Rely on the teachings to evaluate a guru: Do not have blind faith, but also no blind criticism. -- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The power of faith is amazing. Some years ago we were teaching a workshop in Plymouth, England, when a student eagerly told us that Deepak Chopra had "renounced the world" and was teaching at the local Heart and Soul Healing Center. He was holding gatherings each night and participants were experiencing profound healings and personal transformations. When we went to meet the so-called "Deepak" we discovered him to be an artful impostor. With his exposure, his followers lost faith and the healings and transformations stopped. This was a classic example of when belief in a guru / healer supersedes our own intelligence, due to the faith and longing to be "saved." The real Deepak Chopra later thanked us!
In yogic terms the word guru means "remover of darkness or ignorance." One of India's greatest holy men, Ramana Maharshi, often said that the role of the guru was to push the student inside in order to see the guru within -- as the true guru is within each and every one of us.
Yet invariably the opposite is true, as seen when a guru encourages adoration, dependence and obedience to them and them only. This is known in India as gurudom (as in kingdom) where the guru amasses a big following and sees him/herself as the ultimate authority but does not empower their students. The guru may even call their followers babies or treat them like children, thereby the student feels inferior and the teacher appears all-knowing and superior.
This can lead to an "enlightened ego," where one experiences all the wonders of enlightenment but the ego snatches the reward: "I am enlightened!" Yet who or what is enlightened? This is not unusual, as the ego is subtle and seductive, and it is often a trap when we believe we are enlightened. As it is said: Those that say don't know and those who know don't say!
Similarly, many people go to every healer that comes to town in their longing to be fixed or healed. They believe every healer will be the one to solve the mystery of whatever is causing their ill health. We also get addicted to movie stars and their seemingly fabulous lives as a way of filling the void in our own lives.
Hence the scenario where we see followers becoming guru junkies, not only dependent but actually addicted to their guru, as if he or she were a therapist or movie star with their followers doing anything to meet them, wearing necklaces with the guru's photo, hanging the guru's picture on their wall, but often only seeing them from a distance and knowing nothing about them. As with therapy where a patient may "fall in love" with their therapist, so the spiritual student can "fall in love" with the guru, although this is more of a strong infatuation. Many times female followers will fall so in love with the guru that they even submit to sexual abuse, and we know of gurus mistreating students in the name of obedience: if you are truly devoted then you will do this or that for me. The innocent student obeys, only to regret it afterwards and in need of therapy to make sense of it.
We have both had personal time experiencing the guru student relationship. In the late 1960s Ed went through a classic traditional yogic training where obedience was paramount and his devotion was unswerving. "I trusted whatever I was told without question and that if I surrendered my point of view or whatever I believed to be true then I would be a candidate for self realization. My guru once said: "True surrender is when you are right and the guru is wrong and you can surrender being right. At the same time I believed my guru was the incarnation of God. My blind devotion caused me to be too dependent on my guru and left me unable to function as an ordinary person. I even felt I was more special than others who didn't have this experience, that as I had a yoga name and title I was so superior!"
We worship the guru as God and see him or her as divine while mistreating or denigrating others. When we were last in India we were visiting the ashram of a guru who hugs each of her thousands of devoted followers. When we arrived the guru was in the middle of a devotional Goddess worship, where both she and her many disciples enter into ecstatic states. We noticed a man standing with his young child directly in front of the guru, expressing deep devotion. Soon afterward we were all in line to catch an elevator to the residential floors. As there was only one elevator there was a long line. Suddenly this man and his child came right to the front. Ed pointed out there was a line of waiting people, at which the man retorted "F...k you!" Aha! The guru is divine; everyone else is not.
This is ironic because in India the most wonderful greeting is namaste, which means "the God in me honors the God in you." Unless we see the God or truth in all people we are like a misguided missile. We limit our own growth and chance to be free. As the Dalai Lama said to us when we were with him at his residence in India: "We are all equal here!"
Many people surrender to a guru with a kind of blind faith, or without checking the teacher out first. Yet, would you marry a person as soon as you met them, without knowing them? Wouldn't you spend as much time as possible so you know they are right for you? The Crazy Wisdom Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, said we should always be skeptical. Swami Satchidananda said that we should check out a guru just as we would check out a chicken before buying one.
Perhaps we worship a guru so blindly and surrender so willingly due to our own self-doubt, the reluctance to acknowledge our own innate understanding, insights and wisdom. We make the guru greater than we are, demeaning ourselves in the process. And yet the same truth that is within the guru is within us all. What we learn from the external guru is that just as one person can awaken, so we all can. Perhaps we need help, yes, but only until we stop searching outside ourselves. Then the seeker becomes the seer!
Have you ever been addicted to a guru, therapist, healer, or even a movie star? Do comment below. You can receive notice of our blogs every Tuesday by checking Become a Fan at the top.
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http://donttouchtheplate.com/
http://donÂttouchthepÂlate.com/
this is why, once awakened, all of it loses its false power: it has been transcended.
OM
Your name says it all - itsalladream
Nobody in their right mind really wants to wake up because it is the end of "you". Enlightenment has just been hijacked and resold by the new age community as some empowerment or transcendent experience. It is nothing of the sort, it is death, it is being consumed, it is a rebirth that can only happen by total destruction.
The other thing is that "you", being a dream figure, cannot bring this about. The dream character cannot wake up since that character IS the dream.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF TRUTH
It does not matter what you thought before
the Truth.
All of it is in ruins anyway.
An illusion of an illusion.
A phantasm, a gost of thoughts in living color
streaming inward toward the
borderline of a consciousness that
in Truth, does not exist.
Mind believes in it's sovereignty to the point
of denying it's own existance.
Make peace with the Truth.
Love the Truth.
Understand the Truth.
Be the Truth.
That is the consequence of Truth.
If you do this
the mind will understand
and rejoice in it's freedom.
Beauty is Truth. Love is Truth.
Soul is Truth. I AM is Truth.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-623058
http://ireÂport.cnn.cÂom/docs/DOÂC-623058
fanned & fav'd
a worthy read!
http://donttouchtheplate.com/
Fanned & Fav'd
http://donÂttouchthepÂlate.com/
99.8% of the population have no real clue of who or what they are. I teach the fundamentals of being a spirit in the physical. "No one is less than divine, people are programed to think and act less than. It's time to change the program". My book is what I teach and if many read it, the energy will change.
http://donttouchtheplate.com/
THE DAWNING OF SOUL
As the sun rises over the rim of the world
so I, soul, rise over the edges of my mind
illuminating the universe of consciousness
in all directions.
Casting shadows where none have appeared before,
I walk through the desert of this dawning
feeling in those places of darkness
the roots pf my behavior.
I am the warrior of spirit.
Armed with the blade of Shabda,
I cut loose the vines of entrapments
grown out of lives long ago forgotten
in the mists of Karma.
Looking into this morning of illumination
I listen to the sweet voice of the Master.
He is here with me, always guiding me
always reminding me that
yes,
I am.
I also wrote an article about my own Guru or spiritual guide of 30 years, addressing some of the points you make implicitly at least. http://bit.ly/mlSr89
For example (and I'll copy/paste it here as it does seem relevant to what you are discussing):
"It is said that enlightened beings – anyone who has removed all obstructions from the mind and perfected all good qualities — have the power to emanate infinite forms, which are like reflections on the water of faithful minds. In that sense, I have my personal spiritual guide, you have yours. Buddha’s emanations can also appear in the form of one person due to our collective karma, and thousands of students may gather for example to hear their Guru’s teachings; but the spiritual guide is always at the heart of each of his or her students, as if we have our own spiritual guide all to ourselves."
Believing in a Guru entails believing in our own potential for complete purity and liberation, and by extension believing in others too.
Our Guru is a reflection of our own mind, just like everything else, and so in some senses we all have our own Guru, even if he or she appears in the form of one person. It is like the sun shining toward us on the water -- we always feel it is shining right at us but the person ten feet away thinks it is shining right at them!
Actually, these comments hardly touch the surface of what I'm trying to say so I'll just conclude with thanks for a good and useful article.
A couple of weeks ago an article I wrote called Kung Fu Panda and the Secret Ingredient by chance made it onto the front page of Wordpress and so garnered a lot of interest from movie buffs -- and it was all about the spiritual relationship between teachers and students!! http://kadampalife.org/2011/05/24/kung-fu-panda-and-the-secret-ingredient
btw - when I checked the website above it said - Not Found
http://kadampalife.org/2011/05/24/kung-fu-panda-and-the-secret-ingredient/
Very "enlightening" blog...thank you!
For myself, with regard to a guru, I've always embraced the wonderful words
of wisdom:
Gee...You...Are...You... (GURU)!!!
I totally love and honor and have integrated the teachings of some well known Gurus and for that I'm most appreciative!
Love,
AndiG
It is a joy to see you here
May you bring happiness to all you meet!
Ommmmmmm
when i lived in India this is what I was taught - but if you want to enlighten us do share your definition please
Dhanyavaad - thank you (Hindi)
Jygme Powa - Ed
namaste
"salutatory gesture," from Skt. namas "bowing" + te, dative of tuam "you" (sing.). i.e., "I bow to you"
"gu" means destroyer "ru" means darkness
from Sanskrit.
:-))
There will be no Mea Culpa from the guru.
Of course there are many inauthentic gurus out there that have given the process a bad name. This should in no way allow the denigration of the Great Spiritual Adepts who have served the Guru function, nor the Guru-devotee process itself.
fanned & fav'd
this is a must read!
I think many social constructs use the father/elder type relationship to enhance authority, leadership and credibility. I taught my kids to listen to me. But as they got older, I realized that the only way to persuade them to adopt my philosophy was to convince them through reasoning that my ideas were worth exploring. Fast forward and they're young adults who are perfectly wonderful and who have minds of their own. Yes, they accepted some of my tenets and they've rejected others as they made up their own minds. In fairness, I've rejected some of my previous beliefs too and will undoubtedly cast off others before it's all said and done.
Trust your instincts. Be kind. Pursue your dreams.
best wishes,
little brother
Within us all is true wisdom meditation clears the mind and opens the heart to reveal the pure nature of our authentic self!