When I was about ten years of age, my father left me a book to read called Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism by Yogi Ramacharaka. I picked up the book, it had a blue cover and reeked of age and something subtler, it had an immediate familiar feel as if I had reconnected with an old friend. The inside cover said it was published in 1903. The author’s name, Yogi Ramacharaka, spoke of the mysterious east; many years later in the age of the internet I was able to get some background on the author, which was entirely different to my assumption.
I began reading the book with intensity; its scope strained my young and unsophisticated mind. The effect was immediate, I felt for the first time I had come across a source of wisdom that actually spoke clearly of realities other than the physical with an authoritative and believable voice. It explored — or rather affirmed — the possibility of psychic powers, rebirth, the law of Karma, spiritual evolution and cosmic consciousness (and, in contrast to many later books, did not even mention hatha yoga exercises in any detail). Even though written in the romantic and old world style of the turn of the 20th century, it resonated with some part of me that immediately validated what was written.
A bomb had gone off in my pre-adolescent psyche. The horror, injustice and apparently very unkind father God of Catholicism with its lack of sanity (it seemed to me) in structures such as the taught concepts of hell, limbo, purgatory, which up to this point were all the religious and spiritual possibility available to me, was instantly lifted from my shoulders, even though struggling with the concepts expounded in the book, on the whole it felt like balm and a world and cosmological view I was much happier with.
You could say I became a yogi overnight; I remember lying on the couch with my parents nearby reading this book and feeling intensely happy as if I had reconnected with some part of me forgotten in birth which I had only now rediscovered. I felt a grand adventure had just begun.
Years later I came across one other person in my adult life who had also been profoundly influenced by books by the same author. With the advent of the internet, and the ability to locate any knowledge, I investigated the roots of this book and its creator and found that Yogi Ramacharaka was the pen name of an American ‘New Thought’ writer, William Walker Atkinson. Atkinson may have met or been influenced by someone called Yogi Ramacharaka or perhaps he just mashed together a lot of threads of Eastern thought into a homogeneous form palatable to the West. Whatever his motive it was a work of fiction but still conveyed enough truth to change my course in life.
A teacher or teaching influence may be a book or come through a book, or it may be a person. You could argue that life or the flow of experiences may function as a teacher and it clearly does as far as creating lessons by reflection.
I’ve always carried spiritual books with me and still do. I keep them close. Fictional works, often portrayed at least initially, as fact, have equally influenced me and have been found to be useful. I’m a little embarrassed to put Lobsang Rampa’s The Third Eye forward as an early influence. I still notice his books around in second hand book shops.
Carlos Castaneda’s series, on fictional shamans such as Don Juan is still a great read and packed with wisdom and creative possibilities gleaned from a subtle relationship with living entities and forces that surround them. The late spiritual teacher Osho, made an insightful comment on these two writers:
There are third-rate spiritual fictions and first-rate ones: if you want third-rate, then read Lobsang Rampa; if you want first-rate, then read Carlos Castaneda. He is a great master of fiction. But I say ninety-nine per cent fiction. One per cent of truth is there, hidden here and there; you will have to find it. It is good even to read it as fiction. Don’t bother about Rampa’s fiction, because it is rubbish created by a mediocre mind — and of course created for mediocre minds. But Carlos Castaneda is worth reading. When I say fiction I don’t mean don’t read him, I mean read him more carefully, because one per cent of truth is there. You will have to read it very carefully, but don’t swallow it completely because it is ninety-nine per cent fiction. (The white lotus)
An even earlier influence was the theosophical works of Madame Blavatsky and her associates. The fictional accounts of secret masters and spiritually romantic possibilities always seemed more like stories to me than actual events.
I think it’s fair to throw George Gurdjieff into the pot here as well. His tales were clearly (and often thankfully) fabricated, but then many have found utility with them.
Even Yogananda’s hugely influential, Autobiography of a Yogi, though based in fact, read with the gritty mindset of the 21st century tends to portray an idealized picture of spiritual life, perhaps embellished to suit the times he lived in and to make a good story.
So fictional or semi fictional spiritual works may be of use to anyone, and need not be discounted for that reason (of being less than factual), on the same basis that novels or, for instance the fictional plays of Shakespeare may contain ordinary wisdom.
Living spiritual teachers and influences are just as unpredictable and varied. I like Adi Da’s early mentor named Harold Freedman, he was a parlor mystic, interested in secret masters of the “mysterious east” ─now mostly removed of mystery─ and something of a dilettante perhaps, more of an armchair seeker, keeping a shroud of mystery around him. Many reading this may have met such influencers, the modern equivalent is still abundant and they may inspire a person to “move on”.
If you read my early life you will note that Father Spillane was an early solid spiritual influence and mentor. Though orthodox (with just the trace of an appreciation of the esoteric, to the degree allowed by the Catholic Church) he provided a human relationship as well as direction.
You cannot get the “relationship” part, from a book or course, that’s the human aspect and in many respects the one most avoided.
