Looking For A Spiritual Guru

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Relativism keeps the teacher's voice from being truly heard.

 

Spiritual Crap

When the student is poorly prepared,
The master may be rudely awakened!
For we are all, our own worst student,
And, beyond all doubt, nobody's master,
Setting ourselves up for a rude awakening,
When we assume we already have the answers.
Ask not what a guru can do for you,
But, what have you ever done for a guru?
Would you put up with your own spiritual crap?​

 

That actually supports my statement. Thank you.

 

Real Gurus are extremely rare. They don't grow on trees.

Then there are a different class of teacher. They are just people who have extensively studied and practiced their religious path. They become "senior students" who are capable of helping and guiding other students.

An academic analogy might be that Mahatma Gandhi was like Albert Einstein...a spiritual genius. But only a handful of people really got to join his ashram and have direct guidance from him. But, if you have a graduate student in math, even though he is not Albert Einstein, he can still help get you through freshman calculus.

That kind of thing.

And those folks? They are around. Also, not everywhere you look, but they are around.

Zen Buddhism had a bunch of those folks. That developed out of the 1950's, when soldiers who had been exposed to Japanese culture, developed an interest in Zen Buddhism.

So, there was John Daido Loori, who ran Zen Mountain Monastery. He passed, but I am the sure the institution is still quite good.

I met him before he passed. Very very very nice man. Strong, wise and just a human truly filled with love for other people.

Roshi Bernard Glassman was another one. He also passed. There are a lot of videos of him online.


Generally, if you take a retreat at a Zen community, or at a Trappist (Catholic) community of monks, you will find an inspiring place and likely meet inspiring people.

They could be an aid to folks, a guide.


Finding an actual true saint, a real Guru...that is not that common. But we do the best we can.


If we pray and meditate and practice the spiritual disciplines daily, we are going to get results.

Beyond that, as far as daily life problems, the discipline of counseling can help a lot. I am not sure why, but there are a number of counselors who are actually practicing Buddhists. That is a nice mix.

So, if you do good, solid daily spiritual practices and do some counseling...you are going to get some good and accurate guidance. And then, run some problems by some members of an actual, long standing spiritual monastery.

 

The Buddha said that "spiritual friends" were the whole of spiritual life, because such friends encourage one another in their practice. This is why sangha (or congregation) is so important. Whether the Zen Precepts or Matthew 25:36, spiritual practice is always in relation to our interactions with other people; they can't be practiced in isolation.
A teacher is simply another "spiritual friend" who's been walking the same path as you for a bit longer than you have.
May you transcend all suffering and know peace.

 

Pardon the belated reply to a zombie thread, It's an important and complicated issue. I agree with the Buddha about the importance of songha. I haven't been able to find anybody who fits my brand of spirituality here in Red State Oklahoma, but I have been able to find a few that come close: a progressive Sunday School at the Methodist church, a similar group of Disciples of Christ, a group of freethinker atheists, and of course HF.

On HF, i've often debated folks on the merits of "religion" versus "spirituality"--religion having a bad rap. In particular, some take strong issue with my claim that Buddhism is a religion--even though it seems to have the distinguishing features of religion from a structural functionalist perspective (besides the spiritual component): creed (core beliefs), code (moral precepts), cultus (rituals), and community (songha). Spiritual friends and songha are important but dangerous. When they're called pastors and churches, I find people's attitude toward them changes: "they're into control". And we have plenty of examples of "cults" that have gone off the rails. I think any person or group that claims to hold "the truth" or the answers to life's questions, or can tell people their purpose in life should be viewed with suspicion. I prefer groups of open-minded seekers whose ideas I can draw on in deciding my purpose.

 

The problem with religions and cults is that they always see and treat their "leader" as infallible, like the Pope or even Christ. In Islam, if you defame Mohammed you're likely to be dead soon.

Buddhism isn't like that. In fact, it sees people as suffering as a result of their own lack of awareness of the implications of their own actions, not as a result of curses, unfaithfulness, sinful activity or other outside cause.

Religions also try to control their followers with all sorts of penalties for non-compliance, including death. These controls are for the benefit of the institution and its leaders, not the follower.

There are many who have sought to turn Buddhist beliefs into a more formalized religious path, but just like with Christ you don't need that unless you are so insecure in your beliefs and require others to constantly validate your belief system.

When those beliefs suddenly come into question and the leaders and their followers are forced to face reality, out comes the Kool Aid...

 

"When knowledge is desired, a teacher will appear." Carlos Castaneda. Take what is useful and discard what is not, says I. Also, never give all of yourself to another except to your children, says I again.

 

Here's my guru talking. "Hi Friends of Shakta Upasaka, I knew someday this friend and student of mine would figure out he needed me and my knowledge so I made lots of Youtube and Sound Cloud files and PDF files, all of Sri Vidya. So yes, now he has everything he needs to study Sri Vidya from deities in the chakras, and mantra empowerments, to how to do pujas, and also how to count mantras using his chakra petals and marmas, and through Parasurama's system he now can study all the deity circle of Lalitadevi and Mahakali. If you would like you can also study this too. Okay, See you on the other side - Guruji"

Yes, I made that up. But that's what he would say. Because when we talked he gave me knowledge and we discussed differences between Dzogchen and Sri Vidya, and I certainly learned the more of the two of us. Swami Amritanandanatha died in 2016, but I talked to him a few times and we wrote each other a few times and then as I discovered the hole in my knowledge of Shri Devi Swamiji was there still and he left me a treasure trove of knowledge. So thanks Guruji.
It was as good a thread as any for thanking the wise men, the sages, who leave wonderful wisdom behind for those who have yet to cross.

The Swami left a place called Devipuram and they give free classes. Swami believed in the knowledge being free. And caste free. Unlike everyone else now.

 

The Pope is not considered infallible as such in Christianity, only in some very formal doctrinal declarations (that are also usually previously developed by church bodies, not just personally by him).

There was no such formal dogmatic statement by the last 6 popes, so nothing any of them did would fall under that doctrine of infallibility.


Buddhism started as a monastic body. Indeed, the oldest and most reliable source we have within the religion are monastic rules, more so than any religious/philosophical one.

It is the quintessential organised religion. Even later Hindu monasticism basically just copied that. They did not invent asceticism and renunciation as such (though some historians believe general Shramana predecessors did and that Vedic religion and the later hybridisation in modern day Hinduism got that ideal from Sramana sources alongside concepts like Samsara, moksha etc that are not too evident in early Vedic strata/Samitha), but they basically invented monasticism. And everything was heavily focused on the celibate organised monastic community from the start, lay followers were an afterthought (one of the possible reasons it disappeared from the country - too elitist to survive ingrained in rural population if loosing on the high-culture levels and even being physically destroyed, unlike Hinduism that could not be taken out by Islam etc).

Some seemingly more “maverick” forms like the period and personages that are used as foundation myths in zen ( from at least somewhat historical post/patriarchal times that is, Boddhidharma and early patriarchal succession in China is just mythological) are just a byproduct of that too, they rose to prominence because of isolation on the periphery while the dominant more organised strains were suppressed by the anti-Buddhist imperial court of that particular era. But they too become as mainstream as anyone else once they could, no matter what the “Alan Wattses” of the world would like us to believe by cherrypicking isolated elements needed to support personal agendas.

The idea(l) of a liberal, independent philosophical Buddhism is a modern western “spiritual but not religious” reinterpretation for our own needs. It is easier to project on exotic far away religions than those closer to us in order to fulfil the need of creating “stamps” of authenticity on our own ideas through perceived but mostly just project perceptions of antiquity and authority of the same. Which is also just a psychological and social need, not an intrinsic value.

In very recent times there were even secular Buddhist trying to push their agenda right back to the Buddha himself, trying to present him as a modern materialist atheist in essence.

But as far as we can see into history and infer about even earlier times from that and known historical circumstances, none of that seems legit.

If anything Buddhism was one of the first heavily structured and organised religions and it is the non-religious Buddhism that is the innovation.

 

IMHO looking for a therapist in a guru is the most often seen path into a cult. When we have internal emotional stability and maturity and a sound social support structure then guru becomes someone who initiates into a particular practice and maybe gives advice about sadhana and that is it.

When you start seeing much more than that, when people become emotionally dependent and start asking and relying on the guru for everything- choice of jobs, intimate partners, anything and fully shifting responsibilities and control to “daddy” you are probably in a cult.

It is much healthier to fulfill those needs by socializing horizontally and through different venues and to solve lingering issues in psychotherapy than to regress to a preschool child level of emotional development and project godlike attributes on a human being that might or might not be able to deal with it, usually not.

If an initiatory/occult concept is part of someone's religious outlook then getting a diksha from a guru can feel beneficial for sadhana, but I would not go looking for emotional or any other support there.

 

So true! I just had to deal with someone you are describing. You described him perfectly and it explains something I couldn't figure out about him. Why was he treating a nearby Buddhist monastery and it's senior monk like it was a cult. I understood he was following a tradition, but he seemed to need therapy badly...

You are also right about the main difference between Eastern and Western Buddhism, with Eastern being more like an organized religion with temples and monasteries everywhere.

While Western Buddhism is more individual centered, with self-realization being the goal and often incorporating other practices like yoga or even psychedelics to open the mind.

I agree it's better to vary ones social interactions than be stuck in a conformist religion or cult like MAGA who get all their information from exactly the same sources. It's so easy to manipulate the masses that way.

 

You have to be your own guru and yes, it's often a lonely road.

 

Good Friend at work ( Jain ) totaly relies on her Yogi for all news and information. Ignores the wider American Culture.

Thought I could hear The Who performing : " See me Feel Me " during this conversation.