Gurus Gone Wrong

[Etherfish]

This is why love has to be unconditional. Whenever we expect anything returned by people, we set ourselves up to be hurt. When a guru gives us a great teaching, we accept it as a great gift. We can't pretend that it has strings attached to the future, meaning this person has a special God connection forever.
We have to evaluate each moment with full awareness, and not take it as a personal assault when other people change and we didn't expect it. Of course when people break promises we take it as an assault, but really that person is failing to live up to a standard within himself, and most often is not initiating an attack on us.

[riptiz]

Hi,
Well I'm glad I haven't been wronged by a guru but if I had I hope I'm strong enough to pick myself up and start again which is what we have to do isn't it? Rather than mythologise and live in awe of your guru is it not better to accept what we gain from them?David I must be lucky that my guru is not a 'common' one who wants reverance.I rang him in San Francisco on Sunday and he told me only to tell others of my experiences and not say he was a great and powerful guru.He was very explicit on this and told me not to speak of hearsay but simply my experiences.I am hoping he will be coming to the UK next month and if so he will be singing the Divine Sound so I'm prepared for an energy blast. LOL.I guess I am blessed.
L&L
Dave

'the mind can see further than the eyes'

[Babaly]

Shanti,

Of course I forgive you... I was a little surprized but now I see where you were coming from.

Many blessings,
Babaly

[Manipura]

The problem is that we're all of us looking for Love, and sometimes in the most peculiar places.  We want Love, as in Divine Love, and that can only be found in God, or within.  Any love that we find external to ourselves will always be flawed, due to the imperfection of our species.  When we have expectations of finding perfect Love in another person, there are bound to be disappointments.  Even if you think you've found the perfect Guru, partner, friend - eventually your imperfections will leak out, and then what?

Exasperated wife:  "If not for my husband, this would be a perfect marriage!"

[Babaly]

LOL:-) thanks Meg... you are so right.

[david_obsidian]

David said:
David I must be lucky that my guru is not a 'common' one who wants reverance.

Yes, I think you are indeed lucky.

Shanti said:
As a child you do mythologize your parents/uncles/aunts/.. when they hurt you.. that scar stays with you through life times David

Shanti,  you are right that we mythologize our parents and older relatives way beyond the actual reality when we are children.   But what is one of the most important lessons of adolescence?  

[sadhak]

We are rarely in that 100% 'trust in' or 'surrender to' position wrt the Guru... that is when, I understand, the total connection that transforms is made. Even if we, when not ready, met a real Guru, we'd not be in a position to evaluate him or her, because we cannot understand his or her actions. So we will, till ready, meet teachers, as Yogani says, who will impart something useful (pain is the one of the greatest teachers, even though it is tremendously difficult to accept such a lesson, and it can take long for any understanding of it to seep in) It is traumatic to move away from any relationship that nourished, and then to accept that it not only ceased to nourish but became unpleasent; and the higher the plane of the relationship, the deeper the pain... yet, when the relationship has outlived its purpose, we move on to the next source of learning, or to fulfil unfinished tasks and desires.

I could not relate to my teacher. Yet I learnt a lot, despite my strong resistance to his personality. When my resistance became larger than my learning I left.

And here I am... hopefully, still learning, still on the path. If this helps anyone to arrive at a plateau of peace with the teacher, so be it. I was in some ways in a worse position than Babaly... I felt indignation and anger as well. Yet now both have dissolved... and I have only just taken the turn on the road and walked a few steps in this direction where I see you all... helping each other, sharing burdens... and there is Yogani ahead of us, gentle, smiling, setting an example, flicking off the 'grim' from the pilgrim's progress. Beaut! I already thank my old teacher for getting me here...!

[Anthem]

Nice post Sadhak, wise words, pain is the ultimate teacher, a reason to love our discomfort? It sets us free...

[david_obsidian]

We are rarely in that 100% 'trust in' or 'surrender to' position wrt the Guru... that is when, I understand, the total connection that transforms is made.

I am sure these processes help some people.  But it's interesting to ask how many became genuinely,  independently enlightened this way.  Does anyone have uncontroversial examples?

The illustrious enlightened of whom I know (and indeed,  some of these could be mythologized too to some extent),  well, they didn't actually seem to become enlightened through guru-devotion at all, and did not teach it as a path:   just a small handful:  Patanjali,  Buddha,  Milarepa,  the Six Patriarchs of Zen,  Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi,  Lahiri Mahasaya, Nisagardatta Maharaj,   Lao Tzu etc.  etc.

And yet there are millions of people being given the surrender-to-the-guru-to-become-enlighened story.

Well,  how true is this story,  and why aren't these guys teaching it?

My mom was a devout Catholic and had a great mythology about Marriage when she was younger.  When you would listen to her talk,  all problems with marriage not working out were the result of lack of commitment to it,  and could be fixed by working on it according to the Mythology.  When she grew older,  she grew wiser.  She had friends whom she respected whose marriages failed.  She could see that they had no less commitment than she had,  and had tried everything.

Likewise,  people who believe the surrender-to-the-guru thing can say,  if it didn't work out for you,  that you didn't commit to it properly,  that your surrender wasn't 100%.  Their thought system will allow them to continue believing that surrender-to-the-guru works to produce enlighenment no matter how many times it fails to do so.

Food for thought......

[riptiz]

David,
It depends on your perception of what surrender is.Certainly in my experience the meditation is more powerful with the connection to guruji and I can feel the increase in energy and so can my students.Surrender to the guru does not make you his slave nor do you have to mythologise him.I have read your recent posts on mythology and I must say you are in the danger of mythologising AYP and Yogani as being the best thing since sliced bread. The very thing you dislike about gurus.Be happy in your practice and encourage others to help them but don't create the same monster you are often trying to kill.
L&L
Dave

'the mind can see further than the eyes'

[alan]

Don't forget yogani's sage advice, "The Guru is in you".

It is my understanding that a true Guru, in the flesh or not, is a vessel of God and enjoys the task of operating within our inner temples to help lead our devotions. A divine personality?

Even those God-merged beings who had no visible outward Guru had a relationship with Guru as Self within, "formed" or not.

Peace, alan

[david_obsidian]

Dave said:
Surrender to the guru does not make you his slave nor do you have to mythologise him.

Agreed.  Not everyone over-mythologizes their guru.   Surrender is not automatically mythologization.  I don't intend to be implying that all of these relationships are out-of-whack.  It's a matter of where the expectations are in each particular case.

I have read your recent posts on mythology and I must say you are in the danger of mythologising AYP and Yogani as being the best thing since sliced bread.

Honestly Dave,  I'm truly at loss to see where I mythologize AYP and Yogani.  I'm positive and enthusiastic about AYP,  but I don't think I mythologize it.  Do feel free to bring forward any examples where I might have gone overboard in my praise or expectations.  I would be happy to change them if I have gone too far.

I look on Yogani as a Rishi,  not a guru.  Rishi to me is close in meaning to 'expert'.  I don't mean 'expert' lightly, but on the other hand I don't expect perfection,  and if or whenever I think I see imperfect knowledge  (and I think I do occasionally) I neither fuss about it nor mythologize it away.  But the truth is that he is much more experienced and knowledgeable and much further on most aspects of this path than I am.  Is that mythologization on my part?  Hardly.

I neither let my ego delude me into thinking I am as much a Rishi as Yogani,  nor delude myself into thinking he knows all of it.  That's balance,  and I think I neither mythologize myself nor him.  A favor to both of us!  

Yogani,  please say 'thanks' because I am not mythologizing you.  

The guru is in you.  

[yogani]

Hi David and Dave:

Thanks for keeping it in balance. I think the time when surrender to another has substantial spiritual benefit is when the other refuses it. Then there is a tension created that is to the benefit of the one who is trying to surrender, and they have only one place to go with it -- within, which is where all the action is.

Unfortunately, this dynamic is rare, and there are many who go astray on both sides of the equation, as David points out. As soon as the business wanders from where it belongs, within the aspirant, it tends to get squandered in co-dependent relationships, entangling both the aspirant and the teacher. It is very hard to have productive interactions on the nuts and bolts of practices in that situation. The whole thing tends to get lost in the fog of the myth.

Still, it can go right sometimes, and, Dave, you seem to be in that kind of relationship. Bravo for that!

Oh, and thanks David for not mythologizing AYP or me. Now, excuse me while I climb back up on my pedestal.

But seriously, as you all know, AYP is a work in progress (literally) as a whole and in every application by each person, and there is lots of room for new understandings and improvements. I expect it will always be that way. It is an unending process of unfoldment of self-knowledge for each of us, yes?

Yet, there is a basic structure we all operate within, defined by the very nature of our nervous system, and there are known principles involved which we can utilize for the purpose of spiritual transformation. There are numerous approaches and nuances within that structure, and each journey is unique to the individual. So there is always a lot to talk about...

The guru is in you.

[sadhak]

quote:Originally posted by alan

a true Guru, in the flesh or not,

You've reminded us that a Guru is not necessarily a person...can be a book, a tree, a stone...anything. What is it inside the seeker that draws out enlightenment from even a stone. Maybe that is the question (which leads to, why does one person have it and another not... is it all pre-scripted since the beginning of time by each individual soul?) Maybe, your inner quest, the inner guru guides you to the outer one. To give my example, I'd never have gone to the teacher I did, had I known about the method. However, some series of coincidences took me there, and something kept me there that long despite my chaffing on an almost daily basis for that long. And then something took me away from there with a certainity, even though I was anxious about leaving. It is said we have no choice in anything once we are born, except to be detached or attached to the outcome. This, if true, can both frustrate and bestow unending tranquility at different times.

Does anyone have an answer to why a soul would choose the script it did at the beginning of its journey? And why did it have choice then? (assuming that 'everything is pre-destined' is true).

[sadhak]

Well Anthem, maybe it's easy to be wise in theory. One should be able to learn from pain, otherwise it can also confuse the being, and kill the spirit. There has to be that key that converts pain into edible food for the soul. Did that happen Babaly? At least in instalments?