I often find that ancient notions, although maybe applicable then, have only slight benefits for this contemporary era. Can the genuine peace that will reveal Shambhala be uncovered through "gradual paths" like the Abrahamic religions, hinduism, hinayana Buddhism?
Most aware people would accept the statement that it takes a thousand lifetimes as a Christian to realize the Heart-mind,...perhaps a hundred lifetimes as a Hindu,...and ten lifetimes as a Mahayana Buddhist,...but in all cases, the threshold of uncovering one's light, the Short Path is realized,...realization in a single lifetime.
http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/23/1
I'm not suggesting that everyone immediately enters the Short Path, but that everyone should be familiar that the Short Path is the ultimate, supreme path,...not the "gradual paths".
The "gradual paths" should not propagandize that their's is the way,...the "gradual paths" are all kindergarten.
We truly need a Spiritual Cast system,...that is how Shambhala can be opened for all,...even the deluded, like those of the Abrahamic faiths.
Remember what Ken Wilber said?
"To dare to even speak about radical transformation, let alone call other people to a higher level, is against the unstated rules. And of course, one's definitely going to be put in one's place for doing something like that. But unless the possibility of genuine transformation is actually declared, unless one is willing to demonstrate it publicallyand to call other people to the same, no one is even going to know that it's possible. And than unknowingly, everybody's going to be participating in the conspiracy of mediocrity.
The conspiracy of mediocrity is basically the conspiracy to express your own ego instead of transcending it or letting go of it. The idea has become "if I can really emote and express my self-contriction with sincerity, I'm somehow spiritual". Actually, people who are involved in this boomeritis even deny the importance of Enlightenment or Awakening, because that's saying some states are higher than others - and we shouldn't be so judgemental. But guess what? Some states are higher. And so the entire raison d'etre gets tossed out because it offends the pluralistist ego.
The spiritual experience, which ideally should be a stepping stone to less ego and greater transparency, has become a victim of our therapeutic culture, where we don't make judgements because that would hurt egoic self-esteem, and so all we do is embrace, console, and celebrate the personal self. Spiritual practice has become nothing more than a form of therapy where self-acceptance rather than ego-transcendence is the goal. And the problem is that therapists are basically pimps for samsara. They want to hold onto the egoic self-contraction and make it feel good about itself.
This conspiracy of mediocrity is very unfortunate. The great promise of the human potential movement was very straightforward - there are higher human potentials. Now, from the therapeutic culture, people say, "wait a minute. you're saying there are higher potentials, so does that mean I'm lower? because that can't be right". All of a sudden it implied a judgement, and nobody's allowed to be higher because that means someone else is going to be lower. And you're not allowed to call anybody lower; therefore nobody's allowed to be higher.
So the Human Potential movement got derailed and was replaced by this therapeutic self-expression, self-acceptence movement, which catastrophically prevents higher transformation and mystical breakthroughs. What is missing in the New Age Community is real intellectual vigor. Under the therapeutic culture, if you feel good, you're enlightened. That is mediocrity, and a conspiracy toward mediocrity."
In our current therapeutic society people don't want to see that what they thought was meaningful may actually be meaningless.