On gurus and other spiritual authorities

Everyone and everything can be a teacher to the open mind. One must have his/her own sense of intuition, and listen to their inner being. I know when it's time for my body to get out of the hot spring. I'd know when to get out of a sweat lodge.
I twisted my ankle playing basketball. Everyone said, get up, walk it off. It wasn't broken, but I was using a cane for 5 months. I knew something was wrong, following their advice was not the correct action, I had to listen to myself.
I worked for a great Chef once. He owned the resturant. I could learn everything from him, but to go beyond him I had to leave his instruction. One could only hope to surpass the master. You just have to know when someone else knows more than you than you do. And, then know when they can't help you. Could be 5 minutes, could be 5 years, just pay attention.
 
IMVHO we can just learned something from anything and everything i.e. peoples, animals, plants, nature etc. Each and everything can teach us many things. How little or how many enlightenments passed from anything to any one of us depends very much on x factors! we have to check and verify again and again to ensure that we got the correct enlightenments!

A - Z are already there. We don't have to restart the thousand years effort just to recreate A - Z ourself. Gurus or peers or teachers or eldest or facilitators are those who could teach us the A - Z and anything about it. How to choose the correct few again depends very much on the x factors! And again we have to check and verify again and again to ensure that we choose the correct few!

IMVHO it's the x factors that actually helps (i.e. or otherwise)!

Just my 2 cents :cool:

mohd
 
mohd, your 2 cents is always welcome and it is so good to see you here. I always appreciated your input in the reading that I've done in the Archives along with the many others that made this Forum what it is. The discussions that I've read here have nearly always added to my learning and understanding of so many things on so many levels. It is what keeps me coming back day after day.

You are so correct about us learning a little from everything around us: the people, nature and experiences that we have contact with. Add those experiences up with a mind that is aligned with a willingness to learn and we can reach the enlightenments. I've always had a feeling that we've all experienced the same things in our lives, just at different times and in different situations and so we can have differing results. Give a little more time, reflection and maturity and we can come to a better understanding of what we are learning and of each other. These x factors can indeed help us along or hold us back to varying degrees.

Again, it is good to hear from you mohd and I look forward to more of your input any time. All the best to you and your family.

Peace

Rick
 
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Well, first of all I think "The wise man knows he doesn't know everything." When I encounter someone who claims that he/she knows it all/knows the secrets to.. .. ..I immediately yell "Shields up!" If/when they claim they are the sole authority of God, I yelll "Arm phasers!"

All joking aside, I think that anyone who is claiming (or others are claiming for them) to be a guru/spiritual counselor/whatever term of their god(s) should always be pointing to their god(s) for the source of the authority. Otherwise, why even bother claiming to follow god, if you're really just propping yourself up as god?

Many have said it already, so let me give an example of what I mean about a wise spiritual guide or counselor: My preacher often says "Don't take my word on it, look it up in the bible. I'm just a man and I can be wrong. If I am, you're doing me a favor by pointing it out to me." and when evangelizing when someone asks "Well, what do you think about [subject]." He'll reply "It doesn't matter what I think, let's see what the Bible says."

If you are representing a god(s), and if you claim to be a follower of said god(s) you ARE representing them, like it or not, then you MUST take your authority from the words of that god(s), not any man.

And if a "guru" tells you that you have to abdicate your will and life to them, tell them to pound sand.
 
I think I've seen the other side and know a bit more then I should when it comes to God,the Devil,Heaven and Hell but if you backed me into a corner I'll tell you flat out that the most important thing is free will-nobody makes choices for you YOU do.

And because of that you can tell anybody to flip off be it another human or God himself.
for that reason I can't follow anyone,I find most people are full of it and at best only half right.
 
Those who spend much time looking for answers in the realm of the spiritual are, IMO, people who have a great deal of trouble accepting reality as it is.

They look for "enlightenment", answers to the great mystery of the meaning of life, explanations for why bad things happen to good people, and connection to something greater than themselves.

They want to look beyond the curtain, they want to know they can live forever.

People like this, who are consumed by these things, want magic, real magic in their lives. Not just happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, contentment, love. They want magic. Because for them, life is not enough.

For people like that, a magician will always hold power, because a magician will offer them something they don't have. And so a teacher of secrets or a minister of the holy path or a shaman or a preacher or a........... whatever........... will always be given power that doesn't really exist.

IMO, people who hold themselves out as possessing answers in the spiritual realm are liars, because they lie to themselves if they believe themselves to be transcendent, and they lie to others in spreading the story of their enlightenment.

Humans have been on this planet far, far longer than any one spiritual idea. Therein lies a truth. Preachers can claim to belong to the second oldest profession. Therein lies a truth.

Andy
 
I've read that before Howard.

I think the "Book of the Subgenius" which is parody has an interesting idea.

They speak of "Short Duration Personal Saviors"

Which is basically anyone that inspires you, or kicks your ass in a good way by making you think, or teaches you something.

But since they are short duration you aren't let down when they eff up, or rip you off, and you don't feel compelled to try to evangelize them on others. ;):p

I think teachers are great. However I think people tend to expect perfection when they are all struggling with their humanity just like we are.

Should we expect an unmarried Catholic Priest to give us marriage advice??

Should we expect a guy who meditated in a cave alone for 30 years to tell us how to relate to our friends and co workers??

Both of the above guys may be able to enlighten us but we can't expect them to give us the magic bullet because there isn't one.

I think a lot of times when we follow some one or hold them up on a pedestal we hurt them as much as when they end up hurting their followers.

Bottom line practice shouldn't be about reaching heavenly realms, but about how to enjoy life and love others without being a burden to others or having excessive expectations about life or others that cause us to be unfufilled.

I'm always pimping the book "After Ecstacy, The Laundry" by Jack Kornfield

Every wise voyager learns that we cannot hold on to the last port of call, no matter how beautiful. To do so would be like holding our breath, creating a prison from our past. As one Zen master puts it:

"Enlightenment is only the beginning, is only a step of the journey. You can't cling to that as a new identity or you're in immediate trouble. You have to get back down into the messy business of life, to engage with life for years afterward. Only then can you integrate what you have learned. Only then can you learn perfect trust."

Like the monk in the ox-herding pictures [a traditional Zen parable], most of us have to reenter the marketplace to fulfill our realization. As we come down from the mountain, we may be shocked to find how easily our old habits wait for us, like comfortable and familiar clothes. Even if our transformation is great and we feel peaceful and unshakable, some part of our return will inevitably test us. We may become confused about what to do with our life, and how to live in our family or society. We may worry how our spiritual life can fit into our ordinary way of being, our ordinary work. We may want to run away, to go back to the simplicity of the retreat or the temple. But something important has pulled us back to the world, and the difficult transition is part of it.

One lama remembers:

"When I came back it was as if my 12 years of experiences in India and Tibet were a dream. The memory and value of those transcendental experiences was in some way a dream challenged by the culture shock of returning to my family and to work in the West. Old patterns came back surprisingly quickly. I got irritable, confused. I wasn't taking care of my body, I worried about money, about relationship. At the worst point I feared that I was losing what I had learned. Then I realized I couldn't live in some enlightened memory. What became clear is that spiritual practice is only what you're doing now. Anything else is a fantasy."

Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2000/06/After-The-Ecstasy-The-Laundry.aspx#ixzz1HvrZ4xeX
Click to expand...
 
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