Radical Transcendentalism and the Introduction of Advaitayana Buddhism
Da Free John (Adi Da Samraj) - 1982

---

Table of Contents

---

IV

God as the Creator, the Good, and the Real

Conventional religion originates in the consciousness that characterizes the earlier stages of life. Thus, it is ego-based and it serves the functional desire of the manifest or phenomenal self to be protected, nourished, pleasurized, and ultimately preserved.

The phenomenal self or egoic (self-centered) body-mind is the source of conventional religion as well as all of the other ordinary and extraordinary pursuits of born existence in the first six stages of life. Therefore, it is not God but the ego (perhaps gesturing conceptually toward God) that is the source and fundamental subject of popular religion as well as higher mysticism. Real spirituality, true religion, or Transcendental Occupation begins only when the egoic consciousness (with all of its mind, emotion, desire, and activity) is thoroughly understood and inherently transcended. For this reason, only the radical Teaching of the Wisdom of the seventh stage of life directly serves the process of actual God-Realization. All other forms of doctrine or instruction serve the purposes of the first six stages of life—all of which are founded on manifest egoity and conditional attention.

It is the culture of conventional religion that promotes the conventional ideas about God. The principal conventional God-idea is that God is the Creator (or intentional Emanator) of the worlds and all beings. Such seems an obvious idea to the bodily ego, trapped in the mechanics of the perceptual mind and the material or elemental vision. The ego is identified with embodiment, and the idea of the Creator-God is developed to account for this fact and to provide a conceptual basis (in the form of the idea of the ego as God-made creature) for the appeal to God to Help the ego in this world and in the yet unknown after-death state.

The difficulty with the Creator-God conception is that it identifies God with ultimate causation and thus makes God inherently responsible for the subsequent causation of all effects. And if God is responsible for all effects, then God is clearly a very powerful but also terrible Deity—since manifest existence tends to work equally for and against all creatures.

Therefore, the Creator-God idea is commonly coupled with the idea of God as Good (and thus both opposite and opposed to Evil). If the Creator-God is conceived to be Good (or always working to positively create, protect, nourish, rightly and pleasurably fulfill, and ultimately preserve all of Nature and all creatures), then the ego is free of the emotional double-bind and the anger and despair that would seem to be justified if God is simply the responsible Creator of everything (good, evil, bad, or in between). Therefore, conventional theology, most especially as it has tended to develop under the influence of the Semitic religions of the Middle East, is founded on the ideas of God as Creator and God as Good (or Good Will).

But if God is the all-powerful Creator (without whom not anything has been made), then how did so much obviously negative or evil motion and effect come into existence? The usual answer is generally organized around one or another mythological story in which powerful creatures (or one powerful creature, such as the Devil, now regarded to personify Evil) entered (on the basis of free will), into a pattern of "sin," or disobedience and conflict with God, which resulted in separation from God and a descent or fall into material consciousness, and so forth. Such mythologes are structured in terms of a hierarchical view of Nature, with various planes descending from the Heaven of God. Religon thus becomes a method of return to God.

Exoteric religion is generally based on an appeal to belief, social morality, and magical prayer or worship. The return to God is basically conceived in terms of this world and, therefore, exoteric or terrestrial religion is actually a process in which God returns to the ego and to this world (rather than vice versa), and it is believed that God will eventually reclaim mankind and the total world from the forces of Evil. But exoteric religion is an outer cult, intended for grosser egos and for mass consumption (or the culture of the first three stages of life). The ultimate form of conventional religion is in the esoteric or inner and sacred cult, which is a mystical society, open only to those chosen for initiation (and thus growth or evolution into the fourth and fifth stages of life). Esoteric religion is a process of cosmic mysticism, or the method of return to God by ascending as mind (or disembodied soul), back through the route of the original fall into matter and Evil, until the Heaven or Eternal Abode of God is reached again. The esoteric religious process goes beyond the conventions of exoteric religion to develop the psycho-physical mechanics of mystical flight and return to God via the hierarchical structures of the nervous system (ascending from the plane of Evil, or the Devil, or the "flesh," at the bodily base of the nervous system, to the plane of the Good, or God, or the Heavenly Abode, at or above the brain, via the "magic carpet" of the life-force in the nervous system).

Thus, the idea of the Creator-God leads to the idea that God is Good (or the Good Will), which leads to the idea that creatures have free will, which then accounts for the appearance of sin, suffering, evil, and loss of God-consciousness. And conventional religion then becomes the means (through structures of belief, sacramental worship, mystical prayer, yogic or shamanistic ascent, and so forth) for the re-exercise of creaturely free will in the direction of God, Good, the triumph over Evil and death in this world, and the ascent from material form and consciousness to spiritual, heavenly, or Godly form and consciousness.

All the popular and mystical religious and spiritual traditions of mankind tend to be associated with this chain of conceptions (or the characteristic ideas of the first five stages of life). It is only in the sixth and seventh stage traditions that these ideas begin to give way to different conceptions. It is only in the sixth stage of life that the egoic basis of the first five stages of life is penetrated. And it is only in the seventh stage of life that the ego is altogether transcended in the Real Divine. The theological and general religious conceptions I have just described have always been subject to criticism (or at least simple non-belief) on the part of those who are not persuaded by religous and theological arguments. Atheism has always opposed theism. But atheistic ideas are the product of the same fundamental self-consciousness that otherwise produces theistic or conventional religious ideas. Atheism is the product of the ego (or the phenomenal self, grounded in elemental perception), and so also is theism. Atheism, like exoteric religion, extends itself only into the domain of the first three stages of life, whereas esoteric religion and theism provide a means for entering, mystically and spiritually, into the evolution of the fourth and fifth stages of life.

Atheism regularly proposes a logical view of life that has its own dogmatic features. It does not propose a God-idea but instead, founds itself on and in the perceptual and phenomenal mind alone. Atheism concedes only a universal and ultimately indifferent (or merely lawful) Nature (not God), and so there is no need to create a religious "creation myth" to account for suffering. (And atheistic thinkers thus generally confine themselves to constructing a cosmology, based on material observations alone, that merely accounts for the appearance of the manifest events of Nature.) Indeed, just as conventional religion or theism arises to account for suffering, atheism arises on the basis of the unreserved acknowledgment of suffering. And if there is no idea of God, there is no idea of Man as creature (or Man as the bearer of an immortal or God-like inner part). Nor is there any need to interpret unfortunate or painful events as the effects of Evil. Therefore, the atheistic point of view is characterzed by the trend of mind that we call "realism," just as the conventional religious or theistic point of view is characterized by the trend of mind that we call "idealism," but both atheism and theism arise on the basis of the self-contraction, or the ego of phenomenal self-consciousness, rather than on the basis of direct intuition of the Real Condition that is prior to self and its conventions of perception and thought.

The realistic or atheistic view is just as much the bearer of a myth (or a merely conceptual interpretation of the world) as is the conventional religious or theistic view. Atheism (or conventional realism) is a state of mind that is based in the phenomenal self and that seeks the ultimate protection, nourishment, pleasure, and preservation of the phenomenal self (at least in this world and, if there should be an after-life, then also in any other world). Therefore, it is simply an alternative philosophy to theism and conventional religion, based on the same principle and consciousness (the phenomenal ego), and seeking by alternative means to fulfill the manifest self and relieve it of its suffering.

Atheism, or conventional realism, is a state of mind that possesses individuals who are fixed in the first three stages of life. It is a form of spiritual neurosis (or self-possession), as are all of the characteristic mind-states of the first six stages of life. Esoteric religion and theism provide a basis for certain remarkable individuals to enter the fourth and fifth stages of life, but the commonly (or exoterically) religious individual is, like the athiest, a relatively adolescent (if not childish and even infantle) character, fixed in the egoic neuroses of the first three stages of life.

Atheism proposes a myth and a method for ego-fulfillment that is based on phenomenal realism, rather than spiritual idealism (or the culture of the conventional God-idea). Therefore, atheism is traditionally associated with the philosophy of materialism, just as theism is associated with spiritualism, animism, and Emanationism. And the realistic or atheistic view tends to be the foundation for all kinds of political, social, and technological movements, since its orientation is toward the investigation and manipulation of material Nature. Atheism is realism and materialism. It is about the acquisition of knowledge about Nature and the exploitation of that knowledge to command (or gain power over) Nature. And it is this scheme of knowledge and power (expressed as political and technological means of all kinds) that is the basis of the mythology and quasi-religion of atheism. The atheistic (or non-theistic) view of life is ego-based, organized relative to Nature as an elemental or perceived process, and committed to knowledge and power as the means of salvation (or material fulfillment of egoity).

In our time, this materialistic, realistic, and non-theistic philosophy of ego-fulfillment is represented by the world-culture of scientific, technological, and political materialism. The entire race of mankind is now being organized by the cultural movement of scientific materialism, while the alternative cultures of theism, mystical esotericism, sixth stage Transcendentalism, and the ultimate or truly radical philosophy of the seventh stage of life are tending to be systematically suppressed and propagandized out of existence. Scientism (or the culture of realistic or materialistic knowledge) and its two arms of power (technology and political order) are the primary forces in world-culture at the present time. And humanity at large is thus tending to be reduced to the robot acculturations of orderly egoism in the limited terms represented by our functional development in the first three stages of life.

Conventional and popular human culture has historically been limited to the conflicts and alternatives represented by theism and atheism, or egoic idealism and egoic realism. And the large-scale ordering of mankind has always tended to be dominated by the politics of materialistic knowledge and power. It is simply that in the twentieth century we are seeing that materialistic culture approach the achievement of a world-wide mass culture in which all individuals will be controlled by a powerful and materialistically oriented system of political and technological restriction.

The usual or most commonly remarked criticism of theism is based on the evidence of suffering and material limitation. Therefore, the common arguments against religion and theism are generally those proposed by the point of view of atheism. Likewise, the common arguments against atheism are generally those proposed by theism (or an appeal to egoic acceptance of the evidence of religious history, cultic revelation, mystical psychology, and psychic experience). For this reason, there may seem to be only two basic cultural alternatives: atheism and theism.

But theism and religion are, at base, the expressions of egoity in the first three stages of life, just as is the case with atheism and conventional materialism. Therefore, whenever theism or religion becomes the base for political and social order, it inevitably becomes the base for knowledge and power in the material world. And theistic regimes have historically been equally as aggressive in the manipulation and suppression of humanity as have atheistic regimes. Theism is, at its base, egoic and fitted to worldly concerns. Therefore, when it achieves worldly power, it simply adopts the same general materialistic means that are adopted by atheism. Knowledge and power are the common tools of egoity, not merely the tools of atheism. It is simply that theism and religion can, via the exercises and attainments of saints and mystics, apply knowledge and power to purposes that extend beyond the first three stages of life. But in the terms of the first three stages of life (or the common and practical social order), theism and religion are inclined to make the same demands for social consciousness and to apply fundamentally the same kind of political and authoritarian techniques for achieving obedience and order as are applied by atheism and scientism.

This is evident in the popular theistic (and now almost exclusively exoteric) cultures that have come out of the Semitic tradition of the Middle East. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the principal theistic religions (in terms of worldly power and numbers), and they are all based on similar idealistic conceptions of God and creature and salvation, but each of these cults has also historically sought and achieved the general power to command the social order. And, in the process, each of these cults became a political State, controlling the forms of knowledge and power. As a result, over time these religions developed more and more of a secular, materialistic, and worldly character. Each of the three cults claims absolute, independent, and exclusive religious and worldly authority, and the historical conflict among these three (and between their claims and the equally absolutist and absurd claims of other and atheistic or non-religious systems, such as communism, democratic capitalism, and technological scientism) has now become the basis for idealistic State politics and political conflicts all over the world. And the seemingly more important or esoteric matters of spiritual wisdom, mystical knowledge, and the magical power of sainthood or Adeptship are as much in doubt and disrepute in the common religious circles of theism as they are in scientific and atheistic circles.

All of this is to indicate that conventional religion and theism share a root error or limitation with atheism and worldly culture. That error or limitation is the ego itself, or the presumptions and the seeking that are most basic to the conception of an independent phenomenal self in a less than hospitable phenomenal world. What is ultimately to be criticized in religion or theism is the same limit that is to be criticized in atheism and materialism. It is the ego, the phenomenal self-base, from which we tend to derive our conceptions of God, Nature, life, and destiny.

It is only when the egoic root of our functional, worldly, and religious or spiritual life is inspected, understood, and transcended that self, and world, and God are seen in Truth. Therefore, it is necessary to understand. It is necessary to aspire to Wisdom, Truth, and Enlightenment. All occupations derived from the ego-base are necessarily limited to egoity, and all conceptions that feed such egoic occupations are necessarily bereft of a right view of self, world, and God (or the ultimate and Transcendental Reality and Truth).

When the mechanics of egoity are transcended in our understanding, then it becomes obvious that life (or manifest phenomenal existence) is simply a play of opposites. Neither "Good" (or creation and preservation) nor "Evil" (or destruction) finally wins. Nature, in all its planes, is inherently a dynamic. The play of Nature, in all its forms and beings and processes, is not merely (or exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent "Good" of self-preservation (or the preservation and fulfillment of any particular form, world, or being), nor is it merely (or exclusively and finally) seeking the apparent "Evil" of self-destruction (or the dissolution of any particular form, world, or being). Rather, the play in Nature is always in the direction of perpetuating the dynamics of the play itself—and, therefore, polarity, opposition, struggle, alternation, death, and cyclic repetition tend to be perpetuated as the characteristics of phenomenal existence. Therefore, the play of Nature is always alternating between the appearance of dominance by one or the other of its two basic extremes. And the sign of this is in the inherent struggle that involves every form, being, and process. The struggle is this dynamic play of opposites, but the import of it is not the absolute triumph of either half. Things and beings and processes arise, they move, they are transformed, and they disappear. No thing or being or process is ultimately preserved. But neither is there any absolute destruction. Nature is a transformer, not merely a creator or a destroyer.

To the ego (or present temporary form of being) self-preservation may seem to be the inevitable motive of being. Therefore, a struggle develops to destroy or escape the dynamic of Nature by dominating Evil (or death) with Good (or immortality). This ideal gets expressed in the generally exoteric and occidental or more materialistic efforts to conquer Nature via worldly knowledge and power. But it also gets expressed in the more esoteric and oriental or mystical efforts to escape the plane of Nature by ascent from materiality (or the Evil of the flesh) to Heaven (the Good God above the consciousness of Nature).

But when the ego (or self-contraction) is understood and transcended, then Nature is seen from the point of view of Wisdom. And, in that case, the egoic struggle in Nature or against Nature is also understood and transcended. Then the Way of life ceases to be founded on the need to destroy the dynamic of Nature via conventional knowledge, power, immortality, or mystical escape. The world is no longer conceived as a drama of warfare between Good and Evil. The righteousness of the search for the Good as a means of self-preservation disappears along with the self-indulgent and self-destructive negativity of possession by Evil. In place of this dilemma of opposites, a self-transcending and world-transcending (or Nature-transcending) equanimity appears. And in that equanimity there is an inherent Radiance that transcends the egoic dualities of Good and Evil (or the conventional polarities of the self in Nature). It is the Radiance of Love. And in that Free Radiance, energy and attention are inherently free from the ego-bond, self-contraction, or the "gravitational effect" of phenomenal self-awareness. Therefore, dynamic equanimity, or the free disposition of Love (rather than the egoic disposition in the modes of Good or Evil), is the "window" through which God may be "seen" (or intuited)—not in the conventional mode of Creator, Good, Other, or Heavenly Place, but as the Real, or the tacitly obvious Condition of all existence.

The ultimate moment in the play of Nature is not the moment of egoic success (or the temporary achievement of the apparently positive or "Good" effect). The ultimate moment is beyond contradiction (or the dynamics of polarized opposites). It is the moment of equanimity, the still point or "eye" in the midst of the wheel of Nature's motions and all the motivations of the born self. The Truth and Real Condition of self and Nature is Revealed only in that equanimity, beyond all stress and bondage of energy and attention.

This disposition of equanimity (or free energy and attention) is basic to the conceptions of the sixth and seventh stages of life. In the sixth stage of life, it provides the functional base for the ultimate and final investigation of the ego and the dynamics of Nature. But in the seventh stage of life, fundamental equanimity is native and constant, expressing prior Transcendental Realization. It is in the seventh stage of life that God, Truth, or Reality is directly obvious, prior to every trace of egoity, dilemma, and seeking. Therefore, it is in the seventh stage of life that God is truly proclaimed, not in the conventional mode of Creator, or the Good, but as the Real. God is the Transcendental Truth, Reality, Identity, and Condition of self and Nature. In the seventh stage of life, That is tacitly obvious, and there is not anything that must be escaped or embraced for the Happiness of God-Realization to be actualized. It is inherently so. Therefore, the Way of the Heart is not any egoic means for attaining God-Realization. The Way is God-Realization Itself (prior to the methods of the first six stages of life). God, or the Transcendental Reality, prior to self, world, and the conventions of religion and non-religion, exotericism and esotericism, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.