Reflections on my own personal religious path

[Alexander]

I wrote this as the opening of a reflection on religion I am doing for my graduate course, and thought I would share it here

I might compile all these entries at the end and publish them as a short book on comparative religions (1-2 months from now) if they turn out worth reading

I began my personal spiritual quest at 15. At this age I became self-aware, and began to grapple with the great human questions of mortality, the meaning of existence, and man’s place in the cosmos. This grappling took me through many beliefs, traditions, and philosophies but ultimately brought me to the spiritual. Since that age I have read the Bible, the Buddhist suttas, the Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, the Philokalia, the Platonic Dialogues, and a litany of other works. I have deeply studied comparative religions and mysticism.

At 15, I began as a blank slate without a clear concept of what I should read or what conclusions I should make. In fact, I began as a strict materialist. I disparaged the idea of the nonphysical and spiritual, thinking it was nonsense. At this time I thought that the only viable path to truth was through the five senses and the empirical. I did not believe anything could exist beyond what the senses could perceive.

I was also hostile to Christianity at this time. I felt Christianity had caused many ills for western civilization, and that its failings, deficiencies, and controversies had damaged it as a viable spiritual path. Around this time I read Albert Camus and the existentialists, and like them I felt that as a modern person (and a westerner) I had to begin first with the problem of the “death of God.”

By the “death of God” I mean the idea that our modern, western civilization has lost a sense of the sacred. What religion we do have is deficient and poor quality, and offers little tangible value. I attribute the “death of God” to our culture’s history and to our psychological idiosyncrasies. I feel the “death of God” is something that is deeply internalized by all westerners, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not. I feel that as adults, we must start here and respond to this fact before we can proceed further.

Despite feeling the “death of God” very strongly, I still felt a strong intuition of the reality of the transcendent, and a strong yearning to access it and engage with it. Thus, like many other westerners (from the 1960s to today) who were motivated by the same force, I moved away from western spirituality and pursued an alternate path.

I approached the sacred first through the study of consciousness (a distinctly “nonspiritual” spirituality), for example through the writings of Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception) and P. D. Ouspensky (The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution). I also approached the sacred through the study of eastern philosophies, like Buddhism and Hinduism (again, to the western perception, “nonspiritual” paths). Around this time I also read R. M. Bucke (Cosmic Consciousness, a book on comparative religion) and Alan Watts (a western writer on Buddhism).

My readings in this domain eventually brought me to the “Gurdjieff work.” I had discovered this movement through reading the works of P. D. Ouspensky, who was a Russian writer, traveler, spiritual seeker, and orientalist. I felt that this tradition was able to offer me what I was seeking.

The Gurdjieff work was a spiritual tradition established by the Greek-Armenian teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff had traveled widely and developed a unique philosophy blending many mystical elements. Gurdjieff called his teaching “esoteric Christianity”: a version of Christianity focused on self-examination, self-knowledge, and spiritual dialogue.

The Gurdjieff tradition was very practical and, I felt, rigorous. It offered me more than could be gotten from the droning congregants of an American church. The “work” groups were filled with people who were very serious about investigating man’s spiritual possibilities.

Around this time I also became interested in Christian monasticism. I read the Philokalia, the manual for the Greek monks; and The Ladder of Divine Ascent, an ascetic treatise written by the Greek monk John Climacus. For a time I seriously contemplated becoming a monk. But, my reservations with the deficiencies of institutional religion, and my reservations about accepting the restrictions of the religious life, prevented me. I felt that as a “modern” person, clerical life was no longer appropriate for one on a spiritual path. At the same time, I felt if ever my health went astray, I could give up everything and join a religious order.

I also began to study Platonism around this time, and inclined toward the Neoplatonic (ie, mystical) interpretation of Socrates and Plato. I felt that the Allegory of the Cave was a clear analogy for the spiritual path, and that the purpose of philosophy was (as Socrates said) the “preparation for death.” I felt that the ancient Greeks clearly showed that man could be improved through self-examination, self-knowledge, and askesis; and that the “rightly ordered soul” (of The Republic) was a spiritual end. Indeed, many of the topics I was encountering elsewhere were also appearing in the ancient Greeks’ writings (ie, metempsychosis and the Myth of Er) and I believed to thus be universal to man.

Eventually I felt I had learned everything I could from the Gurdjieff group. I felt it was an authentic spiritual tradition and offered many benefits to the sincere seeker. But, it could only get one so far. It is here where I transitioned to what I would describe as the more serious and solitary side of the spiritual life, the mystic’s path.

I would define mysticism as the inner part of religion. It is the transcendent and sublime core that is the source of every religion. It focuses on self-development, introspection, emotional refinement, and wisdom. It is practical, inclusive, and nonjudgmental, and offers the greatest path for man to commune with the sacred. Mysticism attempts to bring man to direct experience of the divine.

Around this time I read Walt Whitman, Dante Alighieri, Rumi, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila. By this stage I had fully embraced the thesis of the “perennial philosophy” proposed by Huxley: the idea that all religions are expressions of the same universal truth intuited by human beings.

There were other thinkers I read who shared Huxley’s thesis and I sympathized with. Carl Jung argued each culture’s gods were simply individual expressions of a universal divine. Joseph Campbell argued for a “hero with a thousand faces”: a universal inward path described by each culture’s myths. James Frazer was a final scholar who made a similar argument for the universal tenets of religion.

Around this time I read the great tome Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. This is a huge book so the process of reading and digesting it took several years. In my opinion this work is the authoritative text on the history of western mysticism. The book presented mysticism as a life-path. This path, described by Underhill, consisted of the following stages.

1 Awakening
The first grapplings of man with the human condition. Man realizes his finiteness; he learns that birth brings with it a death sentence; he becomes aware of his ignorance of his place in the universe. Man thus turns to religion and self-knowledge as the paths to transformation.

2 Purgation
As a man grows in self-knowledge, he begins to see the aspects of himself that horrify him or shock him. He sees how far removed he is from conformity with the divine. He begins a path of self-examination and self-improvement. He grapples with the “Seven Deadly Sins,” the passions, and other vices. He adjusts his values and re-orients himself toward the sacred (the “metanoia”).

3 Illumination
Having transformed himself and grown in wisdom, man finds himself in a new relation to the divine. He sees himself as a part of a vast, sublime Unity. He begins to intuit his true place in the cosmos. He begins to experience the higher emotions: joy, empathy, and equanimity. He starts to intuit the reality of the nonphysical.

4 Dark Night of the Soul
Despite the former period in the sun, man again descends into darkness and doubt, and goes through a period of self-annihilation. A mysterious transformation occurs.

5 Divinization
Finally, man wholly “imitates Christ” and becomes both divine and human. He comes into true approximation with the sacred. He becomes convinced of his immortality and real nature.

I felt Underhill was not only one of the great scholars of the discipline, but also wrote from practical experience. I felt she was describing much of the life-path I had already partly walked upon. I began to look to her and other mystics for guidance.

An important dictum of Underhill was the centrality of direct experience in the spiritual path. Though a scholar herself, she explained the limits of a purely academic approach to faith. Study had to be supplemented by practice; otherwise, purely theoretical knowledge would never achieve its full potential.

Around this time I discovered Jeffrey “Jhanananda” Brooks, a spiritual teacher and contemplative from Sedona, Arizona. Jeffrey had been a lifelong meditator and student of Buddhism. He had gained attention for his works he had made examining the concept of “jhana,” or altered states of consciousness, produced through meditation. Jeffrey argued that the seventh and eighth folds of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path called for seekers to practice the contemplative life.

Indeed, the seventh fold was “samma sati,” right mindfulness (or meditation), and the eighth fold was “samma samadhi,” right ecstasy (or absorption), which described an altered state of consciousness. The term “jhana” in Buddhism thus described states of joy, bliss, silence, or energy felt by a meditator. Jeffrey argued individuals should dedicate themselves rigorously to meditation in order to reap these fruits.

I found Jeffrey had a similar background to myself. He had read the same Buddhist and Hindu scriptures that I had, and was also inspired by figures like Kabir, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross. I felt Jeffrey had found the path that was missed by institutional religion, and that proceeded directly to the end goal of faith.

One achievement claimed by Jeff - which is usually seen as fantastic when described to the layperson - was the ability to fully silence his mind. This meant suppressing the ordinary stream-of-consciousness - the unpleasant chattering mind - that the average person has to constantly listen to. Jeffrey described this state as the “second jhana” out of the four described by the Buddha. After meditating for years, I myself was able to recreate this state as well as several others described by him.

After meeting Jeff I joined his “sangha” or community of mystics which he calls the “Great Western Vehicle.” As I’ve progressed on my own journey, I have been inspired to produce several writings which I have shared with this group. These works include The Book of Shiva, a text on spiritual beliefs and ascetic practice; “The Orientalist,” the tale of an adventurer’s journey to India in search of hidden knowledge; “Anastasis,” a poem describing the dark night of the soul (inspired by John of the Cross); and “The Harrowing of Hell,” a poetical tale of Christ’s descent into the underworld. These works are also joined with a long list of nonfiction articles I’ve written that examine religion, mysticism, and philosophy, as well as a number of paintings I’ve made that attempt to portray transcendental themes.

A final point to examine here may be the out-of-body experience. This topic is one of the most fantastic elements that comes up in descriptions of the spiritual path. It is one I had heard of early on at 15, but ignored for a long time. I recall that early in my path I had dismissed it as fantasy or imagination. And certainly there are individuals who conflate dream experiences with the out-of-body experience, but having since studied the works of many writers on the topic I have become convinced of its reality and significance. This experience is likely the end goal of most spiritual paths, and it is also likely the origin of the experiences of the founders, mystics, and holy people who are the key figures of each faith.

The main source for the out-of-body experience is Robert Monroe, an American who, upon reaching middle age, began spontaneously having these experiences at night. Monroe himself was extremely reluctant to speak openly about them to people, fearing he would be placed in an asylum. Yet he found when he discussed them openly, he was surprised how many people believed him, or reported similar experiences themselves.

I believe the out-of-body experience exists on a spectrum that overlaps with its related phenomena, dreams and lucid dreams. At night all humans (and most animals) dream. This occurs during the REM phase across several cycles during sleep. Dreams indeed have always been one of the most mysterious phenomena experienced by human beings. Even today, they remain poorly understood. They are clearly an important part of human health, though their exact significance remains elusive.

Some individuals experience what are called lucid dreams, where self-awareness and personal agency enter the dream space. Lucid dreamers are able to experience their individuality during their dreams, and consequently mold their surroundings. Beyond this phenomenon, an even smaller number of individuals report what are called out-of-body experiences, which are usually described as being “as clear as waking reality,” or even hyper-real. Remembering these experiences on waking produces its own challenge: and suggests a barrier between the physical and nonphysical states. One recommendation for improving memory is by keeping a dream journal.

William Buhlman and Robert Bruce are other individuals who have written about out-of-body experiences. Jeffrey “Jhanananda” Brooks has also described the same, both those induced by meditation as well as those experienced during sleep. These individuals suggest the name “out-of-body experience” may be a misnomer; that more properly, it could be said that in these states consciousness is actually projecting inward. (This might explain the famous line of Christ, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”) Collectively, these experiences suggest that man is not simply a finite physical creature, but that we also all possess a nonphysical nature. The out-of-body experience is one of the most fantastic claims of religion, and is a topic worthy of further investigation preceding our deaths.

[Jhanananda]

Our paths have certainly followed a similar trajectory.  And it is not surprising because the path to enlightenment necessitates questioning the basic assumptions of culture which are not based upon an enlightened journey.