Why did you leave the School?

What do you say when someone you knew inside the organization, and not even too well, calls you one day from another continent and asks you to please explain why did you decide to leave the School? A brave step actually, because such direct questions are not normally voiced by current members.

It’s not an easy answer, mostly because the question is phrased in a way I would not phrase it now. When you’re inside, you hear claims that people leave because they become “negative” about the money or sex or some other external issue, and because of such a trifle, they fail to look beyond to a “higher aim” that the organization is ostensibly serving.

Not to diminish the sexual manipulations and misuse of funds: they are no trifles. But they have been rationalized before and can always be rationalized again, in the name of the cause. That is what keeps people in: as long as they believe in the essential goodness of the cause of an "esoteric school", any irregularities can be explained away and swept under the carpet, a carpet that I think would be several inches off the floor by now, after 37 years of the FoF.

But current members say external issues are never the real reason: it’s that people “lose the work”. Well, what can I say – they are right. If by “work” they mean perpetual self-monitoring for manifestations of thoughts and actions not in line with RB’s wishes; repetition of a magical formula that is to assist me in reaching the ever elusive Divine Presence, with a view to create an astral identity that will survive physical death – then yes, I have thoroughly lost any interest in the “work”. Whether you view that as a tragic failure or not depends on which side of the fence you are looking from.

I say I never decided to leave because leaving eventually happened just as naturally as opening my eyes after waking up in the morning.

It’s not “I left when I saw that RB was wrong,” or “I left when I saw that GH was wrong.” Not even “I left when I saw that PDO and GIG were wrong.” That all pales in light of the realization that I personally had been spectacularly, mind-bogglingly, fabulously WRONG.

I was wrong to take on faith so many statements of belief just because they sounded good and I wanted them to be true.
I was wrong to feel special.
I was wrong to believe in a hierarchy of more and less enlightened individuals.
I was wrong to assume that others can accurately tell me what I am thinking, feeling or what state I am in.
I was wrong to think that just because some aspects of the teaching make sense, all of it should make sense, even if I don’t yet understand it.
I was wrong to grasp at the slightest bit of teaching that seemed reasonable while dismissing massive evidence to the contrary.
I was wrong to want to be told what to do.
I was wrong to suppress my own dissenting questions because of peer pressure.
I was wrong to want to get others to express support for our beliefs.
I was wrong to make myself feel guilty for being non-compliant.
I was wrong to want to make others feel guilty for being non-compliant.
I was wrong to continue supporting what I no longer believed in.
I was wrong to value security and familiarity over my conscience.
I was wrong to feel that all this was normal.
I was wrong to feel that I had no choice.
I was wrong to think that I would assure any real friendships just by belonging to an organization together.
And above all, I was wrong to not trust myself and my own better judgment.

I left because that period of my life was irrevocably over.

But the really interesting question for me right now is not “Why did you leave?” Much more fascinating and perplexing is “Why did I stay so long?”