Over twenty years ago, for some reason I got the urge to "go spiritual" - this after spending the last 12 years on very non-spiritual academic pursuits. I cannot remember exactly when it happened, but it coincided with finding a used book at a book store by Yogananda called "Autobiography of a Yogi" (I have written of this in an essay last year) I bought it for 25 cents because I had once come upon it in very strange circumstances 20 or more years before that - and after reading it, my serious - or sometimes only semi-serious - spiritual learning began. I have not stuck with many of his teachings, but the quest started there - and led to another publication, a magazine called "The Quest" published by the Theosophical Society. It was, at the time, a godsend, for here were people who openly and causally talked about all those spiritual things that are not to be found in our popular culture and that I craved. I have had a subscription to the magazine ever since, although of late I haven't often read it. In recent years, my knowledge of great spiritual authors has expanded, and the magazine often sounds tinny or too New Age. In fact, some of the great theologians have trashed the Theosophical Society for its bland inclusionism. And so I admit that what was once a needed connection to others with similar interests has now become something of a back burner publication.
It has gotten better recently, though, with its new editor, Richard Smoley, and a few days ago I decided to go through the entire winter issue for better or for worse. The opening editorial by Smoley was for better, and surprised me as much as the magazine had 20 years ago. In it he talks of Enlightenment - what is it and who has it. Seeking out a Buddhist master, he is told that an enlightened being is one who has eliminated the Three Poisons in himself - that is, "Desire, Anger and Delusion." This is not, Smoley points out, the same as a "sudden cognitive awakening" as some of us think of enlightenment. This "awakening" happens to many of us, usually at the start of a spiritual path, after which the individual has to go through "a long process of discipline and purification in order to anchor it [the experience] in his being." (this is what I had written at the end of the first chapter in my book, Dream Weaver. It has proven to be absolutely correct.) The sudden and complete awakening is, in reality, extremely rare - one has to go back to someone like St. Paul for such a thing, and even he had spent several years in the wilderness after the Road to Damascus before he began to preach.
But Smoley goes on. Recall that this is the editor of Quest magazine, a man who is in constant contact with dozens or even hundreds of spiritual luminaries. He at one point gives us something most of us know - that gurus with certain spiritual powers who then abuse their position are not enlightened, or full of "crazy wisdom." Rather, they are incomplete spiritually and as criminal in nature as any con man. Further, though - and this is what surprised me - he states that "I have never met anyone who was even close to being enlightened," in the Buddhist sense of having dominated the three poisons. He, in his position, has never met a one! He goes on to speculate that this perfected person is either an impossibility or extremely rare, and concludes that he sides with the latter, if for no other reason than that the human potential is capable of almost everything. But just that - that enlightened beings are so rare that he had not met anyone, not in India or Nepal or anywhere, who was even CLOSE to perfection.
We have our masters, the men who are known as the originators of religion - our Jesus and Gautama - who are said to have been perfect, or to have become perfect, and we should know how precious they are. That leaves the rest of them - the gurus, the saints, the wonder-workers, the brave and the generous - in the same boat as, well, me. Better than me, no doubt, but still imperfect. I think that years ago this would have discouraged me; but now it is a thing of brightness, for, as un-congenial as I may be, I am not as far off the mark from anyone else as I had thought.
But it also brings up something that we should watch out for - the deification of certain esteemed people. We know how dangerous that is for politics, but it is also dangerous for religion, for every time a religious leader acts in an imperfect way, the popular media denigrate the religion he is from. He is, they say, supposed to be absolutely in accord with his religion's ideals; he is supposed to be perfect! If he is not, somehow that has come to mean that the religion is too flawed to be taken seriously. But we have few perfect souls on this earth and should not expect them. They only come once every thousand years or so. But that should not mean that we throw the baby out with the bath water - or the greater moral beliefs out with the imperfect messengers.
And, once again, one can take heart - if no one is perfect, then we all have the right to aspire to become greater, because we are all, after all, in the same shoes. FK
It has gotten better recently, though, with its new editor, Richard Smoley, and a few days ago I decided to go through the entire winter issue for better or for worse. The opening editorial by Smoley was for better, and surprised me as much as the magazine had 20 years ago. In it he talks of Enlightenment - what is it and who has it. Seeking out a Buddhist master, he is told that an enlightened being is one who has eliminated the Three Poisons in himself - that is, "Desire, Anger and Delusion." This is not, Smoley points out, the same as a "sudden cognitive awakening" as some of us think of enlightenment. This "awakening" happens to many of us, usually at the start of a spiritual path, after which the individual has to go through "a long process of discipline and purification in order to anchor it [the experience] in his being." (this is what I had written at the end of the first chapter in my book, Dream Weaver. It has proven to be absolutely correct.) The sudden and complete awakening is, in reality, extremely rare - one has to go back to someone like St. Paul for such a thing, and even he had spent several years in the wilderness after the Road to Damascus before he began to preach.
But Smoley goes on. Recall that this is the editor of Quest magazine, a man who is in constant contact with dozens or even hundreds of spiritual luminaries. He at one point gives us something most of us know - that gurus with certain spiritual powers who then abuse their position are not enlightened, or full of "crazy wisdom." Rather, they are incomplete spiritually and as criminal in nature as any con man. Further, though - and this is what surprised me - he states that "I have never met anyone who was even close to being enlightened," in the Buddhist sense of having dominated the three poisons. He, in his position, has never met a one! He goes on to speculate that this perfected person is either an impossibility or extremely rare, and concludes that he sides with the latter, if for no other reason than that the human potential is capable of almost everything. But just that - that enlightened beings are so rare that he had not met anyone, not in India or Nepal or anywhere, who was even CLOSE to perfection.
We have our masters, the men who are known as the originators of religion - our Jesus and Gautama - who are said to have been perfect, or to have become perfect, and we should know how precious they are. That leaves the rest of them - the gurus, the saints, the wonder-workers, the brave and the generous - in the same boat as, well, me. Better than me, no doubt, but still imperfect. I think that years ago this would have discouraged me; but now it is a thing of brightness, for, as un-congenial as I may be, I am not as far off the mark from anyone else as I had thought.
But it also brings up something that we should watch out for - the deification of certain esteemed people. We know how dangerous that is for politics, but it is also dangerous for religion, for every time a religious leader acts in an imperfect way, the popular media denigrate the religion he is from. He is, they say, supposed to be absolutely in accord with his religion's ideals; he is supposed to be perfect! If he is not, somehow that has come to mean that the religion is too flawed to be taken seriously. But we have few perfect souls on this earth and should not expect them. They only come once every thousand years or so. But that should not mean that we throw the baby out with the bath water - or the greater moral beliefs out with the imperfect messengers.
And, once again, one can take heart - if no one is perfect, then we all have the right to aspire to become greater, because we are all, after all, in the same shoes. FK
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