Let's be honest. There was a time when one out of 1,000 people on Earth knew how to read. And the clerics were scribes, and they would read and repeat to the masses what were in spiritual teachings.
But this is not needed in a time of universal education, where the majority of people can read. So, go read, and then gather together in your own spiritual community and share. But you don't need to anoint some- one to be a guru or priest. To do so is actually deleterious to your spiritual development. It does not matter if it's some New Age guru or people running around in robes saying that they're your entry point to the forgiveness of God. To me, it's all a harmful holdover from a time now gone.
I'm not saying that everyone who shares and teaches such things are frauds. I'm saying that people who set themselves up as final arbiters, special priests if you will, of spiritual knowledge are misguided. That time is over. We are at least 100 to 150 years into a time when no one on Earth has needed a priest, a rabbi, a mullah, or a guru, except as a facilita- tor to teach.
Ultimately people will wake up to the truth, but the fact is that the spiritual in- fantilization of the masses is something which is a very entrenched institution. What I mean by spiritual infantilization is the situation where the power and access to enlightenment or spiritual knowledge goes through these filters, or control points. And everyone else is acting like children, rather passively receiving it. That is a type of learned behavior - and you have to un-learn that behavior. This is spiritual co- dependency.
Granted, there's a role for people who want to share and teach spiritual information and pass it from one generation to another. But, I'm talking about hierarchy and the power grab and the control drama and the mind set of spiritual dependency. Unfortunately, this spiritual code- pendency is very, very powerful in terms of getting into people's minds where they feel like they can't learn and experience truth on their own without having someone there directing every step.
One of the positive things about the early years of my life was learn- ing that an individual can learn these truths and experience enlightenment with little formal education and no specific person directing it.
The close-minded orthodoxy of religion is equaled or exceeded by the close- minded orthodoxy of scientists who, in our society, have become the new high priests. Remember: Scientists are humans first and scientists later. So, they have all the failings and all the foibles of humans. Just because a Harvard professor has a PhD, it doesn't mean s/he doesn't have the same pitfalls that a priest would have in terms of self aggrandizement and egotism. They, too, can become fanatical and dogmatic in the belief system in which they've been indoctrinated, in lieu of search- ing for the truth.
Most of the problems that we face in our world today, whether they be spiritual and religious or scientific, political and economic, are all because people are holding onto some perspective that has nothing to do with the truth but has to do with their own belief system and addiction to something that's outdated, and they can't let go of it. This is certainly true of scientists. There are countless examples of how the main- stream scientific community has rejected enormous breakthroughs because it didn't fit into their belief system.
This is why I say to people, "One should have very few beliefs, but an abundance of faith." You can have infinite faith- but the specific beliefs you hold need to be minimal. Otherwise, people get trapped in brain- washed dogma, whether it be scientific or religious. They then become chauvinistic and egotistically attached to it. And as soon as that happens one has stopped searching for the truth.
We need a genuinely humble, universal spirituality. We must want to find the truth. And if the next door that opens cancels some of our previously held convictions and beliefs, then so be it. This is one of the rea- sons why, whether you're a physician or a scientist or someone doing spiritual work or an economist, the mind-set of being attached to an idea— as opposed to being clearly focused on wanting to know the truth -- is a hindrance to finding truth.
On a personal note, I'm very grateful that, prior to going into medi- cine, I had studied meditation, health and diet so that I came into medi- cine with a broader paradigm. I could take what was good in the med- ical and scientific area, without getting brainwashed by it.
This meta-system trapping happens in every profession and in every field. It happens because people confuse the current state of knowledge with the ultimate state of knowledge. And the ultimate state of knowledge, no one has but the Divine Being. But because they know what they know, they think they know everything. And the truth is, most of what there is to know isn't known by anyone, ever.
And so I think the only way to avoid the pitfalls of the high priests of scientific circles or of religious circles is to have enough genuine devotion to finding the truth and a willingness to reform what your assess- ment is. Thus, there are very few things that become fixed and absolute. And everything else is relative. But that's the nature of the world we're in. It's a relative world. And there are very few
things that need to be fixed and absolute.
If you study the central teachings of every spiritual tradition on Earth, they all agree: the existence of God; the qualities of forgiveness and love; and these larger spiritual themes. They're all universal. Where they dif- fer is in one social teaching or another, or one cultural bias or another -- which are really ephemeral and changing with each spiritual tradition and aren't that important, anyway.
You know, you may be very orthodox in some areas, and that's fine if it works for you. But don't think that that is the end and the beginning of all knowledge for spiritual traditions. It isn't. There are very few things that need to be in the category of ongoing, certain truths. And most everything else should be in a state of evaluation and evolution.
But we're not trained to do that. Our educational system, whether it's religious or scientific, is designed to create rigidity and, in that way, engenders fanaticism. It then becomes a fiefdom that those benefiting from the structure of belief want to protect at all costs. And certainly this is true in science, where there are people who, no matter how much evidence you put in front of them, would say, "This can't be true."
Our science advisor for the Project, Dr. Loder, has a colleague at the University of New Hampshire who said he wouldn't care if you gave him one of these new energy machines and he tested it and proved it worked: he still wouldn't believe it because it's not possible!
So, these become fanatical belief systems that are just as tragic as the fanatical belief systems that certain religious extremists are attached to. And all of it ends up hurting society.
One of the things I want to share is what happened at MIU where I was learning to become a meditation instructor. There, I was experimenting with the applications of higher states of consciousness. One night, late, I was sitting, meditating, and I saw a young woman in my class in my mind's eye, and invited her to come over to my room. We were going to talk about spiritual matters and then meditate together.
All of a sudden I saw her, in my mind's eye. I was in a deep quiet meditation, and I saw her leave her dorm, come out, walk around the campus, come up the steps, and then, bang, bang, knocked on my door. And it so startled me, because it was almost like a dream, except I was actually seeing it in living color. I opened the door and I said, "Oh, it is you." She said, "Oh, were you expecting me?" I said, "Well, I saw you coming." And it was just crystal clear.