When dealing with other people, I am sometimes asked what faith I align with. At a Christmas party, someone might ask me, “are you a Christian?” Or, “do you observe the holidays?” Answering a question of what I believe can be trick as I am of no specific faith, but have met all faiths in one degree or another. A simple answer of, “I’m a mystic,” doesn’t convey what I am. “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” is likewise a dismissal of the question. To really answer the question, I sometimes get into a discussion of what I believe: “I believe in the direct experience of truth, by whatever experience it is known with the individual. I reject dogma, and control mechanisms of religions, in favor of direct experience. This personification of truth is the bridge from the carnal mind to the Source of all creation, and can be considered the Higher or Greater aspect of the individual. The path first becoming isolate from influence, and then becoming one with all, is the spiritual path by which the aspirant walks daily.” Certainly I don’t say the same thing each time, but those words convey my thoughts on the spiritual path.

My personal spiritual background is very diverse: I was raised in a Christian home by a Pentecostal minister for my father. I knew the Bible very well, perhaps better than other ministers. In my youth, I intended to become a Christian minister or Chaplin. However, stepping foot on Christian college campuses, I felt a personal revulsion, so I put that idea behind me. Verses from both Old and New Testaments are still part of me, to this very day, but today they have less hold over me and are more akin to memories. As a child I had spiritual experiences, what some would call paranormal experiences. Mostly these were terrifying. I rarely told my parents about them, as they only saw in two shades: good and evil. By my late 20’s I became a Buddhist, taking vows. The Buddhist path denounced the idea of paranormal experience. By this I mean, they reject the idea of a spirit poking through to plane of the living, beyond a very short window of the Bardo. In other words, Buddhism was rejecting a direct experience of my life. I tried to go along with that, and dismiss my past experiences, but in time, I realized they were real and Buddhism was wrong on the matter. Buddhism did provide great methods of meditation, compassion, and even direct change in my life (through the change of karma). Feeling disconnected from Buddhism, I left. I sought the paranormal experience again. I wanted that direct experience, and joined an occult society called “The Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn.” The direct experiences were powerful and common, but the group was torn with bad behavior, inner politics and ego driven leadership. I left the control of the group to become a Scientologist. In Scientology I learned about ARC (affinity, reality, communication) and how it could be applied to changing others. I also applied Dianetics to my life. The Church of Scientology (specifically “The Bridge”) became very demanding and controlling and after some time, I left due to their attempted control of my life. After Scientology I once again joined an occult order, this time a Thelemic group running an operation of the Astrum Argentum. I thought this would be pure, as the Astrum Argentum isn’t a “group” that meets. Instead it is an organization of a chain – I meet with one person, and another meets with me. It was fine and built self-control, but in time the leader I reported to pressured me to join a related spiritual society: Temple of the Silver Star. Like the Golden Dawn group, it was a collection of people held together with a level of control. I left. For awhile afterwards I pursued the esoteric and occult path on my own. Then in time I desired to join an ethical based society again, so I joined a group (Ananda) based on the teachings of the Hindu guru: Paramhansa Yogananda. This was the first time I followed a guru, and in this case it was a dead guru, so there was no direct control. However, I did feel the power of control through the group itself. It was minimal, but there. The leader, Kryiananda held controversial beliefs on music and art that denounced works of art or music he didn’t like or approve of. They didn’t demand rejection of these things, but they did attempt to influence the audience that certain types of music were “evil” and others “good.” Spiritual practices (such as yoga) were also very controlling: but this is not a reflection of the group, as in general body postures are specific and require obedience to challenging positions. I left. For a couple years I followed a path of general metaphysics: I was ordained as a minister through a school of Metaphysics and I attended local interfaith groups like Agape Church, as well as Unity Churches.) These groups were very open, so open that I was able to come and go without notice and ultimately slipped out to become a follower of a modern guru. The self-proclaimed guru I followed had promises of teaching his students miracles. Certainly I did experience this. I had direct visuals of entities. He taught self-protection, projection of the mind-self into different locations, and much more. I have to say that I had great experiences with his teachings. Mind projection was entertaining for me. I believed to have experienced other realities, other locations in the universe. They were incredibly real and powerful. However, the leader himself was incredibly abusive. He screamed at students, talked down to them, and was having sexual relations with some members. All the teachings were sold through marketing and websites in ways that felt very improper. Control was strong with him. He demanded people think and even vote. In the end, I left the control.

After leaving the modern guru’s group, I took a moment of reflection and realized that I had a pattern of leaving things. I step into a group and at first it’s fun, it’s exciting and I’m making changes in my life. Around the 1 year mark, the group starts to shed its mask and I began to see the controls in place. That’s when I leave. My inner nature was rejecting control.

With this newfound spirit of individuality in spirituality, I came upon a group of people identified as “Left Hand Path.” The Left Hand Path can mean different things. Specifically, this group of thinkers were mostly egg-heads. Professors, Phd’s and the like. They sought individuality through icons of individuality. For them, the icon of the individual was in the Egyptian deity of Set. Rather than an occult order that did ceremonies to Set, they instead were focused on the realization of Socrates and his statement: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Instead of joining them, I listened and read the writings of their members (such as Don Webb) and put to practice an act of separating myself from past influence. They had a very appealing idea (at that time in my life) that a person must first disconnect from the influence of the past. Whatever was holding and coloring our world view (those elements imprinted on us from childhood) had to be burned off. Then with clear eyes we could make decisions for our own direction. After I completed this disconnection with my past spiritual influences, I felt the tangible feeling of isolation. Like being shrink wrapped and separate from the rest of the world. It was palpable, and it was depressing. Yes, depressing. I felt alone like I had never felt in my life. I observed that void over the course of several weeks. I talked to others about it, who identified my feelings with their own. From the void, my goal was to discover the True Self.

Early on, I had this direct experience. It wasn’t visual, or audible. It was subtle. I was attempting to meditate and realized my mind was very busy with a question: How did I experience something profound in every path I’ve attempted thus far in my life? As a Christian, I experienced this force and called it God. As a Buddhist, I experienced it and called it Emptiness. In occult societies, I called it different names but felt it all the same. I used to think, “all faiths are tapping the same eternal source.” But this question was bothering my meditation. Instead of shaking it off, I put the question up for meditation. Instantly I had this moment of clarity: “You are bringing this force with you everywhere you go. The tapestries of the faiths color the force with a name, image, and in dogma of belief. That force is not owned by them, but is something within you.” This realization was powerful to me and answered a question, as well as taught me that what is bothering our mind in meditation is often something needing addressing.

At first my isolation practice was wrapped in the tapestry and mythos of yet another group. I hadn’t joined the group, but their influence (through literature and recordings online) colored my path. After nearly a year, I put down the mythos and tapestry and just simply sat. However the Higher Self would appear to me, that is how I would accept it. I wouldn’t expect it to be one thing, or another, to teach a specific ideal or harmonize with a certain philosophy. I let all preconceptions go and stopped reading material from the last group or any prior.

Soon after I had a direct experience with the Higher Self, the Master. The inner still voice that speaks to us in feeling or mental thought far deeper than our own subconscious thought, was directly guiding me. At the time I was a follower of rituals, so it met me in that need. I constructed various gestures, movements and recitations to invoke the inner Master – and in time it became me. Identifies wrapped in union. The moments were at first fleeting, but were longer the more it was practiced.

Prior to the realization of the inner Master, I had always wondered how one separates their own personality ego (and subconscious) from the inner teachings of the spiritual being. It is through experience that the true essence is known. It is through the becoming the Master (or the Master becoming me) that those short experiences helped determine truth from fiction.

This was not the end of my story. As it turns out, a person can once again return to their past. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “as a dog returns to its own vomit, so does a sinner return to their sin.” Sin is simply “error.” My error in thinking I needed a group, resurfaced. The inner Master was amazing, but I hungered for social interaction with like minded individuals. I found a group of Rosicrucians who espoused personal Gnosis (direct experience of truth) as their core ideal. I thought this would be perfect.

Joining the Lectorium Rosicrucianum (or Golden Rosycross as they are also known as), I became deeply influenced by their teachings. I left the direct experience for the writings of a long dead leader. I was told they didn’t follow dogma, but sought personal truth. In time I realized that the past leader was revered as a “master” and his writings were often treated as gospel. He had created controls to keep the group separate from others. By condemning meditation and yoga, he was separating from the East, and offering his own processes in replacement. His people believed and taught an idea of purifying the human body through diet. At first I thought that was fine, until the theology was imposed: the idea that the liver is where the ego resides, the blood has particles of Spirit, secreted from the thymus gland and removed each day by the liver. For this reason they were against organ transplants and some against blood transfusions. It was too much ideology and control for me. I realized my error and left.

Shortly thereafter, I attended Sufi lectures and online discussions. I found it uplifting. I read material from the Bahai uplifting. I found material lacking edges or definition of faith, is best as it is interpreted through the inner Master in a way that works best for us. But I didn’t join a group, as I know the pattern. All groups must impose a form of control, as a group is defined by their specific teachings. These teachings have a life, a reality that extends from the center of core teachings like a radius. They are willing to extend to a certain point and no farther. But the true Master, it will often go far beyond the teachings of any one group. The closest ideology I have found to my own is the book, “The Impersonal Life,” which describes this very path of inner guidance from the so-called Higher Self (aka the Master).

All this said, I’m back at “what religion are you?” I suppose I can simply say, “I follow the Crimson Pillar.” I’m sure that would cause a stir. Unlike the Bahai who define the “Crimson Pillar” as the blood of past saints, I could offer that the Crimson Pillar is the true realized identity of the Master within us. To follow the Crimson Pillar is to follow the inner guidance of the One (the Master) within.