Accepting a Simple Truth

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
Leo Tolstoy

"I believe the closed, self-confirming guru-system has an ...important defect, even with Masters who manage to avoid (many) temptations, namely that there is little or no opportunity for theories and techniques to be evaluated against their experiential results and exchanged for better ones.'

'My own reason for regarding the Master-concept as pernicious is that it imposes an almost irresistable temptation on guru and disciples alike to keep quiet about and/or rationalize away any experience that might detract from the guru's claim to infallible authority justifying surrender.'

'The trouble is that once such a system is swallowed, the guru cannot admit to lapses without completely discrediting his claim to have any enlightenment to pass on. So from the highest possible motive, a sincere desire to share his God-consciousness, he is tempted to rationalize, probably even to himself. Sexual advances toward attractive disciples become tantric exercises or studies of the chakras, a beer-belly is due to the descent of shakti-power, outbursts of temper are to weaken disciples egos or to test their devotion, collection of money is needed for spreading the Word, gifts are accepted because the disciples wish to show their devotion, and so on through the whole hackneyed catalog.'

Professor John Wren Lewis

"Anyone who denies having an unconscious stops an essential process of awareness which involves being very alert to the workings of one's own filtering mechanisms. This denial can only increase the power of the unconscious.

Because a spiritual authority cannot compete well from a position of fallibility, gurus are caught on the horns of a dilemma: by denying the unconscious they become more unconscious; but if they acknowlegge its possibility in themselves, they can no longer be infallible."

from The Guru Papers by Allstad & Kramer