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The
content of the discussion section is provided as commentary upon
fundamental questions of spiritual practice, to aid in bridging
the gap between the personal and the principial domains. If we are
to serve as witnesses to the Sophia Perennis, which holds that the
keys of sacred traditional wisdom, if adequately reinterpreted in
our day, are as relevant as ever, then we would indeed be
providing a great service if we could illustrate how
representative individuals have integrated this wisdom into their
lives. Please see our important
comments about the Discussion Section, and make
your own remarks. |
| 1.
Briefly encapsulate your own life as leading to your spiritual
quest. what is your spiritual practice, and how did you come to
it? |
| Marty
Glass (a.k.a Harry Woods Pal) - Marty always knew there
had to be some kind of overall Answer, a Truth and he spent his
early years in search of it, embracing and discarding one specious
solution after another (Art, Revolution, Humanism, Romance) until
he found what he was looking for in religion in general and the
religion of India in particular. The main prerequisite identity is
“seeker of the Truth.” This, in turn, depends upon a visceral
intuitive certainty that Truth exists, a certainty originating,
perhaps, in childhood upbringing, but ultimately traceable to the
mystery of Grace. |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - My spiritual practice is a mixture of things.
Outwardly, I do what might be expected of an ordinary Christian,
to which I add prayer, based mainly on the Rosary, and spiritual
reading. My pursuit of truth goes on at the same time, as an
expression of what I believe. This free interaction is a
development of a way of life which began almost by accident during
my teens. Sorry if it sounds a bit humdrum. |
| Charles
Upton - I was raised a Catholic in an essentially pre-Vatican
II church, which gave me three things: first, a sense of the
sacred, by which I mean an Absolute Truth which is also a Supreme
Being; second, an understanding that the sacred can be expressed
through a unified worldview; and third, a knowledge of how
Absolute Truth can be channeled through an ancient tradition.
Leaving the Church at 17, I took the "counterculture
course": experimentation with psychedelic drugs, Eastern
spiritual practices and psychic powers, as well as an extensive
study of world mythology and comparative religion. This left me
with a wider knowledge of religion and metaphysics and a more
direct knowledge of psychic and spiritual states. It also left me
psychically imbalanced and spiritually damaged.
My present spiritual practice is traditional Sufism, which I
came to by the grace of God. |
| John Ahmed
Herlihy - I remember myself as a devout child. It seems that
my "spiritual instincts" were still finely tuned in the
manner of all young children who have newly "fallen from
Heaven" and who are still close to the Source of all Truth or
what I have called elsewhere "truth's Truth". I remember
that heightened consciousness of my childhood as a true seeker's
experience that I make efforts to recapture even to this day. An
example may serve to illustrate my point. When I was ten years
old, I inherited a paper route from my two older brothers that for
two reasons I hated with all my heart. It gave me my first taste
of hard work at an early age and it interfered with my near
fanatic desire to attend daily Mass. I rose at 5:00 a.m. and had
just enough time to do the paper route and get myself to 7:00
o'clock Mass at the local church which was a 15 minute bicycle
ride away. One day, on a cold, dark, wintry morning before dawn, I
slept late. When I realized that I didn't have enough time to
deliver the papers and attend Mass, I burst into inconsolable
tears that I remember to this day as an initiation into the world
of true spiritual desire that has never left me. Later in life, I
became a lecturer in English, went to the Middle East in the 70s
to work as a lecturer in English and became a Muslim and followed
that the Islamic traditions for more than 25 years now. When
asked, however, about my spiritual quest, its origin and life-long
pursuit, I remember this first, initiatory "gift of
tears" and thank God for its enduring grace. |
| 2. Is
your path or religion the only way to achieve spiritual goals or
salvation, or are there other paths? What gives your path, or
other paths, the capacity to lead us to our spiritual goals? |
| Marty
Glass(a.k.a. Harry Woods Pal) - There are many Paths. Each
religion is a path, and there are countless variations of emphasis
within each religion. The diversity of Paths is a response to the
diversity of spiritual temperaments. |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - I do not claim that my religion is the
only path to salvation, unlike some devout people who brand
religions and spiritual practices other than their own as invalid,
simply because they look as though they would not work for
themselves. To know that other faiths are not valid, rejected by
God, one would have to know things about the inside of other souls
which must be beyond our grasp. However, I do not extend such
tolerance to the neo-pagan cults which flourish today, because
they are concocted from written sources, not from any kind of
revelation. There is a place for private religion, but it has to
be founded on revealed religion. I think we have to receive grace
if our pursuit of wisdom is to be profitable spiritually. |
| Charles
Upton - My spiritual path -- Sufism -- is not the only path to
salvation or realization; others exist within different
traditions. On the other hand, there is only one Path -- and if my
path were not the Path, it would be worse than useless. There are
as many paths to God as there are individual travelers, yet each
path is precisely the Path itself. And the matrix which connects
my individual path to the Path itself, is Tradition -- in my
specific case, Islam, as revealed by God through the Holy Koran.
The Path has the power to lead us to God because it is a gift
of God. Only what has come from Him can lead back to Him. And the
living bridge between His Infinity and my nothingness is my Pir,
my spiritual Master. |
| John Ahmed
Herlihy - I believe there are two paths that could be called
the Greater Path and the lesser path. The lesser path is the
individual one, my path and the path of every individual on earth,
in keeping with the Islamic tradition of the Prophet Mohammed who
said that there are as many paths are there are individual souls.
This path amounts to the personal soul experience, however that
may manifest and in whatever manner that may express itself within
a person's life. It is a path that everyone takes by virtue of his
or her existence and from which no one can escape. The Greater
Path comes from God and returns one to God. It is the Way of
Christ, the Tao of Existence and the Straight Path of Islam. It is
the merging of the individual path with the Greater Path that
aligns us with the truth and leads us out of ourselves and back to
the Source of all existence. |
|
Jim Mangianello - Of course there are many
ways to achieve spiritual goals. I am deeply fond of the practice
I use and teach, The Good Life Process because it delivers special
results: movement into the boundless non-dual awareness of the
Heart and connection with depth and meaning. With other words it
honors both spirit and soul. Too often spiritual practitioners try
to wax a dirty floor with their practices; they try to bypass
their difficulties and confusion by transcending them. This is a
dead end that causes a lot of pain and suffering. I know, it's
responsible for the madness associated with most spiritual scenes,
especially those imported from the East. |
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|
© Estate of Frithjof Schuon
c/o World Wisdom Books
P.O. Box 2682 Bloomington IN 47402 |
| 3. In your life, who are
the most important spiritual figures, and what are the most
important texts, either secular or of a religious nature? How have
they influenced your life? |
| Marty
Glass (a.k.a. Harry Woods Pal) - In my life spiritual texts
were of far greater significance than "spiritual
figures." And for the simple reason that in the texts I found
the Truth, stated in words and capable of confirmation in direct
experience when the techniques of realization, also presented
clearly in the texts, were practiced with deadly serious intent.
The texts were the fountainhead and Source; whatever
"spiritual figures" knew and had learned could only have
been derived from the texts, from the Teaching, Holy Writ and
inspired commentary, so it made sense to Marty to go directly to
the Source where the Truth could be found in its pure form.
However his attitude may be interpreted, Marty was never impressed
by people, always suspicious and ultimately indifferent to their
claims and the claims of their groupies, since he knew all about
people, being one himself. |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - The spiritual figures and texts that have most
influenced me are Plato, the Philokalia, C.S. Lewis, Edwyn Bevan,
Thomas Traherne, G.K. Chesterton, Plotinus, Leibniz, Thomas Taylor
(his translations of Neoplatonists), John Mitchell, and Guenon and
Schuon. I would add A.D. Sertillanges, whose book, The
Intellectual Life, is a vital guide to combining the life of
truth with the life of (Christian) faith. These have always been a
source of inspiration to me, and I find them inexhaustible. |
| Charles
Upton - Before the Path found me, my most important spiritual
figures were William Blake and my own mythopoetic, Blakean
rendition of Jesus Christ. My first mentor was Lew Welch, a Beat
Generation poet, who did all he could to "initiate" me
without himself being initiated, and succeeded at least in
confronting me with my spiritual potentials for good and evil, by
introducing me both to Sufi initiate Samuel Lewis, and sorcerer
Carlos Castaneda.
The most important spiritual figures in my present life are the
prophets, sages, saints and avatars of all world wisdom traditions
-- and the living Pole them, for me, is my spiritual Master, who
is a manifestation of the baraka (grace) of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace and blessings be upon him. On the intellectual level (by
"intellectual", in this context, I mean -- roughly
speaking -- something higher than the mental but lower than the
spiritual), my greatest influence has been the
"Traditionalist" master Frithjof Schuon, and the other
writers of the Traditionalist school. They have given me my first
stable worldview since Catholicism, a doctrine which has put every
belief, every insight, and every experience of my life into a
single unified whole. Schuon was a great master, but he is not my
master; so his influence on me is limited to the ideas he
expresses in his books, as well as flashes of intellectual
intuition provided by his baraka, which my own Master has
(apparently) been generous enough to allow me to benefit from. I
have also taken great spiritual consolation from the relics and
intercession of our local saint here in the San Francisco Bay
Area, John Maximovich -- Russian Orthodox Archbishop, theologian,
wonderworker, and fool-for-Christ. |
| John Ahmed
Herlihy - In my youth, I was an avid reader of the lives of
the saints. They inspired me to develop the formative spiritual
aspirations with their single-mindedness, their devotion, and
their implicit faith in God to help them find themselves and
fulfill their destiny. The intensity of it all filled me with
spiritual wonder and awe. Texts of both a secular and a religious
nature have also greatly influenced me and I have been an avid
reader all my life once I graduated from the lives of the saints.
On the secular level, the great works of literature have had a
profound influence on my mentality and my approach to life
generally. To read through the works of a Dostoyevsky, a Thomas
Mann, or a Herman Melville is to learn about the profound
experience of life through the eyes of a great literary master. On
the religious level, I have been guided by the renown traditional
writers of our time such as Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings and
René Guénon whose collective body of work has given definition
and shape to the spiritual wilderness of our time. Finally, as a
Muslim, I rely on the Quran as a source of knowledge and as a
means of worship. The Quran, as Divine Discourse and Revelatory
Word, remains the ultimate source of a higher knowledge that could
not otherwise be known and serves the Muslims as the well-spring
of all morality and ethics. As a means of worship, it opens the
door to a spiritual experience that permits a person to transcend
his or her limitations and approach the true knowledge of the
Reality as a Truth and a Presence. |
| 4. A great deal is said
by traditionalist writers about the decadence of the West and the
loss of guiding principles and a sense of the sacred. How then do
we live meaningful lives? How do you reconcile your spiritual
experience with the demands of the modern world in which you must
live? |
| Marty
Glass(a.k.a. Harry Woods Pal) - We adjust to the decadence of
the world. What other choice is there? Hold on to the Truth,
practice daily, pray and meditate, repeat the mantras, love
people, love the world, have no pretensions, do not wear your
piety on your sleeve (better if no one even knows you're
"religious"), go to work, maintain your vehicle, have
fun with your children, keep the faith with your friends, fulfill
all your worldly responsibilities, make people laugh, always have
in mind their disengagement from the world, be compassionate, walk
this razor blade and be able to say, from the depths of your
heart, "The whole ***** world can kiss ****!" |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - We live meaningful lives by our scale of
priorities. Many activities which could mean spiritual failure if
they were our top priorities could be benign enough if our effort
is focused on life's true purpose, even if not much time is
available for it. The center of gravity is everything. In the end
it prevails, and forms our self-definition. |
| Charles
Upton - Yes, the West is decadent -- but so is the world. I
reconcile my spiritual experience with the modern world in which I
must live by doing what it takes to survive in this world; by
trying to keep abreast of the decadence as it hurtles ahead, so
that I don't inadvertently buy into it; by praying to God to
protect me from it; and by trying my best to keep my attention on
God while letting the world go its way. As it says in the Koran,
"All is perishing except His Face". This, of course, has
always been true, but it's easier to see it now, and this in
itself is a powerful grace. As my Master says, "Asceticism is
less necessary in the modern world than it was in earlier times,
because to live in the modern world is asceticism." To know
that "all is perishing" is to let everything go and
cling to God -- and the fruit of this detachment is to see how
(also in the words of the Koran), "Wherever you turn, there
is the Face of God." Slowly, God willing, this vision may be
coming to me. I believe this might be true because the world,
while continually becoming more frightening, now frightens me a
little less all the time. But I have no way of knowing my own
spiritual station with any certainty; only God and my Master can
answer that question -- and I have mostly given up asking it. |
| John Ahmed
Herlihy - I know no other world but the modern world, at least
none other than the existential reality that I am confronted with
every day. Therefore I don't try to run away from it and have no
expectation of escape. Much has been written and said during these
times about the Kali Yuga and the decadence of the West as a sign
of the impending end for which I am grateful because it has also
raised my consciousness concerning the concept of the Final End
and its multiple implications both negative and positive. The
guiding principles, however, have not been lost. They are still
with us and still available to those with the ability to recognize
them for what they truly are. We still have the great world
revelations that serve as the genuine sources of knowledge. We
still enjoy the legacy of countless lamas, sheiks, gurus and
saints who have testified in their writings and in their lives to
the truth of the one and eternal God. We still have the
traditional and spiritual writers who shape our spiritual
perceptions and we still have the spiritual masters and guides who
set the right example and lead the way. The sense of the sacred,
however, is an individual responsibility. No one can just hand it
over to us as a gift. It must be earned through persistent effort
and realized through spiritual practice. Whether we live in the
ancient, traditional, medieval, or modern world, our sense of the
sacred and our perception of the truth is our sole responsibility.
That is why the image of the Day of Judgement is so powerful and
so enduring. |
| 5. In
relation to our historical times, what challenges, obstacles or
difficulties have you faced in your spiritual quest, if any? What
factors made your search difficult, or not so difficult? |
| Marty
Glass (a.k.a. Harry Woods Pal) - The main challenge is
the virtual absence, in the world of human affairs, of any
reminders of heaven, the reminders which abounded in any
traditional or indigenous society. You have to keep it going on
your own steam. Intensity of spiritual practice! That's the whole
secret. The incomprehension of friends can be an occasional cause
of sorrow, and the inevitable misunderstandings that arise from
having a "secret life in God." We will appear
"eccentric." But that's part of the game. Mindfulness,
discretion, tact and, perhaps above all, the discovery and
cultivation in yourself of the ordinary person, of everything you
have in common with ordinary people: humility, in other words.
(Not the potential for dissipation that we share in common, of
course, but the ordinary decency and fidelity: the virtues.) |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - The greatest difficulty is that of making
one's purpose in life understood by other people, and of finding
others who have chosen the same way. Occasional help from those
who have gone further on this path than oneself can be vital, and
it is effective without need for agreement on matters of detail. |
| Charles
Upton - One of my main obstacles has been lack of discretion
-- digging up the seedling to see if it's grown any since the last
time I almost killed it. And in relation to this historical
moment, my main obstacle has probably been the false belief that I
have many spiritual options, and plenty of time to explore them.
Of course the illusion of "plenty of time" is not
particular to our own age; it's the perennial sin of complacency,
which is one aspect of the sin of pride. |
| John Ahmed
Herlihy - I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't be
surprised if everyone ultimately passes through some kind of
"dark night of the soul". Spiritual awareness and a
heightened sense of faith does not and should not come easily. It
may in fact me to our advantage that we live in a world of
polarity whose interplay of opposites actually serves to heighten
their respective meaning. We know success through failure;
understand human goodness through the evil alternative; we
experience the true value of hope through an impending despair. I
have returned from the brink a number of times in my life to find
myself a better, stronger and more enlightened person because of
the obstacles, hardships and difficulties that have littered my
path. I do not run from them for they are as much a part of my
destiny as the happiness and fulfillment toward which we all
strive. We learn from our mistakes and grow through adversity.
What more could anyone ask for than that the darkness reveals the
light? |
| 6. What
hazards or guideposts should people look for as they navigate the
contemporary spiritual landscape in search of their own paths? |
| Marty
Glass (a.k.a.
Harry Woods Pal) - The "contemporary spiritual
landscape," as it is described in the question, is loaded
with pitfalls, land mines, treachery, snipers in every tree,
deceit, mirages, bullshit, sappy sentimentalism, false claims,
well-intentioned fools, and all manner of mumbo-jumbo. Dangerous!
Perilous! Avoid like the plague anyone who tells you it's easier
than you think! (I believe that was the title of a book.) Avoid
like the plague anyone who preaches that "Science" and
"Religion" are saying the same thing! This
"argument" is a device of the sleepless Archfiend, the
Adversary! Most Buddhist groups, from what I can see from the
outside, are pretty safe, but watch out for the singles groups
masquerading as "dharma centers." A lot of that kind of
thing goes on. "Buddhism" can become a "line"
for men: SNAGS, or "sensitive new age guys." Watch out
for strong feminist emphases in religious claimants; these people
usually have something other than Spirit on their minds, an
alternative priority which, however just may be its claims in
other areas, is not the point. The list of hazards could be
prolonged indefinitely. Look at the world through narrowed eyes!
That's what I tried to teach my five children. Go to the Sources.
Ultimately, and with no shadow of a doubt, you are alone on your
spiritual Path, alone with God, and your own experience, in the
solitude of your shrine, is your ultimate appeal. Your sincerity
before heaven will never fail you. |
| Robert
Anthony Bolton - Regrettably, hazards have to include personal relationships,
because a lack of common values can make them a hindrance. One
should not shrink from trying to cope with solitude and using it
well, especially as this can lead to friendships with others who
can do likewise! |
| Charles
Upton - The Traditionalists often quote a North African marabout who
once said, "The doors to Heaven and Hell are wide open, from
now to the end of the age." It's easier than ever to go
straight to Hell, but also easier to attract Divine Mercy. Pride
and vanity grease the slide to Hell; the recognition of our
radical poverty and absolute need for God's grace opens the doors
to Mercy. Love is present Paradise and leads to Paradise; hatred
leads to Hell, and is present Hell. (As Jean Cocteau once said --
a strange voice to quote on a site like this, some may say --
"I love love; I hate hatred." May this truth have
profited him to eternal life.)
Hazards: Mass vulgarity and attraction to sleaze and violence;
terrible emotional coldness hidden under a veil of vicious glamour; the replacement of the goal of
self-transcendence with the quest for magical power on the part of
so many people; the general slander against true God-given
doctrine and spiritual practice, particularly in the case of
Christianity, but with Islam a close second; the destruction of
religious faith and the intuition of higher spiritual realities by
materialistic science and quasi-magical scientism (Scientism: the
transformation of science from a method of knowing material nature
into an ideology which claims that only material nature exists);
the proliferation of hundreds of false or incomplete occult and
psychological belief-systems masquerading as spiritualities --
belief-systems based on material and psychic knowledge alone, not
on true spiritual doctrine and insight; the inability of so many
people to distinguish the psychic level from the spiritual one;
the general openness of the mass body-mind to psychic experience,
coupled with a collective resistance to the Spirit; the belief
that religion or spirituality are here to fulfill my own felt
needs -- a false belief which replaces the understanding that God
requires of me all I hope for, all I am, my whole life, and my
full death, and that the Good He has in store for me is
inconceivably greater than anything I could put down on my worldly
or even my spiritual wish-list: "Eye has not seen, nor ear
heard, the reward God has prepared for those who love Him";
the belief that only belief is real, that there is no such thing
as Truth.
Guideposts: Deep, spontaneous remorse in the face of our
limitations and failures -- a remorse which immediately turns into
gratitude. An intuition that there are people around us immensely
more wise and loving and courageous than we are. Respect for those
in whom we see such virtues (like William Blake said, "The
most sublime act is to put another before you"). Attraction
to the great world wisdom traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Islam, Christianity -- to basically adult spiritualities. A sense
that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth, Love, Beauty and
Power -- and that this Supreme Reality knows us. A sense that the
spiritual life requires a total transformation and transcendence
of our ego-self, plus a real hankering to get on with this
transformation. A realization that, since the road is long -- a
whole lifetime long -- one had best start now. A willingness to
admit one's real needs, aspirations, virtues, vices and potentials
without making too much of it. A will to do whatever it takes to
bridge the gap between one's individual peculiarities and a
long-established Path which has produced heroes, saints and sages,
without denying either side in the name of the other. A
willingness to search for knowledgeable people and ask serious
questions. A willingness to stop asking questions at one point,
and simply listen, both to outer advice and to the inner
promptings of the Spirit. A will to submit one's spiritual life to
Divine guidance, while realizing that, in the words of the Koran,
God shows us His signs both "on the horizons" (through
circumstances and events) and "in our souls" (through
feelings, insights and intuitions).
And a reading list? The Bible; the Koran; the Bhagavad-gita;
the Upanishads; the Brahma-sutra; the Dhammapada; The One-hundred
Thousand Songs of Milarepa; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; the I
Ching; the Tao Te Ching; the Chuang Tzu; Dante; Meister Eckhart;
The Philokalia; The Cloud of Unknowing; the Zohar; Ibn 'Arabi;
Rumi; Shankara; Nagarjuna; Plotinus; and then the Traditionalist
writers: René Guénon; Ananda Coomaraswamy; Frithjof Schuon
(particularly these first three); Titus Burckhardt; Martin Lings;
James Cutsinger; Whitall Perry (especially his Treasury of
Traditional Wisdom); Seyyed Hossein Nasr (especially Knowledge and
the Sacred); Leo Schaya; Henry Corbin; Charles LeGai Eaton; Lord
Northbourne; and Wolfgang Smith. The three best introductory books
are probably The World's Religions, Forgotten Truth and Beyond the
Post-modern Mind, by Huston Smith. |
| John Ahmed Herlihy -
Perhaps the greatest hazard confronting the people of our time who
are in search of their own unique path is the fact that the
"contemporary spiritual landscape" is no longer
spiritual in the true sense of the word. The word
"spiritual" must be reflective of the world of the
Spirit rather than merely the spirit of this world. It must be the
embodiment of the knowledge of a higher Reality that has the
explanatory power to lead us out of ourselves and beyond the
contingencies of the world as we know and experience it. And it
must have the capacity to bring about the realization and
internalization of that knowledge within our souls and our very
beings. I am not sure that what we call the contemporary spiritual
landscape has the ability to do that any longer, possibly because
it has degenerated into a spiritual wilderness of no return. Yet,
the guideposts still exist in the form of Revelation, the signs of
Nature, and the symbolic image of Man, who can become his own
revelation insofar as he is the human image and mirror reflection
of the Supreme Being and the Ultimate Truth. |
|
Jim Manganiello - I think the major
hazard is a two fold paradox: 1) the spiritual path is much harder
than we can imagine and 2) the spiritual path is much easier than
we can imagine. It all depends on our location, view and reality.
A related hazard is to become a serf to a spiritual teacher and to
betray oneself with taking loyalty oaths and making courtier
bleats. Most spiritual teachers do not embody what they teach and
most need to to face themselves more honestly.
If we overvalue ourselves and approach spirituality from ego, we
are doomed to a harsh series of lessons and perhaps residency in
the lunatic asylum. Spirituality is not user friendly; there is
indeed peril on the path and most of us mistake glossy photos of a
gourmet meal for the meal itself.
If we undervalue ourselves we miss the magic that already exists
within us that can be quite easily accessed through an open and
tender Heart. To recognize the divinity within us and to humbly
embrace it in awe-ful love is to call forth grace and unspeakable
inner guidance on the path. |
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(Comments,
Set 1, Set
2) |
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