A Call to Humanity

(Dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, progenitor of the scientific method & an incarnation of the Master R.)

For an inclusive & scientific approach to spirituality.

This call is based on my conviction that there is a shared plan and purpose for all of humanity, despite a majority of people being oblivious to Its existence or nature.

This purpose is the evolution of consciousness within every being on the planet, whether that being is evolving within a mineral, plant, animal, human or divine form. A purpose which unites all life forms in the shared task of serving the larger, esoteric purpose of the One within Whom we all live and move and have our being and motivates us to develop and express a loving, intelligent will toward one another as integral parts of this One Life.

My proposal is that we unify spirituality under a methodical approach which can appeal to all intelligent people.

This proposal is based on a realisation which many people like myself, who have studied the sacred texts of all religions, who have read the philosophical treatises of the world and who have practised the various spiritual technologies available today, have come to, and it is this...

It is possible to build a unified theory and practice of spiritual growth, or the evolution of consciousness, which has similarities to the way in which science has developed, i.e. a method and a technology which is agreed upon by all of its practitioners. If scientists and spiritual practitioners can recognise the interchangeable nature of the terms Spirit and Energy, then we will be able to move towards a more scientific and widely-accepted approach to realising the Self, which is immanent within all life forms.

While science has traditionally been the domain of the true, religion the domain of the good and art the domain of the beautiful, it is possible that a unified spiritual approach can share the three qualities of the good, the beautiful and the true. In order to do this it must integrate and demonstrate the methods of science, art & religion.

The scientific method based on induction and empiricism is a process which has been used with success in the past few hundred years. Significantly, scientific truth depends for substantiation on the consensus of the scientific community who act on behalf of the whole society. Crackpot theories & outrageous claims do not to survive in a climate of scientific rigour and transparent experimentation. The same rigour needs to be broguht to spiritual development

If science can generate factual information about how the material universe operates, then why not a similar approach to identify and understand the more subtle energies and expressions of the spiritual world?

Spirituality is not about faith alone, nor fundamentalism, nor New Age wishful thinking. It is about the science of man in his expression as an essentially spiritual being. Spiritual truths must be true for all, regardless of the religious and scientific fundamentalist positions so strongly voiced in today's world. It is possible to identify the essential elements of spiritual life and a spiritual technology to experience it, that will enable all who practice them to awaken their spiritual faculties, according to their capacity and readiness.

To quote Shri Vijay Yogendra, a yoga authority from his book “Love as A Way”…

“Even though, in the various religious traditions and especially in their approaches, there may be differences in the concept of God, different emphases on their types of discipline, even though their ways may vary, yet there can be no difference in understanding God as love.”

Many will agree that Love is the core motive in our universe, but it must be applied with intelligent purpose and guided by a positive will. And while in concepts, disciplines and approaches the religions do differ, if you strip away the various dogmas and rituals and penetrate deeply enough you find they all come from the same root, what has been termed the Ageless Wisdom tradition. Nothing the Ageless Wisdom tradition teaches contradicts scientific truth. It has simply gone further in its hypotheses than science has yet been able to reach.

Let us understand this point. Scientists have been able to agree, fundamentalist positions notwithstanding, about the inherent functioning and dynamics of the physical world. Theories of chaos and order (mathematics), energy & motion (physics), space and time (astronomy), the nature of matter (chemistry), the pulse of life (biology) and the dynamic earth (earth sciences) have together, built a brilliant and compelling picture of the nature of our physical world.

However, they have only touched the hem of nature by studying the solid, liquid and gaseous sub-planes of the material world and some aspects of the 4 higher sub-planes. The Ageless Wisdom has for centuries identified the existence of 7 sub-planes within the physical plane and then a further 6 more major planes within the Cosmic Physical Plane.

Given that the scientific method is used in both the hard and soft sciences, then why not for these esoteric levels too. The next step is to come to a shared understanding on the basic facts of the subjective world through a similarly rigorous and integrated practice and study, using the key hypotheses & technologies of the Ageless Wisdom.

The stumbling block remains rigid mindsets and the belief that spiritual factors are merely “ineffable” and somehow inviolate. This viewpoint has been due to the pre-dominance of the devotional mystic who has traditionally held to an emotionally-motivated approach to their spiritual experiences and regarded them as too sacred to assess or discuss.

What is needed is those who bring a well developed intelligence to their subjective investigation. Spiritual experiences are only ‘ineffable”, because the instruments to measure them have yet to be fully developed in the human race. Those instruments are 1) the brain, with its currently limited capacity to perceive higher dimensions and 2) the human energy field, which has energy centres which need to be refined to perceive their frequencies.

A truism of the Ageless Wisdom tradition is that "matter is the lowest vibratory expression of spirit and vice versa". This axiom should encourage us to investigate the inner spiritual world with an open mind & heart in order to gain an understanding of the vastness of its true nature.

Buddhist investigators like Matthieu Ricard are studying the interface of mindfulness and science and this work is making a useful contribution to our scientific understanding of the mind/brain interface. However, it is a long way to go for us to gain an understanding of what occurs beyond the brain and that is where spiritual science comes in. If we posit 7 levels of consciousness with 7 subdivisions in each and we have only penetrated 4 on the lowest (physical) plane, then it is clear we have a very long way to go.

As one who is more a practitioner than a scientist I believe the real breakthrough will come in the gradual establishment of esoteric healing sciences and practices and the assessment of their efficacy. Richard Gerber in describing the future of vibrational medicine, suggests this spectrum of healing can cover everything from the use of X rays for treating cancer to the use of flower remedies and homeopathy to treat disease at the subtle etheric levels that can't be measured by modern tests.

On the sceptical side Richard Dawkins may refute homeopathy's validity as a medical intervention, but perhaps he should consider the possibility that it may be working on a more subtle level than is currently known to science. It may be working on one of the 4 etheric levels we have yet to measure and via the process that indicates physical illness first develops on the subtle planes of the mental and emotional level and then flows down to the physical.

The field of spirituality is necessarily a subjective one, dealing as it does with the inner life & consciousness of the individual and systems. And this is what has caused the problem. Every era, every civilisation, every persuasive thinker and inspirational speaker has influenced the emergence of religions and approaches, which have often only had relative application. We need a universal approach.

Conversely, science has not been relative in its methods or application and has as a result become the universally accepted method for collecting factual knowledge. And while it is far from perfect, its knowledge base will keep evolving, especially as the instruments used in studying both the outer & inner worlds become more and more powerful and more able to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of Matter and Spirit.

Of course, in the case of material science it is the physical instruments of microscope and laser beam that become more effective over time. In the inner search it is the development of the energy centres in our energy fields and the structures in the brain that can be used as sensitive, magnetic antennae to interface with the subtle worlds.

And it is in relation to these instruments that my call comes. If science does not consider the potential existence of inner instruments within our energy field or brain which enable us to have higher level, inner experiences, which no physical instrument can measure, then how will we ever be able to investigate and experience the subtle dynamics of Spirit?

This question raises the key issue which is that spiritual growth is not about belief or dogma, it is about our experience. And so only as more and more people of sane mind and body start to experience the truths of the subtle planes and inner states of consciousness and declare them to be the product of their experience, not imagination, only then will the world start to recognise that there may just be something behind the hypotheses that the spiritual adepts have put forward throughout history.

Testing key spiritual theories and practices is how spiritual science can parallel scientific research, but we must always recognise the subjective nature of our science and accept that false paths and spurious experience will be promoted by some for their own purposes or simply through lack of spiritual maturity. Furthermore, it will only be via the recognition and affirmation by the many of that which they know to be true, that a shift will come in the planet's spiritual consciousness.

Let us not forget that just like the Edisons and Einsteins of the physical sciences, there are “Edisons”and “Einsteins”within the spiritual traditions who have experienced these spiritual realities and have conveyed their experience to the world.

We have not yet built the instruments by which we can all experience and register the inflow of truth, love and awareness from our Source. We have not yet built the thread of light which creates the bridge between our intellect and intuitive mind. We have not yet learnt the laws for refining our emotions into love and our egocentric self-seeking into service to the whole community.

Only when a considered, universal and inclusive approach to spiritual understanding and practice emerges can we start to try to come together in the recognition of our shared divinity and recognise that the evolution of consciousness is our main purpose.

There are several modalities which need to be developed in order to help us to do this though these in no way supersede existing approaches to science, the arts, economics, religion, politics or business. Rather, their integrated application will help serve the enlightenment of every person in a grounded and gradual way and take them further, spiritualising their activities in their respective professions & skills. This, because these disciplines help us deepen our understanding of ourselves.

The point is that there are new disciplines that even now are in development and these disciplines each address particular aspects of the human nature in greater depth than current modalities. They include:

Esoteric Psychology

This discipline in its complete form systematically assesses the qualitative aspect of each person's personality and soul nature and thus identifies the necessary steps to help integrate one's personality life and express one's soul qualities.

Esoteric Meditation

These practices aim to build a thread of living light between the intellectual mind and the contemplative or higher mind we each have within us. Once this “bridge” between the two minds is built then “two way” communication is a matter of daily experience. Meditation helps to do this through a 5 step process which gradually allows access to the universal Mind where greater knowledge awaits us.

Esoteric Healing

This modality recognises the need to heal the person at inner levels, the cause being as important to treat as the effect or physical symptoms. It sees the origin of all disease occuring within the causal, mental and emotional levels of our being and then flowing outward to the etheric body & subtle nerves and from there to the glands and then the organs. Very simply any problem is diagnosed as either an over or under activity of the energy centre nearest the organs which are diseased.

So esoteric healing deals with the causes of disease at the emotional, mental and causal levels of the human energy field and so often works with energies yet to be understood by science. It can & should be used in conjunction with and complementary to allopathic medicine.

Esoteric Astrology

While astronomy studies the dynamics and laws of the physical universe, esoteric astrology as the true science of the stars deals with the subtle psychological and spiritual relationships between the macrocosm and microcosm. Esoteric astrology has nothing in common with the daily horoscope, but does have direct links with esoteric psychology, healing and meditation and can help reveal the true nature of the soul and the spiritual qualities of every entity in existence.

There is a system of understanding that has long been available to the student of the Ageless Wisdom, which is based on the theoretical and practical methods prescribed for those willing to seek them out.

So in closing I would recommend that we need to:

Start to construct the blueprint for a universal approach to spiritual growth.

Hence, I am recommending that we need to address the very valuable work within the Ageless Wisdom traditions which can build the link between science and spirituality and which takes a very precise and systematic approach to the identification of the laws of Matter & Spirit and the practices for revealing them within each person.

John Waters 30/12/09