My Religious/Spiritual Journey

I’ve had an interesting spiritual journey. When I was between the ages of 7-11 there was no reason to rationalize religion, meaning, truth, spirituality ect. I just happily knew that all was well. There was an innocent, unchallenged knowing of infinity and all things possible.

I think that all went down the tubes between the ages of 12-13. I had some sort of breakdown. I started really thinking about the problems in the world. I started to blame humanity for all suffering (the planet, plants, animals and of course other humans). I started to really wonder about life. I wondered if life was even worth living because everything seemed wrong. Things were bad at home, but my struggle was more internal. I was depressed and hungry for a knowledge that seemed non-existent. If there was anytime in my life that I could have commited suicide, this would have been it.

Between 13-14 years of age, I started going to my best friend’s Southern Baptist church. The moment I started reading the bible I was addicted to the words in red. Some of what this hippie was saying blew my flippin’ mind. But the Baptist church was so traditional that it seemed like everyone was going through the same old motions they’d done a million times. The spiritual juices had dried up centuries ago. It seemed like ALL tradition even the preacher’s sermon.

I eventually went to a Pentacostal church. These people brainwashed me. I got the “holy ghost” and it was all over. I actually had a spiritual experience. It was like a shot of energy through my body. It reminds me of the song we used to sing, “its like fire shot up in my bones.” I was witnessing to other kids, reading my bible everytime I got the chance. I stopped watching T.V. for a while, I would fast, pray consistently and I stopped cursing for a very long time. Needless to say, those days are gone. According to all my old Pentacostal friends, I am the worst kind of sinner, a backslider. According to them, not only am I going to hell, it’ll be like a cop going to prison.

In the end it was the denominational thing the pushed me away. You see, every sect (denomination) of christianity (i.e. baptist, penocostal, jehova’s witness) believes that all the other will go to hell. So who is right? Further more, what about the billions on Earth who have never even heard of Jesus? Will they go to hell? I guess I just have to many questions to retain a dogmatic view of the world.

The last thing I did as a traditional christian (non-denominational) was street preach. I did that at about 15 with some other insane christians. We went to the most decayed part of Lodi, CA right in the middle of about fifty homeless and start preaching. I was scared out of my mind. Not of the homeless but of giving a sermon. I don’t even recall what I said, but I’m sure it was bullshit.

The first real doubt about the current state of christianity came to me via a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, by Micheal Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. This book is about Jesus being married to Marry Magdalene and having kids (which by the way is the premise of the Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown). I don’t know whether this is true or not but the mere mention of this sent tears rolling down my eyes. It wasn’t so much the idea of Jesus being less than a pure God as much as it was the culmination of everthing else that I had read. I’d been reading about the beginings of what is today called Christianity.

I read about how the Roman Catholics set everything up by streamlining the bible (about 100 A.D. there were many sects of followers of Jesus one was Irenaeus who had the ear of the Romans) and burning books and killing whatevery they considered heretical, the nag hammadi, the truth behind christmas and Easter (superimposed over pagan religious holidays which traditional christians oppose). Today, this is just interesting facts but back then it was like someone ripped out my heart. I started to wonder what else was a lie…

At 16-18, I started expanding into other traditions, philosphies and religions. I looked into buddhism, vedic texts, Upanishads, Immanuel Swedenborg, theosophy. I even looked at a book on Satanism (living life via complete selfish ego… fuckin’ crazy). I just wanted to know what was going on and began to feel that there was a connection between all of them.  Some thread of truth stringing them all together.
When I was about 17 or 18, my cousin introduced me to Eckankar. The first book I saw was called, the Far Country, by Paul Twitchell. The cover is something I will NEVER forget. It was a painting of Paul on a mount Everest peak at the feet of a spiritual master who was pointing the way. Just the picture alone brought tears to my eyes. It was freedom. The freedom to come and go beyond the trappings of this world. I dove in with both feet. It had some amazing experiences, dreams and met some wonderful people. Once again my belief was shook. I started hearing that some old master named Darwin Gross that had been kicked out. Then I kept stumbling upon some dude named David Lane who REALLY, REALLY seemed to hated Eckankar. I wonder why. Honestly, I probably would have writen him off as a lunatic if it hadn’t been for Eckankar trying to sue him.

After reading as much as I could stand of what he had to say, I was done with Eckankar and the entire “new age” movement. Basically, what I learned was that most (if not ALL) Eckankar and “new age” movements were almost exact replicas of what religions and spiritual lineages in India. I knew this about most of the new agers, but some of the plaigerism is so bad its hilariously sickening. (check out Path of the Master, by Julian P. Johnson)

Having spent most of my 20’s in the military in spiritual limbo, I am now in my 30s.  I am not willing to throw out the teachings of Jesus just because some organizations have tried to subjugate people for power.  Nor am I willing to toss out the source material on which Eckankar was founded. I’ve learned a lot from both organizations. They have served their purpose as pointers to something greater.  For a while, I was very bitter about religions and their negative affect on people, but the positive affect can’t be understated.  Religion (in my oppinion) is an amazing guide for humanity toward something that is infinite and will always remain unmanifest.  Religions is not really at fault, for every word that seeks to explain and every form that seeks to imitate the infinite is a lie because it is so beyond anything that we can express as finite beings.
Lately, my goal has been to connect everything I’ve learned into on cohesive map pointing to truth. What I have found is the rosicrusian order and the Ken Wilber’s studies on integral spirituality.  The ultimate lesson I learned in what is now a 22 year journey can be summed up in what I once heard Bruce Lee say,

“Don’t think…FEEL. It is like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory…you understand?”
I have gotten so caught up in forms, organizations and dogma that I lost track of what these forms were pointing to.  So I’ve given up those trappings and in that way I’ve returned to my early childhood of just listening and feeling the truth within.