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.

The Message of Easter

I went for a walk this afternoon and was struck by how every moment of peace or beauty was almost immediately shattered by the discordant intrusions of modernity in some form or other, noisy vehicles, ugly architecture and so on. But most of contemporary life is like this. To the spiritually sensitive it may sometimes seem as though the whole world is on fire, and that soon there will be nothing left but ashes. Values are turned upside down, truth is denied or distorted and some virtues, or semblances of them, in particular a counterfeit of compassion, are used to subvert others, in particular a wise discrimination. All this may incline one to the temptation of despair. But if we are tempted in that direction then we should remember the lesson of Easter. The disciples after the crucifixion were cast down and despondent, their dreams shattered and their lives seemingly over. But a few days later the most extraordinary event in the history of mankind occurred.

So the message of Easter is hope. We are being tested and those that remain faithful to the truth within them will one day see the lifting of the clouds, and a bright sun shining in a clear blue sky beyond.

Follow up to Question on the Void

This question (or rather email conversation) came in response to the earlier question on the void, but it also has a connection to the last article which posited that a personal view of divine reality is more in line with truth than the non-personal one of monistic conceptions of the absolute. It is quite long but I hope not without interest to those struggling with the idea of whether God might be personal or impersonal, a question the resolution of which I find to be of great significance for a right understanding of the spiritual life. 

Anyway, on with the conversation which starts off by referring to the experience some people have of ultimate reality as pure awareness, and the claims they make based on that.

Q. If I say that many people who experience what they call enlightenment experience this “pure awareness”, or “void”, or “no centre” as some express it, as a genuine experience but that it is partly coloured by or interpreted by being centred in the personal self or ego, would you agree?

Then could we go on from that to say that there actually is a new centre that gradually grows in us, and which is in one way personal, in the sense that it is our intimate, inner connection with the whole, but at the same time universal, since in this centre we are no longer identified with our personality or even with our individuality? And in this way we gradually, and this is indeed a process of lifetimes, become fully realised and true individuals, anchored in God.

You said “In most cases what is called spiritual awakening is a contact with the soul, or higher self as it is known in occultism, not the Universal Self. Thus it is not a state of full realisation but a reconnection to the ante-natal non-separate consciousness. It can, it certainly should, be used as an inspiration for further spiritual exploration but it is not an indication of any kind of final attainment."

Could you explain this a bit more? Also, in relation to the above mentioned experience of “pure awareness, what is your understanding of the concepts of the soul and higher self in this context, and how do they relate to the universal self? You also refer to the teacher who is what you call a personality aware of the soul, rather than someone totally anchored in and speaking from the higher self. This makes sense to me even if I do not fully grasp what you mean. For example, how would a contact with one’s soul or higher self give rise to the experience of “pure awareness” or “the void”?

A. With regard to your first two paragraphs I would say, more or less, yes.

With regard to the rest, the answer rather relates to my conception of what a human being is, that is to say, how we are made up. I think of this as personality, soul and spirit where the personality is our normal earthly self of body, emotional and mental selves. The William Wildblood self in my case which is born and will die, though it may survive longer than the physical body does. Then there is the soul which is our spiritual self which I conceive of as remaining on a spiritual plane when we are born into this world but acting as the animating and individualising principle to the personality. It is our greater self, a spiritual being that is the driver and focus of our evolution. It is our individual consciousness and quality and has existed since we were created not just for this life like the personality. Spirit is the uncreated aspect of the divine fire in our being. It is our connection to universal life. This is just one way of describing things but I do think this threefold nature of our constitution model corresponds reasonably well to reality.

The experience many people have when they think they have attained a non-dualistic realisation is usually a contact with the soul. To be frank, we are so materially focused nowadays than we tend to think any spiritual state is the highest we can attain, such is the contrast to our normal earthbound consciousness. So if we are exposed to non-dualistic teachings then, if we have an experience of this kind, we think that we have entered into the absolute and touched our reality. But how could we possibly know that? It's just an assumption based on a mental preconception.

Your point about a new centre I take to mean that there is a gradual shifting of identification from the separate self, 'me' centre to a higher spiritual consciousness which is still 'us' but us as a spiritual entity which has its own life but is also consciously part of the whole. So that's the soul.

You also ask how the soul relates to the universal self. I think of one as spiritual and the other as divine, so one is our true spiritual self but a created being while the other is uncreated. One is the source of our individual consciousness, but the other is our being so not different to God's being though not the same either as it relates to God in us not God in the totality of himself. Does that make sense? But to us down here the consciousness of the soul is so expanded and non-separate in nature that we may think of it as supreme.

Teachers I describe as personalities aware of the soul are those, by far the most numerous, who have some knowledge and experience of spiritual truth but are still not wholly identified with that. They are still responding to it with their minds. It hasn't totally infused their hearts. I would include myself in that category - if I were a teacher!

Q. If I can go back to one thing that perhaps does not have a straightforward answer. How come that a personality that comes in contact with the soul, with the spirit self (if we use the terms as you described them), experiences this contact as being one with pure awareness or being one with the void? Why do they, in such a contact, not get at least an inkling of the existence of a God (a personal, living God, not just something absolute)? They also seem to reduce the creation, including their own and other people’s lives, to more or less arbitrary “stories”. Why does a contact with the soul leave them empty of at least an inkling of a deeper purpose here, so to speak?

They seem so certain about their experience.

I guess one answer is what you said, that any experience out of the ordinary earthbound consciousness is easily interpreted as something ultimate. Do you think it would make a difference if they had more knowledge (and interest) in a cosmology or a spiritual metaphysic that puts our current evolutionary stage in perspective?

But you also wrote in the post I referred to, that it is not a state of full realisation but a reconnection to the ante-natal non-separate consciousness. Could you say something more about this?

A. I think that when people contact the soul they generally interpret that according to pre-existing beliefs. So now when we are exposed to non-dualistic philosophies and told these are the highest teachings we assume that is what is going on. Also, an experience of the soul is so different to normal everyday consciousness that we might describe it in exclusively non-dualistic terms. And that is not necessarily wrong. Duality does seem to be transcended in the sense that an overwhelming feeling of oneness is experienced. But, as you say, if we had a more sophisticated metaphysical understanding we might not be so quick to assume that we have reached some kind of ultimate state, than which there is nothing higher.

The experience is true but the conclusions drawn from it may not be. That is why it is generally not a good idea to make experience the benchmark of spiritual understanding. It can feed into that but should not be used on its own.

You ask why people who have the experience of pure awareness do not get an inkling of the personal God. This is because of the state of their heart. It is because of their motivation and inner purity as well as the preconceptions they bring to bear. Briefly, it is because they are motivated more by the search for experience or realisation or enlightenment than love. This is why they might touch the ground of their being but not go further and encounter the living God who is only known through love. They have gone far but not far enough. They have seen through the false self (or had an experience of that) but if they stop there they will not know the glory of oneness with God, a much higher state than simply resting in pure awareness. And this next step on the way requires not simply seeing through the illusion of the false self or ego but the actual sacrifice in love of the self. That will be what is asked of anyone who wishes to know God. Ask yourself which is nobler, intellectually or experientially perceiving the illusory nature of the separate self or actually sacrificing that self in love? It's the difference between doing nothing and giving.

What I mean by reconnecting to the ante-natal non-separate consciousness (which is what some people do and mistake for enlightenment) is that this may engender feelings of bliss and oneness but it is not a state of full spiritual maturity. It's more a retreat to the spiritual womb, the paradisiacal condition before the roughness and darkness of being born in this world. It is the state of primeval innocence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden that is known before we enter the world of experience. In this state the ego has not been consciously transcended in love but just suspended so there are none of the fruits of developed spirituality which are love, wisdom and personal holiness. Though there may well be the imitation of these if the subject has been led to believe through other spiritual teachings that there should be.

To understand what I am saying here please consider this quotation from 'The Imitation of Christ' which I think captures the sense of how the search for pure awareness differs from the real spiritual goal. I'm relying on memory so it may not be exact but as far as I recall it runs like this. "You are not making progress when you receive divine grace but you are making progress when you bear the withdrawal of grace with patience, humility and resignation". With the former you are still seeking reward but with the latter you are faithfully submitting yourself to a higher power. Only when you do this can you make yourself worthy to draw near to the personal God.

Q. How can you tell whether someone has been reconnected to the ante-natal state, where the ego is kept in suspension as you say, or is having an experience that is conveyed by a mature, transformed and transcended ego? Since you said that the first can imitate the latter. Perhaps there can be different degrees of both kinds? Can they even coexist?

I am wondering because the experiences that these people have, and you can find many teachings and testimonies on YouTube nowadays, really puzzles me. And to me, this is a serious matter.

A. I suppose you'd have to say that by their fruits you shall know them. Has this experience made them a deeper, more sensitive person or do they remain identified with things of this world, including worldly viewpoints? Are they able to be alone and to stand alone? Do they require the approbation and recognition of others or can they just be happy with anonymity? Can they suffer, do they sacrifice? Do you see the light shining through them or is it just them that you see? People do try to steal the light, you know!

But then I would also say, does it really matter? Spiritual experiences do not make spiritual people. They can and do happen to almost anyone and are not a sign of advanced spirituality. Not at all. And all too often the ego takes the experience to itself and puffs itself up with the supposed achievement. Look for humility and learn to distinguish between the real thing and the false variety that is all too often met with in the spiritual world.

It's quite natural to be concerned about the shallow forms of spirituality to be found today. So many people setting themselves up as teachers or achievers of a certain state. But my teachers told me not to worry about this as such people are being allowed to prosper. Firstly, because of free will. They have the right to make their own mistakes, and, through experiencing the results of wrong choices, they will eventually make the correct choice. And then others, who might follow these people, will also learn through the experience, and find out what is truth and what is half-truth mistaken for the full version.  

So really the answer to your question is that you have to use your own intuition. Don't accept something is true just because someone says it is or even because everyone says it is. We live in a time of spiritual ignorance and there are many spiritual 'freelancers' who exploit our lack of understanding (not always consciously but they step into a gap because there is a big gap). Pray for discernment, and trust your own heart.

As I have often said here the Masters advised both meditation and prayer as part of a proper spiritual practice. In my estimation the truth is non-duality and duality combined. In the spiritual world we need to be able to embrace paradox sometimes. The mistake the non-duality people make is to leave out the fact that God exists and what he creates is real. It's dependent on him, of course, but none the less real for all that. Many of them are seduced by the fact that they think they have discovered a higher truth and can therefore ignore everything that is not complete oneness. There is a certain lack of humility in that. For God to be love (and all the really knowledgeable people confirm that he is) there must be some plurality right at the root of existence. Love requires a lover, a beloved and love itself. This is where the Christian doctrine of the Trinity (God is three in one) comes in. Non-duality, if really true, would deny love, and non-dualists should see that, if they accept love, then they deny non-duality. They can't have both. Attempts to fudge the issue by relating love to the relative world won't do. Either it is real or it's not. If non-duality is real then love is not real. And vice versa.

God Transcends Nirvana

I first became interested in Buddhism almost forty years ago but felt at the time that, despite its many insights, it ultimately fell short of the ideal as a description of spiritual reality. The intervening years have brought a greater understanding of the religion but my conclusions about it remain the same. I feel that the Buddha found and articulated the highest state open to man unaided and on his own which is the entry into pure being. But this is not the final destination intended for the human soul by its Creator, though it may (I believe), if it wishes, rest there. But if it does, either through its own desire or through ignorance, it is accepting a secondary condition.

Buddhism does not acknowledge God which is its major failing. In every other respect it is a religion of great beauty and profound wisdom but that is a pretty big omission! Because it denies God (and it does do that because if it doesn't accept Him then it denies Him) it fails to see that the goal of the human soul is not to be absorbed into the Nirvanic state of pure being which is a kind of back to where you started condition, but to be consciously made one with the Creator in a perfect union of the individual with the universal. Only in such a way can the whole of life comprising being and becoming, the one and the many, spirit and matter and so on, be integrated and reconciled in a manner that does justice to all aspects of the created and uncreated realms. The purpose of our lives is not to forsake the reality in creation (which includes relationships with other beings) for pure consciousness, but to bring the two poles of existence together in a conscious reunion that gives each one its due place in the hierarchical scheme of things. Only in this way can man become a full co-creator with God which is his divine destiny.

Despite beliefs to the contrary there are various kinds of mystical experience and attitudes to reality resulting from them but, for my purpose here, I would like to boil these down to the monistic and the theistic. The former is non-dualistic while the latter is dualistic with the proviso that, properly understood, it is a dualism in which there is underlying oneness, though one could just as well say that it is a oneness in which difference is also present with the two being held in perfect balance. Hence it combines and integrates the two. It has often been said that monism is a higher realisation than theism into which the latter is subsumed when true understanding dawns and a person realises his identity with the whole, having come to perceive that pure consciousness is the ground of everything that is, and the idea of an individual self is just that, an idea, a thought in the mind. This may seem to have a satisfyingly logical sense of progression to it but I think it is mistaken and that the reality is precisely the opposite. What the monist does is attain to the unified ground of being through detachment from the 'sheathes' that cover consciousness. He strips away all that is not consciousness and is left with the root of existence.

This is a true state of being but is it what we were created for? Could there be a higher state which combines the qualities of being and becoming to make something entirely new, something not possible in pure being alone? I believe that there is and that it is union with God, a union in love with a (or maybe I should say the) Person. The monist reaches the ground of existence but God is beyond this, including but transcending it. It is his being but it is not his Person. The monist (quite reasonably really) assumes he has attained to the ultimate because there is nothing left to strip away and he has reached perfect peace and unity of being. He feels he is the All and that it is him. However he has sacrificed his God-given individuality in this quest and thereby missed the truth that oneness of being is a lower condition than union in love. For the higher goal than simple entry into pure being is the union of the oneness of being with the variety and capacity to grow of becoming. It is not the Absolute alone but the Absolute and the relative together. It is not pure spirit but the union of uncreated spirit and created soul. This is the extraordinary truth behind the reason for life in this world and the created order in general. It is why enlightenment or liberation (largely a matter of knowledge, whether that be direct perception or insight gained through meditation) must take second place in a hierarchy of spiritual understanding to a union with God which is only possible through love. Overcoming the ego through detachment and intellectual insight is one thing, and can take you to the uncreated core of yourself which is identical with the uncreated core of all beings, but voluntarily offering up the self in love is another thing altogether and points to the higher state of the sanctified soul in which individuality is not rejected, dismissed, seen as illusionary or denied but made perfect in holiness. And this is only possible through the combined action of self-purification, love and grace.

The Buddha reached the highest state possible to man, the very ground and root of being. He attained complete detachment from all manifested forms of existence. He rejected desire and found a way beyond suffering, which was the initial motive behind his search. But though he penetrated to the very depths of his being he failed to see (if I may say so) that the ground of existence is not the same as God who includes this in himself but stands above it in his Person. It may be that the time had not yet arrived for this revelation, and it had to wait for the advent of Christ to be made known. Christ, be it noted, did not try to escape suffering but accepted it, offering it up to the Father in loving sacrifice. In so doing he showed the way to cleanse the self of its fallen will and thereby render it open to sanctification.

When I consider the teachings I received from the Masters I find that they fully support this view, i.e. that the mode of existence entered into by the non-dualists is not the final goal for the human soul. There is a higher and more glorious destiny that awaits those who choose to follow it, and it is the union of the soul with its Maker. A union in which oneness and difference are both perfectly present and one, moreover, capable of ever deeper development unlike Nirvana which, if not static, cannot be considered open to change. The Masters did not spell this out since they don't work like that. They guide but leave you to find things out yourself through your own endeavours. But the teachings they imparted point to it. Their insistence on love and humility as the primary qualities to be acquired by the disciple along with their advice to remember the Creator and be centred in God certainly indicate that. 

Now these instructions, on the face of it so simple as to be almost mundane, actually contain the essence of the spiritual path and, if followed faithfully, can take one to the highest goal. There is nothing quite like them in the teachings of the Buddha. But note that they must be followed with one's whole being to be properly effective for you cannot be centred in God as long as you are identified with the lower or outer self. If you identify yourself with the 'name and form' aspect of your being, your (in my case) William Wildblood self , you are not centred in God but in yourself whatever your spiritual feelings might be. Neither are you remembering the Creator who might be in your thoughts as an image but will not be in your heart as a living presence. And this is where the teachings of Buddhism can be a great help for, if they do not in themselves lead to union with God, they can certainly bring the disciple to the point of complete detachment from the lower self which is where you need to be in order to begin to be centred in God.

I realise that to say that Buddhism shows the way to the ground of being but does not lead to God Himself who is a step further on will be rejected by many. Nevertheless I believe that (contrary to the opinion of monists) God includes but goes beyond this ground or, at any rate, the ground as it exists in the human being which may be identical with God's being but is not the totality of God in Himself who remains transcendent as well as immanent. Non-dualists like to tell us that theism is dualistic and therefore on a lower level than their philosophy but they do not realise that, while there certainly is a theism of straightforward duality, there is also one in which oneness and duality co-exist, and this is the one I am talking about here.

This is not the simplest of subjects to write about (how can there be something more than oneness?) but I hope to have said enough to trigger an intuitive response in anyone who feels that non-duality teachings omit something important. It may be objected that I am saying that the Buddha was wrong and who am I to do that? But either he or Jesus were mistaken since they are not, despite what many people claim nowadays, saying the same thing. I find the teachings of Christ not only more profound but more in keeping with reality too. In terms of the Vedanta this means I am in Ramanuja's camp rather than Sankara's who surely picked and chose from the Upanishads whatever suited his (Buddhist inspired) thesis. Non-dualists like to say that they do not deny duality but that their position transcends it, viewing it as part of the relative world only. But the fact is that they misconceive the relative world, rejecting it as insignificant in the light of the Absolute and not realising that it fulfils the Absolute by giving expression to it. They have yet to appreciate that there is a higher duality beyond non-duality which encompasses oneness in the context of difference and vice versa. Moreover I would like to ask how many non-dualists really love God and how many just pay lip service to him as an idea, the need for which they have transcended and therefore are no longer required to concern themselves with? They should know that something is only transcended if it is fully experienced and its qualities absorbed.

Buddhism teaches the fact of absolute reality and outlines the way to it, but it neglects the all important personal aspect and so it misses that the highest truth is not the disappearance of the individual into the universal but the integration of the individual with the universal. And this is why, while it advocates an impersonal compassion, it doesn’t know love in the full Christian sense which has to be foreign to it since love requires the reality of the person. Mahayana Buddhism tries to make up for this deficit with its teachings on the Bodhisattva but it cannot really do so and acknowledge the reality of the person (both God and the individual soul) without betraying its fundamental principles which means that the attempts to do so are never very satisfactory or coherent.