The Rage of Spirit
By: Rev. Dr. William Wong

We are all used to those who are coming from a spiritual point of view to speak to us in soft dulcet tones brimming with understanding and forgiveness.  Most spiritual teachers, real or fake, try to come from a place of universal love.  In the case of the real ones, it's universal love for man and creation.  With the pretend teachers, it's the universal love of the money they make faking you out.  Either way their message is very Yin: Soft, peaceful and understanding.  Is there any other way for a spiritual teacher to be - you bet your ass there is!!!

When an "Age" of time gets short and folks, individually and as a root race need to progress to the next level, the higher forces (God, The Tao, The All that Is, The I AM that AM) send a very different breed of teacher to act as a motivator of sorts to those who are not getting "IT".  They send a very, very Yang teacher.  We see this contrast clearly when we look at the styles of two great founders of religions: Jesus and Mohammed.  When we look at the histories and scriptures, it is clear that Mohammed was told by spirit that he was to be the follow-up to Jesus.  He was to bring those who had not heard the "word" into the flock, punish those who had heard the teachings and adulterated them, and basically just be the stick to Jesus' having been the carrot.  Regardless of how things finally worked out historically, this is how Mohammed saw himself and his ordained mission.

Well, the year 2000 has come and gone.  Most went to sleep January 2nd of 2000 thinking - gee I'm still here; all that end of time stuff was just a bunch of crap.  The end of time was just that. But, the end of the "Age" has just started!  Sound funny?  The 20th century was marked by the most rapid advance in spirituality ever seen.  In Buddhist terms we entered the True Mahiana phase of history.  To understand this let me explain a bit of this Lotus sutra teaching.  The Buddha taught that there would be three phases of time in the faith he was establishing:  Heniyana, Provisional Mahiana and True Mahiana.  (I ask pardon if I have erred from the Standard English spelling of these three terms).  In the first, man was so course of soul that he could only attain enlightenment through great privations.  Attainment was as slow as wearing down a boulder by stroking it with a silk scarf once every hundred years!   That was Buddhism's first 1000 years.  

In the second phase, man was a bit more developed spiritually and attainment was easier but only just.  That was the second thousand years.  In the phase we have today in the third thousand years, attainment is ours almost for the asking.  We need to put in some hard work but it's no where near as bad or as hard as in the two former periods.  So from the 1900's on the doors were open to most of the esoteric teachings that bring man closer into union with the Creator.  Why?   The age was ending and the guardian spirits wanted all to be ready make the next move in our soul's evolution both as individuals and as the race of man.  

But since we're dealing with man, those good spirits (saints, angels, manu, divas what have you), knew that some lazy folks would need a kick in the backside to make them realize that something higher was indeed operating in their lives...  That there is something more to life than whatever they were into.

For those who pretend to be spiritual or religious, these spirits provided teachers who would ask eye opening questions, would hold dear very little that man thinks is important or even sacred and would be the voice screaming into their brains that they were screwing up.     

With those that were sincere believers in one thing or another that involved virtually slavery to a person, a philosophy, an organization or dogma; the good spirits provided for tough thinking teachers to draw a sword and shatter the chains that bind those souls in useless servitude.  

At least that's the way it's supposed to work!  But man being what he is, things don't always work out that way.  

To the indoctrinated Yin spirituality crowd these teachers are too brash, too self-assured too loud.  They spoke with too much self-assurance.  These timid souls find comfort in soft chanting, easy to follow lectures and slow as molasses in Antarctica progress.  Well so be it.

The religionists are shocked at the disregard these brash teachers have for the "traditions" their faiths have over-laid onto the founder's original teachings.  If the founder of every religion from Taoism to Bah Hi were to return within 150 years of their leaving, I dare say they would barely recognize their own teachings!  The first generation of disciples from any teacher follow the dictates of the founder as faithfully as they remember or understood their Guru.  But like a game of telephone the message deteriorates over time and has parts deleted from it and unoriginal parts added onto it.  Take 20 children, whisper a message to the first one and have them whisper the message as they received it on down the line.  We all know what happens to the message.  Within 3 generations of any great teacher the bean counting empire builders who have little if any of the founders light or energy has replaced the original zealous disciples.  If you study the history of ANY faith you'll see this dynamic in action.  Things only get worse from there.  So many of the religionists refuse to open their ears to the original flavor and spirit of their own founder's way.  Those folks won't graduate with their class either.  

To the foo-foo crystal guided thralls of fake teachers; well true light is bad for the income!  No, the slave masters will take their lemmings and heard them away from being able to hear words of liberation. Poison cool-aid anyone? Another batch of souls "lost".  

After a while these special mission or "Green Beret" spiritual teachers begin to get real miffed that they are being pooh-poohed, made fun of, discounted, disregarded and have negative thoughts and things thrown in their direction.  When the guiding spirit of truth wants to speak through them they can act like Jonha and go in the opposite direction from where the Creator's Spirit wants them to be.  More times than not they wind up in the whales belly being brought by circumstances to a point where they must speak their truth regardless of how badly it is received.   

The Sioux called these shamans "Sour Belly Men".   These enlightened but poor souls had the unenviable job of calling bullshit on bullshit, usually to the aggravation of most.   Guided by the Great Spirit they had light others did not, a light many foo-foo teachers and dogmatists were jealous of.  No wonder their bellies were sour!  

To add insult to injury, what makes the situation much worse to bear for these teachers than just having a sour belly is the fact that all of those teachers volunteered to be here!  They had all balanced their actions and debts (karma).  They had achieved a state of enlightenment that meant they could progress ahead of the class to the next level or to Mystical Union (being One) with the Creator.  These folks chose to postpone their own graduation and even risk being set back in class for the good of the "many".  In the Far East, these teachers are called Bhodisatvas.  Life on earth has taught them the wisdom of the military saying that goes..." there are fools, there are dammed fools and then there are volunteers"!  Sour belly to the max!

To you tens of thousands of angry Bhodisatvas out there the next two installments of these spiritual teachings will be for you; two chapters from a book of mine that never got to be published.  To all the rest of you other folks, read those teachings.  Realize just who the angry Bhodisatvas are around you, these modern Sour Belly men and women.  Realize the sacrifice those loud and pissed off spiritual teachers have made for your sake.  More importantly listen to their message and implement it, after all it's your ass that's on the line.   The Bhodisatvas may be miffed but their upward passage is assured, they don't need your being convinced of their truth to attain Mystical Union.  If you don't listen, he or she may have their feelings hurt initially but in the long run the one who gets left back in this kindergarten from hell is you.  How's that to sour your belly!