Beyond the Beginner’s
Spiritual Way of Saint Jesus By The Avataric Great Sage, Adi Da
Samraj (this book was later published as
Pneumaton)
Cultism Is the Beginners Level of Human
Existence The word cult means, simply, a system of
externals (such as beliefs, rites, and ceremonies) related
to the worship of a deity (or any deified person, object,
place, or event). Therefore, all formally organized exoteric
religious institutions or communities are cults. Cults are
at the root of all human cultures. By extension, any organized gathering of people
associated with a common source of enthusiasm and commitment
may be called a cult. Therefore,
cultism is associated not only with religion,
but also with politics, intellectual studies, science, the
professions, entertainment, sports, the news
media, and even flower-breeding societies!every area
of human endeavor tends to produce the centralizing
phenomenon (or centripetal motion) of cultism. The negative tendency in cultism is the tendency to
forget that mere enthusiastic association with an object, an
idea, a person, or whatever, is basically a superficial (or
beginners) state of mind. All mere
enthusiasm, or belief, or ritualized consciousness is at the
novice level of human existence – and, if enthusiasm, or
belief, or ritualized consciousness persists beyond its
appropriate term, it inevitably becomes an expression of
either childish or adolescent neurosis. (Such is true of
individuals, and also of human groups, including entire
cultures and nations.) When participation in the outer circle of
life is prolonged, and the more advanced (or esoteric)
culture (the inner circle of life) does not
begin, then all the classic signs of human failure are
(inevitably) in evidence. Human beings need their childhood,
and even a kind of adolescencebut they must eventually
put away childish things, and enter into the
mature and more advanced domain of human possibility. This transition to human maturity requires profound and
self-critical understanding on the part of the individual.
And, if such a crisis of self-understanding does not
characterize the greatest number of human beings alive at
any one time, the social order of humankind tends to be more
or less childish and adolescent, expressing all kinds of
irrational dependencies and equally irrational needs for
ambivalent independence. But this is precisely the situation in the world at the
present time. Everyone is clinging to the outer
circle of human existence. The popular religious,
scientific, political, and other cultural and social
characteristics of this late-time (or
dark epoch) are all generally immature,
aberrated, exclusivistic, and bereft of the greater Wisdom
of true developmental and Spiritual acculturation. In the domain of religion, the cults are
characteristically founded on irrational and archaic
beliefs, and many cults claim exclusive possession of the
absolute Revelation (or ultimate degree) of Truth. But
exoteric religion is not, in any case, in possession of
Truth Itself. Exoteric religion is only the outer
circle of Truth. The childish neurosis that characterizes exoteric cultism
is precisely the clinging to superficial levels of
understanding (or even mere belief, without much
understanding), coupled with a righteous sense of exclusive
possession of Truth. And, in this late-time (or
dark epoch), this frame of mind is in evidence
in every area of human occupation. That frame of mind
characterizes the cults of science and politics just as much
as it does the cults of conventional religion. It is time for everyone to awaken from the spell of
childish, subhuman, ego-possessed, subjective (mental,
emotional, and physical) obsession. It is time to grow up!
The Truth can become obvious to human understanding, and the
cultural situation of humankind can become harmonious and
benign. It is a matter of entering into the yet hidden (or
esoteric) domain of awakened intelligence, self-restraint,
acceptance of life-positive disciplines of physical,
emotional, and mental activity, and conversion from the
separative and ego-possessed disposition to the truly
ecstatic moral and Spiritual disposition of ego-transcending
Love-Communion with the Divine Self-Condition (and
Source-Condition) of all beings and things. Only the life of
Divine Communion permits the child to grow into maturity.
That Way of life is the ego-transcending Way that is hidden
within (or natively built into) the psycho-physical
structures of the human being. The problem of religious cultism is prolonged
exotericism, which produces fanaticism, delusion, and
exclusivism. Freedom from false cultism depends on human
growth, from the exoteric (or superficial levels of
understanding) to the esoteric (or Spiritually Awakened
levels of understanding). Exoteric religion must everywhere
become nothing more than a means of preparation for greater
developmental and (in due course) Spiritual
acculturation. Therefore, every religion must be submitted to the
universal Truth and the universal Wisdom of Adept-Realizers,
who (to one or another significant degree) have Realized the
Spiritually Awakened Way through actual practice of It.
Conventional religions must abandon all things superficial
and exclusionaryand they must surrender to the
Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, Inherently egoless,
and Self-Evidently Divine Truth. Likewise, all other popular cultssuch as the cult
of scientific materialism – must abandon the irrational
exclusivism of their preferences and understand that Wisdom
is senior to knowledge. Everyonein every field of human endeavor or
commitmentmust be awakened to a greater intuition, and
to a critical understanding of all the superficialities of
conventional and popular human awareness.
and the
Traditions of Mystical Cosmic Ascent via
Spirit-Breath