I almost didn’t survive my experience of leaving a cult. But after 14 years, I finally found the path to healing from trauma and abuse. Ironically, it was the last place I expected to heal my body, mind, heart, and soul. Within my own self.
Fifteen years ago I learned I was living in a cult, a place I had lived for 14 years of my life here on earth. After endless hours of research, I learned to my horror that I had not been in an ordinary cult.
I was ensnared in a horrible, twisted sex cult where the leader had been molesting women and raping girls as young as 12 his entire life. The rapes had started in his youth, according to the mother of three of his grandchildren. He had raped everyone in his small Indian village of Mangarh.
When I learned the truth about this guru and his sidekick, who helped him run his con game in the U.S. I was shocked, appalled, and sick to the core of my being. I wondered how in the hell the trajectory of my life could have brought me in such close proximity to such demented individuals and all of their twisted associates (aka accomplices).
Seeking Spiritual Healing
My ex-cult was not one of the cults that has garnered worldwide attention. In my cult, there was no cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, no brands seared into our bodies, no shootouts with local authorities, and no devotees trying to poison the locals at a salad bar.
However, in my ex-cult, there was significant damage inflicted in many other ways — and particularly on the most innocent among us. The children. Specifically, the female children. The main guru was a lifelong child rapist of young girls.
Many of the adults also experienced pain — and in several forms. Some were sexually abused. Many were emotional abused. Those of us who faced the reality and spoke out had to deal with verbal and mental attacks.
All these created deep, lingering pain and suffering. When it happens, you’re hurt. You’re humiliated. You’re traumatized. You feel stupid. And, what’s worse, there are few recourses available for dealing with the suffering you experienced.
I tried several things in an attempt to heal. I tried therapy. I went to a cult education retreat. I read books. I watched videos. I tried to give up on spirituality all together and just live in the world like a normal person.
In hindsight, I know that while getting some temporary relief from these different ways to heal, none of them lead to the deep healing I needed to get over what I’d experienced and get on with my life.
Losing My Religion
Another form of pain that former cult members typically suffer from is the pain of losing their religion. Because they had such horrendous, negative, life-altering experiences in their ex-cults, when they finally get up the courage to leave they often leave their spiritual pursuit behind them, too. I certainly did.
After I escaped my ex-cult, I wanted nothing to do with religion. If there was a God, I believed that he or she had failed me in a big way. I had once been an innocent, naïve spiritual seeker. And in my pure seeking I found one of the most disgusting human beings to ever bestride the earth along with all his most worshipful supporters.
Was that fair to me? I didn’t think so. I came out of the cult a jaded person who was dealing with such deep-seated pain and trauma that I began to think I could never be healed. I believed I had to continue living a fractured life. But that is not really a life at all.
In the big picture, this is the cruelest thing that fake gurus (and they are all fake) take from trusting followers. After all, the whole reason we are here on this planet is to find our way back from where we came. That is just one of the thousands of profound lessons I learned on my new spiritual path.
True Awakening
About nine years after leaving my ex-cult, I restarted my spiritual life as abruptly as I’d stopped it. A lone comment from a speaker at an event was the spark. Once the match was lit, there was no putting it out. I realized that what I am and have always been is a spiritual seeker. It was time for me to continue my true journey.
However, this time my search was more advanced. This was largely due to the fact that now I was a lot more cautious about what would study and believe. Instead, of pursing spiritual wisdom in the typical ways, I start reading obscure books and watching little-known videos on esoteric spiritual topics.
I studied topics like Gnosticism, Hermeticism, alchemy, and archetypes. I also studied a few more popular topics, like tarot, chakras, astrology, and the Kabbalah. I always looked for the esoteric (internal) message versus the exoteric (external) message.
Slowly, I began to find the ancient spiritual secrets. They emerged in the form of random nuggets of wisdom I encountered — and from making connections between various new insights. It was like putting together a giant complicated jigsaw puzzle.
The process of awakening is a lot like that. We gather nuggets of wisdom, and then we make the connections in our consciousness. No one can merely tell us. And no one can do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. But we need the right nuggets of wisdom.
I began to see that each new insight I gained was a small awakening. I found that reaching our spiritual goal is not one big awakening — it’s a thousand (or a million) little awakenings.
A Thousand Little Awakenings
Here are just a few of the many awakenings I’ve experienced since realigning my life with my spiritual pursuit:
- All the answers you seek you already know. It’s not about learning the many truths of our existence — it’s about remembering them. This means you do not need a guru. In fact, they just get in your way.
- Christ is not a person. Christ consciousness is the state of being that we should be striving to achieve, because it’s the doorway to the divine world.
- The Bhagavad Gita is not about an actual war that took place on earth. It’s about the battle that rages within each of between our spiritual self and our material self.
- There is an original source of spiritual wisdom, and every religion has pulled from that source to create their own worldview. In modern times, that original source is called Gnosticism. If you study gnosis the right way, it will open doors to insights you never knew existed.
- In the beginning, the divine consciousness (God) instructed us in the path to seeking higher wisdom. For example, it’s our job to separate truth from nontruth — in other words, to separate darkness from light.
For me, 2023 will be about deepening my spirituality — placing it above all material pursuits. This year is also about sharing. I haven’t yet shared much about my spiritual journey and the insights I’ve gained. But I recognize that now is the time.
If you follow me on The Inner Wisdom Project, over time I’ll share what I’ve learned with you — all thousand plus awakenings.
1 comment
Cheers!