28 ... Return Those who feel they never will have spiritual thirst also feel an unbridgeable chasm between themselves and those who have this thirst. They are murderously jealous and engage in violent calumny against persons journeying Godward. Of course, the harm they cause is to themselves, not to their targets.

The calumny of the reprobate cannot affect the career of the elect, a fact that is not always self-evident, even for the elect! This is another aspect we will not discuss here.

29 ... Return Once spiritual thirst has been brought into being, sadhana (spiritual discipline) continues forwardly and upwardly, driven by the spiritual thirst itself. This is an important thing to understand.

The motivation of Life is internal. The source of energy is indigenous to the personality. Tyranny is libel and fanaticism is betrayal of a person's actuality.

Internal motivation is the only kind that is self-sustaining. It draws upon the deep well-springs of Being. It is in the fullest sense, reliable. Even God has to get out of the way of His disciple.

30 ... Return A spiritual preceptor is a guide, not a director, an aid, not a leader. Ultimately, a spiritual preceptor has to retire to a subordinate position and let the seeker carry on by their own light, which is eminently sufficient to the task.

Sadhana (spiritual discipline) has its own dynamic and its own logic. It also has its own timing. Only Sages and Avathars can be Spiritual Preceptors, and in the Presence of Avathars, even Sages have to retire. A spiritual seeker is to a Sage as a candle is to the Sun. A Sage is to an Avathar as a Sun is to the Big Bang. The proportionality should be appreciated.

31 ... Return Before a Living Master has selected one for onward movement, one tracks about restlessly in the trackless desert of sensory pleasure. Self-confidence is at zero. Self-satisfaction never arrives. Self-sacrifice is an impossibility.

Once the Master taps, however, spiritual thirst, the internal motivator, is ignited and the road to Peace is set out upon.

32 ... Return Struggle between conflicting impulses is now the hallmark of life: struggle to see the right, and then, struggle to do the right. Combat fierce and mortal alternates with periods of exhaustion. Battles are won. Battles are lost. Rival demands appear equally matched, at best, and frequently, downward and backward impulses appear to have the advantage over upward and forward ones, bad over good. Every victory is followed by a defeat and every defeat by a victory.

The sense of true progress is lost, finally, amid despair-inducing doubt regarding the supremacy of good or evil, right or wrong.

33 ... Return At this point, the first primal experience (passage) occurs. Or, it can occur. It will occur eventually, but the when is a matter of destiny, which, for ordinary mortals, is inscrutable.

Now, before we discuss this first passage, which is called Turning Godward, some apposites are needed, some more lemmas.

34 ... Return First, a summary. The teleology of a Spirit may be represented as:

Restless Wandering

Ignition Of Spiritual Thirst

Seeing Multiplicity (Dualism)

TURNING GODWARD

Seeing Communality (Qualified Non-Dualism)

CRUCIFIXION

Seeing By Intuition (Non-Dualism)

EMERGENCE IN THE ABSOLUTE

The Goal

35 ... Return Next, we should try to appreciate the typological and topological difference between conversion and repentance, on the one hand, and Turning Godward, on the other.

36 ... Return The ignition of spiritual thirst by the Hand of a Living Master has two effects, one latent and immediate, the other patent and proximate. The latent and immediate effect is an experience that is called conversion. Full in the flood of sensory gratification -- concupiscence (appetites) is St. Augustine's word -- a person experiences a reversal of their life's course, a reversal (con versus) impelled by the [what is for them] novel phenomenon of interior motivation, namely, spiritual thirst. The person has been arrested by Providence.

Ordinary people do not recognize conversion because it is latent. What they see is its companion, the patent and proximate effect of the ignition of spiritual thirst, namely, repentance. Repentance is conversion placed into practice. It is a visible, remarkable turning away from the former way of living and a facing in exactly the opposite direction. Repentance is the placing into deeds of the experience called conversion.

Indeed, repentance is the sign that conversion has occurred. If repentance does not occur, if the manner of living is not exactly reversed, it is because conversion did not occur. In other words, spiritual thirst was not ignited. The Hand of a Living Master was not present to begin with. So the conversion was spurious and conversion did not occur.

"By their fruits ....'  'The proof of the pudding ...."

37 ... Return Conversion and repentance are the very pre-school of sadhana (spiritual discipline). They are associated with the initial phenomenon of spiritual life: contact with the Hand of a Living Master. Conversion occurs immediately on that contact and repentance follows shortly thereafter.

Conversion is the moment of interior turning from sensory entanglements towards Peace, or even, towards the Self. It is a retrograde movement, away from the direction of current travel, which is towards dissipation, concupiscence, and back towards the point of departure, innocence, which one never should have left. Repentance is the doing of what conversion implies and promises: the actual retracing of steps.

The purpose of conversion and repentance is not to gain ground but only to regain ground that has been lost through the deliberate foolishness of concupiscent living. Conversion and repentance do not put us into positives. They only bring us back from a long slide into negatives. They bring us back to zero, to innocence.

38 ... Return The significance of these assertions should be grasped. Too much is claimed for conversion and repentance. They are necessary, but they are a pre-school only. They are not even the primary school of sadhana (spiritual discipline).

Click on this image for a larger version.

While conversion and repentance are happy events, they are not commendable ones. There is always the feeling, which is justified, that they should not have been necessary, that the slide into negatives is not essential teleology of human nature and need not have occurred.

39 ... Return Our expectation is that when an individual experiences conversion, they either expand as they started or they recidivate, lapse. In the best of cases we expect to see an identifiably continuous line of development running from conversion to dissolution, death. And we expect that the life building around this line will expand as a single cone does from its apex and axis: without typological or topological discontinuity.

We are prepared to observe variation and, perhaps, mutation, but we do not expect transformation to occur during sadhana (spiritual discipline) once conversion has. Conversion is all the transformation an individual needs -- so we think.

In other words, we expect that the morphology of a converted life will be continuous, not discontinuous.

40 ... Return The fact, however, is that each of the three primal experiences we are to discuss comprises typological and topological transformation of the aspirant. Transformations far beyond conversion(/repentance) are unavoidable and necessary if a person is to keep progressing Godward, Goal-ward.

41 ... Return A person's first primal experience, the first time they feel discontinuity, transformation, is when they are compelled to a [what is for them] fundamentally new epistemological set, during the primal passage that is called Turning Godward. This is the first move forward that a Spirit undergoes.

Conversion and repentance are not primal experiences because they are not a move forward into a fundamentally new epistemological set. They are not typologically and topologically discontinuous with previous experience. They send one back through familiar territory, back in the direction one just needlessly and naughtily came. They are retrograde movement, not forward movement.

The standard is zero. The outcome is innocence. The lowest common denominator is what one should be. The minimum acceptable condition is purity of heart.

42 ... Return The ignition of spiritual thirst, in the form of conversion and repentance, can appear to be a move forward because it is a move towards positives, but it is not a move within positives and so, really speaking, it is not a move forward. It is not experienced as a passage, a primal transformation, and so it is not treated as such.

Conversion(/repentance) and Turning Godward are not synonyms. They are different moments altogether. Turning Godward is the first passage experienced as such in a life of sadhana (spiritual discipline).

This fact should be strongly and clearly understood. If it is not, divers weak-minded premises arrive, promote doubt and cause confusion, which stifles vision and, ipso facto, spiritual progress. Be warned.

43 ... Return Turning Godward is not a given of conversion. An individual who recoups from negatives does not necessarily gain in positives. Conversion sets one in a positive direction but not in positives per se. Turning Godward, alone, does that -- and then, only for a period.

44 ... Return To the right of zero is a whole new field of operations: positives. Entrance upon this field is awarded to those who have passed the admissions test, which is, completion of the first primal experience (passage), Turning Godward.

45 ... Return Before a person can Turn Godward, they have to repent fully, retrace their steps and regain what was lost: their innocence. They must get back to zero. God does not accept damaged goods.

All who set out towards zero get there. All who are touched by the Hand of a Living Master convert and repent their way back to innocence. This is a fact.

But, of those who get back to zero, few Turn Godward. Most recidivate. Apostatize is the technical term. Their minds are too weak to undergo the sublime [and, from the outside, terrifying] experience of Turning Godward. So they turn away and head back into negatives. Today, most clergy of all religions are in this condition. They are apostates. Apostasy is treason in the spiritual realm. It is the most vile crime available to human capacity.

46 ... Return There is no muddling through in sadhana (spiritual discipline). One goes forward or backward, and from zero, backward is apostasy.

47 ... Return Some whom weakness prevents from onward movement try to content themselves by declaring that zero is the Goal and that they are there or near there.

They know better. Zero is three fundamental transformations short of the Goal. Declaring zero to be the Goal, and oneself to be there or near there is an arrogance that can be manufactured from one or more of several disingenuities:

For example, there are these common disingenuities:

'WE ARE ALL ONE.'

This is the capitol epistemological mischief called
superficial Vedantha or false unity (pantheism).


'SURELY YOU DON'T EXPECT ME ....'

This is plain cowardice.


'WHO ARE YOU TO SAY-KNOW-JUDGE ABOUT ME?

This is banal contumely.

48 ... Return These disingenuities, or, epistemological howlers, are persistent travel-mates of the human species. They are always very old and always very young. They are cognitive off- routes caused by epistemological error: taking the world for the world, or, in Bateson's ribald diction, 'eating the menu instead of the meal.'

False Unity, Superficial Vedantha. In Christian experience, this off-route is illustrated, anciently, by the heresy of Catharism, and, modernly, by the New Age movement.

Cowardice. In Christian experience, this off-route is illustrated, anciently, by the heresies of Manicheanism and Docetism, and, modernly, by the Fundamentalist movement (Manicheanism), on the one hand, and the mainline denominations (Docetism), on the other.

Contumely. In Christian experience, this off-route is illustrated, anciently, by the heresy of Albigensianism, which is a species of the heresy of Catharism, and, modernly, by the Evangelical and Pentecostal movements inside the mainline denominations.

49 ... Return An adept is able to read a person's condition of Grace. For example, a person caught in the glittering whirlpool of sensory pleasure can be there for one of four reasons:

	they have never been touched by the Hand of a Living Master and are traveling head-
	long negatively;

	they have been touched by the Hand and are traveling backwards, towards zero, but
	their journey is not complete and some old habits still inhere;

	although they claim to be converted and repenting, heading towards zero, they are
	neither converted nor repenting and are heading towards deeper negatives;  or,

	they have been touched by the Hand, they have converted and repented, they have
	reached zero, they have declined onward movement (Turning Godward) and now they are
	apostatizing into negatives, public relations (psychological warfare) statements from them
	to the opposite effect notwithstanding!

50 ... Return Obviously, the true nature of a person's condition of Grace is the key to how they should be treated. It is also the key to what to expect from them. A repentant heading towards zero and an apostate who has been at zero and recoiled may appear to exhibit similar behavior. But their behavior cannot be similar because its genius is different. One is constructive. One is viciously destructive.

This phenomenon invites the depiction of Anti-Christ clothed in the dignity of spiritual office. As the saying goes, a vestment does not make a bishop and ordination does not make a priest. Nor does baptism make a believer. You who can hear, hear and be vigilant.

51 ... Return An adept is able to read, appreciate and react appropriately to the genius of behavior. It is this genius and not the behavior itself that determines the outcome of behavior. The genius, therefore, is the important factor. The ability to read interiorities, geniuses, is the bulwark of human welfare.

52 ... Return While the Five-Dimensional Phenomenality that is Life cannot be described by a two- dimensional semantics, it can be usefully indicated:

Click on this image for a larger version.

53 ... Return The first primal experience (passage) is called Turning Godward. It is a significant moment for a life. It happens once. It is induced, usually, by a sharp physical blow, often to the head, specifically. The subject is made to understand that the blow was just shy of mortal, on no other account than Divine Will, and that a mortal blow was deserved.

The stories of Saints are replete with examples:

54 ... Return A young desert anchorite named Hieronymus (St. Jerome, San Geronimo) lay dying of fever. He heard the brethren digging his grave. A Voice, not ordinary, asked if he was a Christian. He answered affirmatively. But the Voice denied it: 'No!,' It said, 'You are a Ciceronian!'

Whereupon, Hieronymus received a thrashing, administered by no human hand, that bruised and bled his body and caused shrieking pain. And this only minutes before an ordinary fever would have killed him anyway!! His body already at the portal of oblivion, his Spirit was now pulverized. In terror and unable to avoid the heavy blows, Hieronymus promised to put away Cicero and other pagan writers and concentrate on Sacred Scripture, alone. Sola Scriptura!

The beating stopped. The fever was gone.

The brethren, astonished by his condition attesting a rain of blows, yet mindful of his recovery, called it a miracle. Slowly and steadily, Jerome regained strength. He ignored pagan authors and began to collate and codify the Sacred Scriptures, which was to be his life's work. He had Turned Godward.

Soon, a Lion came out of the desert and remained at Jerome's door until the Latin Vulgate Text was completed. Then It returned ....