Cults vs. True Spirituality

When I was young, I lived in a Buddhist temple in Japan that was an offshoot of a major sect.  It is only recently that I've let myself know how cultish it was.  (I thought I was too smart for cults!)  Now I've been reading about cults.  The book I'm reading now, Cults in Our Midst, by Margaret Thaler Singer, is a classic on the subject.  Singer describes how various groups use a variety of tools to give people an out-of-this-world experience and then frame it according to the doctrine of the cult, e.g., "God has spoken to you," or "You are now a blessed one." 

Sometimes I still go to see Adyashanti, the teacher who transformed my life in the last decade.  And sometimes as I'm standing in line, or sitting in silence waiting for him to come in, I glance around and wonder how the gathering would look to an outsider.  Would we all look like a bunch of cultists?  Certainly, for me, I've experienced being "out-of-this-world" many times sitting there in front of Adya.  In fact, pretty much every time I see him.  I see golden light emanating from everything.  The whole visual appearance of the room changes and I go somewhere very deep I can't describe.  I have no idea how many others experience this.

I suspect Singer would say that this is a hypnotic trance induced by the teacher. But I know the teacher himself isn't at all interested in the accompanying "bells and whistles."  The ultimate truth is beyond physical manifestation, beyond bodily changes -- beyond, beyond -- to the place where you and I and all manifestation is one.  And there is not necessarily a sign that this is realized.

The Direct Path and Healing Psychological Wounds

I've been re-reading parts of a book by Alice Miller, the Swiss psychoalanalyst, which made a big impression on me when I discovered it in the 1980s.  She talks about how the true (psychological) self never develops in a child whose life depends on being pleasing to the primary caregiver. 

In the Direct Path, which has been the one that worked for me, all of the psychological conflict one has lived with simply gets by-passed and one finds that ultimate oneness and peace beyond understanding.  Rumi said, "I'll meet you there" in the field beyond right and wrong.  That's nice, but the important thing is to meet oneself there.  But then what?  Because that psychological conflict doesn't just magically melt away -- at least not for most people.

In his earlier years of teaching, sometimes someone newly awakened would ask Adyashanti why, since s/he had just realized ultimate truth, s/he was now in such psychological conflict and suffering, maybe only a couple of weeks after awakening. And Adya would say, "You came back for it."  Sometimes he'd add, "You wouldn't want to leave that behind, would you?"  By "you," he meant the Compassion one has now come to embody, which sees the suffering soul with its history of neglect or abuse or whatever, and knows that that is already part of the Whole, that it doesn't need to be excluded or denied, that everything is embraced.

And as I read Alice Miller now, that compassion in me for the small child is there and alive, and knows the truth of this.