Excerptsfrom
Changing
Patterns
of Belief",
242 - 251.
Chapter
Eight
(excerpt)
The Religions
of
Experience
"In
the absence
of
knowledge,
is not
certainty
close to
lunacy?"
-- Jacob
Needleman
In
previous chapters
we have watched
how the once
solid ground
of
scientific
rationalism
is beginning to
melt,
like ice-floes,
back into
rhythms
of
an underlying
cosmology.
The chaos
and alienation
brought about
by
our culture's
obsession with reason
persist
because of
our reluctance
to change our
"depth of vision"
and
to view
the universe of fact
in
a deeper dimension.
[Here the book
shows
a simple line drawing
of
a transparent cube,
surrounded there
by
6 differing views
of it,
from varying angles,
that give it
7 separate
"looks"
or
7 "appearances"
in all.]
Rather
as these
two dimensional
shapes
reveal themselves
to be
but
different facets
of
a single
three-dimensional
organism,
a cube,
so too
do
the
disconnected icebergs
of "fact"
which have
cluttered our horizon
since
the
Scientific Enlightenment
dissolve
into
a single ocean of vision
when viewed
from
a deeper dimension.
Sir Isaac Newton
wrote in his diary
shortly before he died:
"I do not know
what I may appear
to the world,
but to myself
I seem to have been
only a boy playing
on the sea-shore,
and diverting myself
in now and then
finding
a smoother pebble
or
a prettier shell
than ordinary,
while
the great ocean
of truth
lay all
undiscovered
before me!"
The clues
to this "truth",
as we have seen
in previous chapters,
are in certain
shapes,
numbers,
and patterns
which determine
the growth
not only
of
the outside world
of crystals,
music
and
living things,
but also
of
the inside world,
of
the very structure
of mythic
and
symbolic
thought.
This hitherto
conflicting duality
of
the "outside"
versus
the "inside",
is now beginning
to fuse
even at the most
physical level.
For several decades
neurosurgeons have known
that the
left-hand hemisphere
of the brain
is adapted to deal with
the physical
and rational world
of everyday experience,
but now,
paralleling
the general cultural search
for
renewed
religious meaning,
they are entering
the "dark continent"
of the brain's
right-hand hemisphere,
and finding
that it is
specifically adapted
to deal with
the deeper,
more
abstract dimensions
of perception.
The earth --
as a macrocosm
of the human mind --
also consists
of a right-hand
and a left-hand
hemisphere --
the East,
which excels
in
religious
and
transcendent
areas
of consciousness,
and the West,
which excels
in
technology
and
manipulation
of
the
material environment.
Until recently,
this duality
was un-reconciled,
but now
it is beginning
to merge,
both in
the cross-fertilization
between the
global East and West,
as well as
between
the left and right
hemispheres
of our individual brains,
which means
that
"religion"
and
"science"
need no longer
be spoken of
in different breaths.
The rhythmic patterns
of energy,
which we are finding
to underlie all matter,
are leading us
ever inwards
towards a simpler
and yet vaster
Order,
to the awesome place
of
"re-ligare"
with our source.
The more
we look at
the world's
"Great Religions"
in the light
of the "new science",
the more they emerge
as giant edifices
which have
corrupted
around
a miraculous thread
of knowledge.
We see ourselves
as savages
wandering
among the ruins
of
a vanished
technological civilization;
our priests,
in the crumbling
power stations,
intoning
the fading
instructions on the walls
and making gestures
with
the long disconnected
levers.
"Outer"
religion
is a religion
of "faith",
of hoping
that
the electrical energy,
if one gets
the ritual right
and repeats it
often enough,
will again
flood through
the corroded machinery.
But "inner" religion
is
the experiential
awakening
of
knowledge
of the actual power
which makes things
work.
This rediscovery,
among
the ruined power stations
of our spiritual heritage,
is being pursued
by small groups
of
twentieth century
alchemists,
who
are continually
experimenting
in
the laboratories
of themselves --
even if
like Edison
with his first attempts
at making a bulb,
achieving only
but
a brief flicker.
Whereas
everything
in the natural world
still dances
to
the vibrationary music
of its source,
man alone
seems
to have branched out
into a waterless desert
of externals,
one
which he is
only just realizing
threatens
his very existence.
Sumatran myths
tell how
the more separated
man became
from his inner source,
the longer
he had to sleep,
for
only through dreams
could he
remain connected
to
the inner world.
Once,
in the golden age
of myth,
when he barely slept
and
lived for centuries,
before he knew
the "shame"
of God's rejection,
his inner self
was still linked
to his waking awareness,
and
the stiffening
of his penis --
as the scepter
of
creative worship --
was as much
under
his conscious control
as is today
the raising and lowering
of his arms.
But today
we
are schizophrenics,
the lower half of us --
like the allegory
of the Pan God --
obeying
the laws of biology,
while
the upper half
does not.
Dream and symbol,
myth and legend,
through which
the rhythms
of sacred order
reveal themselves,
have been ignored
and
allowed to wither
in the heat
of
rational progress.
Even "innocence"
is now
cynically assumed
to be
naiveté --
but
what is innocence
if not
the primal tool
of submission,
of
quietening ourselves
to
the harmony
inside us.
As children
we are briefly
allowed to live
in
the
world of dreams
and fantasy
where
invisible myths
are
alive
with meaning.
Having come
so recently
from
the unseen world --
which our culture
oddly assumes
to be
pre- or un-conscious --
children
are still
closely attuned to it,
and
just before they cross
the "bridge of tears"
into adult chaos,
their
transparent questions
and
observations
gleam
with
what most of us
have
buried
and
forgotten.
Children
are
a constant reminder
of
the alchemists' saying
that
"we are
surrounded
by colors
we cannot see,
by sounds
we cannot hear;
and
we see
as real
what is
unreal,
and
cannot see
what is."
Of all
the natural kingdom
man shares
with
only a few
insects
and
amphibians
the strange
deformity
(or transitionary stage)
of
never quite reaching
adulthood.
Like these odd hybrids
the limbs of our inner being
no longer fully develop,
and as adults
we are still
mostly children --
but
without
the child's innocence
and vision.
As a child
I remember
listening to classical music
and remarking
that the instruments
were too coarse
to express it
properly,
and I wondered
if anyone in the world
had made instruments
fine enough
to interpret,
what the music
really was.
But as I
hardened into maturity
I realized
that violins and flutes
were
the best there was;
it was their sound
which became
the music itself,
rather than
the music's
imperfect shadow.
Words too
began
to
condition thought,
rather than
to
express it.
"Become ye
as little children"
was
no injunction
to
return to infantilism,
but
to
rediscover consciously,
as adults,
what
as children
we knew instinctively.
How often
have we thought,
or rather
allowed ourselves
to know,
that
we are citizens
of another dimension
who,
by some
impenetrable trick,
have been
press-ganged
and transported
to awake
in a distant
and alien land --
with only
vague memories
of our
halcyon origins
to sustain us?
Plato
allegorized
this
"gnostalgia"
by writing
that
before man
was born
he lived
on a star.
Looking over the star
at the earth of matter
his curiosity
overcame him,
and he
fell
towards incarnation,
where he
spends
the rest of his days
trying to
get back
to
where
he came from.
Man strives
for
the Real,
for
the meaning
behind the shadows,
and
this re-connection
is
achieved
through symbols --
which is why
anthropologists
have described him
as
the
"symbol-making
creature".
The archetype
of the "search"
which runs through
all mythology
is the search
for
more
transparent symbols
which mirror
the self's quest
for
the "star
from which
we came".
This pursuit
is projected
into countless
external endeavors:
the will to make money
(the accumulation
of power
and freedom),
the explorer's quest
for
uncharted lands,
the lone sailor's
conquest
of
his own frailty
in the grip
of the elements.
The racing driver
and
the occultist
alike
seek
the ultimate razor edge
which divides them
from death
and insanity,
for
what we are
can
to some extent
be discovered
by
learning the point
at which
we break.
In spectator sports,
the masses
project
this interior battle
onto
the pugilists
in the ring,
or
the football teams
in the stadium.
It is only
the outer symbolism
of the odyssey
which differs,
for
whether
in the inky entrails
of the earth
or
on the battered heights
of Everest,
the spelunker
and
the mountaineer
alike
pursue
the same goal.
When
Sir Edmund Hillary
was asked
why
he bothered
to climb
the
world's highest mountain,
he replied:
"Because
it is there".
It is there
for
each of us,
yet
it seems
that only
a small percentage
of
the sleepwalking
human race
responds
to
the
supreme challenge
of
what is there.
Thus,
although many of us
today
have
lobotomized ourselves
from
the whisperings
of the psyche,
and
doggedly rise
each morning
to face
the routine of living,
for others
the need for meaning
has
broken the bounds
of curiosity.
It is
no longer enough
to be sensitive
to the myths
of change,
to cast
the I Ching
or
to study
the subtle maps
of character.
They seek
to learn
how to live
while there is yet
life,
to transform
every sleeping
and waking moment
into
a
sacrament
to
meaning.
It is these people
who
begin to be drawn
to
the new
religious groups,
the
central well-springs
about which
hover
the mists
of
myth
and
occultism.
Now that
the new religions,
or "Ways",
as the Sufis call them,
are
as accepted a part
of our culture
as
the disintegration
of Christianity,
they
are still
no better understood.
The mass media,
extracting
every shred
of
newsworthiness
from their
more sensational
and eccentric aspects,
publicly air
the new
"ways"
with
a kind of
patronizing disdain.
For
the academics
they
have become
objects
for
psychological
and
sociological
dissection,
in
the mistaken belief
that such
"objectivity"
will lead
to
the roots
of
religion itself.
But
to drag this
interior mystery
into
the outer world
is like
dragging
the
branched seaweed
from the ocean,
where it lives
suspended
as a tree of gauze,
and
laying it on the beach,
where it falls
shapeless
and inert.
To
understand either
the weed
or
inner religion,
we must
experience them
in
their own dimension,
for life
can only
be studied
"in vivo".
Our rational
conditioning
prevents us
from noticing
that there is
an "inner"
and
an "outer"
to all things,
from
a blade of grass
to
a carpenter's guild.
Nowhere
is this duality
more apparent
than
in religions,
whose
outer structure,
rooted
in the political
and economic world
of the secular,
totally differs
from
their inner
and secret nature,
which
leads the self
to the music
of
our individual purpose.
Inner religion
transcends
the general rules
which
authority
(whether
of an old
or
a new religion)
gives
to
the mass
of humanity
which
demands
to be
told
what
to
believe.
If the secrets
are brought out
into the open
for all to see
(which is
what has happened
recently)
[see the
"Watergate Scandal
of 1974",
or the
"Wikileaks Scandal
of 2010,
etc.]
they still
remain "secret",
for
the gullible
and
the cynical
alike
continue
to interpret them
as they please,
while
only
the few
"with eyes to see"
recognize them
as
tuning forks
for freedom.
Inner religion
is
the most powerful
and
desperate
of adventures,
where
the ultimate prizes
of
sanity
and
freedom
are at stake,
but
it is not
a
spectator sport.
It involves
abandoning
everything
we had believed
to be true;
the whole shell
of
one's personality
with
its beliefs
and
visions
must
utterly disintegrate
before
a new,
more complete
belief
can emerge.
Initiation
into
a true
brotherhood
is not only
a new birth,
but
the first link
in
a whole chain
of rebirths:
the hair
is cut,
the name
is changed,
and we are left
naked
and
alone
in
forty-day deserts.
This continual
shedding
as we ascend
towards
completeness
is
consistent
with reason,
for --
to transpose
J. S. Haldane's
remark
about the universe --
God may well be
not only
queerer
than we suppose,
but queerer
than we
can
suppose,
and
we must be broken,
altered,
uplifted
and
broken again
before we
can even
taste
the nature
of
Truth's intensity.
The great movement
of the young
towards
Eastern religions,
which
has puzzled
and outraged
the ministers
of our
Western Churches,
has occurred
quite simply
because
the East
still nurtures
avenues
of
"experiential" discovery
of
God,
catering
for
individual inner needs
of a kind
which have
long been suppressed
in the West
by
orthodox Christianity.
This Western
estrangement
from
inner religion
is
rather curious.
In Oriental religions
the "outer"
and
"inner" forms
manage
to co-exist
peacefully.
In Islam,
for example,
there are
the two paths
of Tariqu'a
and Shari'a.
In the first,
the average man
is assured
of salvation
if he
simply obeys
the laws
of
the Koran
and
gets on
with his life
without
asking questions.
The Shari'a way,
however,
which includes
the multiple
Sufi brotherhoods,
provides
the secret means
for experiencing
what lies
behind these laws,
for
knowing God,
rather than
merely believing
in him.
Thus Islam --
which
perhaps
after Christianity
is
the least tolerant
of
the great religions --
is
simultaneously
both
dogmatic
and
open-ended,
and
can accommodate
everybody,
even
the more critical
and
experimental pursuers
of truth.
But in
Christianity
the
"secret" tradition,
which was
once nurtured
by
the Hesychasts
and
such other
gnostic brotherhoods
as
the Templars
and
the Albigensians,
was suppressed
as early as
the fourteenth century
when
Pope Pius III
declared
Hesychasm
a heresy.
With this,
the secret sciences
were driven
underground,
and
as the Church
became
encrusted with dogma
its spiritual claims
rang hollow
against
its secular pursuits.
The giant facade
of
repetitive ritual
lost its soul,
and
became vulnerable
to
common sense;
the Emperor's clothes
became transparent
until,
for all the children
with innocence
enough to see,
the body of the Church
emerged
as
less
mysteriously meaningful
than
the new visions
or
rationalism.
Galileo,
Mendel,
Darwin,
brought
tidal waves
of
living symbolism
which
quite easily
eroded
the Church's
hard-fought
monopoly
on
universal meaning.
For
the average man
the
choices of religion
expanded
beyond
the
various denominations
of
the Christ myth
to include,
without fear
of heresy,
both
atheism
and
agnosticism.
Later,
with
the growth
of
the social sciences --
the
"looking beyond"
of
our own culture --
the choices
again expanded,
like multiplying cells,
into a profusion
of
alternative symbols
through which
the inner nature
of religion
could actually
be experienced,
ranging
from
the most
atavistic pantheism
to
the most
intellectualized faith.
Though
many of us
ache for
the need
for
spiritual orientation,
we are unaware
that there are now
almost as many choices
as there are
temperaments;
for
whereas
until recently
in the West
there was
but one religion
for everybody
(and the few
who
hungered
for its secrets
had
to practice
heresy)
there are now
many religions
for
the few.
The gnostic
embers
of Christianity
are being
fanned to life
again
in
the new magical
and
witchcraft groups
of
the Western Mysteries
tradition.
There are
the imports
from the East,
where
the green shoots
of secret wisdom
still flourish,
un-cropped,
amongst
the weeds
of superstition.
The life in these
is a blood transfusion
to our own
mysterious revival,
and this
cross-fertilization
has spawned
a whole variety
of hybrids
between
the ancient forms
of occultism
and
the
contemporary myths
of science
for;
as Bryan Wilson
has written,
"...in a society
where
intellectual criteria
dominate,
it may well be
that
what cannot be
intellectually accepted
cannot be
emotionally reassuring.
Yet many people
are driven
by this
indefinable hunger
into
the occult book shops,
where
they quickly
lose their purpose
in the confusion
of
titles and categories.
Others still --
the spiritual
"frogs" --
leap
from group to group
trying
to cull the electric pearls
from each one,
but
are disoriented further
by
their differing surfaces.
With religion,
as
with sexual relationships,
it is
promiscuity
which
appears to offer
the greatest spice,
but
it is this
which also blinds us
to
the vistas of richness
which
lie beneath,
in the depths
of
commitment
to
a single
person
or
Way.
A Persian proverb
advises us
on how
to seek
a spiritual teacher:
"He
who knows not
and knows not
he knows not,
is a fool;
shun him.
He
who knows not
and knows
he knows not,
is asleep;
wake him.
He
who knows
and knows not
he knows,
is a child;
teach him.
He
who knows
and knows
he knows,
is Wise;
follow him!"
Yet
depending on
who we are,
on
our
personal landscape
of vision,
what is
a fool
for one,
for another
is
a wise man.
Which means
that really
there are
no fools,
for
a fool
to me
will be
a true teacher
to another.
In this sense
all the ways
are "true",
and
the truth
of
the different claims
rests
on how
successfully
a particular way
discloses
meaning
to those
who
have submitted
to it.
For this reason
virtually
all the groups
enjoin novitiates
to
"forsake
all others
and
follow me",
for they know
that
"mixing ways"
leads
to confusion,
and that
although all roads
can lead
to the Rome
of the Self,
we can travel
but one
at a time.
When
our chosen
method,
whatever
it turns out to be,
is entered
in depth
and
with commitment,
then
all the others
can be seen
to lead
in
the same direction,
however divergent
and "absurd"
their
outer symbolism
may appear.
Thus
the
groups
and
gurus
which have
recently emerged
into view
from
the dark recesses
of
our culture
are like
the
tips of icebergs
whose
real significance --
and connection --
extends
deep beneath
the surface
of "objectivism"
into
the moving forces
of
cultural change,
which
only
the subtle
and
subjective
faculties
can know.
++++
"Rhythms
of Vision:
The Changing
Patterns
of Belief",
by
Lawrence Blair,
Warner Books,
1975,242 - 251.
Eight
(excerpt)
of
Experience
the absence
of
knowledge,
is not
certainty
close to
lunacy?"
-- Jacob
Needleman
previous chapters
we have watched
how the once
solid ground
of
scientific
rationalism
is beginning to
melt,
like ice-floes,
back into
rhythms
of
an underlying
cosmology.
The chaos
and alienation
brought about
by
our culture's
obsession with reason
persist
because of
our reluctance
to change our
"depth of vision"
and
to view
the universe of fact
in
a deeper dimension.
[Here the book
shows
a simple line drawing
of
a transparent cube,
surrounded there
by
6 differing views
of it,
from varying angles,
that give it
7 separate
"looks"
or
7 "appearances"
in all.]
Rather
as these
two dimensional
shapes
reveal themselves
to be
but
different facets
of
a single
three-dimensional
organism,
a cube,
so too
do
the
disconnected icebergs
of "fact"
which have
cluttered our horizon
since
the
Scientific Enlightenment
dissolve
into
a single ocean of vision
when viewed
from
a deeper dimension.
Sir Isaac Newton
wrote in his diary
shortly before he died:
"I do not know
what I may appear
to the world,
but to myself
I seem to have been
only a boy playing
on the sea-shore,
and diverting myself
in now and then
finding
a smoother pebble
or
a prettier shell
than ordinary,
while
the great ocean
of truth
lay all
undiscovered
before me!"
The clues
to this "truth",
as we have seen
in previous chapters,
are in certain
shapes,
numbers,
and patterns
which determine
the growth
not only
of
the outside world
of crystals,
music
and
living things,
but also
of
the inside world,
of
the very structure
of mythic
and
symbolic
thought.
This hitherto
conflicting duality
of
the "outside"
versus
the "inside",
is now beginning
to fuse
even at the most
physical level.
For several decades
neurosurgeons have known
that the
left-hand hemisphere
of the brain
is adapted to deal with
the physical
and rational world
of everyday experience,
but now,
paralleling
the general cultural search
for
renewed
religious meaning,
they are entering
the "dark continent"
of the brain's
right-hand hemisphere,
and finding
that it is
specifically adapted
to deal with
the deeper,
more
abstract dimensions
of perception.
The earth --
as a macrocosm
of the human mind --
also consists
of a right-hand
and a left-hand
hemisphere --
the East,
which excels
in
religious
and
transcendent
areas
of consciousness,
and the West,
which excels
in
technology
and
manipulation
of
the
material environment.
Until recently,
this duality
was un-reconciled,
but now
it is beginning
to merge,
both in
the cross-fertilization
between the
global East and West,
as well as
between
the left and right
hemispheres
of our individual brains,
which means
that
"religion"
and
"science"
need no longer
be spoken of
in different breaths.
The rhythmic patterns
of energy,
which we are finding
to underlie all matter,
are leading us
ever inwards
towards a simpler
and yet vaster
Order,
to the awesome place
of
"re-ligare"
with our source.
The more
we look at
the world's
"Great Religions"
in the light
of the "new science",
the more they emerge
as giant edifices
which have
corrupted
around
a miraculous thread
of knowledge.
We see ourselves
as savages
wandering
among the ruins
of
a vanished
technological civilization;
our priests,
in the crumbling
power stations,
intoning
the fading
instructions on the walls
and making gestures
with
the long disconnected
levers.
"Outer"
religion
is a religion
of "faith",
of hoping
that
the electrical energy,
if one gets
the ritual right
and repeats it
often enough,
will again
flood through
the corroded machinery.
But "inner" religion
is
the experiential
awakening
of
knowledge
of the actual power
which makes things
work.
This rediscovery,
among
the ruined power stations
of our spiritual heritage,
is being pursued
by small groups
of
twentieth century
alchemists,
who
are continually
experimenting
in
the laboratories
of themselves --
even if
like Edison
with his first attempts
at making a bulb,
achieving only
but
a brief flicker.
Whereas
everything
in the natural world
still dances
to
the vibrationary music
of its source,
man alone
seems
to have branched out
into a waterless desert
of externals,
one
which he is
only just realizing
threatens
his very existence.
Sumatran myths
tell how
the more separated
man became
from his inner source,
the longer
he had to sleep,
for
only through dreams
could he
remain connected
to
the inner world.
Once,
in the golden age
of myth,
when he barely slept
and
lived for centuries,
before he knew
the "shame"
of God's rejection,
his inner self
was still linked
to his waking awareness,
and
the stiffening
of his penis --
as the scepter
of
creative worship --
was as much
under
his conscious control
as is today
the raising and lowering
of his arms.
But today
we
are schizophrenics,
the lower half of us --
like the allegory
of the Pan God --
obeying
the laws of biology,
while
the upper half
does not.
Dream and symbol,
myth and legend,
through which
the rhythms
of sacred order
reveal themselves,
have been ignored
and
allowed to wither
in the heat
of
rational progress.
Even "innocence"
is now
cynically assumed
to be
naiveté --
but
what is innocence
if not
the primal tool
of submission,
of
quietening ourselves
to
the harmony
inside us.
As children
we are briefly
allowed to live
in
the
world of dreams
and fantasy
where
invisible myths
are
alive
with meaning.
Having come
so recently
from
the unseen world --
which our culture
oddly assumes
to be
pre- or un-conscious --
children
are still
closely attuned to it,
and
just before they cross
the "bridge of tears"
into adult chaos,
their
transparent questions
and
observations
gleam
with
what most of us
have
buried
and
forgotten.
Children
are
a constant reminder
of
the alchemists' saying
that
"we are
surrounded
by colors
we cannot see,
by sounds
we cannot hear;
and
we see
as real
what is
unreal,
and
cannot see
what is."
Of all
the natural kingdom
man shares
with
only a few
insects
and
amphibians
the strange
deformity
(or transitionary stage)
of
never quite reaching
adulthood.
Like these odd hybrids
the limbs of our inner being
no longer fully develop,
and as adults
we are still
mostly children --
but
without
the child's innocence
and vision.
As a child
I remember
listening to classical music
and remarking
that the instruments
were too coarse
to express it
properly,
and I wondered
if anyone in the world
had made instruments
fine enough
to interpret,
what the music
really was.
But as I
hardened into maturity
I realized
that violins and flutes
were
the best there was;
it was their sound
which became
the music itself,
rather than
the music's
imperfect shadow.
Words too
began
to
condition thought,
rather than
to
express it.
as little children"
was
no injunction
to
return to infantilism,
but
to
rediscover consciously,
as adults,
what
as children
we knew instinctively.
How often
have we thought,
or rather
allowed ourselves
to know,
that
we are citizens
of another dimension
who,
by some
impenetrable trick,
have been
press-ganged
and transported
to awake
in a distant
and alien land --
with only
vague memories
of our
halcyon origins
to sustain us?
Plato
allegorized
this
"gnostalgia"
by writing
that
before man
was born
he lived
on a star.
Looking over the star
at the earth of matter
his curiosity
overcame him,
and he
fell
towards incarnation,
where he
spends
the rest of his days
trying to
get back
to
where
he came from.
Man strives
for
the Real,
for
the meaning
behind the shadows,
and
this re-connection
is
achieved
through symbols --
which is why
anthropologists
have described him
as
the
"symbol-making
creature".
The archetype
of the "search"
which runs through
all mythology
is the search
for
more
transparent symbols
which mirror
the self's quest
for
the "star
from which
we came".
This pursuit
is projected
into countless
external endeavors:
the will to make money
(the accumulation
of power
and freedom),
the explorer's quest
for
uncharted lands,
the lone sailor's
conquest
of
his own frailty
in the grip
of the elements.
The racing driver
and
the occultist
alike
seek
the ultimate razor edge
which divides them
from death
and insanity,
for
what we are
can
to some extent
be discovered
by
learning the point
at which
we break.
In spectator sports,
the masses
project
this interior battle
onto
the pugilists
in the ring,
or
the football teams
in the stadium.
It is only
the outer symbolism
of the odyssey
which differs,
for
whether
in the inky entrails
of the earth
or
on the battered heights
of Everest,
the spelunker
and
the mountaineer
alike
pursue
the same goal.
When
Sir Edmund Hillary
was asked
why
he bothered
to climb
the
world's highest mountain,
he replied:
"Because
it is there".
It is there
for
each of us,
yet
it seems
that only
a small percentage
of
the sleepwalking
human race
responds
to
the
supreme challenge
of
what is there.
Thus,
although many of us
today
have
lobotomized ourselves
from
the whisperings
of the psyche,
and
doggedly rise
each morning
to face
the routine of living,
for others
the need for meaning
has
broken the bounds
of curiosity.
It is
no longer enough
to be sensitive
to the myths
of change,
to cast
the I Ching
or
to study
the subtle maps
of character.
They seek
to learn
how to live
while there is yet
life,
to transform
every sleeping
and waking moment
into
a
sacrament
to
meaning.
It is these people
who
begin to be drawn
to
the new
religious groups,
the
central well-springs
about which
hover
the mists
of
myth
and
occultism.
Now that
the new religions,
or "Ways",
as the Sufis call them,
are
as accepted a part
of our culture
as
the disintegration
of Christianity,
they
are still
no better understood.
The mass media,
extracting
every shred
of
newsworthiness
from their
more sensational
and eccentric aspects,
publicly air
the new
"ways"
with
a kind of
patronizing disdain.
For
the academics
they
have become
objects
for
psychological
and
sociological
dissection,
in
the mistaken belief
that such
"objectivity"
will lead
to
the roots
of
religion itself.
But
to drag this
interior mystery
into
the outer world
is like
dragging
the
branched seaweed
from the ocean,
where it lives
suspended
as a tree of gauze,
and
laying it on the beach,
where it falls
shapeless
and inert.
To
understand either
the weed
or
inner religion,
we must
experience them
in
their own dimension,
for life
can only
be studied
"in vivo".
Our rational
conditioning
prevents us
from noticing
that there is
an "inner"
and
an "outer"
to all things,
from
a blade of grass
to
a carpenter's guild.
Nowhere
is this duality
more apparent
than
in religions,
whose
outer structure,
rooted
in the political
and economic world
of the secular,
totally differs
from
their inner
and secret nature,
which
leads the self
to the music
of
our individual purpose.
Inner religion
transcends
the general rules
which
authority
(whether
of an old
or
a new religion)
gives
to
the mass
of humanity
which
demands
to be
told
what
to
believe.
If the secrets
are brought out
into the open
for all to see
(which is
what has happened
recently)
[see the
"Watergate Scandal
of 1974",
or the
"Wikileaks Scandal
of 2010,
etc.]
they still
remain "secret",
for
the gullible
and
the cynical
alike
continue
to interpret them
as they please,
while
only
the few
"with eyes to see"
recognize them
as
tuning forks
for freedom.
Inner religion
is
the most powerful
and
desperate
of adventures,
where
the ultimate prizes
of
sanity
and
freedom
are at stake,
but
it is not
a
spectator sport.
It involves
abandoning
everything
we had believed
to be true;
the whole shell
of
one's personality
with
its beliefs
and
visions
must
utterly disintegrate
before
a new,
more complete
belief
can emerge.
Initiation
into
a true
brotherhood
is not only
a new birth,
but
the first link
in
a whole chain
of rebirths:
the hair
is cut,
the name
is changed,
and we are left
naked
and
alone
in
forty-day deserts.
This continual
shedding
as we ascend
towards
completeness
is
consistent
with reason,
for --
to transpose
J. S. Haldane's
remark
about the universe --
God may well be
not only
queerer
than we suppose,
but queerer
than we
can
suppose,
and
we must be broken,
altered,
uplifted
and
broken again
before we
can even
taste
the nature
of
Truth's intensity.
The great movement
of the young
towards
Eastern religions,
which
has puzzled
and outraged
the ministers
of our
Western Churches,
has occurred
quite simply
because
the East
still nurtures
avenues
of
"experiential" discovery
of
God,
catering
for
individual inner needs
of a kind
which have
long been suppressed
in the West
by
orthodox Christianity.
This Western
estrangement
from
inner religion
is
rather curious.
In Oriental religions
the "outer"
and
"inner" forms
manage
to co-exist
peacefully.
In Islam,
for example,
there are
the two paths
of Tariqu'a
and Shari'a.
In the first,
the average man
is assured
of salvation
if he
simply obeys
the laws
of
the Koran
and
gets on
with his life
without
asking questions.
The Shari'a way,
however,
which includes
the multiple
Sufi brotherhoods,
provides
the secret means
for experiencing
what lies
behind these laws,
for
knowing God,
rather than
merely believing
in him.
Thus Islam --
which
perhaps
after Christianity
is
the least tolerant
of
the great religions --
is
simultaneously
both
dogmatic
and
open-ended,
and
can accommodate
everybody,
even
the more critical
and
experimental pursuers
of truth.
But in
Christianity
the
"secret" tradition,
which was
once nurtured
by
the Hesychasts
and
such other
gnostic brotherhoods
as
the Templars
and
the Albigensians,
was suppressed
as early as
the fourteenth century
when
Pope Pius III
declared
Hesychasm
a heresy.
With this,
the secret sciences
were driven
underground,
and
as the Church
became
encrusted with dogma
its spiritual claims
rang hollow
against
its secular pursuits.
The giant facade
of
repetitive ritual
lost its soul,
and
became vulnerable
to
common sense;
the Emperor's clothes
became transparent
until,
for all the children
with innocence
enough to see,
the body of the Church
emerged
as
less
mysteriously meaningful
than
the new visions
or
rationalism.
Galileo,
Mendel,
Darwin,
brought
tidal waves
of
living symbolism
which
quite easily
eroded
the Church's
hard-fought
monopoly
on
universal meaning.
For
the average man
the
choices of religion
expanded
beyond
the
various denominations
of
the Christ myth
to include,
without fear
of heresy,
both
atheism
and
agnosticism.
Later,
with
the growth
of
the social sciences --
the
"looking beyond"
of
our own culture --
the choices
again expanded,
like multiplying cells,
into a profusion
of
alternative symbols
through which
the inner nature
of religion
could actually
be experienced,
ranging
from
the most
atavistic pantheism
to
the most
intellectualized faith.
Though
many of us
ache for
the need
for
spiritual orientation,
we are unaware
that there are now
almost as many choices
as there are
temperaments;
for
whereas
until recently
in the West
there was
but one religion
for everybody
(and the few
who
hungered
for its secrets
had
to practice
heresy)
there are now
many religions
for
the few.
The gnostic
embers
of Christianity
are being
fanned to life
again
in
the new magical
and
witchcraft groups
of
the Western Mysteries
tradition.
There are
the imports
from the East,
where
the green shoots
of secret wisdom
still flourish,
un-cropped,
amongst
the weeds
of superstition.
The life in these
is a blood transfusion
to our own
mysterious revival,
and this
cross-fertilization
has spawned
a whole variety
of hybrids
between
the ancient forms
of occultism
and
the
contemporary myths
of science
for;
as Bryan Wilson
has written,
"...in a society
where
intellectual criteria
dominate,
it may well be
that
what cannot be
intellectually accepted
cannot be
emotionally reassuring.
Yet many people
are driven
by this
indefinable hunger
into
the occult book shops,
where
they quickly
lose their purpose
in the confusion
of
titles and categories.
Others still --
the spiritual
"frogs" --
leap
from group to group
trying
to cull the electric pearls
from each one,
but
are disoriented further
by
their differing surfaces.
With religion,
as
with sexual relationships,
it is
promiscuity
which
appears to offer
the greatest spice,
but
it is this
which also blinds us
to
the vistas of richness
which
lie beneath,
in the depths
of
commitment
to
a single
person
or
Way.
A Persian proverb
advises us
on how
to seek
a spiritual teacher:
"He
who knows not
and knows not
he knows not,
is a fool;
shun him.
He
who knows not
and knows
he knows not,
is asleep;
wake him.
He
who knows
and knows not
he knows,
is a child;
teach him.
He
who knows
and knows
he knows,
is Wise;
follow him!"
Yet
depending on
who we are,
on
our
personal landscape
of vision,
what is
a fool
for one,
for another
is
a wise man.
Which means
that really
there are
no fools,
for
a fool
to me
will be
a true teacher
to another.
In this sense
all the ways
are "true",
and
the truth
of
the different claims
rests
on how
successfully
a particular way
discloses
meaning
to those
who
have submitted
to it.
For this reason
virtually
all the groups
enjoin novitiates
to
"forsake
all others
and
follow me",
for they know
that
"mixing ways"
leads
to confusion,
and that
although all roads
can lead
to the Rome
of the Self,
we can travel
but one
at a time.
When
our chosen
method,
whatever
it turns out to be,
is entered
in depth
and
with commitment,
then
all the others
can be seen
to lead
in
the same direction,
however divergent
and "absurd"
their
outer symbolism
may appear.
Thus
the
groups
and
gurus
which have
recently emerged
into view
from
the dark recesses
of
our culture
are like
the
tips of icebergs
whose
real significance --
and connection --
extends
deep beneath
the surface
of "objectivism"
into
the moving forces
of
cultural change,
which
only
the subtle
and
subjective
faculties
can know.
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