As the New Spirituality continues to permeate
"mainstream" culture, the basic spiritual knowledge itself becomes quite
automatically distorted by materialism and magical-thinking. This
problem so much with us now, will continue on into the future as more
people discover the New Spirituality for the first time. Even people who
have been on the "Path" for years must guard against that all too human
tendency to make spirituality fit into personally conditioned 'likes;
and 'dislikes'. There is no knowledge easier to distort and
misappropriate than Spiritual Knowledge......
It is obvious that authentic spirituality has been subverted all over
the world. Our task is to reclaim spiritual freedom from the worlds of
consumerism materialism and religious fanaticism and hypocrisy. The only
known protection from this age old tendency to unknowingly distort
spiritual reality is the constant reexamination of all those aspects of
spiritual understanding that have come to seem familiar and obvious.
This is only one of the reasons that spirituality is something quite
other than religious belief and the secure but misleading habits of
faith in sanctioned beliefs.
The New Spirituality explorer neither believes nor disbelieves the as
yet unknown. Contrary to popular notions about mysticism the
investigation of the spiritual demands a highly developed rational and
discerning mind. In time this attitude of open minded spiritual
intelligence will develop into "A mind to embrace the Universe" [H.P.B.]
Anyone not prepared to approach the human spiritual experience and the
Universe in a spirit of open-minded pragmatism must avoid the New
Spirituality altogether, otherwise it can only harm them.
The New Spiritual Paradigm by it's very nature, constitutes the
rejection of all magical thinking, superstition and seduction by
beautiful theories.
The fact that the first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine
speaks of what is "unthinkable and unspeakable" must not be mistaken for
an invitation to abandon rigorous though and discernment; quite the
opposite. It is only a mind tempered by the act of "checking testing and
verifying" (sd.p.272) in the field of life experience, that can begin to
appreciate what "unthinkable and unspeakable" means.
Take for example the often heard New Spirituality aphorism, "You are God
and you create your own reality." When this aphorism is taken for
granted or received like some lucky talisman with the power to create
the perfect life on demand, distortion and disappointment are the
inevitable results. It would seem natural, upon hearing this great truth
for the first time, or at any time, that it would engender a profound
and heartfelt contemplation and investigation of ones current personal
reality. Unfortunately it is too often the case that people like the
sound of "You are God and you create your own reality" for all the wrong
reasons because it seems to promise the egotistical fulfillment of every
personal desire. A kind of metaphysical "if it feels good do it".
The fact that ones personal reality was so recently devoid of all
spirituality is quickly forgotten. This is a mistake. With no real
knowledge or understanding, of the actual karmic causes of ones present
personal reality, it would seem naive and superficial to set out
immediately to create a new one. "You create your own reality." has been
employed to great financial effect by "experts" and groups who pretend
to offer a commodity called "self improvement workshops".
With no real understanding of the actual nature of the Spiritual Self,
how can any improvement be possible? There is obviously a wide plane of
difference between “self-improvement” as an act of personal vanity and
the deep awakening within the depths of Self that leads to the
recognition of one’s life purpose and direct awareness of the Living
Spirit.
Society, driven by media-generated trends, is busy with images,
illusions, empty ambition and anti-social feeling. Fashions in
everything come and go, including the Spiritual. The individual who is
spiritually aware of Life is not mesmerized by the collective reality
agreement and has no desire to create more of the same, even as the
demands of being physically and economically present in the World are
being, if not always met, then realistically, confronted. The Awakened
Individual is moved by the knowledge, intuition, feeling and will of
human spiritual destiny.
The naïve victims of “self-improvement” workshops still lack precisely
this: a sense of life purpose, which is why they are foolish enough to
be there in the first place. Though all beings have a personal karmic
mission to perform, destiny is always shared through, and ultimately
deeply realized within, others as spiritual beings. It is odd then that,
at a time when so many have realized the impossibility of an
extra-cosmic God outside the Universe, many are prepared to believe in a
personal reality outside of life, a personal reality that acts upon life
from the outside like a “ghost in the machine”.
The aphorism “You create your own reality” gives rise to questions like,
“What is the source of the current reality?”, “What is one’s vision of
reality?” and “How do we know that our vision of reality is not merely
our currently favourite illusion?” It goes without saying that we should
all do that which is within our power to ethically improve our lot in
the World, within the bounds of real human needs. Self-willed spiritual
improvement, on the other hand, is impossible without the knowledge of
the laws that govern Spiritual Reality.
When, in moments of lucidity, we look for ourselves, we always find
ourselves and find that we are already here, and we always come to be
present to ourselves within a pre-existing reality, which is ourselves
and is also independent of us, because reality continued to exist during
the time we were seemingly unaware of it. This is not only our personal
reality, it is also Reality unto itself, and we are sustained as Living
Beings within it even when we are in the deepest sleep. Therefore, a
greater Spiritual Reality is the creator and context of one’s personal
reality. Let no one imagine that the term “greater Spiritual Reality”
has anything to do with any god/ess that human imagination and weakness
can conjure up.
next page
