Q. . . . I have trodden the left-hand path in this life and in incarnation after incarnation and I am horrified at what I am capable of - and I am grateful that I am horrified and disgusted.
I am also equally horrified at how people take Truth and present it to the masses, sucking people into a lower vibratory mind vortex, creating mental and emotional dependencies, stifling the inner voices of their students, claiming that they stand for the Truth and the Light and that they are the Real Thing; but (often unconsciously due their own blocks) pulling initial good intentions and group mind and integrity into a group shadow where power games based on money and sexuality play themselves out, and they do not know what they are doing. They think all the ritual, the gestures of affection and intellectualizing will get them off the hook or distance themselves from their own shadows. I have been extremely saddened and disappointed with a recent encounter with just such a group. . .
A. Understood. However, though such discernment is necessary on the Path, simply seeing what is not - however uncommon may be such percipience in this world of delusion - is, by itself, not sufficient for success to be known.
Q. The following incident happened to me about 4 years ago and the movie The Matrix made me remember it.
One night I was driving down the middle of the city around midnight and suddenly this weird feeling came over me, like all the buildings I could see weren't really there, like they were destroyed and the whole place was lifeless. I couldn't see this but I just felt it… it's hard to explain. Was I seeing the future or the true now?
A. Subliminal encodings are embedded in movies like The Matrix, which are very well-done sci-fi or fantasy analogies of the real situation here on Earth.
It appears that you had a glimpse of the Beyond with your third-eye vision which, when opened fully, reveals what is Real and, therefore, also what is not Real and so desolate.
When we see past the illusion of the fallen universe by raising our vibratory rate of consciousness, we come to actually perceive that it has no true Existence at all. However, the vast majority of human beings on Earth today, while under the veil of forgetfulness (which lies between the fallen, undivine universe and the divine Universe) are able to see very little indeed. They are fighting with illusions, shadows, and hence the great but unnecessary suffering in this world.
Q. How best to begin on the spiritual Path?
A. You will court greater clarity and mental power if you exercise your seeking mind regularly. This is how good habits are formed. Once the habit is formed we find that we are naturally propelled forward by an inner compulsion and strength that operates almost below our conscious awareness, a bit like our bodily functions, if you will. Such an inner urge guarantees to lead us along the Path to Liberation. Once we are secure in knowing where we are going, a tremendous inner confidence and power will begin to arise in us. The Path then unfolds from within.
Q. When I consider the great levels of ignorance, pain and suffering in this world, it becomes apparent that the truth of the world situation will appear as negative to the average person. So, how can we find the joy of life in our seeking?
A. "Before the eyes can see clearly, they must be free of tears; before the heart can truly understand, it must have lost its tendency to react."
Remember always that the Truth is never negative and so need not be feared. The Truth liberates, and so, if we really love the Truth, then we will always be reassured by regarding what is not in the world. For when we come to understand what is not, we shall automatically come to appreciate to a greater degree what IS. This is called the path of neti neti in mystical India, which roughly translates as not this, not that. In a world of darkness, in order to comprehend what IS, it is necessary to see clearly what is not. The first noble truth of the Buddhist catechism is that all life is suffering. This tenet avers that before we may know Liberation, we must first acknowledge that suffering IS.
Q. I believe that the Truth is here and now. I believe that we need not seek out what is already here and now. Since the great teachers of all ages have assured us that the Truth is here and now, and that we are already essentially perfect, then why should we seek at all?
A. There is a well-known story of a Zen Buddhist who asks his master how he can attain Satori (Liberation).
The
master immediately takes his disciple to the ocean and proceeds to push
his head under the water. He holds
the disciple's head under water for a long time until he is about to
drown, and then he lets him up.
Gasping for air, the disciple then asks exasperatedly: "Why did you do that, master?"
of air just then."
The greatest enlightened Teachers have always told us to "seek and you will find." The Buddha said that if we seek the Truth with diligence and detachment, we will find it and it will liberate us.
Remember that Truth is a paradox to the unenlightened mind. However, if there were nothing at all to seek and so find, why then, do you think that the pure psychology of a baby naturally enquires into (and later, as a child, questions) everything? Such seeking is a natural, spiritual impulse that emanates from the intelligence of the divine Spark in the heart that is buried within the darkness of this world and which knows that all is not perfect in this life, and thus seeks to find what is Perfect and Real.
There is a severe lack of a humble Seeking attitude in the world today; a painful absence of yearning for God, for Truth.
Most esoteric and religious groups are little more than clearing stations for ideas and opinions. But in making statements about what we believe, we will never invite the living Truth (which is not a belief) to make a home in our hearts.
Philosophers die confused and unfulfilled. They then have to reincarnate in the world of birth, suffering and death yet again in order to try once more to realize the Goal of life, which they may only do in seeking the Truth.
If we do not empty ourselves and Seek, then we shall never Find. "Old bottles cannot contain New Wine". And the Truth is always New. That is why it is so liberating, so glorious.
Q. . . .I feel I have been let down - not by the Truth, but by the problems of groups. . .
A. Then you have been looking in the wrong way. If your seeking was true and your focus intelligent and vertical, you would never have known disappointment, because the seeker of Truth depends on no personality or group of personalities but only God. However, personal desire ever invites frustration. It is this, a lack of an uncompromising and vertical (i.e., Godward) focus and earnest, selfless seeking that causes us to withhold sharing certain powerful revelations with you. There is still so much of 'I' in all your thinking; you seek for self still, and thus you remain on the left-hand path.
This group walks another Path, a Path that is alluded to below by Jesus:
"The paths of
carnal life do not run up the mountain side toward the top; they run
around the mount of
life, and if you go straight to the upper gate of
consciousness you cross the paths of carnal life; tread in
them not."
- The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.
It is the how of seeking that spells the difference between success and failure, not the what. One's motive is ever seen by the Christ-Hierarchy and responded to (or not) accordingly. This is a universal law. Self-pity - being an egotistic trait - is not attended to by Grace.
Q. . . .Therefore, this presents my particular life with a dilemma: do I continue the path alone as I have done or do I continue to reach out and connect?. . .
A. Should you continue to reach out and to connect in the same way as you have before, you will only court further disappointment, for like attracts like.
Remember that the Universe is intelligent! God does not waste energy. If you have attracted bogus spiritual groups and teachings into your life and then become personally disappointed, then, under the Law of Cause and Effect, there is a perfectly good reason for it. Perhaps it might be expedient now for you to contemplate deeply that reason.
Q. I have now read the first two lessons of your correspondence course and I must say that I have not yet encountered anything new.
A. We hope that you will continue to study the course with more than just your intellect. The reason we make this comment is due to the fact that you did not seem to appreciate that which was revealed in the first two lessons. Even though these first lessons are a basic introduction to the later revelations and contained nothing 'new' for you personally, the earnest seeker of Truth always rejoices when he discovers it in written form, no matter how familiar that Truth may be. Even the first two lessons constitute rather a revelation as far as the mass of humanity are concerned. Does that not fill you with cheer? It seems to us that your intellect may be more thirsty than your heart.
We sincerely hope that you are not taking the course with the motive of wishing to support your existing belief system, as so many people do. If you are, then you are about to become disappointed.
Q. It has taken me a long time and much effort to reconstruct a belief system after throwing out everything beginning in my early teens. I have more than once dumped pieces which cease to work and reconstructed from scratch as I have grown and as the illusions have become apparent. I am constantly re-examining the content and am quite prepared to throw out anything which ceases to work. Only, however, if it truly ceases to work or is replaced by something which works better. I am not willing to jump on a new idea just because it is new.
A. We understand your logic here. However, we would offer that nothing of that which you have gleaned so far in your present lifetime has "worked" for you because you are not yet Enlightened. Therefore, and if you can follow this, our logic, then you may wish to consider the prudence in emptying your cup completely and unconditionally, and seeking the Truth from scratch like an innocent child. "You must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God." - Jesus.
In order to really be able to drain one's cup, one must love the Truth very much indeed. If one does not love the Truth with all one's being - for Itself alone - then one will never find that Truth - ever - no matter how brilliant one becomes via study or practice of advanced metaphysical techniques.
If we insist on holding on to even one tiny particle of our existing ideas and beliefs, then we shall never find the Living Truth in any writing (no matter how sublime) nor shall we be able to receive it even from a Buddha.
Q. Agreed. But to acknowledge the similarities and differences is not holding on. It is merely acknowledgment.
A. If it is intellectual acknowledgement, then we are but dancing with shadows. However, we always meet in the heart.
Have you noticed how philosophers always argue amongst themselves? Do you know why that is?
Q. Because they seek to define Truth in language instead of Knowing Truth.
A. Yes, and also because they are all looking (with their very limited intellects) at different aspects of the great illusion. How could they possibly ever agree?
Q. Here I must be very clear. I have explored enough new systems and listened to and read enough ideas of how to reach enlightenment that I am no longer willing to accept as fact anything that cannot stand up to questioning and which is not demonstrable.
A. Naturally. This attitude must ever be encouraged. Intellectual reason can always support the Truth, though it can never actually come to know the Truth. It appears that you are a gyani yogi!
Q. What's a gyani yogi?
A. Gyana yoga is the path of Knowledge. The yogi utilizes his intellect to seek Truth and ultimately makes a breakthrough to Reality through a painstaking process of what the Hindus call 'neti neti' or 'not this, not that'. In other words the gyani seeking with his mind undergoes a process of intense enquiry in the realm of illusion as to what the Truth is not. By understanding what is not we may eventually come to appreciate what is. However, the heart is eventually invoked in the search (as it must be) once the gyani has reached the ceiling and limits of the intellect.
This path (which is similar to Zen Buddhism) is considered to be the most difficult way, and very few succeed. However, many do become quite proud and confused.
Q. Ok. Having now studied further lessons of your correspondence course, I can say that some of the concepts present a new description and are different in detail from anything I've dealt with before, but are also within the bounds of my previous understanding. I guess what I'm saying is intellectually you've got my attention but my world view hasn't been shattered yet.
A. It never will be until you transcend your little intellect and begin seeking with the heart: that is, for others. Only with such an unconditionally selfless attitude can Divinity inform our consciousness. And not until that time can we truly See. Please ponder on this simple yet profound and vital key to Life.
Q. After much searching I have come to an understanding that, being in the realm of the intellect, language does not/cannot have constructs to describe the esoteric realm.
A. Right. Did you know that the intellect (lower concrete mind) did not exist before the Fall? Therefore, the intellect can only discern the multifarious aspects of the illusory world, the same matter from which it itself is made. The intellect can never know Reality. It is useless as far as the True Path is concerned. However, intellectual reason may, of course, help us somewhat in the preliminary stages of seeking as we approach the Path leading Home, though it is unwise to ever depend on it. Eventually, we cease to use it all together. Can you imagine the peace we may gain from this "snuffing out" of the thinking mind?
Q. But if I discount what has gone before as worthless, does that not then throw into question the validity of anything I discover today?
A. No, because the future will be new but the past is old and done. In the light of that which is ever New in the Eternal Present, our experiences of the past are realized for what they were, evanescent, passing fantasies; yes, utterly worthless as far as we are now concerned in the Present.
Q. ...I am not done with the purifying process yet, having found both resentment and self pity in me just today - a devastating and very painful surprise. My good friend and mentor says that I also have pride, and he has never been wrong when spotting such defilements. Please believe that I am trying so very hard to clean all of this up with haste in order to be fit for service.
A. No! Do not try to clean yourself up. Never focus on self, for the 'I' cannot liberate itself. Forget yourself in serving as you are able. Since only the light of the divine Spark can sanctify the personality, you must invoke that divinity to come and clean your personal temple. Self-forgetfulness in active, loving service is the best way your lower vehicles can be purified. Should you continue to focus on your ephemeral personality taints, you will magnify them… while the ever more ravenous hosts of the psychic sphere will be attracted to perform their work within you due to your compromised focus. The battle of Armageddon is today well and truly on. We cannot serve two masters!
Q. Is 'inner self-knowledge', a view of one's essential Being, exclusive of personality? It appears that the world of personality is too much with us to ignore.
A. Self-knowledge includes an understanding of the fallen condition of the personality and its cause, plus insight into the Goal of Transfiguration and the requirements of the Path.