Around the world there is a concept of the local deity, or local gods. There are thousands of them. These beings aid the locals in mundane affairs. They may help with individual concerns of study, jobs, or community needs of fresh water, or crop yield. Orthodox religions of the West often look down upon these practices, claiming them to be “communing with demons” and the like. These are not demons, although they are not really beings beyond the gravity of the carnal world either.

I will refer to them, as the Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo does: as Samsaric Beings. She calls them Samsaric beings because they are trapped in the ebb and flow of like and dislike, love and hate. They are easier to reach and identify because they are floating in the spiritual waters closer to our shore. Radiating an an elevation above our own, their vision is cast much farther.

In the movie “Mothman Prophecies,” the character played by Richard Gere is told that the beings he is talking to are not gods. He is told, to look at a tall building. What if someone were on top of that skyscraper, they would see further than you do on the street and could tell you events about to come. That doesn’t mean they are gods. It’s the same concept.

People reach for these gods because the Higher Authorities, those beings closer to the Eternal Source and beyond Samsara, are much more difficult to connect to. Can one experience the Tao directly? Yes. But then one is no longer who they once were. To experience the Tao, or Eternal Source, one is transformed and returning back to normal mundane consciousness, the purity of that direct experience is lost.

Can one directly commune with Jesus? Yes. He is an intermediary. He is the man given birth, ascended into Heaven. But Jesus and other High beings require a quietness of mind. Paul the Apostle describes “dying to our mortal selves,” as a process and this process is what brings us closer to awareness of such intermediaries.

The American Gods are also Samsaric

While the West might look down on people praying to idols or offering puja to local deities, they themselves are embroiled in the same system.

While I believe there is a Jesus beyond Samsara, when we call up Jesus to fit our biases and human nature, we are not calling up the Eternal Jesus beyond the carnal world. We are bringing forth a false Jesus that embodies are desires, cravings, hates and loves.

Let me provide a more visual example of this behavior. Recently the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accidentally added a reporter to a private chat being used to discuss war plans. In one interview Pete Hegseth described the accident as having mistakenly put the wrong phone number to a name. So adding that phone number brought in the wrong person.

When we call out to God, or to Jesus, Krishna or any personification of an Eternal Truth, we are calling based on our nature. Even if we get the “real deal” we interpret the words and meaning from that being, through fields of our nature. If we do not clear out our carnal nature (through spiritual purification, silence, or meditation), we simply are dialing up the wrong deity.

The Jesus that most Americans follow is one that loves guns, is identified with an “American First” agenda, dislikes refugees and undocumented people, demands we all obey the laws of the land (except when we don’t want to obey those laws), is violent, aggressive and loves only those who deserve our love. That Jesus is called up in churches every Sunday. People get their heebee geebies and feel the “presence of something greater” and walk out obeying the desires of their heart, masquerading as their god.

It’s easy to prove as the words of Jesus don’t correspond to the feelings of these parishioners. If we just read the words of Jesus, we get an opposite message to the words of the modern evangelical Christian church in America.

The Jesus that empowers their faith, their doctrine, their world-view… the Jesus that provides miracles or insight, it often isn’t the Jesus of the Bible. They’ve simply misdialed. Their own human agenda got in the way, and called up a God of their own hearts, labeled it Jesus and run with it.

The Problem of Samsaric Beings

While these Samsaric beings are easy for us to connect with, they do come with a larger scope problem. They might help us, they might give us insight, but they lack their own ability to go beyond Samsara (the world). They are caught in the world’s gravity and they simply see at a higher vantage point than we do. They might be able to heal, make physical appearance, or create other sensational miracles, but their power is limited to the world.

In order to reach higher, beyond the world, so that our eternal reward is realized… for that we must find a being that has gone beyond the gravity of this existence.

The real Jesus, the real Buddha, the real Tao, the real Spiritual Guide – these are the ones to work with. Those who have gone beyond.

How do we identify the real being from the Samsaric?

As long as our minds are clouded with personal bias, we will be deceived. We are like Pete Hegseth, calling up a false being in favor of the real.

For us to reach the real Jesus, the real Buddha, or to go beyond the intermediaries and join with the real God… that requires us to empty ourselves. We must become empty of those worldly things cherished by men. Greed, lust, desire, hate, anger, worry, ego, bias these must be absent before we dial up our spiritual teachers. I’m not suggesting you are perfect, but you are empty of those thoughts when you make that spiritual phone call.

We clear our minds through silent meditation. Once you attempt to quiet the mind, that’s the moment you and I realize how much influence and noise the carnal mind is radiating every moment. Just sit, face a wall and stare at it. Try and hold no thought, but be observant of any thought that arises. Look at all that noise! If we keep doing this practice, in time the noise will abate.

Another method is to sit and concentrate on our natural nasal breathing. In… Out… In… Out… This will slow the mind.

As Americans love a quick, front of the line pass, I’ll give you a little secret on experiencing that state free of mental noise: The secret comes from the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He said that if we were to observe something in nature (a tree, a rose, a flower, a blade of grass) and take in a deep breathe and hold it… Holding our breath naturally slows and even stops thoughts. He describes how surgeons will steady not just their hands, but their own emotions and feelings, by holding their breath. It’s a quick experience of that experience. But it’s fleeting. A better, long term approach, is to sit in daily meditation. Sacrifice time out of our schedule to do meditation.

What Kind of Meditation?

In the West we tend to like visual meditation. Almost like a day dream, where we interact with beings and are given direction. Since the topic here is how to clear our psyche of the mental chatter, we need a meditation that is not about dialogue and direction (that comes afterwards). We need to tune into silence.

Meditating on our breath, on the noises outside our window, etc. These will bring the silence necessary to get us on a baseline to talk to the Higher Being.

Once we have that tuned in relationship with the Higher One(s), we can then return to it more rapidly. Returning to quiet meditation every so often is also important.

When I studied Tibetan meditation (which is very visual), we first sat in silence for this very reason. If we don’t clear the mind of our thoughts, biases, and feelings, we will simply call up the wrong being and think we’re getting spiritual direction.