Conversation with a Spiritual Fanatic

“Fanatical and dangerous people believe their opinion is the only truth.” – Mahatma Choa Kok Sui
 
Warnings about esoteric and religious fanaticism has been given by most genuine teachers, authors, esotericists since time immemorial. Seldom the followers have heeded those warnings. Immediately after Jesus, his doctrine was transformed into a cult. Followed by all sorts of extremism, violence and intolerance. We cannot blame Jesus for all the atrocities committed by some deluded followers.
 
“469. Three centuries after the departure of the Blessed One, His disciples were already infected with religious strife. After only a century, Christianity manifested extreme intolerance. The last utterances of Mohammed were immediately followed by fanaticism. Religious controversies always destroy the sense of the true Teaching;” – Agni Yoga
What has happened to all the world religions is happening to Esoteric and spiritual organizations today. And, that too at an alarming rate. Recently the author had conversations with a number of followers of these organizations. No particular organization is being targeted because one can see similar things happening in most spiritual organizations today. As Master DK says, the esoteric and occult organizations are the most glamorous today. Followers who have created a belief system out of their system which the original founder never intended, is at a rise. Such followers are springing up rapidly in many organizations. And the worst part is, they believe they are being loyal by dogmatizing their system and by creating an idol out of their teacher.
 
For the purpose of understanding the nature and dangers of dogma, fanaticism and blind belief, this conversation is being shared anonymously below. Here the dialogue is between the author of this article (Me) and Mr X who represents those followers the author had conversation with. 
 
“Author (Me): Do you not see how you have created a dogma out of your teacher and his teachings? By worshipping the teacher you are destroying the teachings. You are making the teacher (founder) more important than the truth he represents. This personality worship does not do good to sane understanding of the inner teachings of your teacher. To find the truth all personalities, symbols, sects must be put aside. As, J Krishnamurti says,
 
“Now I’ll show you something. You probably belong to some kind of religious organisation. Your particular organisation is different from another particular religious organisation. Right? So there is conflict between the two, or you tolerate the two, or you adjust between the two. But there is always the two. And therefore there must inevitably be conflict. All religious organisations have this element. Now to have an insight into it and never belong to any religious organisation. You understand what I am saying? So that the very insight dispels the illusion of belonging to something, a religious organisation. That is insight. Which is to observe completely free so that the whole nature of organisations is revealed to you, and is finished. You never again belong to any single religious organisation,….”
 
-J KRISHNAMURTI
Public Talk 1 Madras (Chennai), India – 31 December 1978
 
Mr X: We are following simple instructions of our teacher. He has created a system that caters to thousands of people all over the world. You are criticizing something that our teacher created to serve humanity. By doing that you are attacking the teacher and the teachings themselves! The teacher and the teachings are one.
 
Me: I prefer to have a rational discussion with you. And, if you take a defensive stance from the very beginning, we will not understand each other. I am not here to criticize your teacher or his teachings. I am only pointing out that your approach to his teachings is very much cult-like and dogmatic.
 
Mr X: How are we dogmatic? We are only following the teachings as taught by our teacher. Is that dogma?
Me: Let me explain. Now listen very carefully. When you swallow everything your teacher says without questioning him, you are being dogmatic. You follow esotericism. Your teacher has taught you to use discernment, yet you insist that everything he has said from beginning till end is flawless. By saying that you have elevated him to the level of God. For healthy discernment we must question and doubt even our own teacher. Not as an attack but to understand the spiritual teachings better. Can you share three things you have validated from the teachings of your teacher that turned out to be untrue?
 
Mr X: No I have not found anything our teacher said to be untrue. Our teacher is an enlightened being. So you or me cannot know whether he is wrong. We have to be in the same level of enlightenment and spiritual awareness to know faults in the teachings.
 
Me: If what you say is true, we must swallow everything enlightened teachers have said blindly. We should never think or use our intellectual faculty. Because if we need to be enlightened to practice discernment, we must totally forget about our reasoning faculty until such enlightened state is reached. 
 
But, surprisingly even Lord Buddha has said, we should question everything he has taught. The Lord Buddha was enlightened and if it is true that one cannot question the words of an enlightened being unless enlightened, he wouldn’t have suggested us to use discernment. And, I quote:
“THE LORD BUDDHA HAS SAID that we must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said; nor traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor rumors, as such; nor writings by sages, because sages wrote them: nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a Deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor from inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption we may have made; nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere authority of our teachers or masters. But we are to believe when the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness. “For this,” says he in concluding, “I taught you not to believe merely because you have heard, but when you believed of your consciousness, then to act accordingly and abundantly.”
 
 
Mr X: You are being critical and attacking the teachings and the teacher. You have the right to question but you don’t have the right to be impolite.
 
Me: I am merely questioning. I am not attacking your teacher. If we accuse one another of being rude, we probably won’t go very far in this discussion. But, let’s leave discernment aside, do you not see you are being sectarian and defensive when you identify as a member of this particular organization? And when you see anyone who questions you as a threat?
 
Mr X: We respect other organizations also.
 
Me: Is that true? Then why do you promote your organization as a faster way to the truth than the others? You say you respect other organization, but in that respect there is comparison. You compare other organizations to be inferior to your own, their founders to be inferior to your founder. Else you wouldn’t have said, your system is better. That alone is lack of respect. 
 
Mr X: That’s not true. Our teacher is really enlightened. How may other teachers have fed millions of hungry people, how many have travelled all over the world to teach?
 
Me: Your teacher may be a great person. But, why promote him by comparing him with others? Comparison always involves a party that is belittled. In other words you are promoting your teacher at the expense of other people. That is violence, separatism. Why do you worship your teacher? Why not focus on his teachings instead?
 
Mr X: The teacher and the teachings are one.
 
Me: But do you not see the danger of literally worshipping your teacher? Do you not see how they worshipped Jesus and the cross and killed millions of people at the same time. If the teacher is your ultimate authority, then I’m afraid your organization is a cult and it cripples free thinking.
 
Mr X: What you are saying is not True.
 
Me: Authority destroys freedom. If I take your teacher as the ultimate authority then I’ll be a prisoner of your system. Anything I say that goes against your belief will be treated as an attack on your system. How will I practice discernment and free thinking if I have to agree with everything your teacher says?
 
“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”
 
— J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known
Mr X: Our teacher and his senior disciples are great teachers and we love their teachings. Being always critical and judgmental of the teachings isn’t taught by our teacher. I was happy to converse with you because you had an interest in our teacher. But what you are doing is bring teachings of other teachers in the discussion. This discussion group is related to our teacher so please stick to his words only. 
 
Me: Your teacher has not said “Follow me and reject all other teachers”. That is your own creation when you have no respect for other teachers. To you the image of your teacher has become more important than the Truth. As far as I can remember your teacher had good relationship with many other teachers and recommended their teachings. But you care not about the other teachers that are recommended. You don’t love your teacher because he is genuine. If you did, you would have love for all genuine teachers. You choose one teacher and reject the others. That is the very opposite of love that is inclusive.
You are destroying the teachings of your own teacher by creating a sect out of his words. You are like following someone who promises you light but you choose to walk behind him blindfolded. 
 
Fanaticism and crystallization works in this manners. One starts with promoting one teacher and slowly the ideas and the teachings become a source of glamour and crystallization when the student is not able to assimilate the teachings. Your teacher is a good teacher, but you have destroyed his system by projecting your glamour, fanaticism and separatism to it. If you truly practiced the teachings, you would have same respect and interest for other genuine teachers. But, your separatism is self evident when you fanatically attach yourself with one teacher. You single out one rose in the garden of roses. That only shows you have no love for roses. So your organization is becoming a cult and you are misrepresenting your teacher.
 
“If we study the teaching and do not assimilate it through:
 
– Meditation
 
-practice
 
– service
 
We slowly become the enemy of the teaching and the Teacher , and dark forces use us to destroy the teaching- either by making us poor examples of the teaching so that others around us come to abhor the teaching or by directly making us destructive agents in groups or in committees .”
 
-Torkom Saraydarian, The Ageless Wisdom
 
Mr X: Our organization is run by good hearted senior disciples. We are not a Cult..
 
Me: So your organization is also Authoritarian. You depend on a group of elite senior disciples. By doing that you have forsaken your freedom to think independently. You are merely their puppet, doing what they want you to do. Believing what they want you to believe. They promise you something, probably secret teachings or something you want. And, you being gullible let yourself become exploited by them. Why do you not reject these seniors and do your own thinking?
 
Mr X: You should not attack people who are more evolved than us. By doing that you will face heavy Karmic Penalty!!!
 
Me: So your organization also uses fear tactics to control others? In the earlier times the Church controlled the masses using the fear of hell. What you say is no different than that. It seems to me those seniors in order to be in perfect power and authority have created this idea themselves so that no one questions them. Do you see how dogmatic all this is?
 
Mr X: What I am saying is true. When we send negative energy to evolved beings it reflects back at us many many times.
 
Me: I am not attacking them or their personality. I merely see the falseness of what they are doing. So I don’t follow them. I do like your founder, he was a good man and I like some of his teachings also. But I prefer to practice the teaching independently without forsaking my freedom and ability to think on my own. Without being indoctrinated into a system that is a distortion of the true vision of your founder.
 
“Man, concentrating upon the limited area of the known, loses sight of the effect of his actions upon the limitless area of the unknown. Shortsightedness consequently, is the cause of endless misery. Moral shortsightedness results in vice, philosophical shortsightedness results in materialism, religious shortsightedness in bigotry, rational shortsightedness in fanaticism.” – Manly P. Hall
 
Mr X: Do you know my friends told me to stay away from you. And, now I realize they were right.
 
Me: Yes people die today to protect their opinions, beliefs, crystallized ideas, so I am not surprised. But, do you know what is a cult? Not all cults are violent physically. Some cults are harmless physically but dangerous when psychologically accepted:
 
Here are few signs your organization is turning into a cult. And there is still time and you can change for the better and correct your ways before it’s too late. The signs of an organization becoming a cult are:
 
1. The organization is run by a group of people who assume monopoly and authority over the followers.
 
2. Critical thinking is discouraged and seen as a threat to the organization.
 
3. The founder of the organization is literally worshipped and every word of the founder is treated as the ultimate truth and authority leaving no place for independent thinking.
 
4. People Within the organization who question the organization are banned from the organization.
 
5. People who interpret the words of the founder differently are treated as outcasts.
 
6. Devotion is used to nullity reason.
 
7. The founder is turned into something more important than the truth he/she represents.
 
8. There is separatism in the organization. Other teachers, organizations are dismissed and one’s own organization is promoted as the ultimate way to truth.
 
9. People who are in charge of the organization, (who of course distort the original vision of the founder) are treated as elites and the ultimate authority on the said subject.
 
These are the signs of a spiritual organization becoming a cult. What is the solution? The solution is very simple. Read Glamour a World problem by Alice Bailey. And apply the techniques taught in order to dissipate organizational Glamour. Now it is your choice whether you want to change or not.
 
Mr X: Thank you for your “wisdom”, but I think I will pass.
 
Me: I didn’t expect you to accept what I say. But, the days of fanaticism is long gone and we must approach spirituality in a more inclusive way. A way where we don’t separate ourselves from the rest of humanity. Where we seek the truth and see it as something higher than personality worship. For your information I’ll just share an overview of that I mean:
 
“I would like first of all to make one point clear.
The great hindrance to the work of the majority of the esoteric schools at this time is their sense of separateness and their intolerance of other schools and methods.
The leaders of these schools need to absorb the following fact.
 
All schools which recognise the influence of the trans-Himalayan Lodge and whose workers are linked, consciously or unconsciously, with such Masters of the Wisdom as the Master Morya or the Master K.H., form one school and are part of one “discipline.”
 
There is therefore no essential conflict of interests, and on the inner side — if they are in any way functioning effectively — the various schools and presentations are regarded as a unity.
 
There is no basic difference in teaching, even if the terminology used may vary, and the technique of work is fundamentally identical.
If the work of the Great Ones is to go forward as desired in these days of stress and of world need, it is imperative that these various groups should begin to recognize their real unity in goal, guidance and technique, and that their leaders should realize that it is fear of other leaders and the desire that their group should be numerically the most important which prompts the frequent use of the words, “This is a different discipline,” or, “Their work is not the same as ours.”
 
It is this attitude which is hindering the true growth of spiritual life and understanding among the many students gathered into the many outer organisations.
 
At this time, the “great heresy of separateness” taints them. The leaders and members talk in terms of “our” and “your,” of this “discipline” and that, and of this method being right (usually their own) and the other method which may be right, but it is probably doubtful, if not positively wrong.
Each regards their own group as specifically pledged to them and to their mode of instruction, and threaten their members with dire results if they cooperate with the membership of other groups.
 
Instead, they should recognize that all students in analogous schools and working under the same spiritual impulses are members of the one school and are linked together in a basic subjective unity. The time must come when these various (and at present) separative esoteric bodies will have to proclaim their identity, when the leaders and workers and secretaries will meet with each other and learn to know and understand each other.
 
Some day this recognition and understanding will bring them to the point where they will endeavor to supplement each other’s efforts, exchange ideas with each other, and so in truth and in deed constitute one great college of esotericism in the world, with varying classes and grades but all occupied with the work of training aspirants and preparing them for discipleship, or superintending the work of disciples as they prepare themselves to take initiation.
 
Then will cease the present attempts to hinder each other’s work by comparison of methods and of techniques, by criticism and defamation, by warning and the cult of fear, and the insistence on exclusiveness. It is these attitudes and methods which at this time are hindering the entrance of the pure light of truth.”
 
— Master DK thru Alice Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy”
 
Mr X: You are entitled to your own opinion.”

The author of this post is an Esoteric practitioner and a student of numerous esoteric traditions.

This article © Arhatic Alchemy (2021)

"Fanaticism is never true, but it takes the place of truth and becomes bigger than truth."

- Manly P. Hall, Five Mistakes That Can Lead to Tragedy