acolyte /ˈakəˌlīt/

My blog profile blurb once read something like this: “I am a seeker, poet, counselor, […] alchemist and priest… in training.” Something like that.

And what I meant is that these are the directions I was moving and the kind of functions I was dabbling in; the pursuits which had become meaningful and applicable to me in various manners which lie rather outside the normal workings of our commercial society. And I suspect that any regular readers of this blog would get what I meant.

A friend said to me pointedly, “Have you been ordained? Because you might be misleading people here.”

I confessed I had not been ordained in terms of actual ceremony under the structures of popular religions and their recruitment of seekers of lucrative employment. Nor, for that matter had I received any organized instruction with the regards to the manufacture of gold out of lead. But I do possess notable insights into each. Regardless, the meaning was not meant to be literal.

The friend advised that I should not make any untrue claims and I took this under advisement and later (possibly for another reason) changed my profile blurb to a quote which I’d been trying to track the source of for years! I loved the quote because it seemed to speak from my very own heart and say precisely what I most cherished. And finally I discovered the source, by the way. I discovered its very genesis in multiple versions in my very own handwriting! I had loved the quote for its intimacy with my own feelings because I had written the damn thing myself! And this is not the first time I haven’t recognized my own work. I’m going to have to start copywriting my work simply to make sure I remember it’s my own!

But I digress.

Am I ordained? In the ordinary sense, of course not. For a time though, I thought some form of priesthood a wise choice of pursuits but I could not find a religion which my own solid understandings could fully support. Humanism came so very close but it was too devoid of legitimate joy; of wonder and spirituality; of regard for miracle.

Look at me still digressing.

I have since remembered the reason I put priest (in training) on my blog profile. Because beyond the regular societal use of the word (and our society bears no ownership of language by the way), I did indeed qualify by my honest interpretation. I was – in theory only, without practical experience – a qualified leader of a new religion: a fully integrated system of thought, understanding, life-guidance  and problem-solving structure. A religion which chooses not to employ the term religion but which possesses the dogma of comparable scope to that found in the books of Hinduism or Christianity for instance. A religion with one founder, one leader and one participant: me, myself and I! A religion without the numbers to suggest legitimacy of the banal standard but with a global consolidation of theory and applicability which frankly blows the mainstream religions away, by my own priorities, because (according to all honest dissection it has so far suffered under my own auditing) it:

1. appears to cover all the worldly and spiritual landscapes as the big religions.

2. appears to unite said big religions under a common compatible set of understandings.

3. appears fully compatible with the living experience of human beings as interpreted by the clear mind and the five senses.

4. appears fully in line with the application of logic without resorting to “God works in mysterious ways” or other such cop-outs.

5. does not suffer constant (or any) self-contradictions (especially the constant contradictions concerning violence and punishment versus mercy and peace).

6. appears fully in line with the science of the day (and without requiring obscure translations to do so).

7. appears fully compatible with the teachings of eminent, perhaps preeminent, spiritual author Eckhart Tolle.

8. appears to include, and fully consolidate, all relevant areas of human and worldly consequence, leaving no measurable gaps or mysteries.

9. appears to supply the attainable solutions to any conceivable problem.

Do you believe this claim? Does it seem outrageous? Too lofty to be true? It’s not actually a big deal if you consider that these landscapes are far less complex than we might otherwise interpret once you see through all the fog and fragmentation of the illusions of mind and society. Regardless, I don’t invite belief or even suggest belief; only awareness that the claim exists. That is all.

My, what grandeur I must suffer from, eh? I must think I’m a Jesus or Buddha, right? What I think is that Jesus and Buddha were ordinary humans who were merely untethered from the constant bindings which suffocate normal society and were simply free to think simply, and were blessed with the opportunity to avoid a lot of distracting, time-consuming work of a normal role in their societies, and the associated stresses. 

I don’t at all think that Jesus or the Buddha did anything which is beyond the reach of normal humans and that the belief otherwise, the putting them on a pedestal, is among the most harmful consequences of normal religions.

And if my above claim is true and is enough to qualify the work a religion-of-sorts, then regardless of the rite of ordination and its legal bearing, I would best qualify its leader, at least for now, in the current absence of someone more qualified, whom I would eagerly invite or subscribe to, for I interpret that my leadership skills are lacking.

Although, where among the above nine qualifiers is its “holy” book? Alas there is none. Its “scriptures” are here, there and everywhere and very much incomplete. And frankly I wonder if all the remaining undocumented material is still retrievable from my mind.

I have so very often tinkered about with plans and short-lived attempts at creating such a tome and the scope of the project feels often unbearable. It is simply so big and interconnected that organizing it all looms a monstrous beast.

I do possess a skeletal framework though (which only Neo has seen), which is workable I think, yet somewhat flexible and arbitrary in arrangement, which I produced years ago and which organizes the broad landscape into a hierarchy of eighty-something sections, mapped by prerequisites. Some sections would require further breakdown into chapters.

Perhaps my two attempts to write the thing from the beginning toward distant end, in quite contrasting styles, were the wrong ways to go, and I should simply expand on the framework in gradual stages; building it outward in rings instead of trying to travel the linear circumference.   

Sometimes I wonder what the point is in bothering with such a project? My closest trusted associates seem to suggest it may be unnecessary. The result will be so huge and unsuitable to any known genre of book that no publisher will touch it. Yet perhaps this claim above is the very reason. Perhaps I need to write it just for myself so that I can observe the result and confirm that yes, a piece of written evidence exists to support my claim above, and on the rare days I might wish to call myself “priest in training,” here is my qualification!