THE NEW BELIEVERS

"Do you know how to tell a cult from a way?" I was asked. "By the smell?" "It is easy to join a cult - and very difficult to leave. To join a real way is difficult - but you can leave whenever you like". There is something in that. If a friend has found a way he believes to be authentic, he will wish me to appreciate it, to respect it, perhaps to join it if I feel it to be right for me. But certainly he will not try to persuade me, having realised how difficult it is to follow a way, and that each individual must make their own decision, in their own time. If I am looking for a way- and I may not even know that I am - how can I tell that a way is authentic? Only to the extent that I have searched inside to understand myself, can I develop discrimination and not be a prey to suggestibility. No understanding is possible unless there is an appreciation of levels, that in oneself and in everything, higher and lower levels exist, that there are differences in quality which are real. All true teachings recognise this. "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". A Jewish friend who knows ancient Hebrew tells me that the word translated as "fear" is not fear as we now understand it; "awe" would be a better translation. "Awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"- it is the recognition of the existence of something greater and higher than myself. If I do not recognise that, I have no basis for real discrimination, my "understanding" is built on sands. Real quality can only be recognised when one is in touch with real quality in oneself. There has always been, there is now, and there can only be, one truth. How that truth has been expressed has varied greatly over the ages, as different messengers from above have been sent down to us. The truth needs to be brought again and again as the old messages get lost in dogmatic formulations and as those who are supposed to transmit it lose discrimination and can no longer see what is essential. Religions and other Ways are meant to remind us - since in our daily lives we so easily forget - that here and now, higher levels exist. Reductionist science does not recognise this, and therefore the idea that there are different levels of being is regarded as meaningless. The being of a stone, of a plant , of an animal, of a human being, are each different. Even less recognised is the fact that the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a stone and of an animal. Those who have developed such discrimination will be able to agree who the really outstanding human beings of the twentieth century were; the list would be bound to include Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama, though there may be others much less well known. In sociology, such differences of level are not recognised. Since "The New Believers" is based on a sociological approach, we cannot expect to find in it real discrimination. The real facts which can only be seen by a human being in whom understanding has grown, will not be there. We might allow the complete omission of Ramana Maharshi on the grounds that his followers are not "new" believers, but on Krishnamurti we only find two small paragraphs buried in three and a half pages on theosophy. Yet the quality of the leader or leaders of a movement or way will determine what comes of it. Above all, what is the aim, where does it lead - does the way lead to transformation? And even before that we must ask what we mean by certain words. What is a sect? A cult? A religion? A way? Barrett's approach is that of a sociologist. He gives information on the origins of nearly 70 movements, their history, geographical distribution, leaders, beliefs and practices, numbers of adherents, schisms, and so on, information based on books and- beloved of sociologists - a questionnaire. He does not attempt to discriminate, because it is not the aim, or within the competence, of sociology. A reader who recognises and understands this, may find the book useful for reference, when he hears of some unfamiliar movement. Virtually all the movements described demand of their followers to believe, not only a set of beliefs but in some leader. Is this what we need now, in the Kali Yuga? Is it not time to ask ourselves why our civilisation and the culture (that is, the cultivation of individual human beings) on which it is based, is collapsing? How has this come about? How can it be understood? Is there something not right in us, something not as it was meant to be? What is a human being- as he ordinarily is, and in potentiality? Unless I find out for myself, through my own experience, will I really be convinced? Perhaps we need to be no-believers- if a real beginning is to be made.