Beyond the Beginner’s
Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus By The Avataric Great Sage, Adi Da
Samraj (this book was later published as
Pneumaton)
Beyond the Cultic Tendency in Religion and
Spirituality, and in Secular Society In My Wisdom-Teaching, I Speak critically of the
conventional (or childish, and, otherwise, adolescent)
orientation of Guru-cultism. Such cultism is a
tendency that has always been present in the religious and
Spiritual traditions of humankind. Anciently, and in the
present time, both true Spiritual Masters and ordinary
Wisdom-Teachers have been cultified, and
(thereby) made the merely fascinating Object of a
self-contained popular movement that worships the Spiritual
Master as a Parent-like Savior, while embracing very little
of the significant Wisdom-Teaching of the Spiritual
Master. The error of conventional cultism is precisely this
childish, and (otherwise) adolescent, and (altogether)
ego-based orientation to fascination with Spiritual Masters,
Wisdom-Teachers, God-Ideas, myths, sacred lore,
inherited beliefs, traditional propaganda, and
psycho-physical (or merely body-mind-based) mysticism. And
the cultic tendency in religion and Spirituality is the
essence of what is wrong with conventional religion and
Spirituality. The problem is not that there Is no Real God,
or that there are no true Wisdom-Teachings, or that there
are no true Spiritual Masters, or that there should be no
devotion to any true Spiritual Masters. The
problem with conventional religion and
Spirituality is the same as the problem of all
ordinary life. The problem is the childish, and
(otherwise) rather adolescent, egoism that is the basis of
all forms of ordinary existence. Yet un-Enlightened (or, otherwise, not yet Most Perfectly
Enlightened) people are ego-possessed. Therefore, egoity is
the disease that all the true Spiritual Masters
of religion come here to cure. Unfortunately, those who are
merely fascinated by Spiritual Masters are, typically, those
who make (or, at least, transform) the institutions of the
religion and the Spirituality of their Spiritual Masters.
And true practitioners of religion and Spirituality are very
hard to find, or develop. Therefore, religious and Spiritual
institutions tend to develop along lines that serve,
accommodate, and represent the common egoityand this
is why the esoteric true Teachings of true Spiritual Masters
tend to be bypassed, and even suppressed, in the drive to
develop the exoteric cult of any particular Spiritual
Master. The relationship to Me that is Described (by Me) in My
Wisdom-Teaching is not an exoteric cultic matter. It is a
profound esoteric discipline, necessarily associated with
real and serious and mature (ego-surrendering,
ego-forgetting, ego-transcending, and Divine-Guru-Oriented)
practice of the radical Way (or root-Process) of
Realizing Real (Acausal) God (Which Is Reality and Truth).
Therefore, I am critical of the ego-based (or self-saving,
and self-guruing) practices of childish, and
(otherwise) adolescent, and (altogether) merely exoteric
cultism. The common religious or Spiritual cult is based on the
tendency to resist the disciplines of real (and really
counter-egoic) practice, and to opt for mere fascination
with extraordinary (or even imaginary) phenomena (which are,
invariably, not understood in Truth and in Reality). Apart
from the often petty demand for the observation of
conventional rules (generally, relative to social morality,
or merely social religion), the cult of religious and
Spiritual fascination tends to become righteously associated
with no practicethat is, with the even official
expectation that there be no real (or truly right, and full)
practice of religious and Spiritual disciplines (especially
of religious, Spiritual, and meditative disciplines of an
esoteric kind). Just so, the cult of religious and Spiritual
fascination tends to be equally righteous about maintaining
fascinated faith (or indiscriminate, and even aggressive,
belief) in the merely Parent-like Divine Status
of one or another historical individual,
God-idea, religious or Spiritual doctrine,
inherited tradition, or force of cosmic Nature. Religious and Spiritual cultism is, thus, a kind of
infantile collective madness. (And such madness is equally
shared by secular cultists, in every area of popular
cultureincluding politics, the sciences, the arts, the
communications media, and even all the agencies and
institutions of conventional officialdom
relative to human knowledge, belief, and behavior.)
Religious and Spiritual cults (and, likewise, all secular
cults) breed pharisaism (or the petty
righteousness of conventional thinking). Religious and
Spiritual cults breed Substitution myths (or the
belief that personal ego-transcendence is, both generally
and ultimately, impossiblebut also unnecessary,
because of what God, or some Master,
or even some priest has already done). Indeed,
religious and Spiritual cults (and, likewise, all secular
cults) breed even every kind of intolerance, and the chronic
aggressive search for exclusive social dominance and secular
power. Religious and Spiritual cults are,
characteristically, populated by those who are, generally,
neither inclined toward nor prepared for the real right
practice of religious and Spiritual discipline, but who are
(and always seek to be) glamorized and consoled by mere
association with the holy things and beliefs of
the cult itself. This error of religious and Spiritual cultism, and of
ego-based culture in general, must be examined very
seriouslysuch that the error is truly rooted out, from
within the cult and the culture itself (and not merely, and
with equally cultic cultural righteousness, criticized from
without). Cultism of every kind (both sacred and secular)
must be understood to be a kind of ritualized
infantilismbound to egocentric behavior, and to the
embrace of insiders only, and to intolerance
relative to all outsiders. The cultic tendency,
both sacred and secular, causes (and has always caused)
great social, cultural, and political troubleas has
been seen, in this late-time (or
dark epoch), in the development of worldwide
conflicts based on the exclusive (or collectively
egocentric) orientation of the many grossly competitive
religious traditions, political idealisms, and national
identities. All cults, whether sacred or secular, thrive on
indulgence in the psychology (and the emotional rituals) of
hope, rather than on actual demonstration of counter-egoic
and really ego-transcending action. Therefore, when all egos
meet, they strive and compete for the ultimate fulfillment
of searches and desires, rather than cooperate with Truth,
Reality, or Real (Acausal) God, and in a culturally valued
and rewarded mood of fearless tolerance and sane
equanimity. Clearly, this cultic tendency in religion and
Spirituality, and the egoic (and, thus, cultic) tendency in
life in general, must become the constant subject of
fundamental human understandingand all of humankind
must constantly be put to school, to unlearn the
method of egocentrism, non-cooperation, intolerance, and
dis-ease.
and the
Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via
Spirit-Breath