The Institute for Real God

THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD is an educational organization devoted to making genuine spirituality and spiritual practice accessible to as many people as possible. It offers a genuine alternative to the most familiar options of our time: scientific materialism, conventional religion, and piecemeal, "do it yourself" spirituality.

THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD is currently in the process of developing the courses that you see listed on this site. These courses are not available anywhere else. We've listed them and provided descriptions so that you can (a) add yourself to our mailing list now if you want us to notify you as courses become available; and (b) provide feedback to us on the courses currently under development, courses you would like us to develop (if possible), etc.

THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD currently has four departments, each focused on a distinct topic in the overall field of spirituality:

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE DEPARTMENT — The focus of this department is the question: "Why Spiritual practice?" That is, "Why organize one's life around Spiritual practice?" The department provides education about the insufficiency of non-spiritual or "piecemeal spiritual" means for achieving true and lasting happiness for individuals, and for adequately addressing our own mortality. It also provides a basic introduction to a spiritual life — a life organized around genuine spiritual practice — and contrasts it with the conventional life of materialistic self-fulfillment.

THE SPIRITUAL FUNDAMENTALS DEPARTMENT — The focus of this department is the question: "What is genuine Spiritual practice?" The department provides detailed education about the process of tangibly connecting to the Divine Being for real: how it has been done traditionally, and how it can be done now. Topics include: the need for a moment-to-moment spiritual practice, and the need for a Spiritual Master.

THE COMPARATIVE SPIRITUALITY DEPARTMENT — The focus of this department is the question: "Which Spiritual practice?" Taken together, all the great wisdom traditions around the world and throughout history offer a wide variety of views on (and experiences of) the nature of the Greater Reality and human potential in the context of the Greater Reality.The focus of this department is to make sense of and compare the differing views, placing particular emphasis on the views of materialism, esoteric spirituality, and exoteric religion; and to emphasize the difference between "armchair" comparative religion and empirical comparative spirituality which is based on Spiritual practice and Realization.

THE COOPERATIVE SPIRITUALITY DEPARTMENT — The focus of this department is the question: "What is the function of spirituality in the world?" This department provides education about the insufficiency of non-spiritual means (e.g., political, social, or military), in themselves, for creating a true and lasting world peace or world order. It provides education on how to draw the Divine Power into this otherwise mad world, both through the conversion of every aspect of one's individual life, and through the transformation of all relationships — both on a local and a global scale — via self-transcendence. Egoic principles such as "an eye for an eye" will never finally be overcome otherwise. It also provides education on the various forces in the world that actively work to suppress the real use of Divine Power, particularly in the form of discrimination against new religious movements.