THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD is an educational organization devoted to making genuine spirituality and spiritual practice accessible to as many people as possible. The Institute was founded in 2000 by Dr. Chris Tong, and is based on the wisdom of (and opportunity represented by) the great, living Spiritual Master, Adi Da Samraj.

NAME

The phrase "Real God" is our way of emphasizing the Institute's focus on "God experience" (and more precisely, our emphasis on the "present-time Revelation of God") over and against "God ideas" or belief systems. Indeed, because the word, "God", in our Western cultural context, has certain particular associations we do not intend, we could just as well say our focus in on experience (and Revelation) of the "Greater-Than-Material Reality" — and we explore just what exactly That is in much greater depth, through our courses.

PHILOSOPHY

The education provided by THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD is very differently oriented than, say, the offerings of a typical university comparative religion department. We are oriented toward people who are interested in actual spiritual practice and its spiritual fruits. Thus we are geared toward making meaningful discriminations among different traditions and viewpoints, based on studying the actual spiritual "fruits" each is capable of bearing. Unlike, say, a typical "comparative religion" programme, we have no overt or covert belief in a principle such as "all spiritual paths are equal". In fact, quite to the contrary, we are very interested in understanding the differences between spiritual paths, particularly in their potential spiritual Realizations, because these differences are precisely what is of most interest to anyone who might be interested in taking up a spiritual practice. (Of course, to anyone who is interested in "spiritual traditions" or "religions" as mere lifelong intellectual study, they are all "equal" in the trivial sense that they are all just and only that for such people: mere intellectual curiosities, rather than life and spirit-transforming opportunities, study of which is being done with the ultimate aim of choosing one and transforming one's life and being.)

STRUCTURE

THE INSTITUTE FOR REAL GOD has several 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?" 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.