
exoterically) conceived in terms of various rules and
conventions of social morality. Thus, the New
Testament teaching has been interpreted and reduced to
mean Repentor be sorry for, and turn
fromyour illegal and inappropriate social
behaviors! On a more profound level, the New
Testament summarizes all forms of social morality via
the primary law of love (or non-exclusiveness). Thus, the
teaching of the New Testament has also been
interpreted to say Repent of all acts that are not
based on love, and perform all kinds of acts of love, or
self-sacrificial, social, and relational
action. In the religious fictions of the New
Testament Gospels,9 Jesus of Galilee is made to preach
about the laws of social behavior, and he is critical, even
angrily critical, of the tradition of laws that were extant
in his timesystems of behavior that were so complex
that an ordinary person could not help but regard himself or
herself to be a sinner. In the New
Testament Gospels, Jesus frequently criticizes the
pharisees, who (along with all the other
religious officials of the time of Jesus) made
the laws (or behavioral principles) whereby one might enter
the (socially objectified) Kingdom of
God, and who (the text supposes) made the laws so
complicated that neither the pharisees themselves nor the
people they taught could ever enter the Kingdom.
Jesus was very much involved, apparently, in criticizing
this over-complicated, fleshy conception, this
non-Spiritual conception, of the laws. Jesus of Galilee summarized his idea of the moral law of
behavior many times. Sometimes, it is said, Jesus just
pointed to the summaries from the Old Testament
tradition: Love God with your entire being, and love
your neighbor as if your neighbor were not other than
yourself. In other words, always surrender to the
Divineand do not be exclusively
self-serving in your social behaviors. Do not,
in any negative (or non-Spiritual) sense, discriminate the
apparent individual self from any apparent
other. This more exoteric (or social-behavior) teaching of Jesus
was not a new teaching. This social teaching was already
basic to the teaching tradition of conventional Judaism.
Jesus of Galilee simply emphasized this teaching, in a
social and cultural setting where the simplicity of that
point of view had, under the weight of the
official religious and political conditions of
the times, been lost (or, at least, become very much
diminished in practice). However, nothing like the esoteric moral teaching of
Jesus of Galilee was fundamental (or even, in general,
known) to the official Judaism of his time.
Jesus esoteric version of the moral law is
stated thus: See everyone in and as and by means of
the Spirit-Breath. Relate self-sacrificially (or
in an ego-transcending manner) to others, and, altogether,
live the life of love that spontaneously emerges from a
heart immersed in the Spiritual practice of Breathing the
Divine Spirit-Breath. Through such teaching, Jesus
introduced concepts from a broader cultural
baseincluding Hellenistic and even Eastern influences.
That same esoteric teaching appears not only in the
undercurrent of the New Testament, but also in
the communications of all the great Spiritual Adepts
throughout history. That esoteric teaching is about Divine
Spiritual Communion and always-present Freedom from
unhappiness. The rather exoteric moral teaching of Jesus of Galilee is
of a universal nature: Be selflessdo not confine
yourself to the commitment to separate self,
such that you are always acting to serve yourself.
Thus, Jesus of Galilee can be understood to have been
saying, As action, be love. That is to say, do
not act on the basis of separate self and
desire-for-the-results-of-action. Act selflessly, on the
basis of love of the Divine, or commitment to the Divine,
and to all beings in the Divine. However, the esoteric (or Spiritual) teaching of Jesus of
Galilee is not about love as mere social morality, nor as a
Yoga generated for its own sake or for the sake of
conventional results. The esoteric teaching of Jesus was
about the Spiritual Principle, which is, inevitably, also
expressed as love in the inevitable life of action. The
esoteric teaching of Jesus was the teaching of the
Kingdom of God as a Spiritual Mystery, rather
than the conventional teaching of the Kingdom of
God as a worldly changeand the
esoteric teaching of Jesus was not about the idea of
God as a kind of powerful warrior (or
War-God) who is, eventually, to dominate the
world, but, rather, the God of Jesus
is the Spirit-Breath That Liberates the heart by means of
psycho-physically-enacted Divine Communion. Those who regarded Jesus of Galilee as a messiah-figure
expected him to be a political warrior. However, Jesus of
Galilee specifically criticized the exoteric expectations
regarding the Kingdom of God, and he worked to
replace that exoteric understanding of the Kingdom of
God and the messiah and the Divine Itself
with an esoteric (or truly Spiritual) understanding. The
esoteric teaching of Jesus is about the Kingdom of
God as the moment to moment event of being born (or
Awakened) in and (thus) As the Divine Spirit-Breath. The teaching and disposition of Jesus of Galilee can be
summarized as follows: The Way is to Awaken in the Spiritual
Divinein each and every moment. The Way is to Awaken
not only in but (also) As the Spiritual Divineand
(thus) to be Free and Happy. “A Prophetic Criticism of Great Religions
(pages 77 – 83)” From THE ALETHEON (Final
Ruchira-Sannyasin-Order-Authorized Edition) – Author: Adi Da Samraj A PROPHETIC CRITICISM OF GREAT RELIGIONS The religious awareness and
experience of the Western world is
trapped within an archaic structure of myths, dogmas, and
irreducible social conflicts that no longer serve the right
religious and Spiritual process of humankind.
These myths, dogmas, and irreducible social conflicts are,
even now, being forcedly perpetuated by the large-scale
cultural, political, and economic dominance of the
religions of the ancient world. Human beings themselves cannot awaken to the esoteric
process that fulfills their Spiritual heart-impulse until
the spell of mythological and ego-possessed thinking is
broken. And a unified, whole bodily culture of humankind, in
which East and West will realize a new cultural synthesis,
cannot take place until all the old religions
are submitted to the Principle of Truth Itselfor to
the Universal Principle of Prior Unity and the Intrinsically
egoless Transcendental Spiritual Principle (or Self-Nature,
Self-Condition, and Self-State) That Is Reality Itself. As a
matter of urgent necessity (for the sake of global
cooperative order and peace), it must be universally
accepted that every human being, and every collective human
manifestationand, thus, every
religionmust be always held subordinate
and accountable to the Self-Evident (and Universally
Self-Manifested) Truth That Is Reality Itself. People tend to think of religion as a benign
influence on individual thought and behaviorand this
is, indeed, the case when the more benign aspects of
religious awareness and experience
begin to inform the thought and behavior of any individual.
Yet, in the context of the larger world of the
collective of all of humankind, religion is only
rarely found to be functioning on the basis of its benign
aspectsand, indeed, most characteristically, the
ego-based and even negative aspects of religion
are most apparent in the collective (and inherently
non-sectarian) larger world of
all-of-humankind-together. And, at large, it is certainly
the case that very few individuals become truly creative
personalities, mystics, Saints, or even reliably good men or
women as a result of their religious beliefs and
associations. Religion is, in general, an exoteric cultic
phenomenon that controls the thought and behavior of
individuals through external and psychologically
manipulative techniques. Thus, the principal
religious phenomenon that is common in the
world at large is not true (or free)
religious awareness and benign behavioral habits
on the part of individuals. The principal phenomenon of
religion is all the separate and separative
institutions that contain and otherwise manipulate broad and
massive segments of the human population. The primary institution within any religious
tradition is (itself) the religioninsofar
as any religion affects the world at
large. And large-scale (or great) institutional
religion isbecause of its
worldly public statusnot primarily a
benign power in human society. One has only to look at the
cultural and political conflicts in the total
world of today to see that the immense
institutions of ancient religion have now
become, for the most part, contentious, absolutist, and the
perennial sources of irreducible social conflicts. And
great religions characteristically are
established (and their power legitimized) by a
nearly indivisible union with the State (or the otherwise
secular national power). And the problematic nature of all
of this is made extreme by the immensity of these
great religious institutions, each of which
controls even many millions of people. The power of the great traditional
religious institutions is, for the most part, a
worldly power. That is to say, these
institutions are actually political and broadly social
agencies that manipulate the political, social, and economic
motivations of the citizens of all nations. The only public
alternative is control of the people by exclusively secular
political institutions, which tend to suppress and exclude
not only religious institutions but also every
kind of benign religious (and, otherwise,
esoteric) awareness, experience, practice, and
associationand this pattern of enforced secularization
has also begun to spread to many areas of the Earth that
have, traditionally, been under the powerful influence of
religious institutions. In the popular media of the present time, small,
non-establishment religious groups are often
(with negative and demonizing intent) called
cultsthus making such groups fair
game for hostile and suppressive commentaries.
Nevertheless, any religious (or, otherwise,
esoteric) group (or non-orthodox sect, or even
great religion) may appropriately be called a
cult, if the word cult is intended
simply to mean a system and a culture of devotion to a
particular subject. Therefore, all exoteric
religions and all esoteric sects (or cultural
entities) are cultsand to use the word
cult with bad intentions is nothing but a
power-game, whereby established cults (and the
agencies, within the larger society, which support the
dominance of the local established cults) make
suppressive efforts to subordinate, de-legitimize, and
exclude the non-established cults. Indeed, the
fact of the matter is that, in general,
non-establishment cults (or minority sects) are,
characteristically, oriented toward the promotion of a more
universal (or de-provincialized, and non-tribal,
and not at all bonded-to-the-State) form of the
religious (or, otherwise, esoteric) practice of
life. Truly, the worldly domain of the
establishment of so-called great
institutional religionsand not the small-scale
(and, especially, esoteric) domain of
non-establishment religions and otherwise sacred
institutionsrepresents the more direct and practical
threat to human development, and (ultimately) to the
communication of the Truth of Reality Itself. Why is it that great religious institutions,
which seem to be founded on the greater human and cultural
persuasions, ultimately become the primary basis of social
conflict and even personal neurosis? The reason is that
great (or popular, and, necessarily,
public-oriented, and even State-bonded)
religious institutions are (because of their
orientation) obliged to include (and identify with, and even
to pander to) masses of immature people who have very little
will or capability for the practical personal and cultural
exercise of right religious or (otherwise)
Spiritual (or esoteric) life. As a result, the institutions
of great religion develop much like the
institutions of State develop under the same conditions of
universal human immaturityand, indeed, because of that
likeness, great religions (and even all
“establishment institutions) are, characteristically,
bonded to the State in which they are
established (and by which their public power is
legitimized). Thus, right religious practice
(or, otherwise, esotericism in general) characteristically
eschews mere popularism, and all subordination to
establishment cults, and all tendencies toward
the non-separation between religion and
State. Every popular (or even great)
religious institution tendsexcept during
periods of renewal by living Adept-Realizersto become
more and more dogmatic, and, eventually, to become
irrevocably associated with fixed ideas that, in one manner
or another (and to one or another degree), deny the very
(and, necessarily, esoteric, recondite, and intensively
demanding) Truth relative to Which all religions
(and all mere ideas) are mere pointers. Likewise, the
fixed-mindedness of dogmatic popular religiosity
also tends to vigorously (and in a presumptuous
culturally superior manner) deny the
religious authenticity or religious
completeness of people who belong to other
religious institutions or cultures. The
conventional (or ego-based, and ordinary, or merely
public-oriented, and, therefore, less than Truth-oriented)
religious institution, like any other mortal (or
inherently threatened) entity in the world,
tends to become more and more centered in itselfand
more and more devoted (more or less exclusively) to its own
survival (and its own public power). Conventional religious (or even esoteric)
institutions learn how to survive by serving and
manipulating a massive membership that is largely incapable
of right religious (or, otherwise, esoteric)
responsibility in practice. This is done by minimizing the
right religious (or, otherwise, esoteric) demand
for literal and personal conversion of mind and action, and
replacing that difficult demand with the easier
(less rigorous) and more secular demand for mere allegiance
to systems of myth, belief, ritual, dogma, and rote practice
of ego-supportive methods and ego-reinforcing
techniques. Thus, the condition for membership
in most institutions of great (or merely
public-oriented and society-bound) religion is
allegiance to fixed ideas and other outward (or superficial)
signs of belonging to the cultwhereas right
religious (or, otherwise, esoteric) practice is
founded on active conversion of body and mind to the Divine
Reality, and on the acceptance of behavioral disciplines
that (at the very least) make the individual an outwardly
benign (or socially self-restrained)
character. Of course, great institutional
religions do recommend various social
morality attitudes, but the practice of
self-restraint is not made a condition of
membershipexcept, perhaps, in the case of a few
selected acts that are, often for absurd reasons, taboo.
Furthermore, institutionalized morality tends to
be associated with archaic, neurotic, and petty sexual and
social taboos, rather than with the truly human obligations
of ego-transcending love, service, and compassion. Likewise,
most religious institutions today have abandoned
the detailed (and even ancient) religious
disciplines associated with right
lifeincluding, for example, the ancient
recommendations relative to personal disciplines of a
healthful dietary nature, such as the obligation to avoid
meat or other killed food, impure food, toxic stimulants,
and so forth. And the esoteric and universal Spiritual
teachings that are the only real significance of
religion have been almost totally abandoned and
even lost by the non-esoteric orthodoxy of the
great religions. In the conventional affair of popular
religion, the communication of rigorous demands
(and, also, of esoteric understanding and practice) is
avoided, because conventional religious
institutions are trying to survive (and, also, to achieve
or, otherwise, maintain public power) by acquiring and
maintaining massive memberships. Thus, conventional (or
popular, public-oriented) religion is promoted
and sold by hyped appeals to the non-discriminating mind of
Everyman. In contrast to conventional popular religion,
esotericism is a superior human impulse, founded in
self-understanding and profound psycho-physical
conversion (or change). However, over time, it tends to be
more and more the case that only false and merely exoteric
(or popular, and public-oriented) religious
inventions are communicated by so-called great
religions. And, at last, not only is the esoteric
Truth and practice of the esoteric Way eliminated as the
core of religious instruction, but the survival
pressures of dogmatic popularism tend to make both Truth and
right practice unacceptable. Thus, over time, great
religions tend, in fact, to make right
religious practice secondary to
membershipand, likewise, great
(popular) religions (or cults of
dogmatic belief) tend to become the enemies of authentic
esotericism (or of the experiential knowledge
and the gnosis, or the tacit
knowledge-beyond-mind, that makes both mere
belief and mere ideas obsolete). This was the situation that confronted Jesus of
Galileeand it was (and is) the situation confronted by
all prophets of right religious life and all
Realizers within esoteric schools and traditions. Since actual and mature (and both true and right)
religious practice has been generally (or
popularly) replaced by outward adherence to false (or
deluding) exoteric beliefs and merely superficial behavioral
modifications, the true esoteric core of
religion has lost its use within the
great traditional cults that exist
today. The entire affair of traditional
religious institutions has become (in a sense)
dangerous, because such religious institutions
long ago abandoned the practice of making right
religious or (otherwise) esoteric participation
a condition of membership within the official
domain of popular religious institutions. If the
demand for authentic (or wholly true and right)
participation had, historically, been continued, the
institutions of religion that are now, as a
matter of convention, called great would likely
have remained small esoteric communities (if they survived
at all). However, the ancient religious
institutions chose gross survival and worldly
power, to the exclusion of Truthand, therefore, they
adapted to the world, rather than persist in the
demand that the world change itself. Right religious (and even esoteric) practice
is a universal and (necessarily) ego-transcending
psycho-physical motivation of human beings. However, up to
the present stage in human history, only relatively few
individuals in any generation have been willing and able to
make the gesture that is such right practice. In their great
numbers, most people have, up to now, never yet been ready
or willing to adapt to the true (and progressive) practical,
moral, devotional, Spiritual, and Transcendental
Wisdom-culture of right life. An authentic religious (or, otherwise,
esoteric) institution must be devoted entirely to both the
communication and the practice of religious (or,
otherwise, esoteric) Truth and the unrelenting demand for
right and always greater human transformation (and,
ultimately, Perfect Truth-Realization). Historically, only
relatively few people in any generation of humankind have
been interested in accepting that Truth-message! An authentic religious (or, otherwise,
esoteric) institution must never subordinate itself or its
message to either the pattern and the demands of egoity
itself or to the stream of daily secular or
worldly society. Indeed, until humankind in
general is able to embrace right religious
practice (or, otherwise, to become Really Awake), right
religion (or, otherwise, right esotericism) must
remain largely prophetic in its function. That is to say,
right religion (or, otherwise, right
esotericism) must (even always) accept the role of critic
(and, thus, of the outsider) in the (public and
popular) worldand right
religion (or, otherwise, right esotericism) must
never become like the world (or function as an
insider within the world) in order
to become powerful and great in the
world.
THE ALETHEON
MENU
| Home
| Intro
| Beezone
Articles | Adi
Da Articles |
Tradition
Articles | All
Articles | email
“The perfect
among the sages is identical with Me. There is absolutely no
difference between us”
Tripura
Rahasya,
Chap XX,
128-133
All copyright materials are
used under authority of the Fair Use statute.
(United
State Code, Title 17)
(Fair
Use)