We live in a unique spiritual era as readers of the Golden Age of Gaia and listeners to Inlight Universal must be well aware of. Perhaps you’d allow me to share one reason why.
In previous eras – let’s take the example of Hinduism – some spiritual seekers would study Advaita Vedanta, a non-dualistic path, and others would study Bhakti or devotion, a dualistic path.
A bhakta, a follower of the devotion path, was a bhakta and a jnani, a follower of the wisdom path, was a jnani and never the twain shall meet.
But today we in the lightworker community don’t maintain distinctions like that. We talk freely about the Divine Mother with love and as love, which is devotional talk.
But we also speak a straight non-dualistic version that includes unitive consciousness, sahaja samadhi (a stage of enlightenment that follows Ascension), and the Triflame (the Company of Heaven’s version of the Trinity: in Hinduism, Brahman, Atman and Shakti; in Christianity, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost).
What we’re taught by the Council of Love through Linda Dillon, Saul and Jesus through John Smallman, or the Galactic Federation through Mike Quinsey would pass muster with any terrestrial non-dualist – or dualist, for that matter.
So many distinctions are no longer being made or maintained by our guides. The approach that emphasizes the differences doesn’t stick any more, according to Archangel Michael. Without the elements of control and conformity, it just falls away.
It’s as if we’re all doing a job here and there’s no time or space to get doctrinal any more or to form camps like “Bhaktas” and “Vedantists.”
What’s that job? We lightworkers are assisting the unawakened to awaken and the newly-awakened to prepare for Ascension. To do that is an inspirational and integrative form of work.
Sri Ramakrishna came to Earth to create one spirituality from many streams. He realized God by many paths.
There’s a story concerning his non-dualistic guru, Totapuri, that illustrates the divisions he found in religion. It tells how Totapuri would spurn dualistic forms of practice, such as worship or ritual. He laughed at Sri Ramakrishna for believing in the Divine Mother.
One day, having decided his work was complete and that he’d shed the body, he waded into the Ganges, but he couldn’t find a spot deep enough to drown himself.
He walked all the way across to the other side of the Ganges in amazement. Then the Divine Mother announced herself to this disbeliever:
“Suddenly, in one dazzling moment, he sees on all sides the presence of the Divine Mother. She is in everything; She is everything. She is in the water; She is on land. She is the body; She is the mind. She is pain; She is comfort. She is knowledge. She is ignorance. She is death. She is everything one sees, hears, or imagines.
“She turns ‘yea’ into ‘nay’ and ‘nay’ into ‘yea.’ Without her grace no embodied being can go beyond Her realm. … Yet again, beyond the body and mind She resides in Her Transcendental, Absolute aspect. She is the Brahman [God, the Father] that Totapuri had been worshiping all his life.” (1)
Just as Totapuri saw the walls of his compartmentalized spirituality fall away with this realization, (2) so we ourselves need to let go of any remaining tendencies to compartmentalize and just see love and knowledge and realization as they are. They are the property of no religious authority, no spiritual teacher.
I’m probably aware of this because I, a student of jnana yoga, the wisdom path, (3) have now had my introduction to love, normally considered a concern of bhakti yoga, the devotional path.
The heart opening I experienced on March 13, 2015 is not the end of the story for me. My heart may be open but love doesn’t automatically flow if it’s neglected. It needs tending and attending to.
Consequently I felt drawn to the tools and rituals of Bhakti, which is something I’d never respond to in the past, thinking it a different path than mine. I’ve had to go through feelings of disloyalty to Jnana because I’m tinkering with Bhakti.
But those feelings need to go and I need to draw on whatever tools work for me at whatever place I am on the path. All tools are needed.
I no longer recognize doctrinal authorities or authoritative pronouncements. I can take hints from them but they no longer set the agenda or decide the issue for me.
Seeing things this way leads me and others to want a new spirituality. I used to talk in terms of cross-cultural spirituality but where we’re headed is bigger than that.
It isn’t simply Earth’s cultures that have to be integrated. It’s Earth’s spirituality as well.
Recognizing this need, we discussed on our weekly InLight Universal call last Thursday how we lightworkers need to spearhead not just a cross-cultural spirituality, but an integrated, direct and unitive spirituality.
We need to do so to help awaken the large numbers of people whom we intend to travel along with us in this larger Ascension effort. We need to create a more viable, flexible and simpler spirituality suitable for the newly awakened.
I’ll be talking more about that in the days ahead because having an all-inclusive spirituality is vital to having a world that loves and hence a world that works. That makes having a globe-spanning, non-doctrinal spirituality an idea whose time has come.
Footnotes
(1) Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 31.
(2) Keep in mind that Totapuri was already a Brahmajnani: that is, he had already experienced enlightenment at the level of the seventh chakra. So he got that far without taking the Divine Mother into account in any way.
(3) The western version of it is, for me anyways, the awareness path.