GARY: However, I am not angry at religion or the God-men, and I am not angry at myself for believing them. I am, rather, incredulous at my own gullibility, my own susceptibility to the influence of others. The goods that they had to offer me – immortality, Truth, Timelessness – no longer tantalize.

VINEETO: 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.

For me, questioning authority itself and tracing it back to my belief in God, by whatever name, was the first step out of the spiritual world, and questioning the authority of the master was the second step. When my belief in and need for authority disappeared, love and loyalty for the master successively disappeared as well. I was then able to watch video tapes of his discourses without the soothing veil of love and trust, and I squirmed in disbelief at the lies, inanities, half-truths, power games and outright ancient mumble jumble that was suddenly revealed. Before I had used the discourses as hypnotic devices to be lulled into ‘silencing the mind’, feeling good and love for all – however, this time, without the affective cloak the great words of Wisdom looked shockingly bare. Of course, for some time I tried to find excuses for Rajneesh as well as the other god-men, but eventually that turned out to be an impossible task the more I could admit to having been conned through and through by one who was a master of his trade. God-men are nothing but con-men, sucking and luring admiring disciples into their scheme of self-aggrandizement, and most of the time they seem to be convinced of their own delusion. But they are bound to have times of doubt or even clarity, when the delusion is less thick – that’s why Richard says the enlightened ones have ‘feet of clay’. Nobody except Richard, particularly no enlightened master, has dared to ask the obvious question – why, with all that all-encompassing Love and Compassion is there no improvement upon peace on earth after 3,500 years of enlightened history? They claim to have all the knowledge and yet they are leading everyone into the land of fantasy and fervent imagination.

Now that there is a Third Alternative, we can finally dare to acknowledge that there was indeed ‘something rotten in Babylon’ and ever since.

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VINEETO: It is fascinating to read your ‘It was so self-evidently self-aggrandizing’ – such a simple statement about a simple fact. Everyone else I am corresponding with at present is frantically defending Love, Beauty, Supreme Intelligence, Compassion, the Unknown, universal Consciousness and whatever other names they have invented for their God. To acknowledge the fact that god is a mere figment of passionate imagination is more than most will bear.

GARY: No, I am not into defending these ideals and I will not. It was hard for me, looking back at it in retrospect, to admit of my former hero’s (Krishnamurti’s) debauches with his friend’s wife. At the time, I did not see the relevance of inquiring into what he did or didn’t do. But I am looking at that differently now. I think the critical thing is to be harmless. What an enormous hypocrisy to say things out of one side of your mouth while practising something differently in your personal life. I will not be disingenuous.

VINEETO: Before I met Peter and later Richard, I had not consciously questioned how and if the spiritual teachings were lived by the gurus themselves. It is one of their useful tricks, that the master is always exempt from his own teaching. He has already ‘got it’ and you, the disciple, have to practice humility, austerity, discipline, meditation, listening, etc. etc.

A whole new world opened up when I started questioning what was the practical outcome of the spiritual teachings in the master’s life, for his disciples and for the people who had lived the teachings of his lineage – in my case the Indian people. Had anything improved because of the teachings? Had my own life improved? Had my relationships to others become more loving, peaceful, happy? When enlightened, would I be living like the master? Did I like his lifestyle? How was he with women? How did he use power? Was it possible for everyone of his supposed 10,000 disciples to live like he did, all at the same time? Who would serve whom? Who would earn a living? Who would clean, cook and build the houses?

I started to put all the master’s seductive and soothing words to the test of common sense and was astounded that nothing added up. Not only was his teaching full of deliberate contradictions, but also it completely disregarded common sense. When I started to search for facts, there were more gaps than coherence. The teachings and the cult was only held together by the love, devotion and desire for enlightenment of his disciples. The further I investigated, the more I found dis-ingenuity combined with corruption, lies, extreme egotism, power games of the highest order, denial, greed, blaming the disciples and malicious competition with other gurus. Once I questioned and removed the overriding moral rule that you should never ever think for yourself and determine what is fact and what is belief, a whole Pandora box of rotten revelations followed.

As an aside – the latest guru gossip has it that John de Ruiter, the new kid on the block, was told by Truth to invite two female disciples into his household and it was Truth that told him to lie to his wife about the nature of his relationship to them. The Truth told him to lie, cute eh? Nothing stays hidden in the bright daylight of the internet.

RESPONDENT to Alan: A question has just popped into my mind. I have heard Richard say on many occasions that there would be no benefit for anybody to be in his presence for he is just immensely enjoying every moment of being alive as a body and there is no energy or anything psychic in his presence. But isn’t it rare to see a person enjoying himself so much every minute of his life? I am wondering why he said that. Probably to discourage any possibility of a cult developing around himself.

As someone who sees Richard in person from time to time, I can confirm his statement that there is indeed not a flick of psychic energy emanating from him that would help anyone to proceed faster with Actual Freedom. Nor does he have the ability to read someone’s mind or heart, manipulate another’s energy through psychic power or transmit any wordless Wisdom. This is 180 degrees opposite to any spiritual teaching, where sitting in the Presence of the Master is deemed vital for one’s progress and for the transmission of Love, Compassion and the Truth That Cannot be Talked About. An example is this description about St. John de Ruiter’s Satsangs –

[quote]: John walks in and sits at the front of the room facing everyone. For about the first half-hour he sits in silence and ‘connects’ with people. People sit quietly and relax into the ‘energy’, either looking at John or with their eyes closed. ‘Connecting’ means looking into someone’s eyes and merging with them ... connecting with their Being. Most people describe some sort of phenomena occurring when they merge with John. Many see his face change and see colours around him; many people describe a sensation of peace, tingling, and oneness.

I have heard critics (outsiders) describe the ‘staring’ as an aggressive act by John, but it is the exact opposite. Some people in John’s group have started ‘connecting’ amongst themselves ... it is a very loving act and people describe experiences similar to those experienced when connecting with John, but to a lesser degree. Report from a local Satsang with John deRuiter

VINEETO: It is indeed ‘rare to see a person enjoying himself so much every minute of his life’ and rare to meet a benevolent fellow human being, relating to others intimately in utter equity and parity. Yet, as Alan will readily confirm, in order to learn how to become happy and harmless, the two million words written so far on The Actual Freedom Trust web site are sufficient to convey the method and answer every possible objection to becoming free from the Human Condition. To proceed on the path to Actual Freedom Richard’s presence is not needed at all, actuality can be discovered independently of meeting him in person because it is already always here under our very noses.

The Third Alternative, having been discovered by a daring pioneer, can now be pursued by anybody who wants to become actually free, exactly as nobody now needs to know Christopher Columbus in person who wants to travel from Europe to America. Any cultic activity would only serve to avoid changing the only person one can change, oneself.