Why Religious Leaders Don’t Want You Connecting Directly To God

I just finished The Celestine Prophecy on a plane, 36,000 feet up.

The guy sitting next to me had a peculiar looking old bound book.

I had just been reading a section about synchronicities and legit just noted down this one line from the book that mentions Jesus:

“This individual would blaze a path that the whole human race would follow…”

Then I tapped the guy and asked him what book he was reading.

It looked like a Bible but I wasn’t sure.

He said, “It’s the Bible.”

And I was like, “No shit. What are you reading?”

And he said, “The first four gospels.”

And I was like, “Oh, awesome. Well if you read anything good let me know.”

He asked, “Are you Christian?”

I paused and then said… “Well… I love Jesus… but I don’t like religious labels.”

He said, “Right on.”

Funny.

The synchronicities of people that are in your physical location.

They often have a message for you of sorts. Something at least. Even just to add to the wonder of awe at the connectivity of every moment.

Chapter 10 of The Celestine Prophecy is everything I believe, exactly spot on.

And I wanted to share some of the excerpts with you that really hit me.

On Religion:

“All religion is about humankind finding relationship to the one higher source. And all religions speak of a perception of God within, a perception that fills us, makes us more than we were.

Religions become corrupted when leaders are assigned to explain God’s will to the people instead of showing them how to find this direction within themselves.”

This is something I’ve been saying for a while now.

The problem isn’t religion itself… it’s when religious leaders start positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to God instead of showing people how to connect directly themselves.

On Jesus:

“Sometime in history one individual would grasp the exact way of connecting with God’s source of energy and direction and would thus become a lasting example that this connection is possible.

Isn’t that what Jesus really did? Didn’t he increase his energy and vibration until he was light enough to… transcend death right here on Earth?

He was the first to cross over, to expand the physical world into the spiritual. His life demonstrated how to do this, and if we connect with the same source we can head the same way, step by step.”

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to articulate in a lot of these posts.

Jesus wasn’t just preaching about God and telling others to preach about him or God. He was showing us the actual process of inward realization & connection.

He was demonstrating what’s possible when you fully align with the source.

On Evolution:

There’s this incredible exchange in the book between a character named Father Sanchez and Cardinal Sebastian.

Sebastian, like many in traditional catholic/christian view, is arguing that the idea of darwinian evolution undermines God.

And Sanchez says:

“I fought against the idea of evolution as a replacement for God, as a way to explain the universe without reference to God. But now I see that the truth is a synthesis of the scientific and religious world views.

The truth is that evolution is the way God created, and is still creating.”

And then:

“The progress of succeeding generations shows an evolution of understanding, an evolution toward a higher peace, love, spirituality and vibration.

Each generation incorporates more energy and accumulates more truth and then passes that status on to the people of the next generation, who extend it further.”

This is it. Spot on.

It’s not that science is right and religion is wrong, or vice versa.

It’s that they’re describing the same thing from different angles.

God is creating through evolution.

We are evolving toward higher consciousness, higher vibration, higher connection.

On Scripture:

“Isn’t the story of the scriptures a story of people learning to receive God’s energy and will within?

Isn’t that what the early prophets led the people to do in the Old Testament? And isn’t that receptivity to God’s energy within what culminated in the life of a carpenter’s son, to the extent that we say God, himself, descended to Earth?

Isn’t the story of the New Testament the story of a group of people being filled with some kind of energy that transformed them?

Didn’t Jesus, himself, say that what he did, we could do also, and more? We’ve never really taken that idea seriously, not until now.

We’re only now grasping what Jesus was talking about, where he was leading us.”

This felt like the book was raking the words right out of my mouth. I’ve made thos argument many times.

It makes every religion and scientific angle totally reveal themselves as unifying paths to same 1 source.

Jesus literally said, “What I do, you can do also, and more.”

But for some reason, people don’t takes that seriously. They treat it like a metaphor or something else impossible & thus give it a different meaning.

I believe jesus was pointing the way and demonstrating it.

On Heaven:

“At some point everyone will vibrate highly enough so that we can walk into heaven, in our same form.

The more beauty we can see, the more we evolve. The more we evolve, the higher we vibrate.

The Ninth Insight shows us that ultimately, our increased perception and vibration will open us up to a Heaven that is already before us. We just can’t see it yet.

Reaching heaven on Earth is why we are here. And now we know how it can be done… how it will be done.”

I’m not sure this insight is totally accurate. But it illustrates an interesting concept that can be realized. Heaven isn’t some place you go when you die.

It’s a state of God’s spirit living through you now that you can reach here. Right now.

And the more you raise your vibration to that of love, peace, Christ, the more you see it and embody it yourself.

What else could it mean?

My Takeaway:

All of this aligns perfectly with what I’ve been learning through Yogananda, through meditation, through a book that keeps coming up again and again - A Course in Miracles.

The path is clear:

So why is this so taboo to talk about?

Why does saying “you can connect directly to God” make trad religious institutions so uncomfortable?

Let me give you some context…

For the last two millennia, the Church (and religious institutions in general) have operated on a very specific power structure.

You have the clergy at the top. The priests, the rabbis, the imams, the religious leaders.

And then you have everyone else at the bottom.

The masses. The laypeople. You.

And the deal has always been this:

We, the religious leaders, have special access to God. We have been ordained. We have been trained. We have the authority.

You, the people, do not have direct access. You need us to interpret scripture for you. You need us to perform the rituals. You need us to tell you what God wants. You need us to forgive your sins. You need us to grant you salvation.

This model created immense power and control.

The Catholic Church became one of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in human history… and not by teaching people how to connect to God themselves, but by positioning themselves as the necessary intermediary.

If you wanted to go to heaven, you had to go through them & their way. If you wanted forgiveness, you had to confess to them. If you wanted to understand the Bible, you needed them to tell you what it meant.

For centuries, the Bible was only available in Latin… a language most people couldn’t read.

Why?

Because if people could read it themselves, they might realize they don’t need a priest to tell them what it says.

When the printing press was invented and Bibles started being translated into common languages, the Church fought it viciously. You can look this up.

When people tried to translate the Bible into common languages, the Church fought it viciously.

You can look up these terms if curious to see whats happened…

Why does the church want to control & censor info so badlu?

Because direct access to scripture meant direct access to God. And direct access to God meant the end of their monopoly on “salvation”.

The same pattern exists across most religious institutions.

In Judaism, you have the rabbis who interpret the Torah and Talmud. In Islam, you have the imams and scholars who interpret the Quran. In Hinduism, you have the Brahmins who perform the rituals and hold the spiritual authority.

And look… I’m not saying these religious leaders are all bad or corrupt.

Many of them are genuinely trying to help people. But the structure itself creates a problem. It’s the same problem Jesus pointed out with the Pharisees.

This is why the message found in The Celestine Prophecy, and the message of direct spiritual connection, is so threatening.

Because it says: You don’t need an intermediary. You don’t need someone to interpret God’s will for you. You don’t need permission to connect. You can go directly to the source.

And if that’s true… if people really can connect to God on their own… then what do you need the institution for?

What do you need the priests for? What do you need the rituals for? What do you need the tithes for?

This is why, in the book, Cardinal Sebastian says:

“This teaching is a curse. It would undermine our basic structure of spiritual authority. It would entice people to think they are in control of their spiritual destiny.”

He’s not wrong. It would undermine the structure. Obviously because the structure depends on people not knowing they can do this themselves.

Jesus didn’t create a hierarchical institution. Yes he ordered for a church. But not in the strict way to the letter he hated the pharisees for. He taught people how to connect directly.

He said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Not within the temple. Not within the priest.

Within you.

He said, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”

Not in front of the religious authorities in a pew. Not through rituals. In secret. Directly. Alone.

He said, “What I do, you can do also, and more.”

You can do this. Now.

So when you start talking about direct connection to God, about meditation, about raising your vibration to the same spirit of Christ, tuning into it which is within… You’re actually doing exactly what all the masters and prophets have taught.

And yes, you are going against two thousand years of institutional control.

An institution that has made you fear ever doubting them and their view.

The only difference between what I’m telling you and what they’re telling you is I don’t need you to “believe” me or “trust” me even.

You are welcome to go connect to God directly yourself and see and know for yourself.

And that’s why this upsets ppl so much.

Talk soon.

-Arlin​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​