To: K-list
Recieved: 2002/12/30 16:01
Subject: [K-list] Gurus and all that
From: Karolina Lindqvist
On 2002/12/30 16:01, Karolina Lindqvist posted thus to the K-list:
There has been some discussions about gurus and all that, previously this year
here I see. In general I am quite sceptical towards the whole guru business.
The chance of getting a "good" guru compared to the chance of getting a bad
one appears so small.
I say that I had a guru, but it is not exactly a normal guru-disciple
relationship. I liked my guru and served him to the best of my ability. He
gave me quite a lot of attention, and I thought that was how the
guru-disciple relationship should be. Whenever I had a problem, he was there
to help me. And problems I had.
Somehow, 4 years ago, the whole thing ended. (Which is another story). It was
some years later for some reason when I met him, that our relationship came
up, and he said "I never treated you like a disciple. You were my daughter in
a previous life". And I knew in my heart that it was true, since I always saw
him as my father, and not as the "guru".
Cheated!
I, who could never surrender to a "master", got cheated by getting a "master"
that I kind of already loved in my heart.
So actually, I know how it is to live with a guru, but not exactly how it is
to be a disciple. I could hear his "official" classes, and then hear what his
leading disciples thought he said. I could see his nearest disciples crawl in
submission on the floor for him, get their orders, and then hear how they
came out of there as the "nearest" disciples of the guru and said something
else to the "lesser" disciples with the words "the guru said". I could see
how the leading disciples reported to him what was happening (since the guru
was often travelling and could not know what was going on), but actually
twisting the facts the way they wanted it, and thus indirectly control the
guru, so they could say "the guru said". I could see the multiple cleaning up
actions by my guru, and then how the leading disciples tried to undo it. It
was largely a big ugly power game.
I could also see the disciples who had no clue about what it meant to be a
disciple, but who had a sentimental attachment to "the big guru", and
worshipped him in a kind of external religious way.
It was quite an experience. I think this is more the rule than the exception
in religious groups where there is a charismatic leader. The bigger group,
the more power play. Even if the guru really tries to keep it spiritually on
a straight course, finally it becomes just to much for him. Maybe the only
way such a spiritual group can work in the long run is if the guru is crooked
from the beginning. But then we can never know, since we never hear the
uncorrupted version from the spiritual leader. It can also be very hard to
see the corruption, since most of the time we just don't know the original
spiritual message.
Getting something decent spiritually from the net, without knowing something
from the beginning, I think is next to impossible, since it is just
charismatic guru-types that get their message spread, and that is what turns
up in the search engines.
Now, why do we need a guru?
As I see it, the guru and the submission to him (her) has a very important
function. When we enter the spiritual field, we already have a concept of
what spirituality is. And we are convinced that we know the final end of it.
Maybe we have read a lot of books, and think we know it all. Most people have
had a spiritual experience, and want to learn more about it. It is almost
impossible to say something else to a person who things that s/he already has
the answer. But the spiritual realisation is not book learning, it is rather
a twist of the consciousness in a direction that we have no idea about in the
beginning. It is not a thing about learning, not a thing about intelligence
and logic. It is something completely different. But as long as we hold on to
believing it can be understood with the intelligence, with logic or with
anything we have from before, it is impossible to learn it.
So a guru has a business of contradicting our logic, our intelligence or
learning, until we are so dizzy, and confused that we don't understand a
thing, let our mental guard down, and then he has to kind of jam in the
spiritual understanding into us. I recently read the Castaneda books, and I
kind of laughed, since I recognised exactly the same thing there. How the
"guru" did everything to contradict and tire the mind of the disciple, just
to be able to give the mystic understanding.
One of the bigger threats to spiritual understanding, in my opinion, is the
western attempts to explain everything with science, psychology, and so on.
It is a complete killer to spiritual understanding, unless you are really
extraordinarily bright and can see through the science part. It might be
right, and it might be possible to use scientific understanding for some
parts of the spiritual understanding. That's not the problem. The problem is
trying to find material, mundane, explanations to that which can't be
understood (by the brain).
It is like a computer trying to understand the programmer of it. It is just
completely impossible, since the understanding is outside of the realm of the
computer's ability.
Karolina
http://www.kundalini-gateway.org
http://www.domin8rex.com/serpent/spirit/kindex.htm
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