their support, it is a good idea to present discoveries within the context of their faith and then
invite open dialogue, as described in Technique 17.
TECHNIQUE 17
Communicating Openly with Family and Friends
Once your loved ones realize that you are only questioning religion or a modern-day
counterpart, and not renouncing the search for truth or leaving them, their anxiety about your
well-being can transform into respect for your personal journey. At the very least, they are likely
to let you carry on your investigation unimpeded. But you may first have to actively reach across
to family and friends, drawing courage from the fact that every belief system began with
someone who apostated from the spiritual options of the time. Using a chosen revolutionary as
an example, explain your own thoughts and feelings in a language acceptable to your loved
ones.
This approach lends itself to any belief system you may have been questioning. For example, if
your family is Jewish you could set your experience against the historical backdrop of Judaism,
describing how Moses, after rejecting the Egyptian idolatry of his day, led the Israelites out of
that spiritual wasteland in the name of the one God. You might add that the repetitious liturgy of
Judaism, along with the mindless standing up and sitting down in unison at temple, have hurled
you into a wasteland of your own. You might further remind your loved ones that the Jews of
two thousand years ago saw prophetic customs give way to the rabbinic tradition, and that you
likewise need to renounce the worship of outer proprieties that has seeped into modern Judaism
to find the one God within you.
If you were raised in a Christian setting, you might ask family members to recall Jesus’s desire
to institute a new pact with God, then convey ways in which you also are forging a new pact with
your God. Explain, perhaps, that you intend to love your ideal of God free and clear of any
expectation of reward in heaven. Assure your loved ones that you no longer want atonement but
rather yearn for the knowledge that would prevent you from erring in the first place. Let them
know that you would prefer to make heaven on earth for yourself and others, certain that the
after- life will then take care of itself.
If you were born into a Muslim family, you might refer to Muhammad’s desire to rid the Arab
people of the maze of supernatural beings and intertribal strife that had permeated the Arab
world of his day. Reassure your loved ones that your objection is not to the infinite Allah but
rather to the limiting of his ability to send more messengers in his name. You could conclude by
pointing out that, having taken the example of Muhammad to heart, you realize that each person
is their own last prophet and spiritually responsible for themselves. As a result, you now see
Allah’s final messenger in everyone and everything.
If you come from a large family of Mormons who do not understand your willingness to question
the authority of The Book of Mormon and to reject the Mormon Church, consider presenting
yourself as an admirer of founder Joseph Smith, who felt he was commanded by God to reject
all Christian denominations and establish his own Church of Christ. Explain that just as God is
ever expanding in perfection, according to Smith’s teachings, so are you expanding beyond
your past understanding of God. Since your loved ones most likely give credence to Smith’s
sincerity based on the testimony of others, it may not be too much to ask them to accept your
sincerity as well.
If you are an ex-Hindu, you could explain that after studying the many philosophies and
practices associated with your family’s tradition, you have discovered the simple message of the
rishis. Consequently, you no longer have a need for stifling caste systems or superstition-laden
rituals. Like Adi Sankara, who wanted to reinvigorate Hinduism after it had suffered from
centuries of Dark Age dormancy, you are determined to banish external distortions and attend
an inner satsanga.
If your family is Buddhist, you could remind them of the Buddha’s feelings upon seeing the glory
of Vedanta crumble in the hands of priests. Then express your experience of Buddhism under
the influence of modern-day lamas, rinpoches, and meditation instructors who dilute the
meanings of nirvana and enlightenment for their personal benefit. Perhaps add that you, like the
Buddha, wish to reestablish the dharma in your life by invigorating from beneath this corrosion
the essentials of yoga.
After establishing a familiar precedent for your renunciation of beliefs, you can point out that the
memory of this celebrated individual is kept alive not only because they challenged the
establishment but because of their determination to positively replace ideas that were no longer
working for people. You may want to further remind your loved ones that interpreting this figure
as a reflection of unification rather than divisiveness is scripturally valid and far more compelling
emotionally. Few people who regard religion as a matter of the heart would dispute the
possibility of feeling pain at the thought of a divisive God and rejoicing in images of God’s
infinitude and unconditional love. More grist for discussions with loved ones consists of
elucidating the experiences that led to your doubts and discoveries, then asking for their
perspectives on the issues—essentially engaging them in a colloquium. This chance to
challenge you conversationally may eventually ease tension that has surfaced for a family
member or friend. But if after repeated efforts your colloquium proves to be difficult, stop and
ask the person what would be required for your sincere resolve to be respected.
Mistaking your spiritual inquiry for a sign that you are failing a God-given test, a loved one might
ask you to speak with a religious authority. If this occurs, welcome the encounter as an
opportunity to further assess aspects of the religion and entertain possible solutions to your
spiritual investigation. Before the meeting remind yourself that its purpose, like the goal of
inquiry itself, is to accelerate expansiveness. With that in mind, prepare a list of observations
and questions to bring with you and, free of expectations, approach the religious official with the
same respect you give to colloquium members. If it turns out that he or she fails to guide you
through your inquiry, you may come away from the meeting with even stronger convictions of
apostasy.
To seek further understanding from family and friends directly, you could approach those who
seem uncomfortable with your spiritual inquiry and ask them why it upsets them or generates
concern for your well-being. In some instances, you may find increased acceptance; in others,
you may learn important details about an individual’s character, psychology, and personal
history, or about their emotional investment in modifying your thoughts. At times you are sure to
find individuals wanting you to be true to yourself, your powers of reasoning, and the spirit of
inquiry. You may be less likely, however, to encounter people willing to join in your spiritual
investigation, nor can you expect them to. The most we can realistically count on is family and
friends who want the best for us and, toward that end, afford us the freedom to make our own
choices.
Loved ones who support your spiritual investigations in this way may ultimately respect your
freethinking approach and appreciate its effect on them. Once you know this to be true, you can
stop withholding questions likely to upset the status quo and instead risk improving the status
quo by asking them.
In my early twenties I entered a yogic monastic order and my father, wanting me to be sure of
my decision, asked me to consult the local rabbi. I agreed and listened carefully as the rabbi
posed questions about the intuitive practices I was attracted to, my interest in whether Judaism
taught similar methods of energy control, and the social and familial consequences of my
apostasy. While answering each one to the best of my ability, I remained unflustered because I
had already challenged myself with these questions, and many more besides. Evidently
realizing he was unable to change my mind, the rabbi soon nodded his head and repeated
several times, “I am very disappointed in you.” This tactic did not work either, for my sense of
identity was not dependent on his approval or disapproval. Despite his various attempts to
inspire remorse, I did not feel guilty for rejecting my family’s religion. Instead, I felt dissatisfied at
being treated as less than a colloquial equal yet satisfied that his ratification of archaic rituals
had failed to win me over.
I do not recall a given moment when I considered myself an apostate or realized I had
apostatized. I recall years of my life where I referred to myself as a Jew but I also recall years
when the identity merely faded away. To apostatize for some might require a formal
relinquishment of faith when in fact I did not have a faith or anything worthy of relinquishing by
the time I would have made the declaration. When I entered the monastery, the beliefs and
ideals of the Jewish God had long since fallen away. In fact, ceasing to be a Jew was far easier
on my father than becoming a monk.
Of course, an apostate cannot always reconcile differences with loved ones—or worse, may be
emotionally attacked or threatened by them. When subjected to violent words or actions, it is
generally best to stay calm and note the perpetrator’s assaults on his own sense of self,
especially statements about narrow identifications and confessions of belief. Narrow
identifications—such as “I am a white male American Jew” or “I am a saved Christian and you
are not”—disfigure the person’s idea of self by binding it to a particular ethnicity, gender, nation,
or religion. Confessions of belief, as in “I believe in Jesus, who died for my sins” or “There is no
God but my God, and I believe in his revelations only,” when crafted repeatedly, mutilate the
sense of self beyond recognition of its expansive potential.
An apostate picking up on signs of a loved one’s damaged potential for expansion can address
their shared reality of living in a world rent asunder by divisiveness. In response, the loved one
may acknowledge that the world is indeed “messed up” and there is nothing anyone can do
about it. If so, the apostate under fire might suggest there is something everyone can choose to
do about it: expand the self.
Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher of the last century, bluntly remarked that the “dreadful”
already happened. Many people encountering this observation might think the dreadful thing
was slavery, cultural demise, or genocide. But Heidegger’s insight suggests that before human
beings could possibly enslave others, enact laws that keep wealth and social power from the
impoverished, strip women of power over their bodies and lives, or kill one another for resources
or by divine edict, they had to have devoted centuries to debasing their ideas of self,
desecrating their own intellectual capacity, and diminishing the value of their lives. In gaining
distance from its potential for an expansive sense of being, humanity perpetrated endless
cruelties doctrinally blessed as moral, patriotic, or God ordained, most recently taking itself to
the brink of annihilation at its own hands by way of nuclear extinction.
Apostates in jeopardy of being violated by threatened family members and friends bring
increased awareness to this litany of horrors enacted to consecrate narrow group identities.
Knowing that life at its core is seamless awareness, they are unafraid of social stigma or
censure. Still, threats of violence can be very stressful, motivating apostates to forge a circle of
colloquium members into substitute families capable of activating the social networks once
formed by a religion or spiritual movement, yet careful to retain their freedom from narrow
identities. The next step for apostates is to choose a “group identity” that encourages
self-expansion— preferably, the cosmos itself.
From the perspective of the cosmos, the dance of human existence is as integral to its rhythms
as a stone rolling on a desolate planet, grapes sweetening on a swaying vine, or a billion worlds
bounding with intelligent life. And the substratum of them all is the same infinite substance of
self choreographing its expansion in worlds viewed by humans as finite. Humanity can
accumulate libraries of relative material knowledge, all of which might be annihilated by a bomb
or meteor, with hardly a trace left in the scattered atoms or the recollections of intelligent beings.
By contrast, a cosmos woven of infinite self-knowledge whirls in expansive winds, an aspiration
that is consequently never smothered. Galileo observed that the sun could ripen a grape as if it
had nothing else to do in the universe; it is in this sense that the cosmos also provides for the
expansion of a single individualized self.
Such a state of affairs gives cause for rejoicing. Taken further, if the outer world reflects the
inner self, then as an individual chooses a more expansive group identity the phenomenal world
will faithfully mirror her apostasy from narrow group identities. Indeed, this process is already
underway with more and more of humanity embracing inclusiveness, pluralism, and nonviolent
resolutions to conflict. To further hasten its unfolding, we can be true to our expansive selves by
endeavoring to respect everyone’s personal relationship with their finite ideal of the infinite
substance of self, serve humanity and all of life at every opportunity, and regularly look within,
thereby shifting enegy and awareness to the spine and brain. The outcome awaits our collective
transformation. Apostasy, when viewed as a by-product of honestly testing spiritual options, just
might be heaven sent, and every day a new day to celebrate the renunciation of a narrow sense
of self in favor of the expansive self—the God—in all.
Conclusion
The single greatest power in the world today is the power to change. . . .
The most recklessly irresponsible thing we can do in the future would be to go on exactly as we
have in the past ten or twenty years.
—Karl W. Deutsch
The study of organized religion lays bare centuries of fiction passed along as reality from parent
to child, missionary to convert, and friend to friend. Stories woven of heroes and villains tell of
virgin births, resurrections, heavenward ascensions, and eternal paradises and hells. Believers,
filtering their perceptions through these lenses, arrived at not only divisive but dangerously
delusional conclusions. Consequently, personal identity and one’s relationship to all of life now
lies cocooned within a morass of inventions that can only be renounced after repeatedly asking
the fundamental question of spiritual inquiry—namely, “What is real?”
One way to experiment with this question is by imagining a star deep inside the body that
illuminates only real things as its light passes through the flesh and out into the surrounding
world. Its luminosity would reveal no Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, or Hare Krishna
devotees—just human beings. Synagogues, temples, churches, mosques, and spiritual centers
would appear as ordinary buildings housing occupants who share a particular sociomagnetism.
Religious attire would look like any other type of unusual clothing worn in public. Scriptural
writings would be seen simply as people’s thoughts about themselves and their outlooks
recorded over a period of time. Traditions such as rituals, beliefs, and concentration on God
ideals would appear as patterns of nervous energy and awareness in the body. And
worshippers illuminated by the star’s glow would be viewed as people conditioned by their
patterns to intuit a unique sense of self—their real religion.
As the shafts of light extend farther, distinctions between species would give way to the
observable laws of nature. At this point the seeker might reason that just as the Judeo-Christian
God is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), an infinite God is no respecter of the diverse life
forms that inhabit this little planet whirling in the cosmos; in their stead, he would observe
cosmic principles at work. The laws of nature, for instance, might appear as a prophet or final
messenger of the infinite substance of self; the planet, its temple; the spine and brain, its altar;
the electromagnetic forces, its unifying creed. In lighting up the overarching reality of human
existence, the star might illuminate humanity’s perpetual expansion to identify with one another,
all of life, and all worlds.
A seeker oriented more toward intuitive investigation may prefer to probe the question What is
real? by examining cognitive faculties, such as the senses and the intellect, that interface with
the sensory world to produce a finite sense of self. Such a seeker would regard sensory
perceptions as pixel configurations and would view ideas about religion, culture, and the
sensory world as abstract concepts—both significantly removed from the anatomy of intuition.
Reality for the intuitive investigator consists not of these remote phenomena but rather of
energy patterns that awaken awareness of a self eager to expand infinitely, far beyond the
circumscribed world.
Unlike religious dogmas that must be discarded when found resistant to adaptation, forays into
reality—similar to your early investigations into the nature of God—are works in progress,
constantly inviting curiosity, doubt, and more penetrating inquiries. Every answer is tentative
because the questioner’s response changes in keeping with his ever-shifting sense of self. The
questioner, upon discovering the fleetingness of these answers, realizes that they all reflect a
mythic sense of self and, later, that the infinite self is the only reality.
In the lifelong questioning of reality, seekers who avail themselves of the theory of self can
penetrate the self and thus realize what the intellect can only ponder. But if they instead accept
the intellect’s interpretations of sensory input as real and project these finite parameters onto
infinite substance, they become immediately vulnerable to illusions. In fact, this universal
tendency to succumb to the illusions of intellect partially explains why humanity has remained
seemingly content with so much unreality for such a long period of time. Indeed, in the more
than two thousand years between Aristotle and Heidegger, the Western world neglected to
produce a new ontological hypothesis elucidating the nature of reality. Humanity’s historic failure
to probe its existence is evident in the gravity of the geopolitical, social, and environmental
issues we now face.
The theory of self claims such issues emerge from four fundamental misperceptions of reality:
space, time, phenomenal causation, and individuation. The perception of space induces
mistaken inferences of provincialism, nationalism, and the existence of a localized self in a
human body traveling across physical distances. The perception of time gives the erroneous
impression of historicity; chronology; and the presence of a temporal self in a human body
moving through past, present, and future dimensions. Perceptions of phenomenal causation
breed faulty observations of change in the changeless infinite self and of cause and effect,
prompting individuals to fear death and cling to promises of immortality. Perceptions of
individuation spawn mistaken understandings of subjectivity, objectivity, and distinctions
between self and other. Each of these perceptions narrows the sense of self and fuels
divisiveness in the world.
This divisiveness is further sustained by the divisional misperception upon which the entire
cosmos is predicated. Interestingly, as a narrow human self identifies more and more with the
infinite self, it discovers the cosmos is merely a finite idea, after which the self, like a revolving
door, negotiates an eternal paradox of finite and infinite. Maneuvering in the finite world while
unraveling the four misperceptions of reality, it recognizes that a finite cosmos cannot possibly
emerge from infinite being and that the notion of such a cosmos must therefore be born of
ignorance, without which there would be no cosmos since the infinite self could not play with the
idea of its own division. In its infinitude, by contrast, the self is unaware of the existence of a
finite cosmos. Because of this perceptual incongruity, the theory of self cannot absolutely
confirm whether or not there is a cosmos, and instead calls it “emptiness.”
Just as the infinite self seemingly succumbs to the ignorance in division by sacrificing its infinite
knowledge, so too can the narrow, finite self begin to reverse its ignorance by sacrificing its
divisive provincialism, mythic identities, fear of death, and distinction between selves. When the
finite self, suffering from a case of mistaken identity, then expands into the infinite self, the
primordial sacrifice is reversed for that individuated self, for whom the cosmos subsequently
vanishes. It is no wonder that classic literature in all cultures involves stories of self-sacrifice.
Nor is it surprising that we feel great happiness while sacrificing willingly for others. Both direct
and empathic experiences of self-sacrifice enkindle a spark of the bliss experienced by the self
giving up its infinitude so that in a temporal state it might play with the idea of division and then
consciously return to unity. Because self-sacrifice culminates in identifying with and loving
others as oneself, it might be designated the consummate universal spirituality.
A spiritual path for people everywhere, self-sacrifice begins with the awareness that we
humans, in identifying with anything less than our infinite selves, live as imposters impelled by
physiological patterns of exclusionism and violence against enemies. En masse, as we take up
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