Behind The Curtain

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Nowadays, the Catholic Church has been attracting a lot of critical attention because of the increasing number of reports about corruption in the hierarchy and stories of sexual abuses committed by priests. I'm sure you can easily find a ton of these stories through Google, so I won't bother to share the gory details here.

But the Catholic Church doesn't hold a monopoly on scandals. For instance, a story came out recently about the pastor who was trying to solicit donations to fix his helicopter. Here in the Philippines, one can hear anecdotal stories about how the leaders of various religious denominations live lavish lifestyles, fueled no doubt by the donations of their flock.

The above state of affairs perhaps plays a part in why people are increasingly turning towards esoteric spiritual systems and practices (or atheism, but that's another story). More often than not, these systems are not tied to any one organized religion or religious hierarchy, so people feel they can communicate with the Divine without having to pass through an intermediary. But sadly, even then one can still encounter corruption and scandal within a supposedly spiritual organization (I'm talking about those organizations with genuine spiritual systems, not the scam systems that seek to milk money from the unwary). Even the Theosophical Society is not immune from scandals and intrigues within its ranks. What, then, is the sincere spiritual aspirant to do?

This may sound a bit controversial, but I think it shouldn't be surprising to discover the presence of corrupt or unethical people in any organization, even a spiritual one. A spiritual organization, after all, is still a collection of people, not all of them existing in an enlightened state. Sometimes, it's only the organization's founder that is enlightened. For example, Ramalinga Swamigal reportedly achieved the golden body of liberation, yet none of his disciples are reported to have achieved the same feat or stature as him.

That being the case, if most of an organization's leaders and members are still unenlightened, then any one of them can be tempted by greed, envy, vindictiveness or any number of negative traits that would plague any other group, company or organization. It's not a guarantee, but there is still a danger of it happening.

Spiritual groups and organizations, by their very nature, have a higher bar of standards set for them so I can understand the sense of outrage if one finds bad apples in the mix, especially if the culprits happen to be the leaders themselves. It would indeed be the height of hypocrisy to preach one thing, but reflect the total opposite in actual practice. But like I mentioned earlier, it's also good to be realistic about one's expectations. They're still ordinary people, for the most part trying to do good but with some falling prey to baser desires along the way. You can only hope that you don't fail the same test.

It is because of situations like these that we should remember why discernment is so critical on the spiritual path. After all, the teachings of a particular sect may be very valid, even if its members don't follow them. Mahatma Gandhi is widely quoted as saying, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." But it takes a discerning mind to distinguish between the validity of what a system is teaching versus one's outrage at the attitudes of a system's practitioners. It would be such a waste if precious teachings were ignored or discarded simply because one is fed up with an organization.

One other concern among sincere practitioners is the fate of such organizations with beautiful and authentic teachings but with corrupt members and leaders. It would indeed be sad to see any such organization fade into obscurity and perhaps lose the teachings or at least make the teachings more difficult to access. However, one peculiarity about the invisible hierarchy (whether from the light or the dark) is that they look at the long term. And I mean hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

This is presented in more detail in Dieter Ruggeberg's book Secret Politics, but the rise and demise of lodges or organizations is not as important as long as during the existence of such organizations they were able to put into play the mechanisms that help achieve the overall long-term goal. Even Master Choa Kok Sui, in the book The Origins of Modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga, had the vision of striving to achieve a better world 150 years from now.

The same may be said for the journey of the soul. The soul does not look at just one lifetime but within the context of several lifetimes. Anything left unfinished in one lifetime is simply taken up again in the next one. So in one sense, we shouldn't really worry about the fates of organizations if they are beyond our control, but rather focus first and foremost on our own goal, our spirit purpose.

Whether you stay within an organization or not will depend entirely upon how much of the negative you're willing to put up with. In the end, it's about getting what is useful and discarding what is not, to paraphrase Bruce Lee. Just remember that the goal is always to get closer to the Divine, so use the teachings that help you achieve your goal and don't get sucked into anything (politics, infighting, etc.) that will distract you from it.