Seeking Spiritual Enlightenment
By Dr Arthur J. Deikman M.D. (adapted)
Some wishing to investigate spiritual enlightenment may wonder whether they should join one of the numerous esoteric groups, ashrams, cults, or religious organizations that have proliferated in recent times. With regard to most such groups, the answer is no.
It should be clear, that the appearance and label of a group or person is no guarantee of viability, of the capacity to bring about the enlightenment or liberation with which non-dual consciousness groups are usually concerned. In fact, the more such a group conforms to the popular fantasy of 'enlightenment', the less likely it is to be effective.
Would-be students of spiritual enlightenment must make their own assessment, as best they can, of a group's genuineness in order to conserve their time and resources. The accuracy of that assessment will depend on their ability to discriminate between their legitimate wish to learn and their coexisting wishes for attention, entertainment, power, and so on. "Greed makes you believe things you would not normally believe.''
Our reason is often the servant of our wishes and nowhere more so than in the area of spiritual enlightenmentl. If we cannot tell when our lower aspirations are operating, we may easily misinterpret our attraction to a particular group and its teacher as being an intuitive recognition of its genuine mystical nature. For this reason, the more self-knowledge a person has the better his or her chance of success.
When making inquiries of a group purporting to teach mystical knowledge, it can be useful to ask such questions as the following:
1. Does the group operate in such a way as to help new members clarify their motivations for joining the group or does it assume that they are just showing good judgment? If the latter is the case, be wary.
2. Does the group provide members with the means for seeing and understanding the motivational patterns of ordinary living? If not, be wary.
3. Does the group gratify wishes for dependency, new experiences, emotional excitement, special status, and vanity? If so, steer clear of it.
4. Does the group employ emotional arousal, repetition, guilt, and the use of group approval or disapproval?
These are the principal components of thought reform (brainwashing) or conversion processes. Careful attention to these points will help a would-be student of spiritual enlightenment to avoid the numerous ineffective organizations that serve to fulfill the more primitive needs of both student and teacher, but do not serve the aim of conscious evolution. Still, it is important to recognize that cults and religious organizations of various kinds do perform important functions for their members.
They satisfy members' needs for acceptance and protection and often provide members with a disciplined, healthy routine of balanced living, good diet, and exercise. By also providing security, firm direction, and a controlled community life they can have a psychotherapeutic effect, reducing anxiety and teaching more adaptive behavior. The group's dogma can provide a framework of meaning and hope absent in the lives of many of its members prior to joining. At the least, such groups provide distraction, entertainment, and social opportunities.
The worst offer group and parental security at the price of destructive regression. But whatever the actual nature of a particular group, if a student covertly desires what it offers, he or she will find the group satisfactory. The traditional dictum, "If you are sincere you will find your teacher" or "The Teacher will find you" can be understood to mean that what you actually are seeking is the only thing you will find. You and your teacher will deserve each other-whatever the purpose that unites you.
One reason for widespread self-deceit in the area of spiritual enlightenment is that people have been trained to feel ashamed of "lower" wishes, despite the fact that such wishes have their own place and function. We need a certain amount of social gratification, emotional stimulation, attention, self-esteem, and security.
But a notion of the "spiritual" has arisen in which all these needs are supposed to be cast behind one, like the devil. As a consequence, people pretend to have the "right" (that is, "higher") motives. As a result, they seek one thing in the guise of another and neither objective is obtained as efficiently and successfully as it might be.
Although cults and religious groups meet certain of the needs of people seeking whatever it is they happen to offer, they create a serious problem for those with the potential for investigating, experiencing and exploring true spiritual enlightenment. For such people, entanglement with "dead" organizations can be damaging.
To begin with, all groups exert pressure on their members to conform to group values. This pressure serves the group's primary motive (usually unconscious) of self-perpetuation. In addition, members rigorously adhere to group norms, since the latter reassure them of their identity.
A particularly clear example of the operation of such norms is the stereotyped dress and language of guru-oriented groups; in such organizations, rebellion against the outside world may be encouraged, but it is never tolerated against the group itself.
The pressure on the members of the group to conform is difficult to withstand. This factor may not matter too much for ordinary purposes, but for the effective operation of spiritual enlightenment, such pressure is detrimental, since it serves the relatively crude motives of dependency, desire for approval, and so on. Not only are these motives reinforced, but discovery of them is made more difficult, for it is not in the group's interest for the members to become aware of what is actually taking place.
Even worse, groups often make the gratification of such egocentric desires acceptable by labeling the process "spiritual." As a result, members may believe that the limited effects of the group, of outdated techniques, uninformed meditation practices, chanting, dances, and the like, represent the true measure of spiritual enlightenment. Under such circumstances, a student will unknowingly remain trapped in a sterile situation, losing the chance to develop further, or will drop out altogether, concluding that spiritual enlightenment is a fraud or a form of psychopathology.
Thus, the serious student must not only scrutinize carefully the operation of a spiritual group, but must be especially observant in assessing his or her own reactions. "Am I excited at the prospect of strange states of consciousness? Am I happy to have found a smiling teacher who welcomes me and gathers me into the fold?
On the other hand, am I attracted by a group that makes it hard to enter, treats me harshly, requires sacrifices?" By rigorously observing both the group in question and oneself, the very process of surveying the spiritual marketplace can be more valuable than the benefits a given group may actually offer. Thus, the process of assessment can provide the initial lessons in learning how to learn from one's own experience, the skill that viable spiritual enlightenment groups are most concerned to teach.
Based on the Appendix -- Selecting a Mystical School,
by Dr Arthur J. Deikman M.D. from his highly recommended book:
"The Observing Self -- Mysticism and Psychotherapy"
Steven Alan Hassan, cult counselor and mind control expert is a Nationally Certified Counselor and licensed Mental Health Counselor has
More Questions to Help the Assessment Process
for those unsure about certain spiritual groups or organizations.
There are many teachers on the tent revival satsang circuit talking about enlightenment as the next great step in the evolution of the human race, and it's all very exciting because that step is happening now, with lots more people waking up than was ever the case at any other time in history.
This kind of thing is just confused and dream-bourld thinking. Enlightenment has nothing to do with turning points in history, with lots of people waking up. It has nothing to do with evolution. As Jed McKenna notes, "If anything, enlightenment is evolution derailed." Evolution is a completely dualistic concept.
Individuals, or the whole race, growing and changing and developing and becoming better over time: this is a description of dualism, of how dualism operates. Evolution is about change in relative objects. Enlightenment is the opposite; it is about realizing the Truth, absolute subjectivity, which is unchanging.
The whole concept of evolution assumes the existence of separate individual entities, a collective species or 'race' of such entities, and their existence in something called time. It also involves a whole set of value judgments as to what condition the human race is in now, and in what direction it should be going.
This way of seeing things, and the way of seeing things after true awakening or Understanding has occurred, are mutually exclusive. When awakening occurs, the whole context which contains individuals, the race, time, and value judgments is seen as an illusion, a dream. Awakening, enlightenment, means popping out of the context in which evolution makes any sense.
"Anything that implies a continuity, a sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be the Real. There is no progress in Reality; it is final, perfect, unrelated. Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion." ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
In spiritual circles great value is placed on personal growth, personal improvement, becoming a better person, becoming more aware, teaching others how to become better, making the world a better and more enlightened place.
The hope for a better future, the belief in an upward spiritual evolution that carries the whole race with it, is like the belief that there is something wrong and something that needs to be done.
It seems hard-wired into the human mechanism but is in fact the device by which the 'divine hypnosis' operates, keeping the dream characters motivated and occupied in the dream. This belief is an illusion, and it is what creates suffering.
In Truth, in the Absolute, in All That Is, there is no evolution, no progress, no becoming better, no becoming. All is as it is.
The idea that the world is in bad shape and that the present point in history is pivotal and that something has to be done, is as old as the human mind; it has always seemed thus, at every point in 'human history.'
In truth everything is in perfect balance; the world never gets better and never gets worse, although to the apparent individual instruments it may seem that it does.
Teachers who draw on these recurring themes in the dream to appeal to the ego's hopes and dreams and to popularize their message are deluding themselves and others and have not seen beyond the dream.
This belief in ongoing evolution, the dream of becoming a better person, the goal of improving oneself and others and society and making the world a better place: all these and more certainly seem to be noble beliefs and goals by any standards.
Our cultures value them as ideals and it is believed that these high goals are what keep individuals and the human race from descending or regressing into chaos. And of course it is the 'divine hypnosis' itself that allows these beliefs, because without them the dream would not go on. But as Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, has noted,
"Enlightenment is the great and final disappointment, the dissolution of all our egoic fantasies and grand hopes."
This is true seeing, and it will never sell in the revival tents. What is being said here is not a politically correct message, or even a spiritually correct message. It is not a comforting message, and it will never in any culture be popular. It is only the truth, as near as can be told. All is as it is.
From: Perfect Brilliant Stillness, by David Carse (pp 206)
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