My Guide

"If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there."

George Harrison wrote in "Any Road" the line above, which evoques the dialogue between Alice and the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

The former Beatle has devoted much of his life to a mystical spiritual quest. He lived in India for a long time in contact with the Hindu religion, searching of spiritual knowledge.Like many other people in the West, he was lured by the charm that springs from eastern religions and spiritual doctrines and was seduced by their aura of mystery, as well as by their promise of peace and spiritual enlightenment. George Harrison however has never found, through his long spiritual journey, the one and true God, because he did not know where he was going and, therefore, where to look for Him.

The pagan view of the world often acknowledges the existence of one universal God. It conceives of a Creator God who either absolutely transcends his creation or who is absolutely immanent to it, as in the pantheistic philosophy. However, this concept of God is deistic, that is, it does not acknowlege the existence of a personal manifestation of God, neither the ongoing relationship of God with His creation. In this cosmogony, God created the universe and its laws, but it does not interfere with it.

Deism therefore sees the created being as relying solely on his own judgment to guide his life. Some Deists however admit the existence of a preordained purpose for their lives but believe that it's always up to them alone to discover and fulfill that purpose.

The mystical aspect of Deism however, believes that to every person, in addition to his own insight, is also available the guidance of spiritual beings who are considered to belong to a higher evolutionary rank, and are called angels, guides, masters, etc.. According to those mystics, the Universe (with a capital U) is a living being, which manages to help every person to figure out the ultimate purpose of their existence. It depends therefore on each individual to identify himself with these spiritual beings, and be aware of the "signs" the Universe sends them in order to drive their lives.

These people marvel at a phenomenon that Carl Jung has called synchronicity, according to which some facts are not related to each other in a causal way, but rather by a common meaning. According to the Mystical Deism worldview, the universe would be responsible for concatenating these events in order to guide us in the proper direction, following an existing purpose for our lives.

However, there's actually no such entity called "The Universe" or "The Universal Spirit." The universe is not a living being in itself, it's the work of God and God is not to be mistaken for it, since those are totally distinct entities. God utterly transcends his creation and the only sense in which He is immanent to it is that His creation reflects His own image, like a work of art reflects the spirit of the artist. The universe absolutely does not "conspire" to our favor, as some mystics deists believe, but rather, the spiritual beings that dwell in the spiritual realms do certainly have an interest in our fate, and their intentions are not always noble.

Many of these beings have achieved great intelectual prowess and power and seek followers. The fact is that we become subject to the influence of those who we choose to follow. If we endorse the ideology of a philosopher or a religious leader or a politician, we align ourselves, explicitly or not, with the agenda of this philosopher or leader. As is stated in the Bible:

"Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?" Romans 6:16

In the material world we live in the most elementary level of consciousness. One can certainly achieve, through specific training, higher levels of consciousness, as in Buddhist meditation, which taps the infinitely wider and deeper ontological awareness . This sublime state of consciousness makes for a mental condition often described as existential unity, which is often confused with the full human emancipation and spiritual fulfillment.

No higher level of consciousness however, can promote a real communion with God and it is only this communion that sets us free from the bondage of sin and enlightens our spirit. This reconciliation and communion can only happen by means of the personal manifestation of God in the world, through his Spirit and through the person of Jesus Christ his only Son, the only way of attaining the true spiritual freedom. It's through this personal relationship with God that we identify ourselves with His will and that He can effectively guide our lives.

But if we don't believe that God can guide us personally, we are left only to trust our own judgment, or the orientation of other people or spiritual beings, which we consider as being intellectually or spiritually better-equipped than us and therefore qualified to guide us. By choosing to abide by the guidelines of these entities, we are lining up, tacitly or not, with their ideology. This is a naive and dangerous option though, for two basic reasons.

First off, because it takes for granted the nonexistence of evil spiritual beings of any kind or, at least, the immunity of those who venture into the spiritual reality, regarding any possible evil influences. Mystical Deists believe in a moral neutrality of spiritual entities and that only those who believe in evil are subject to their influence. This is a serious mistake, because alike the material world, there are actually spiritual beings in the spiritual world whose nature is inherently evil.

Only God can protect from the harmful influences that exist in the spiritual world and if we are not in constant communion with Him, we venture into this reality at our own risk, which is a reckless attitude to say the least.

The second reason is that we make a serious error when believing that a spiritual being, just because being able to communicate in a supernatural way with a living being, introducing himself as someone trustful and sometimes of high spiritual rank, and/or showing deep knowledge and intellectual coherence, is therefore reliable and that his teachings are necessarily true.

Jesus, when going to the Father, said He would send to the world the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, to teach us everything we need to know about the spiritual reality. This is the true enlightenment and is available to all mankind, not just to a group of insiders, or adherents of a religion. Only what is revealed by God through his Word and his Spirit, is really true and reliable.

Much of the spiritual knowledge acquired by occult and pagan mystics are just theories, a product of musings of their own or conveyed by spiritual beings - evil or not - who have no full knowledge of this reality. But much of this occult spiritual knowledge, even when true, is not only useless for the real human spiritual liberation, which is only possible through Christ. This knowledge is actually very harmful, and although it may often seem to favor those who hold and practice it, it's only useful to move man away from his Creator, leading him by devious ways, according to the agenda of its authors.

When the human heart does not earnestly yearn to know God, but is rather moved by vanity and greed for spiritual knowledge, it's easily diverted from the true path of freedom and fulfillment, which is Jesus Christ. There are beings, in the spiritual world, who are moved by the same ambition and are eager to offer themselves as guides and teachers, making use of both religions and sects to amass a legion of human apostles, who are willing to serve them as messengers and promoters of his doctrines.

It's true that even those who really love God can also temporarily wander through tortuous spiritual paths. However, because in their hearts they know where they come from and where they are going, they are able to eventually find the true path leading to the house of the Father. They hear His voice and heed his call.