About The Way Back

Mark used to say “belief is a poor replacement for experience” and one of the foundations of The Way Back is that it is not a belief system or a religion. All actions and journeys start with belief and it is belief that motivates people to try something new, believing it may be of benefit.

The great thing about the spiritual journey and indeed the soul journey, both of which The Way Back support, is that although you may start with belief, you get to experience for yourself and ultimately can replace belief with experience.

What this means in practical terms is that, for example, where we talk about initiation revealing spiritual light, you do not need to believe it, rather you are encouraged to find out for yourself. This is why we make all our support materials like videos, podcasts, articles and tutorials freely available, we want people to move past belief and into direct experience and knowing.

If you already have belief systems (in all honesty most people do) then that is OK. We are not here to tell you what to believe or not. If something we propose challenges your belief system then that is perfectly alright and normal. In such a situation you have the opportunity then to explore your beliefs and to decide whether you wish to embrace what you have discovered or stay where you are, and of course we will support you completely in that.

Everyone is at a different part of their own personal journey and we respect that. Some people will benefit from our books and articles, and for them that is enough. Others will have a deeper desire to know and find out for themselves and will be drawn to explore the spiritual light and sound meditation. It really is up to you. Simply take what you find helpful and nourishing from what we offer and if you feel like it, then share it with others.

Peace be with you all, whatever you believe.

“Everyone’s journey is different so I appreciate that what has helped me may not be relevant to others. But I hope that by sharing honestly what I have experienced it may help and inspire others in a similar situation, so this answer is my own. It is not meant to apply to everyone.” Mark Zaretti

When I first discovered light and sound meditation it was 1998 and I was in my early 20s. I’d already done a lot of meditation but was “looking for something deeper“. Light and sound was what I had been looking for and I trusted my dear friend who I thank to this day for introducing me to the group involved. Here’s the first bit of advice I wish I’d been given:

(1) TRUST YOUR OWN INTUITION

You see in finding a group that could initiate me into light and sound I was confronted with a dilemma. I knew absolutely that this energy was what I was looking for but there was a lot that I was being told by the teachers of this group that didn’t sit with what I felt intuitively to be true. They told me that there was no such thing as a soul or reincarnation, that Jesus was a made up story, that their master was an avatar, basically that he was God. The idea of a spiritual hierarchy of ascended masters was dismissed.

I should have walked away but I knew the energy side of things was real and because I trusted their ability to give the energy I ended up falling into their beliefs, which were dictated by their master. To some extent I had no choice but to go along with it all as the alternative was to be “kicked off the path” and so like a few others who in private voiced their concerns, we persevered and endured in order to follow the journey to its conclusion.

Years later I was enlightened (yes the light and sound was the real deal) and started to go far beyond the limits of what I had been told by that group. By which time I had been ostracized from that group and after confronting their master about the poor treatment of people, I decided to leave them altogether.

Imagine my delight when I finally discovered there is a soul, that we do come back over many lifetimes and that the master was not exactly who or what he had claimed himself to be. It was about this time that I was shown a document written in 1986 by that master where he actually validated the existence of the Spiritual Hierarchy, ascended masters, and that he was not the only way to get initiation, contrary to his more recent teachings.

Thankfully I also rediscovered the truth that some of the ancient teachers including Lord Krishna, Quan yin and Jesus were actually real and began to find inspiration in their spiritual teachings (not in religion). This was a hard journey coming back to truth because over the 12 or so years involved in that group, I was literally brainwashed against my gut feeling and intuition into letting go of a lot of things that I felt were true deep down. So I beg you to always follow your intuition! The truth will ALWAYS come out.

Much of what I learnt about the soul, incarnation, Jesus and the truth about the Source (God) and where the energy really came from led me to the next thing I really wish I had been told right at the start:

(2) KEEP LOVE AT THE CORE OF ALL YOU DO

It sounds obvious but you would be surprised how many people lose sight of this. I’ve been guilty of this and I’ve seen it too many times in others. The spiritual journey is the journey to enlightenment and it is driven by LIGHT, which you meditate on. During my days meditating on spiritual light and sound energy under the guidance of the Path there was literally no mention of love. It wasn’t discussed at all, and being honest there was little demonstration of love from the teachers either, with a few great exceptions.

Don’t get me wrong there were some lovely people but many at the top never included love in their teachings. The attitude was very much “meditate, and if that doesn’t work, meditate some more“.

But love is and always has been at the core of everything. In fact I can tell you honestly having attained enlightenment that love is higher than light. It is true that you need the light in order to progress but it is also true that without love you can only progress so far.

So many people are obsessed with getting the light that they forget about love. I know I did for a while. Trust me on this, keep love at the core of everything and you’ll find it much easier to meditate on light and also to enjoy and benefit from the meditation.

Love is the bedrock of The Six Virtues and I have produced a complete series of videos exploring love in more detail. Love is actually so important that you cannot attain enlightenment unless you have love within yourself and this leads me on to the final bit of advice that I wish I’d been given:

(3) WORK ON YOUR SOUL JOURNEY

Again so many people make the mistake of focusing on the spiritual journey that they forget about the soul journey. I guess it could be because it is easier to be aware of spiritual progress because of the landmark revelations of light and eventually enlightenment. But the spiritual journey is one half of the coin, the other side is the soul journey and at the risk of giving the game away, neither journey ends upon enlightenment, which is actually “the beginning” of a life of amazing potential. But unless the soul is ready for it that potential never gets realised.

The soul journey really matters and just as point (2) suggests, love is at the core of your soul journey. To help you on your soul journey this website is full of guidance on how to develop your soul and I would start with “The WAY“.

I have also produced a number of podcasts where I explore the topic further: (1) Spirituality and the Virtues (2) Ego and (3) God.

There is a specific reason for the name which will probably make more sense as humanity and Earth evolves spiritually. The story behind this is in the books which are soon to be published but for now it is easiest to understand as the name referring to “The Way Back to God“, which also means it is “The Way Back to LOVE“.
One of our founders has also suggested that it also means “The Way has come Back” since much of the teachings and books are channelled from the ancient spiritual teachers.

While it is entertaining to speculate on the name, it is important to understand that the name was given, and that there is significance. But it is also valuable to turn the question around and ask you that as someone who follows The Way Back, “where has it led you?” and “what have you discovered?“.

Because what matters most in your life is what you know to be true from you own direct experience and The Way Back is ultimately here to reveal to you truth that transcends any form of belief or imagination, since it is founded in direct experience and inner realisation.

Please understand that God, and talking about God, does not belong to religion. God existed before time itself and certainly before any religion. I am not religious, but I have God in my life and a love for Jesus. You see The Way Back is not about belief, it’s about real spiritual states of awareness and direct experience, rather than belief and philosophy.

An easy way to understand this is to reflect on “Have you ever been in love?”. If you are blessed to have experienced real love then you will know the profound difference between what it is like to believe in love versus actually being in love.

Belief = Religion, philosophy, ideas, head, thinking.

Spiritual = experiencing, being, state, heart, sensing.

So belief systems are great if they help people aspire towards goodness, but spirituality is how you go beyond the limits of thinking, belief and ideas to actually experience things. In reality there is overlap and a religious person can also be a spiritual person. But our focus is on revealing truth through direct experience and so there is no need for religion in order to find The Way Back to God. When it comes to a spiritually awake life, with God in it, the spiritual way is to know that God is real through awareness of God’s love, light and guidance, based on your own direct spiritual experience, which transcends belief.

God bless you, Mark.