Popular Religion and Esoteric Spirituality
Dreams and Visions often symbolize Civilization and Society as a Mountain, and often as a very steep mountain with distinct teirs and levels. In such a Multi-tiered System, where base Barbarism would be found at the extreme the lowest level, we can see that Popular Religion would up in those levels where Civilization becomes possible. Religion guarantees social cooperation, self abnegation and self-sacrifice, and moral considerations against fraud, cheating and outright theft. Without such a basic Religion, then Life woud soon slide down into what Thomas Hobbes would call a “War of each man against every other”, where life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
Rational Cynics, such as Voltaire, would suppose that since Religion is Necessary to Civilization, then it must have been invented and consciously fabricated as something of a Benevolent Fraud … to trick the People into moral and socially beneficial behaviors. Remember what Voltaire had said: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to Create Him”. Voltaire himself had been criticized by his atheist buddies for having built a Chapel on his own Estate. Voltaire said it was a choice between building a Chapel and hiring a Priest, or counting the silver ware every evening.
Well, that IS cynical, isn’t it?
The Truth is that Popular Religion comes down from a Higher Level of that Mountain of which I was speaking. Like Moses bringing down the Commandments from a Higher Level.
Above Religion is Spirituality. What are the distinctions? Well, anybody can be a member of a Popular Religion. It is ‘exoteric’. With Spirituality, one needs to be ‘initiated’, ‘called’… Spirituality is ‘esoteric’.
Spiritual Systems typically have ‘Masters’, ‘Gurus’. Yes, it is given to much fraud and pretence nowadays, but there is more genuine Spirituality then one would expect to find.
On the practical level, it is easy enough to discern the True Masters from the False. Years ago I read in a treatise on the Hindu Upanishads that “in the presence of a God or Saint, the Agna Chakra (Third Eye, Eye of Wisdom) will unfold and open”. This is a fancy way of saying that in the presense of a person whose Eye of Wisdom is already open, your own Eye of Wisdom will begin to open in a kind of resonant sympathy. What this feels like is a pressure in one’s forehead – a slight sensation that feels like a painless headache. It is easy enough to ignore if one is not expecting it. But if one does recognize the Sensation and latches one’s attention to it, then, if one meditates on it until one drifts into a very relaxed trance state, then this simple sensation turns into a perception of Light, often White Light surrounded by a violet (pink-purple) surrounding aura.
Ordinarily one has to go to such Masters and Gurus for official Initiation. These are the Shaktipat Gurus – Shakti meaning ‘energy’ and ‘pat’ meaning ‘to touch’. Often, before they will initiate you officially, you have to sign up for the complete program, swear allegiance, pay money… the whole Nine Yards. But… I shouldn’t spread this around… one can ‘steal’ such an Initiation if one really wants to. One does not need the official Initiation, but one only needs to be in the same room… close enough to feel that sensation in one’s own forehead, and then one has to keep one’s attention fixed on that sensation in order to keep the Chakra from Closing until it is solidly turned on.
Most of the time people give this slight sensation no attention at all, and the Agna Chakra that was on the verge of opening simply closes back up from lack of interest. However, if one focuses on the Sensation morning, noon and night… and several times in between, for a week or two after the first exposure… then the Agna Chakra becomes Operational. Then the sensation goes from being slight to being a full and obvious pressure. Often a real Headache. Well, at that point one has to jump into the books or find somebody who knows what to do… as the energy can be directed so that it does not cause pain and other problems.
Anyway, the artistic representation of Halos –auras surrounding the head – as depicted both in Christian Art and in Mahayana Buddhist Art – in separate Traditions arising spontaneously in different corners of the Globe. These Halos are depictions of this Shaktipat Energy from the Open Chakras in the head – the Agna Chakra in the forehead and the Crown Chakra on the top and back of the head.
Once a person has these Open Spiritual Centers, then their Spiritual Growth commences. From Human Beings they grow into Spiritual Beings. And as Spiritual Beings they become qualified to bring Popular Religion to the people who are on those levels below them.
