#esalen

The priests are against, have always been against, real spirituality. This has to be understood. Jesus was crucified by the rabbis—the priests. Buddha was opposed by the brahmins—the priests. Attempts on the life of Mahavira were made by the priests. Strange… it seems whenever they find a man who is genuinely spiritual, they want to kill him. There must be some reason behind it. The reason is that if real spirituality spreads, religion will disappear. Religions are substitute spirituality, saccharin. And if you can get real sugar, who bothers about saccharin? And the latest findings say saccharin creates cancer! The priest is pretending to be your spiritual leader, just pretending. He knows nothing of silence, he knows nothing of reality. He is still talking like primitive people five thousand years ago to a God who does not exist. He is preaching to you from books which are complete rubbish. Just look in the Bible, anywhere—you need not try to find rubbish, it will find you. And it is not only the Bible, the same is true about the Koran, about the Vedas. But priests are imposing the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, on people. And on every child when he is innocent, when he is a clean slate, parents start writing Catholicism, communism, or anything they want. The priest starts programming the child. By the time he can think on his own, he has lost his thinking intelligence. The program, the conditioning has created a big wall between himself and his being. Now he will remain always outside the home, somewhere on the porch, thinking, ‘This is my palace.’ America is dominated too much by Christian priests, Jewish rabbis. And if a few young people escape from the rabbis and the Christian priests, then they get caught by people like Esalen, EST, Muktananda, Satchidananda. These people—Satchidananda, Muktananda, Hari Bhajan—they are in the same profession as the Christian priest. And in a way they are more dangerous, because they bring you new words, a new language, and you start thinking, perhaps you have found the way. EST and Esalen-type movements exploit the youth.

Joyce Byers (Season One) and Mad Men costumes

When the waters rise within, the waters rise without and inversely.