The Seekers After Truth

Seeking after Truth

This was to be the engine of my leaving the Jesuits, and I imagined my path to self-discovery. In the early fall of 1973, I had just found rooms in the faculty residence of the American Baptist Seminary of the West, enrolled as a special student at the Jesuit School of Theology Berkeley. I called Bob Ochs and he gave me a phone number. A rather deadpan voice told me to be at an address on Hearst Avenue at 7 PM on a Tuesday night for a meeting of Claudio Naranjo’s newest group of The Seekers after Truth. I think we were SAT 2.

I always thought that the title was a bit presumptuous. Imagine a bunch of ragtag hippies, including dope smokers freely experimenting with all sorts of drugs, styling themselves after a group of disciplined Sufis who engage on an esoteric journey of self-examination in the name of the highest truth available to humankind. A far cry from the group Gurdjieff describes in "Meetings with Remarkable Men," but it was the name that Naranjo chose and the one he stuck with.

In New Age California there had been precedents. A guy named Sam had become an authorized Sufi master, one or two Americans had returned from Japan as Zen Roshis. Another man who had followed in the steps of the Americans who had ventured into Hindu meditation practice claimed authority as a realized saint changing his name several times, almost at whim although he claimed or invented a rational for each new simplification. And who am I to challenge the depth of these inner experiences?

What are some characteristics that run through most of these attempts at working with inner sciences that might be useful?

They are mostly a group endeavor. Whether “The Group,” or “The School,” or “The Sangha,” there’s usually a gathering of like-minded individuals who decide to work together.

There is usually a teacher, or a source of the teaching.

There is a commitment to sharing inner experience.

There is, and I think this is not necessarily explicit, but there’s an intellectual rigor, even a spiritual commitment to follow to the path wherever it might lead.

There are promises, in some cases vows, that people make as a condition of joining.