Spiritual Advancement By Richard Kieninger The great Teachers and Sages of the world all have recommended essentially the same formula for spiritual advancement. Significantly, their formula never involves occult techniques or strange practices, and it is effective and safe. Briefly stated, the formula requires the aspirant to refine his character, practice high morality, gain knowledge of Truth and assume self-responsibility. This section describes what to avoid, what the blind alleys are and activities never to do. Although the listed life-negating activities are easy to understand, avoiding them is a lifelong challenge for students of the Brotherhoods’ way. Fortunately, the rewards for those that overcome are impressive and gratifying, and extraordinary mental powers naturally accrue to spiritually-evolved men and women. Many people on a so-called spiritual path are mainly interested in acquiring powers like astral travel, telepathy, ESP and clairvoyance, which are traditionally the outer evidences of inner greatness. Unfortunately, having these powers does not necessarily convey spiritual development, and the techniques to gain them often lead people into gravely dangerous complications. There are many systems, some centuries old, being promoted today which promise the student great mental powers and relatively rapid spiritual advancement. Sorry to say, many of these systems are either risky or ineffective, and are sometimes both. One of the main problems is that most systems of instruction reverse the cause-and-effect relationship between spiritual greatness and the special mental powers that naturally result. The approach is to try to teach people to gain occult powers first and claim that a collection of such powers will result in saintliness. Struggling to learn techniques that are claimed to convey mental powers does not result in spiritual growth but rather is likely to lead to the student’s unwise or unscrupulous use of those powers, if indeed he can actually learn them. A person is almost certain to lose spiritual advancement by employing occult and spiritist practices. Virtually any earnest effort one makes toward self-improvement, using any discipline, results in a noticeable change, and this encourages followers to believe they have found the one true system or teacher. However, to quantify positive effects is another matter. The measure of a given system’s effectiveness should be the determining factor as to whether that system is worth one’s effort, time, and expense. Probably everything works to some degree, but I believe most of the well-advertised systems are less than one percent effective. And I should add that a person rarely gains spiritually within the traditional religions because they are so watered down for the masses that they emphasize faith and obedience rather than showing the way to personally becoming a saint. The Creator did not design us to require electronic or bio-feedback instruments to achieve spiritual fulfillment, and I doubt that He ever intended that we deliver ourselves into domination by spirits or clever occult manipulators of human brain functions. The time-tested, natural path to spiritual greatness may not have the popular appeal of schools claiming to deliver bliss and powers over others, but the natural way works; and it is safe and it is joyful. This section identifies, to the discriminating spiritual aspirant, what he might be getting himself into by pursuing a given system, and what his likely benefits and risks will be. The information gives a brief overview of the old, new, conventional, and far-out paths profferred as spiritual growth (or enslavement, as the case may be) techniques. Hopefully, the information will be of assistance to the student as he sorts out today’s smorgasbord of competing philosophies, religions, and cults.
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