Cults Today & Yesterday

What is the definition of a cult? Where can we see examples of cults? They are everywhere, and in places we don’t realize. Whenever a group of people raise up a leader
And worship him or her as superior to themselves, or look to them for salvation, you have the recipe for a cult. The problem lies in both the leader actually believing the he or she is superior, and the followers affirming and supporting that illusion. This happens in New Age religious sects, political organizations, and even countries, such as North Korea, Cuba, etc. You could also see this phenomenon in the corporate world and in the cult of celebrity that Hollywood and the media perpetrate daily on TV, in the movies and other medium. Look at the phenomenon of “the apprentice “with Donald Trump or Martha Stewart. Although pretty harmless at first glance, the basic elements are in place for cult like following or behavior. The idea that anyone would want to emulate these people is pretty sad in our society.

But contemporary culture or New Age religion is not the only area that we can see this. How about Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Maoism, Stalinism, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and so on and so forth. Now I’m not making value judgments here. However, each one of these situations is cult like. Jesus didn’t establish Christianity, his followers did. They made him into an idol and deceived humanity by proclaiming that he could save them. Jesus never actually said this. He rightly pointed that through his state of consciousness,

Which was egoless and pure, one with life, humanity could be saved. He also said that we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, once again pointing to the state of pure conscious awareness that we can see in children. Free from the obsessive thinking ego mind. He said that the Father was within him as well as within us all. In the Gospel of Thomas he clearly states that each of us must find salvation within the deepest dimension of our minds, hearts, and soul, not by some magic hocus pocus. He said that we must take up our own cross and follow.

Today’s religions, both old and new would still prefer to hide in the shadow of their leaders so they can avoid the naked process of true salvation, which means to surrender completely and align themselves with the such ness of life in every moment. Jesus was simply the profound teacher and Zen master. Not someone to create a cult around.

Humanity must find this pure conscious awareness that is beyond form that can liberate us all from the dominance and suffering of Ego. Ego is the fundamental illness of all humanity. It makes us all insane to one degree or another. Whenever you suffer there you will find Ego and its drama. Pure Conscious Awareness doesn’t make anyone special or better that the other. It is within all of us as our true divine nature. It allows us to see the sameness or connection to the one life that we are. It helps us completely recover our basic Sanity as human beings, and frees us from the burden of human doings. If we believe that our basic identity is defined by what we do and not who we are already as a human being, then we suffer from the mental disease of thinking we are a human doing. This is insanity at its basic level. Have you ever watched a person on the street talking out loud to themselves? Most people think that such a person is crazy. However, almost all of humanity does the same thing in their mind all the time as well. At least the so-called crazy person has the guts to do it openly. The rest of us are cowards! Drop the mental dialogue to your illusory self the Ego. It is a fiction that lives on psychological past and future mind made thought forms. If we also raise it up within ourselves to a position of superiority or give it any sense of self, we are our own cult!