Have you watched Wild Wild Country? It's a docu series about Osho's (an Indian Guru's) commune. The commune was located in Wasco County, Oregon, and well, the locals didn't take too kindly to these "Rajneeshans," as the people living in Rajneeshpuram, the commune, were called. The docu series tells a shocking story of a battle between the Rajneeshans and the people of Wasco County. Let's just say that the Rajneeshans did some pretty heinous things to preserve their right to live there.
Most people are of the mindset that the Rajneeshans were a cult. I was left with a different impression. The impression that I was left with was how the mainstream cultism is in fact SO pervasive, that people can't even see it right in front of their eyes because they're SO in it. People perceive the Wasco County residents to be "regular" or normal. But in this docu series we saw a new way come in. We saw a group of people who also had their own culture and way of living and were also willing to fight for it. To me, this is what the docu series so brilliantly illustrated: they made parallels between the two groups of people. I saw cult-ish behavior in both groups. In my eyes, the docu series only pointed out the power of the leaders of both and how both groups thought they were right, and how both groups took to violence and both groups thought they were defending themselves.
I've deliberately taken a different approach to life than the mainstream since I was a teenager. You could say I've lived by the rule, If the mainstream is doing it, do the opposite. And.... it's worked pretty well for me, really. While most people "grow out of" their "rebellious" stage in adulthood, I have gone beyond rebellion to literally find my own way. The older I get, the farther and farther away from the mainstream I get. And the healthier and healthier and clearer and happier and freer I get.
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The mainstream thought model is so pervasive that even those who consider themselves very on the edge have a very hard time getting their heads out of that box. It is so pervasive.
Things like fasting and urine therapy and drinking distilled water scare the crap out of people. The mainstream does not embrace or support those things. In fact, they're nowhere to be found in the mainstream, and therefore even society's most radical people won't have anything to do with them.
Is there a bigger or more pervasive cult? Anyone who sticks their head out is shunned. Get sick and don't go to a mainstream allopathic doctor and watch how the people around you react. Observe how scared you get of not doing something the mainstream has told you you must do or you will die.
Doctors are the experts. They're way above other humans. While other humans are fallible, doctors are not. Not in the mainstream cult. Why? Education, I guess. Although, no one in the cult has asked themselves this question. Why is what a doctor says more meaningful than anyone else in society? Why is their education more valuable than anyone else's real life education?
Money is another one. It is incredibly difficult for someone to learn to not value money. The reason for all of this is because of how much value we place on what other people think of us and how we fit in. Pretty cult-like, no? There's nothing wrong with wanting to belong. Of course not. It's a basic human need. But it's also one of the biggest characteristics of a cult. Perhaps this basic need of ours is being used against us. But that's not really important. What's important is that you stick your head out.
And how do you really get your head out? The answer may sound absurd and completely unrelated. But the answer is fasting. The answer is clearing the muck out of your body so you can be clear and connected with yourself and your own truth. This is what fasting directly does which nothing else can do.
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