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[Vineeto to Gary]: When I discovered how gullible I had been and how much I was sucked
into all that Eastern spiritual gobbledygook, it seemed to me that at some time in life I had had a choice and decided to be
gullible in life. Eventually I came to understand that everybody is born into this world as a helpless and already instinctually
programmed creature. As such, they have to choicelessly believe whatever those who are feeding and clothing them are propagating
to be the truth. Our social conditioning is a history of believing what others are telling us. We learn to believe from the very
first word spoken to us and beliefs and psittacisms are a big part of our social identity. There is no way to avoid having beliefs
but once I tore a hole into the thick layer of beliefs that I considered the Truth, there were no holds barred. What a relief to
discover that one is able to get rid of them, isn’t it? <snip>
The dread of ‘divine punishment’ was very real to me for some time – ‘what
if everyone is right after all and I end up in (Eastern) hell?’ Each time one steps away from humanity’s beliefs to stand on
one’s own two feet, there is this mad feeling of ‘oh dear, what have I done?’ And yet, when discovering the actual
underneath the belief, the actual is so self-evidently obvious that I always thought ‘how come I haven’t seen this before, how
come nobody tells you about it, how come nobody else sees this?’
The psychic world of divine and evil, with its atavistic feelings and psychic power
structures, is not to be dismissed lightly. It is not a small thing we are doing, stepping out of ancient psychic history and
leaving behind at least 3,500 years of recorded superstition and belief, hope for heaven and fear of hell. I encountered fears of
being burnt as a witch, expelled from the tribe or starved to death – which in not so recent history were not just psychic
imagined fears. These fears all seem to be woven as an ancient memory in our brain cells and are automatically triggered the
moment one dares to steps out of the tribal, religious or social group one has belonged to.
Two things always helped me to overcome those fear-attacks – one was the obvious fact
that feelings are not actual. Nobody is actually persecuting me or physically threatening me. The other thing is the understanding
that I am deliberately and actively dismantling my very ‘self’, all of ‘who I think and feel I am’ and of course that will
rock the boat, it wouldn’t be an actual change if it didn’t! Then, the journey becomes really thrilling ... <snip>
I always say, spirituality was the best on offer at the time. The longer these God-men
promote their wisdom and lifestyle in the West, the more they are coming under observation and scrutiny, and reports of their
deeds are spreading with the help of modern communication. Soon there won’t be much left that is not known about a life of a
God-man. The mystery and mystique of enlightenment, so important in maintaining reverence and faith, is more and more being
examined in the light of how, or indeed if, the holy men are living their own teachings. The lies and confusion that enlightened
people are promoting and acting out, in the name of God’s will, are now public knowledge, and the internet is one of the best
tools to make this knowledge known to whoever wants to know.
Ramesh Balesekar’s callous fatalism, Adi Da’s extensive sexual orgies, St. John de
Ruiter’s message from God to take two more wives into his existing family, Ma Anmachi’s disciplinarian cruelty, M. Rajneesh’s
criminal scandals in Oregon, J. Krishnamurti’s secret love affair with his best friend’s wife, Barry Longs’ philosophy of
the golden rod that transmits divine grace, Ishwara Maitreya’s mad utterings of God’s latest wisdom, the Actual Supreme Being
who deeply apologizes 13 times on one single page for the mess he created in the world ... once one starts looking with the clear
eyes of a non-believer, there is plenty of dirt and insanity to discover, masquerading in the name of Love and Compassion. There
are no good gurus and bad gurus, as some people, who only find fault with one and not the other, are trying to point out – the
very institution of enlightenment is rotten to the core.
In my process of disentangling myself from being a disciple I discovered two components
to religious belief – one, as you said was the lure of ‘immortality, Truth, Timelessness’, aspiring to achieve an
imaginary perfection in enlightenment, and the other was love, my affective belief in the master’s ultimate authority and my
inferiority. 
Vineeto to Gary 3.8.2000
