Sunset view getting into my truck after work.
“If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change…. science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality.” ~Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama¹
Spirituality must be alive, fluid, adaptable, and ever evolving. Holy books are at best of little value. At worst they are dangerous tools used as weapons by traditionalists to punish heretics and blasphemers. The ideal method for teaching in spiritual matters is experiential, initiatory, and oral.
“However, transmission can fail. When this occurs a tradition no longer focuses on or even appreciates direct experience of the sacred. Then what is left is an institution largely devoid of direct experience of the sacred, without firsthand understanding of altered states and the transcendental experiences they access. Techniques for inducing altered states then give way to mere symbolic rituals, direct experience is replaced by belief, and living doctrine fossilizes into dogma. We might call this degrading process the ritualization of religion.” ~Roger N. Walsh²
Some of the ancients took great pains to prevent the fossilization of spirituality into dogma. This is why there is a great deal written about, for example, the Eleusinian Mysteries, but not not much written about what was actually experienced. The experiences were the most important part, and each person’s differed.
This is why in Cabal Fang we use initiations to bring on spiritual awakenings that are unique to each explorer. What a person needs is a guide to individual discovery, not someone to tell him or her what is right and what is wrong.
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¹ “Our Faith in Science” NY Times, Nov. 12, 2005 (by way of the excellent article at SOMA)
²Walsh, Roger N., The Spirit of Shamanism, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1990, page 8
Robert Mitchell Jr. 