Doubt Everything Find Your Own Light.

By Ali Sina

A few months ago, in my community center I picked up a newspaper and read about a new Messiah called John de Ruiter, the hot shot guru from Canada whom some reckon to be "bigger than Jesus". The article was an interview with his 18 years wife Joyce and the mother of his three children. She was rejecting the claim of her husband to be God, as is believed by his followers. A man worshiped as God may shock a Muslim but not a Christian who accepts the concept of trinity and Jesus as walking God among men. 

After many years of forbearance Joyce De Ruiter could not bear it any longer and one day she stood in front of his congregation and complained about her husband's sexual affairs with two of his young and beautiful followers. These two girls are sisters and their parents who are also the followers of John de Ruiter, are ecstatic to know that God makes love to their daughters. The funny thing is that the followers of this new messiah know about the sexual interludes of their master but few give a second thought about it. Once people accept someone as a superior being, a messiah or a messenger of God they become blind to all his flaws and commend even his sins. No Muslim today, e.g. would approve promiscuity. Womanizing and lustfulness is considered immorality. Yet the same Muslims accept with no difficulty Muhammad's polyamory relationships with a score of women: some his wives, some his maids, some his shares of the booties from the spoils of his wars and some who just offered themselves to him.  

De Ruiter has told his congregation that "Truth has told him" to sleep with these girls. How many of his brainwashed followers asked whether "Truth" has a mouth to speak? But when someone surrenders his intelligence to someone else, he becomes a zombie who will believe anything. Truth is a concept not a person or a being. How can a concept talk or communicate? 

De Ruiter denies these relationships are actual affairs, because he claims to be bonded to these women in a spiritual realm (Apparently Mr. De Ruiter's spiritual realm is in his bed).  "To me it's not infidelity, (says the self proclaimed savior of Mankind) It's not unfaithfulness because my heart is still completely with Joyce." Moreover being a god his copulation with these two beautiful well-trimmed young sisters is not for lust but it is the expression of his profound love for others and that his threesomes with them has "spiritual significance", explains in a most relaxed and holy manner the "Guru of Gurus".     

edmontonjournal.com wrties: 

"While extramarital affairs are in many ways the private business of the parties involved, in this case they indicate a willingness within de Ruiter's group to accept behaviour that violates cultural norms, says a local academic.

Sociologist Steve Kent worries the lack of controversy within the group over the adultery is indicative of the charismatic sway de Ruiter has with followers."

Among his followers there is a well established psychologist who claims that after 30 years of practice he has no doubt of John’s mental health and that he is who he claims to be. 

Yesterday in my neighborhood market, I saw his flyer pined to the billboard. It was an invitation to his conferences with these words: 

“John de Ruiter: Master of transformation; living embodiment and teacher of Truth. “

And;

“Through the living essence of Truth emanating from his words and from his presence, John de Ruiter awakens what our hearts most long for…”

See his web site http://www.johnderuiter.com/

These self-acclaimed prophets, messengers and messiahs rehash ideas that are either commonsense and people already know and accept or state empty phrases that at first seem to have a profound meaning. For example De Ruiter says, “Truth is knowable without restriction, however only honesty through openness and softness of heart reveals it”. This is absurd. Truth is the state of being factual. It has nothing to do with openness and softness of heart, it has everything to do with doubting, with rational thinking and facts.  Yet despite the frivolity and banality of his teachings there is no want of idiots who would follow him blindly calling him the “master of transformation”, Impressed by such deceiving yet shallow phrases such as above.

For those who cannot see a mentally disturbed man behind those blue eyes of John de Ruiter a quick review of his writings reveal the confusion and incoherence of his thoughts. Words are jumbled in tautological statements and hollow speeches that leave the listener gasping for meaning while the redundancy of vibrant words such as "Truth" and "consciousness" subliminally suggests that something very profound is being said that its full meaning eludes the ken of the listener. But after reading few of his speeches, after getting over his monotonous catchphrases and mulling on their contents one learns that there is nothing to be learned there from.   

The curt and affirmative phrases of John the Ruiter have an uncanny resemblance to the assertive verses of Quran, and perhaps those who think Quran is a miracle; will find De Ruiter's senseless and void writings much to their liking. 

I looked at the picture of one of De Ruiter's conferences and saw the attendees were well-dressed middle-class people most of them supposedly with university degree. I asked myself what is it that these people see in this confused and disturbed man? Why so many educated and "apparently smart" people are so eager to surrender their intelligence to charlatans like John de Ruiter and other imposters like him?   

It seems that people are looking for the Truth and guidance in all the wrong places. We somehow believe that there is someone who can tell us what to do and what route to take sparing us from making responsible decisions on our own. We feed the multi million-dollar psychic network industry in the search of response and finance multi billion-dollar religious industry in the hope of salvation. We look for magic bullets; we believe in fairies, angels and ghosts. We follow gurus and prophets because we are not willing to take the responsibility of our lives in our own hands, think with our own brains and live conscientiously.

Until there are people who want to be followers, there will come those who will claim to be leaders. Until people think like sheep, there will be wolves that pose as shepherds. Until we are willing to give free ride, there will come those who will take us for a ride. 

But the real religion starts taking form when these self-proclaimed prophets and gurus die. Then their devotees fabricate myths and legends, attribute miracles to them and portray them as gods and demigods. This is how Jesus was born from a virgin, how he multiplied the bread, how he walked on the waters, how he resurrected the dead and how he himself raised from the death. And this is how thousands of hadithes were created narrating that Muhammad produced waters from between his fingers, multiplied the food to feed an army, spat in a dry well and it gushed with water, split the moon with his sword or when he went to relieve himself the stones moved around to hide his naked butts. 

These fables pass from one generation to another and eventually the passage of time seals their credibility until everyone believes in them considering their antiquity and their universal acceptance the proof of their truthfulness and the veracity of the claims of their prophets. 

But can anyone really tell us how to find the truth?  Is there any religion that can lead us to salvation? 

Obviously, the truth is one and it is absolute. It is unchanging, eternal and infinite. If you believe in God, irrespective of your idea of it, you believe that God is the Absolute Truth. The question is whether humans with their limited intellect can grasp the Absolute Truth? Can the finite contain the infinite? Can a cup hold an ocean?

If I am aware of my limited capacity of understanding, I am aware of my ignorance. I know that I don’t know. The truth may be one and infinite but can I grasp it? The answer is no! Yet that does not mean that I should stop searching. In order to understand, I have to ask, I have to be open and non-judgmental, but also I have to realize that I will never find the entire truth.

To reach this level of openness, one has to realize that his thoughts and beliefs are not his but are the outcome of his education and the influence of his environment. In other words, our present beliefs are the result of our past learning. Since every day we learn more, our understanding of the Truth also expands and therefore differs. Heraclitus once said, "you cannot cross the same river twice", because the next time those waters are not the same and you too have changed. As we change our beliefs change too. This happens gradually and subconsciously, even if we consciously resist the change. During the course of our lives we constantly change and with that our views of reality change simultaneously.

Once I know that the change is the constant. I don’t have to hold to my beliefs with tooth and nail. I know they are bound to change. I become detached. I will not try to impose them on others nor I will try to preach or sermon others. I will not try to lead people to the right path as I realize that truth is pathless. Truth is not something that you can reach or grasp. Truth is not a destination. No one can lead you to it because it is not a place. No one can show it to you because it is not a thing.

The process of discovering the truth is not unlike the experiments done by scientists to understand how things work; it starts by making theories, but accepting to discard them once those theories are proven wrong. This is the scientific approach.

Galileo doubted the commonly accepted notion of the geocentric universe. He found that the truth was much different from what was universally believed. Many learned men of his time, simply accepted the conventional belief. We remember him and have forgotten them. Darwin is another example. Although a very religious man, he questioned and doubted the biblical story of creation and thus found out the mystery of evolution. All discoveries are made after doubting and questioning the validity of the commonly accepted and the time honored beliefs.

Spiritual realities are not dissimilar with scientific ones and the same process of doubting and questioning should be used to unravel the hidden mysteries of the spiritual domain. We have to doubt everything, including our own beliefs. When we doubt, we question, we learn and we change our mind. Although we will never learn the truth, we can get closer to it. Truth cannot be contained, not in a mind and definitely not in a book. If the knowledge of God is infinite how can an infinite knowledge be contained in few pages of a book?  

Once we learn something new, we don’t discard our previous beliefs but our understanding of it changes. I do not discard the Divine reality. Just like Galileo who did not reject the Earth but people’s understanding of it, I do not reject God but people’s understanding of it. For example, the whole notion of a personal God that does not care about us for four billion years of evolution and then suddenly, when we have evolved and become humans with a little bit of intelligence, appears in our lives, hiding behind the clouds of secrecy, telling us irrational stories through less than educated men whom he sends as messengers, demanding us to worship him or roast us for eternity in his cosmic rotisserie, does not make sense. The stories in Quran (and the Bible) are absurd. The pathetic efforts of the apologists to explain and justify them are ridiculous. The teachings of these religions are no more applicable. They seem barbaric and outdated. Their definition of God, next word, and the purpose of creation seem so primitive. Their social teachings are harsh and inhumane. Islam certainly is not from God and so all other religions.

All religions once tested with rational thinking fail. I am not saying that the truth is somewhere else or that I have found it! Only an impostor or a fool could make such claim. The truth cannot be found in a doctrine or religion. That realization is liberating.

It is time that we stopped looking at other people for guidance. As long as people are willing to be fooled, there will come those who fool them. As long as they want to be followers, there won't be shortage of charlatans who will mislead them.

Doubt everything that you are told and believe. When you doubt you empty the glass of your mind and become receptive to new knowledge, but don’t hold fast to that knowledge either. Be open and let yet fresher insights breath new life into your mind.  Religions demand absolute and blind faith. They claim to be the ultimate truth. If you think the faith is superior to doubt, you don’t doubt. When you don’t doubt, you don’t search and when you don’t search you don’t find.

One of my favorite teachers is Krishnamurti. I find no better way to end this article than by quoting him. "The core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said:

'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, and beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual."

For more information, please explore the following website. The above text and more will be under excerpts and core teachings. http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de:1895

Last Words

Dear friend, if you look for meaning in life, don’t look for it in religions; don’t go from one cult to another or from one guru to the next. You can expend all your life or look for eternity and will find nothing but disappointment and disillusionment. Look instead in service to humanity. You will find “meaning” in your love for other human beings. You can experience God when you help someone who needs your help. The only truth that counts is the love that we have for each other. This is absolute and real. The rest is mirage, fancies of human imagination and fallacies of our own making.