Non-Duality and the Person

One of the consequences of the seemingly unstoppable spread of the contemporary cult of atheism is that when people react against it and decide to follow a spiritual path they often take a lot of their atheism with them. I mean by this that their atheistic assumptions have sunk so deeply into their minds that they don't see them for what they are. This can manifest itself in various ways but one of the most common seems to be that such people look for a spirituality without God. For some this might be seen as a purely intellectual choice, but for others it is a matter of wanting to drink the wine without thanking the host who provides it. Who, in fact, made it.

Many Westerners who take to Eastern forms of religion are attracted to the non-dualistic varieties, either Buddhism in which God plays no part at all or advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of Sankara about which I have written on various occasions on this blog, in which a God of sorts exists but plays no real part. The common point of both these is that the individual self is regarded as having no real existence. What you are is pure consciousness. In reality there is only the Absolute and your aim is to know yourself as that. This view has a certain logic going for it but is it actually true?  It's a powerful idea but I believe it to be a mistaken one. It is certainly an incomplete one because the fact is that, while there may be a state of pure consciousness that a human being can enter into, you, as an individual, are also real and this is the more profound truth. For God created you as an individual with whom he might have a relationship and who might progress to ever higher states of divine being, and, though you may renounce that, if you do you are failing life's challenges and giving up its highest rewards. 


Before I looked at advaita seriously I assumed it was a pure description of truth, just a more radical form of the basic spiritual philosophy that man and God are ultimately one. Closer investigation, however, revealed unqualified non-dualism to be based on Sankara’s highly selective picking and choosing of the Upanishads, interpreted in the light of Buddhism which he wished to contest but was obviously very influenced by. I now see advaita as tending to the reductive and simplistic for it fails to see that the One and the Many are both essential in a universe in which the highest truth is in growth and relationship rather than pure being. That is why it has no explanation for this whole world of creation; why anything came about in the first place and why there is this ignorance it believes to be the veil on reality.

Let me expand on that a little. Advaita is reductive because it denies the reality in creation, reducing life to the absolute alone when the whole point of it is that it is the absolute and the relative together, both being and becoming, change and changelessness, moving and working together, and the union of the two brings about something completely new. Sankara was a great philosopher, no doubt, but he was also a logician who couldn’t deal with the paradoxical statements in the Upanishads so left out what didn’t suit his thesis. For him the One and the Many must be opposites and only one of them could be true.  This is why he has no explanation for creation which he says is a mystery not to be understood. He can’t see that it is God expressing himself in order to become more than he already is by creating other beings with whom he can then have a relationship.

This is why I now regard advaita as a one-sided view of reality that breaks down under proper analysis because it ignores the fact that what God creates is real and has a purpose. Of course, in an ultimate sense, everything is one but the individual is also real and if that were not the case then love would be unreal. To give it reality only in the relative world of multiplicity, as advaita is forced to do, is no different to dismissing it altogether. But anyway the point is that it is not only valid in the relative world for love exists at the deepest level of being. This could not be the case if the deepest level were pure unqualified oneness. Only the Trinity can account for love as a fundamental truth.

This is where the Christian revelation goes further than any other religious teaching. Ultimate reality, God, is not the oneness of complete unity. It is the three in oneness of the Trinity. So more like a ceaseless dance of self-communion than unqualified abstract being.This is such a remarkable truth that it makes the heart dance with joy to know it. For it means that love is real, beauty is real and life is not static but able to grow and expand, in all probability limitlessly. It also explains the personhood of God and thus reveals that the highest truth is not impersonal as in Buddhism and advaita but personal. This has long been known in the West and is fundamental to Christianity, but the legacy of atheism means that many modern spiritual seekers reject it and take to the more 'scientific' philosophies of the East. Of course, there are branches of Hinduism which believe in a personal God but these are generally regarded as second tier as, in the context in which they arose, a kind of modified polytheism, they usually are.

So the huge mistake many people interested in spirituality today make is to place the impersonal at a higher or deeper level than the personal.  Being transcends personhood, they think. This seems to make a kind of sense to the rational intellect so is popular with the spiritual intelligentsia. However the truth is exactly the opposite. Personhood is the fullness of being. It is the end to which all abstract being is directed. God is a person and, even though he does have the aspect of pure being too, this is a limited part of the totality of what he truly is not the completeness or wholeness of it. In like manner it is a limited part of what you truly are, and if you restrict your spiritual approach to pure being or pure consciousness alone you are falling short of your divine destiny and the purpose God had in creating you as an individual soul.

It should also be said that most of those who think they can overcome their individuality this way will end up deceiving themselves, and fall into a fantasy world in which the self has renounced the self. Either that or else they will have to come back to the idea of God as a person and themselves as his creation.

Non-duality is a flawed philosophy, understandable in terms of man struggling to grasp the truth about himself and release himself from identification with the material self or ego but superseded by the revelation of the Trinity which shows how oneness and multiplicity can coexist without the latter being in any way unreal. Those who think that the spiritual goal is to attain to pure consciousness are making a mistake. Consciousness always has a quality of some sort just as light always has degrees of brightness, and this should be a matter for rejoicing because it means that our expansion into God can have no end.

Reincarnation addendum

I was talking in the previous post about the need to experience life in a physical body, and thinking about what could be learned in the physical world that might not be available elsewhere in the spiritual universe. Walking down the street earlier today it occurred to me that one thing that is available here that might not be elsewhere in a purer or truer plane of existence is the ability to deceive.

Let me explain. It is a truism of this world that appearance is not reality. All that glitters is not gold. Here fair can disguise foul. A beautiful person can be morally corrupt and a noble soul might be housed in a broken body. Moreover any one of us can hide behind our outer form. Our intentions, emotions and inner state of being can all be disguised from those around us. I don't think this is the case in the higher worlds or when we do not have a physical body. There and then a pure soul has a beautiful appearance and a degraded one looks the part too. We cannot hide our true being, whether it is revealed by means of the aura, the lights that we show, or just in how we look. If we lie that cannot be hidden. When we love that is shown in our face and vice versa. There is no concealing.

But here, of course, that is not the case. So perhaps one of the reasons life in a physical world is necessary is so that we learn discrimination and discernment. We learn not to be deceived by appearance and so develop the ability to see more deeply, something not necessary elsewhere and so not developed. We can become more attuned to reality by having reality hidden from us. This obliges us to search and to look beyond and, in doing that, we sharpen our spiritual eyesight.

In the heavenly worlds the outside reflects the inside as a true representation of that. In this world the outside is one thing and the inside can be quite another. We have to learn proper judgment and the ability to see with our minds what is not obvious to our eyes.

Reincarnation

This is a subject that divides many serious and sincere spiritual thinkers. Some, probably influenced by Eastern religions in which it is fundamental, regard it as an integral part of the process that turns a man into a god.  A number of the ancient Greeks, Pythagoras for example, also believed in it. Others, however, see it as a mistaken doctrine. This would particularly be the case for most Christians and, as far as I know, all Muslims, both of whom took many of their founding beliefs from Judaism. Some of the early Christian Fathers, Origen for one, were believers in reincarnation but it was eventually decisively rejected by the church in favour of the idea that we have one life and one life only in which to earn our salvation. Here I would like to set out why I do believe in reincarnation, but also to add some caveats and provisos.

Let me start with a couple of relevant questions. What is man and what is his intended end? I see the human being, rather like its Maker, as triune. In other words we are constituted of spirit, soul and body. Spirit is the uncreated part of us that is the spark of the divine fire within us. It is our life, our being, the point at which we and God are one. The soul is our individual self. God is the spirit. God created the soul. But I don't think of the soul as the self we are aware of on an everyday basis. That is the soul as manifested in a body, our outer material form, the thing through which we experience the external world. By no means all the soul is consciously available to us 'down here'. It is a spiritual being and heavily restricted by operating through an earthbound mind and body. This gives rise to the ego, the sense of a separate self which is not so much an illusion (as some say) as an inevitable result of the constraints of being in a material world. Of course, we have to overcome that, or full identification with it, but the point is that it is a real thing; at least it is so in terms of this world.

So, spirit, soul and body. That is what we are, simplified certainly but fundamentally this is how we are made up. And our intended end is to become consciously one with God. This requires the union of the soul, the individual self, with spirit, the universal self or God. Consciously one. Spirit on its own level is one with God but not consciously so, not in an individual sense. You might well ask why God wants to create individuals. He is God, surely all-sufficient in himself? No doubt that is so but that is leaving out two very important things. One, God is creative. His nature is self-expression and abundance, becoming more. He becomes more through other beings, some of which are us. And two, God is love. What does love want to do? To give of itself and to have a relationship with the loved one. Again, that is us. That is why God creates us as individuals with free will. What kind of relationship can you have with slaves and automata?

Thus far I have said nothing with which a non-believer in reincarnation would necessarily disagree. The question now is what is the process by which a newly created soul becomes a god? I think it requires experience in the material world which is the place where separation is possible. Through the sense of being separate we can develop our individual self which we must do before we can consciously transcend it in union with God. This all has to be done as a free and conscious act. I don't doubt for a moment that learning can take place in non-material spheres of existence but this world is the best environment for an undeveloped soul to grow into self-awareness, and eventually grow out of self-awareness, because it is the place in which the soul is alone. It's where the soul can suffer and where it can learn from that and move on to a new and higher level of understanding and self-mastery. And it takes a lot more than one life for a soul to progress from a more or less unconscious oneness with nature (its environment), which is the condition of primitive man, to a fully conscious union with God which means all of life. In the process the same soul develops the faculties of will, intelligence and love, all dependent on self-consciousness and none really known to primitive man, to a high degree.

That's the theory. From a personal perspective I believe in reincarnation for several reasons. Intellectually it makes sense for the reasons given above. But it also rings true to me as I feel a strong connection with certain times and places though I recognise that is far from conclusive evidence of anything. Then the idea that human beings, so individual and so different with widely varying talents and destinies, came into being with physical birth never seemed right but I realise that a doctrine of pre-mortal existence could account for that. However the Masters who spoke to me, and in whom I have complete confidence, made certain comments that strongly implied reincarnation. Some of them I can't remember now because unfortunately I lost the habit of taking notes. But I do remember being told (and I still have the notes for this) that I had asked to come back to this world. I was also informed that Michael (their medium) and I had been together in the past, and, further, that I had a previous connection with India. The Masters also referred on one occasion to my 'karmic weakness' (karma being the consequences of one life manifesting in another) and a tendency to mental sluggishness being 'partly due to karma'. There were other references that I can't recall now and, although things were never spelled out in plain black and white, the idea that Michael and I had been here before, and more than once, was referred to on several occasions. Now this might mean that I have had previous lives here but not everyone has. It might, but I don't think it does for the reason given above; that this world is the best arena for learning particular lessons and that it takes a very long time to turn a primitive man into a saint.

I know reincarnation is rejected by Christianity but it could have been one of the many more things that Jesus wanted to say to his disciples which they could not currently bear (John 16:12). It's also possible that, as a belief in only one life might give one a much greater impetus to seek salvation in that life, it was not taught in the religion destined for the West. After all, belief in reincarnation has no particular relevance in the context of treading the spiritual path so its omission is not important in that respect. So I don't think the fact of Christianity's rejection of reincarnation is that significant. There are hints of it in the Bible and, though these are often explained away, I would say that as long as scripture (by which I chiefly mean the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels) doesn't deny it outright I think a Christian can have an open mind. I don't say that he has to but he can do if he so wishes.

This is the basis of my belief in reincarnation. At the same time I would add that, while reincarnation may have explanatory power for the inequality of men, why some suffer and some are rich and others not and so on, it is not something to pay too much attention to in this world. Undue interest in searching out details of past lives will only distract you from the here and now, the lessons you have to learn today. All you need to know about your past is in you now in the present time, in your character, your tendencies, your weaknesses and your strengths. It doesn't matter if you were a notable person in the 16th century. Now you are who you are today and that is all you should focus on if you are to learn what you are supposed to.

Why don't we remember previous lives? If reincarnation is true how is it that no one (to all intents and purposes) can remember their past incarnations in this world? I don't see this as a problem. The doctrine is not saying that I, William Wildblood, existed in a previous life in such and such a place at such and such a time. It is saying that the soul that took birth as WW in this life took birth on a former occasion but then it manifested through a different mind as well as a different body. The brain on each occasion was entirely a new thing though the form the mind that used that brain took would have been decided by causes originating in the past and determined by karma (see above) and the needs of that particular lifetime. So WW is a new person in this life though he is not just made from his parents' genetic material. His karma, his purpose and the quality of his soul all play a part in making him what he is. The Masters told me, and I believe because it is what I have always felt, that the greater part of you remains with us. That is the soul of which only a fraction manifests itself through the earthbound personality. May I reassure those who think this means that when a loved one dies you will never meet them again in the form you knew that this is not the case. They will be more truly themselves just as you will be. The real individual will stand forth, almost as though a limited being acquires an extra dimension.

If and when reincarnation becomes more established as a concept in the West it should not be viewed in quite the same way it was and is in the East. For a start, the idea that human beings can be reborn in animal form should not be a part of it. It is possible, I suppose, that extreme karma might cause a man to be born as an animal. However at this stage of human evolution (as in unfolding of the spiritual seed within) that would be extremely rare. The point of reincarnation is education not punishment and, though painful conditions might sometimes be necessary, they only come about in order to teach a soul what it needs to learn. Then there is the idea of the soul or higher self as the reincarnating agent which is not properly present in Hinduism or Buddhism. There is no real individual in Buddhism, of course, and the jiva in Hinduism appears mostly to be just an individual unit of consciousness with none of the sense of a higher self or greater part of you that I would give it. So I would hope that Western ideas of reincarnation would view souls as real spiritual beings with a real life on their own spiritual plane who come to this Earth to learn needed lessons before returning to what is their real home. Of course, that home is not their final destination but it is still their current real home, the place they originated in as souls and where they belong for now. The experience of reincarnating in this world is designed to take them deeper into the heart of God, and to transcend their limited individuality in divine oneness, but that is for the future. Now they have a home and it is in the spiritual realm not the physical plane of this Earth. So what I am saying is that reincarnation is better viewed from the standpoint of the higher self or soul than that of the man as he is on this Earth. It is the soul that takes incarnation rather than the man who has been incarnated that is the important element in all this.

For any spiritual believer there are three possibilities of our whereabouts before we were born into this world. Firstly, we were nowhere and it's an entirely new person. This is what materialists would say and it's also what most orthodox Western religions teach. For me it's the least plausible of the options. It really doesn't take into account the vast differences between human beings and their lives in this world, never mind the intuition that some people have that they are not beginners at the game of life. Then there is the idea of pre-mortal existence. We may not have been in this world before but we have not come from nowhere. Our creation was in a spiritual realm and we have lived and learnt in higher worlds before coming to this one. This makes much more sense than a fresh creation but, for me, it doesn't provide as satisfying an answer as reincarnation. I certainly agree that there is a pre-mortal or pre-physical existence which is that of the soul on its own level or other non-material levels but I think earthly experience is required on many occasions before one has extracted all the possibilities this world has to offer and learnt all it has to teach. But that's just my belief. No doubt we shall only find out for certain when all mysteries are revealed in the fullness of time. Until then the important thing is to love and serve and seek to know our Creator to the best of our ability.

Some Questions about Homosexuality

Here are some questions that have been put to me after the chapter on homosexuality in Meeting the Masters. I was initially reluctant to discuss this subject because feelings can run so high, but I decided to do so in the book because it was a fact of my experience with Michael, and because the Masters had spoken, albeit briefly, on the subject. I would like to think that because I lived in close fellowship with a homosexual man for 21 years I could offer a point of view that might be taken seriously by unbiased thinkers on both sides of the argument. But I'm probably being over-optimistic!

Q. You have a chapter in your book on homosexuality and the views you express in it seem out of tune with modern thinking, particularly since the recent vote legitimising gay marriage. Have you reconsidered in the light of that?

A. This is a subject that stirs up the emotions like few others nowadays with each side demonising the other without considering that an opposing view might be based on something more objective than mere prejudice on the one hand or rebellion against reality on the other. It's as if the two absolutes of love and truth have been polarised into conflicting opposites with neither one correctly understood by those who claim to be following them. Of course, many such people aren't following real love or real truth because if they were they would see that each includes the other. They are responding to an idea about love or truth but without deeply feeling the one or perceiving the other except possibly on a sentimental/theoretical level. But love and truth, properly considered, are spiritual facts and can only properly be understood spiritually. That is to say, in and by means of the open heart receptive to the word of God.

I would like to make the following points. Heterosexual marriage is based on the spiritual truth that creativity derives from the union of opposites. It is a reflection of a higher reality in a way that homosexual marriage can never be, and to deny that reality does not alter the fact of it whatever the law might or might not say. The argument based on equality is actually a red herring because a theoretical equality cannot take precedence over truth or divine principles. Therefore heterosexuality and homosexuality are not equal or in any way symmetrical (as men and women actually are) because one is rooted in reality and the other is not.  Homosexuality is a deviation from truth and so cannot be granted the same legitimacy as heterosexuality. Principles come before rights, and rights that oppose truth are wrongs.

That having been said, the modern approach that seeks to be fair and to treat people who may be different with respect is obviously far better than the old intolerance and prejudiced condemnation.  So what do we do? As with many things we have to find a balance, a middle way, and that means taking both aspects of the question into account. This cannot be done by constructing a dogmatic theory to which we have to adhere intellectually. It can only be done by responding with common sense, compassion and spiritual intelligence. Compassion and divine law are not mutually exclusive but they can sometimes appear to clash. The path of wisdom is to find a way which takes both into account. It is perfectly possible but requires humility on all sides. Heterosexuals have to accept that some people, for reasons we don't know, are born homosexual and their homosexuality is natural to them so they should be treated with absolute respect, their dignity as human beings allowed its full and unqualified worth. Their homosexuality may even have a purpose. At the same time, homosexuals have to accept that their condition does go against the grain of reality so ideally should remain physically unexpressed for while, in itself, it is certainly not a sin (though it is, as the Masters said, an imperfection i.e. not reflecting the ideal), the physical expression of it is cannot be seen as correct because it distorts the sacred energy of creation. Is that a hard truth? Maybe, but any attempt to go against the desires and will of the lower self is hard. Nevertheless that is the only way forward for each and every one of us.

Q. But Jesus says there is no marrying in heaven so if homosexuality is not part of the soul’s inner nature then neither is heterosexuality.So, spiritually speaking, it makes no difference what you are.

A. We’re not in heaven. We are on Earth, in a body and living in a dualistic world which is based on complementarity. Pure unmanifest spirit may be above form but when spirit is expressed it is so through two complementary poles, spirit and matter, life and form, and these signify the masculine and feminine poles of being, the interaction between which gives rise to everything that is. Ultimate reality may be beyond this but expressed reality, wherein we find ourselves, is made up of this. Spiritual truth requires that sexual feeling should be grounded in complementarity because that is the origin of all creativity.

Besides which, even if there is no marrying in heaven, or in the higher worlds, I do believe that there is male and female. The spiritual beings I spoke to were all male except one who was definitely female. I'm not entirely sure what Jesus meant by these words but I would guess he was referring to the uncreated pure spirit aspect of our being which is the same in all of us, male or female. However as expressed beings and individuals, created souls, we are male or female so all souls, in the spiritual sense, are heterosexual. Can you conceive of Jesus as anything other than male? And did he not describe God as Father? This implies that male and female in some form or another go right to the roots of our being. 

I think that reaction to homosexuality can be considered as a spiritual test of our ability to balance love with truth and vice versa. The conservative who, rightly, sees it as out of line with God’s truth must make sure that his reaction is tempered by compassion and honest recognition of ways in which he himself might fall short of the ideal while the liberal who, rightly, is horrified by the intolerance and persecution of the past must not allow that to blind him to the fact that homosexuality does not reflect spiritual reality and so cannot be given moral equivalence to heterosexuality. As always Jesus showed us the way in his reaction to the woman taken in adultery. It has two sides to it, both equally important. He tells the woman that he does not condemn her but he also tells her to sin no more. Readers of my book will know that the Masters used a homosexual as their medium so they obviously had no prejudice on that score. However they would not have been able to do that if he had been an active homosexual because then he would have been putting his own desires above God's truth. Once you have done that it is increasingly difficult to respond to God's word correctly in anything.

The reason many religious people are so adamant in their refusal to put homosexuality on the same footing as heterosexuality is because sex is a sacred act which is the basis to creation. Hence its incorrect use is fundamentally disordered and might even be considered blasphemous. If the creative act is engaged in without the remotest possibility of creation then those engaged in that act are striking at the heart of the manifested order. To do this on an individual level may be wrong but to legitimise it to the degree that same sex marriage does is actually worse because, while sinning is one thing, we are all sinners in one way or another. We really are and we should recognise that fact. Denying the sinful nature of sin, however, is worse than sinning because it turns weakness into defiance and pretends that wrong is right. I am not for a moment saying that homosexual acts should still be considered a crime (this has to be a matter of individual conscience), but I do say that a society that has lost touch with reality to the degree of celebrating same sex marriage is one that is going in the wrong direction. You cannot separate yourself from reality for long without being called to account. Of course, I am speaking in relative terms here and a long period could be involved. But the trajectory will be downwards towards spiritual, cultural, moral decline. I know this statement will be laughable to many but that just shows how the process is already quite advanced.

You are absolutely right to say that, spiritually speaking, it makes no difference what you are. However the Masters made clear to me that if one is born homosexual, as their disciple Michael Lord was, one should aim for celibacy. To those who say this is not natural to man one would reply that virtue and goodness are not natural to fallen man either, but our task is to follow the highest and best not the easiest or line of least resistance. At the present time it may be that it is permissible to ignore that rule somewhat so that the intolerance of difference shown in previous centuries may be moderated. Eventually however we will have to come back to the truth. But the point is that even if we feel we cannot follow the highest we must certainly acknowledge it and not let our inability to abide by its standards cause us to deny or neglect those standards.

We live at a time when there is an all out assault on the human form. This is a spiritual war and it is being waged as never before. It is why spiritual people nowadays cannot just retreat into meditation and inner soul searching but must stand up and fight against the ways of the world. They must always do so in a spirit of love not anger (otherwise they will do more harm than good), but still they must stand up for truth and not allow themselves to go along with the flow of popular opinion and intellectual fashion wherever they may lead. The disassembling of sexual differences is one of the ways that the spiritual integrity of the human being is attacked. The extreme form of feminism which desires to erode or deny the complementary nature of the sexes and make an equality of sameness is another. The words 'male and female created he them' contain a deep and hitherto obvious truth which is tragically being lost.

Q. Why don't you use the word gay? Doesn't this betray a prejudice on your part? And if your Masters said that to them homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality why do you take a different view? It’s now widely accepted that homosexuality is perfectly natural for a sizeable minority so why not grant it its natural rights?

A. You misunderstand the Masters. They meant that to them whether a person is homosexual or heterosexual by nature is immaterial because they look to the state of a person's soul. They did not say that homosexual or heterosexual acts are the same to them. They actually spoke of the former as love degenerating. Context is everything and they were speaking of the situation between Michael and myself at a time when homosexuality was still widely condemned. Now we live in a different world.

As for my not using the word gay, you ask if that betrays a prejudice on my part. I don't think prejudice is the right word. It's more a dislike of the distortion of language and of being manipulated. As is well known, to change thought you seek to change language. I don't like the attempt to change attitudes by what amounts to underhand methods, and using words with a 'good vibe' to them to make the user think differently. Having said that, I completely understand that it was also a natural reaction to insulting and abusive terminology of the past, and I use the word colloquially like everybody else now because that is the custom and not to do so seems unnecessarily pompous. Why use a polysyllabic word when a monosyllabic one will do! But written language is more serious than spoken and so I don't use it here.

Let's break open the Masters' words on this subject a little more. A person’s sexuality is not a sin any more than it is a virtue so whether we are born heterosexual or homosexual makes no difference to them, and that is obviously the case since their medium Michael Lord was homosexual. However they also said that love must be pure and that means that people with a same sex attraction should ideally live lives of chastity. Certainly that should be their eventual aim. If the creative energy is used in defiance of its very principle the least you can say is that it is being misused. But it is not a sin to feel tempted in a certain direction.  Sin only enters in when temptation is succumbed to but the real point is that even that is not as bad as justifying or even celebrating the sin. You may not like that word but what else can you call something that is acting against the reality of God? Something which effectively debars you from connecting to your spiritual source? Truth is truth. You may not like it but it is there, and perhaps if you do not like it you are denying your true self at a deep level.

You say that a homosexual's nature is natural to him and I don't dispute that for a moment. What I do say though is that what is natural (in a fallen world, which this is) is by no means always what is right. Indeed, many times all of us, without exception, have to struggle against what is natural to do what is right. The natural is not always the spiritual. The old Adam must be superseded by Christ. This is a timeless truth.

This post is not in any sense written against homosexuals who have struggled for far too long with prejudice and ignorant condemnation. What they have suffered in the past, and what they often still suffer today, is dreadful and it comes from lack of love on the part of heterosexuals. The person who has given me the most in this life was homosexual and I am not an ungrateful hypocrite. However, given the current climate of opinion, it is important to point out the metaphysical errors of those who advocate complete same sex equality, and to make clear that divine principles always supersede human rights. For, in truth, there are no such things as human rights which are an invented category, the question of which only arises when divine principles are no longer acknowledged. I would also want to support those who are swept along by current fashions, and who wish to be fair and just, but who have vague misgivings about the whole process. And, lastly, I would like to offer homosexual men and women, especially those attracted to the spiritual path, a point of view which might help them on their way. For in a sense they are the ones who could potentially suffer the most from contemporary mistaken attitudes to homosexuality. It is not without significance that the first person Jesus appeared to after his resurrection was a repentant sinner, Mary Magdalene, traditionally supposed to be the woman referred to above. 

If this world were all that is then current attitudes would be quite reasonable. But it is not and so they are not. They fall short. My sole purpose here is to put things in a proper perspective. For a culture that denies God can never understand the right way to approach this question. (Or any other for that matter). Only in the light of spiritual reality can we know what to do and  how to be. God is love but God is also truth. And do you know that it is precisely because God is love that he wants us to overcome everything in us that prevents us fully experiencing this love? Anything out of step with his reality does this.

But let me finish by broadening the whole argument for, actually, this is only a side issue. The real issue is not so much whether homosexual acts are legitimate in a spiritual world but what the place of sex is in a spiritual world. And I have to say that the Masters' view on this seems to be very similar to that of traditional Christian teachings. Sex is the energy of creation and belongs in a heterosexual relationship dedicated to the raising of a family, in other words marriage. Only in such circumstances is it pure (love must be pure, they said) and used as it should be. They recognise that we live in a world of many temptations and pressures but this is the ideal we should hold before us, though ideal is not really the right word as it is perfectly attainable in a properly ordered culture that doesn't put physical desires above divine principles.

As for the consequences of ignoring divine principles in favour of personal desires, that is easy. It is increased separation from the source of those principles with a resulting increased sense of alienation and loss of connection to the centre. 

Teaching for a Child

Spiritual truth is really quite simple or, at any rate, its essentials are. This is something my teachers always insisted on. In their words, spiritual truth is simple but it is easy to get lost in philosophical speculations which lead nowhere. Now this means that basically a child should be able to understand the truth about existence, where it comes from, what its duties are and what its destiny should be. Obviously not in detail but sufficiently to be able to lead a life in harmony with the universe instead of one completely at odds with it as is mostly the case nowadays. 

So what are the essentials which every child should be taught? Different cultures might emphasise different aspects of the story and present them in slightly differing forms, but I would say that any child entering this world who is not given the information below is deprived of its birthright and sent out into life already partially crippled in spirit. There is no need to develop these ideas to begin with. That can come later as and when required. The simple understanding of basic truths is enough to start off with. A child may reject these truths. He or she has that right and nothing should be forced. But not to give the child access to them from an early age is a form of cruelty to a growing and developing mind. This is not indoctrination (if it were then not doing it would be equally so), and it should not be something that is insisted on but a gentle presentation of fundamental truths for the child's consideration and pondering.

Here is what I believe each child should be taught when it begins to ask questions about the world in which it finds itself.

• There is a Creator. God exists and God is a person. He loves you.

• You have an immortal soul for which you are responsible. It is cherished as a unique individual.

• All life is one as it all comes from God and is held within his keeping. However all forms of life are different and they are not all equal as they appear in the world, though they should all be respected and valued.

• There is a divine order of being and we should try to observe that and conform ourselves to it not only because it is the truth but because we will be happier that way.

• This Earth is a spiritual school and we are here to learn lessons some of which may be difficult and even painful. We have to understand that, and not think that because of occasional hardship that God has abandoned us or does not exist. These are the chisellings that turn a block of wood into a beautiful statue

• There are forces of darkness but this is nothing to be frightened about. They have no power that God could not extinguish in a second and they cannot hurt us or influence us in any way unless we let them by listening to their false counsel which always goes against what we know in our hearts, though it may appeal to the selfish or proud or lazy part of us. They are allowed to exist because they give us an opportunity to be tested.

• We live in a time when spiritual truths are being lost but our task is not to be misled by that. We have to have faith which is based on the highest truths we have been taught plus what we sense in our hearts when we are loyal to the best we know.

One could certainly add to this list but I didn't want to make it too long or too complicated or too specific. One could mention that God has messengers who sometimes come to teach us the truth about him. And one could say that the current views about human beings being descended from animals are by no means proven and, even if correct, would still only relate to our bodies not our souls which are from heaven. From my personal perspective I would want to add something about Jesus Christ as, at the very least, the perfect teacher, ideal man and divine exemplar, but I've tried to make this as universally applicable as possible. I'm not saying Christ isn't universally applicable, I absolutely believe he is, but he is not perceived as such by everybody, and this is intended to be just a general outline attesting to the reality of the spiritual world. It's a framework to be built on later.

Science and Materialism

Science is increasingly idolised these days. There really is no other word for it. It is seen as the only reliable means to knowledge, both of the world and of ourselves. It alone gives truth. It alone has the keys to the kingdom.

But what if it were a false idol and led not to an increased understanding of life but to a narrowing of vision, a loss of true values and eventual death? That is my view (see here and here) but it is definitely a heretical one according to the accepted canons of contemporary belief. It would not only be dismissed as absurd and ignorant by secular authorities but would also be rejected by most religious leaders too who fail to see that if you try to ride two horses going in different directions, one of them will inevitably have to follow the other.

So why is science so highly regarded and why do I reject its authority? To answer the second question first, it's very simple. I reject its authority because it is wrong. If science were not materialistic by default that would not be the case, but it is or certainly has become so. Therefore it denies all truths not open to its own limited means of research. It has identified itself so completely with materialism that it cannot break that connection without diminishing itself and its unique authority. Of course, individual scientists do not necessarily all think in this way but the discipline as a whole does.

So, to be clear, I do not reject science so much as its materialistic bias, but nowadays the two are locked so closely together that they cannot be prised apart. And I reject this bias on practically every ground I can think of, be it those one would expect such as tradition, revelation, religion, experience, intuition, imagination, faith, but also those that are regarded with approval by scientists such as reason and logic. For materialism is irrational in that it can explain nothing fundamental in itself but still won't accept the obvious, namely that the universe is set up and governed by intelligence. It has to deny this intelligence because to accept it would be to undermine its own position of pre-eminence. Thus when science looks behind the veil of existence at such root realities as life, consciousness and intelligence, never mind all those troublesome things not definable in terms of mathematics like beauty, love and goodness, all it sees is basically nothing. Literally nothing real in the latter case (i.e. these things are just subjective), and nothing existing independently of determining material processes in the former.

As for why science is highly regarded, I would say there are various reasons. Firstly, it is relatively new. According to our current way of looking at the world anything recent is likely to be regarded as more advanced than what came before. As, in some respects, it is. Then there is no doubt that science, through its practical application of technology, has changed the world radically and, in many ways, for the better. It has got results and made our lives much easier. It has also explained some things that were mysteries and corrected some ideas that were incorrectly understood. It has vastly increased our intellectual understanding of the physical and, to some extent, psychological worlds. All this is undeniable. But there is also the equally undeniable fact that science appeals to those who wish to reject God which means those who are motivated by pride in their own independent intellects. From this perspective, at least, science can be viewed as a product of the Fall, and one, if not directly inspired by, then certainly exploited by that being who was the agent of the Fall and the first to reject the authority of the Creator.

Even those who recognise that science has overstepped its boundaries from the 19th century onwards like to say that this is not the fault of science as such. It is simply a misuse of science. But I wonder if the aspect of misuse is not actually implicit in the discipline itself. Science, after all, is something that depends on the analysis of the material world and the use of the rational mind. It is fundamentally anti-spiritual in its conception from the outset so unless it submits itself to a higher authority, whether that be God, the soul, revelation or spiritual intuition, it will always end up in the way it has. And the majority of its adherents will always resist anything that threatens their hegemony and position on top of the intellectual pile.

What science fundamentally does is break things up in order to look inside them. That is the way it understands them. Now this is effective up to a point but something essential is lost that way. What it is is hard to define (particularly in scientific terms precisely because it is not open to the scientific method of exploration), but we can call it the spirit or soul or quality of the thing, and anybody with the slightest bit of imagination will know what that means. But science won't accept imagination as in any way pointing to reality because it operates outside of its domain. I am not dismissing the scientific approach but I am saying that, taken to excess, as it is now, it is highly damaging to the proper development of a human being. It must be accompanied by, even subordinated to, a more visionary mode of perception which approaches things intuitively and is able to look through and behind and beyond externals without chopping them up into their component parts but seeing them as wholes. For science may be able to manipulate matter but it cannot see the reality of which matter is only an expression.

This article is unashamedly polemical in nature. It is so because a proper view of life requires balance. God is truth and love, justice and mercy. At the present time we are dangerously out of balance and there is no law that says an extreme imbalance will naturally right itself. At least, none that says this will happen before dramatic consequences of imbalance come into play.

The Supra-Personal

It's been suggested to me that the problems referred to in the earlier questions on the void, which create a conflict between Buddhism and Christianity or, in more general terms, between monism and theism, might be avoided if the absolute was described as supra-personal or transpersonal rather than impersonal. Metaphysically speaking, this might be seen as a step in the right direction but, in fact, it doesn't really resolve the difficulty as much as might initially appear.

For what does it actually mean to be supra-personal? It's a word the meaning of which no one can really understand. To begin with, how does it differ from impersonal? It strikes me as potentially a gambit used by non-dualists to deny the reality of the personal or demote it to a lesser and relative state. It can certainly be employed to that effect. Therefore those who advocate the idea of reality as supra-personal must be careful to differentiate between that and the impersonal, and make sure they are not re-introducing the latter through the back door and under another name. If supra-personal is compared to personal as a sphere is to a circle that makes theoretical sense because at least then it can be conceived of as something including but more than a person (rather than less than one as impersonal undoubtedly is). But even so this is still just a theoretical concept, and the idea that God is a Person, not supra-personal or transpersonal (vague terms that carry very little meaning and which can be used to deny real personhood to God) is the only real basis on which it can be said that God is Love. A personal God is still the only way in which we can have a relationship with God which, according to the Christian idea, is the goal of the spiritual life. And it is the only way in which values of goodness, truth and beauty can have any real meaning. That is to say, meaning fundamentally rooted in reality. For only if the person is real can anything be real, other than pure undivided consciousness.  And maybe not even that.

So, all things considered, I don't think that conceiving of God as supra-personal is all that helpful. While it might help to describe an experience of the ground of being it should not be used to support the reductive view of the world that advocates of non-duality incline towards. God, no doubt, cannot be limited to a person as he cannot be limited in any way, but if we truly are made in his image then this must be an important and real part of what he is.