Selections from the essay Beyond The Cultic Tendency In Religion and Spirituality, and In Secular Society by Avatar Adi Da Samraj

I Speak critically of the conventional (or childish, and, otherwise, adolescent) orientation of “Guru-cultism”. Such cultism is a tendency that has always been present in the “religious” and Spiritual traditions of humankind. Anciently, and in the present time, both true Spiritual Masters and ordinary Wisdom-Teachers have been “cultified”, and (thereby) made the merely fascinating “Object” of a self-contained popular movement that worships the Spiritual Master as a Parent-like Savior, while embracing very little of the significant Wisdom-Teaching of the Spiritual Master.

The error of conventional cultism is precisely this childish, and (otherwise) adolescent, and (altogether) ego-based orientation to fascination with Spiritual Masters, Wisdom-Teachers, “God”-Ideas, myths, sacred lore, inherited beliefs, traditional propaganda, and psycho-physical (or merely body-mind-based) mysticism. And the cultic tendency in “religion” and Spirituality is the essence of what is wrong with conventional “religion” and Spirituality.

The “problem” is not that there Is no Real God, or that there are no true Wisdom-Teachings, or that there are no true Spiritual Masters, or that there should be no devotion to any true Spiritual Masters. The “problem” with conventional “religion” and Spirituality is the same as the “problem” of all ordinary life. The “problem” is the childish, and (otherwise) rather adolescent, egoism that is the basis of all forms of ordinary existence.

The relationship to Me that is Described (by Me) in My Reality-Teaching is not an exoteric cultic matter. It is a profound esoteric discipline, necessarily associated with real and serious and mature practice. Therefore, I am critical of the ego-based practices of childish, and (otherwise) adolescent, and (altogether) merely exoteric cultism.

—Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Aletheon

Selections from the essay Do Not Misunderstand Me by Avatar Adi Da Samraj

Human beings always tend to encircle (and, thereby, to contain—and, ultimately, to entrap and abuse, or even to blithely ignore) the presumed “center” of their lives—a book, a person, a symbol, an idea, or whatever. They tend to encircle the “center” (or the “middle”), and they tend to seek to exclusively acquire all “things” (or all power of control) for the circle (or toward the “middle”) of themselves. In this manner, the group becomes an ego (“inward”-directed, or separate and separative)—just as the apparently individual body-mind becomes, by “self”-referring “self”-contraction, the separate and separative ego-“I” (“inward”-directed, or ego-centric—and exclusively acquiring all “things”, or all power of control, for itself). Thus, by self-contraction upon the presumed “center” of their lives—human beings, in their collective ego-centricity, make “cults” (or bewildered and frightened “centers” of power, and control, and exclusion) in every area of life.

Just as in every other area of human life, the tendency of all those who (in the modern era) would become involved in “religious” or even Spiritual life is also to make a “cult”, a circle that ever increases its separate and separative dimensions—beginning from the “center”, surrounding it, and (perhaps) even (ultimately) controlling it (such that it altogether ceases to be effective, or even interesting). Such “cultism” is ego-based, and ego-reinforcing—and, no matter how “esoteric” it presumes itself to be, it is (as in the ancient setting) entirely exoteric, or (at least) more and more limited to (and by) merely social (and gross physical) activities and conditions.

From birth, the human being (by reaction to the blows and limits of psycho-physical existence) begins to presume separate existence to be his or her very nature—and, on that basis, the human individual spends his or her entire life generating and serving a circle of ownership (or “self”-protecting acquisition) all around the ego-“I”. The egoic motive encloses all the other beings it can acquire, all the “things” it can acquire, all the states and thoughts it can acquire—all the possible emblems, symbols, “experiences”, and sensations it can possibly acquire. Therefore, when any human being begins to involve himself or herself in some “religious” (or even Spiritual) association (or, for that matter, any extension of his or her own egoic “subjectivity”), he or she tends again to “create” that same circle about a “center”.

The “cult” (whether of “religion”, or of politics, or of science, or of popular culture) is a dramatization of egoity, of separativeness, even of the entrapment and betrayal of the “center” (or the “middle”), by one and all. Therefore, I have always Refused to assume the role and the position of the “man in the middle”—and I have always (from the beginning of My formal Work of Teaching and Blessing) Criticized, Resisted, and Shouted About the “cultic” (or ego-based, and ego-reinforcing, and merely “talking” and “believing”, and not understanding and not really practicing) “school” (or tendency) of ordinary “religious” (and even would-be-Spiritual) life. Indeed, the true devotional and Transcendental Spiritual relationship to Me is an always (and specifically, and intensively) counter-“cultic” (or truly non-“cultic”, and inherently non-“religious”) process.

I do not Call My devotees to become absorbed into a “cultic” gang of exoteric and ego-centric “religionists”. I certainly Call all My devotees to always create and maintain cooperative sacred culture (and to enter into fully cooperative collective and personal relationship) with one another—but not to do so in an egoic, separative, “world”-excluding, xenophobic, and intolerant manner. Rather, My devotees are Called, by Me, to transcend egoity—through right and true devotional (and, in due course, Transcendental Spiritual) relationship to Me, and mutually tolerant and peaceful cooperation with one another, and all-tolerating (cooperative and compassionate and all-loving and all-including) relationship with all of mankind (and with even all beings).

I do not make or accept the “cultic” (or ego-made, and ego-reinforcing) approach to Me. I do not make or accept the seeking ego’s “cult” of the “man in the middle”. I am not a self-deluded ego-man—making much of himself, and looking to include everyone-and-everything around himself for the sake of social and political power. To be the “man in the middle” is to be in a humanly-made trap, an absurd mummery of “cultic” devices that enshrines and perpetuates the ego-“I” in one and all. Therefore, I do not make or accept the “religion”-making “cult” of egoic humankind. I do not and will not accept and suffer the inevitable “religious” abuses of Transcendental Spirituality, of Truth Itself, of Reality Itself, and of My Own Person (even in bodily human Form) that are (or would be) made (in endless blows and mockeries) by ego-based humankind, even whenever The Great Esoteric Truth of devotion to any Adept-Realizer is not rightly understood and rightly practiced.

—Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Aletheon

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