Another Teacher Like Cohen
by Daniel
There is another living guru just like Cohen. I recently left his fold and stumbled upon this website. You see after leaving my teacher I was strangely attracted to Cohen. Only to realize that Cohen is using the exact same tactics and circular logic of faulting everything to "EGO" as my own "crazy-wise" teacher.
If you haven't guessed already, my teacher was Adi Da. The men's and women's "consideration" groups, the endless "ego-war" and striving for perfection. The constant feeling of being an utter failure and never good enough for the guru. Ridiculously unfair criticisms from the guru. The questionable flow of many and huge donations made by people who can ill afford it. And on and on and on. It is all the same. The two men are incredibly similar in their method.
Andrew comes across at least in public as having all sorts of humility. Adi Da most certainly does not. But from what I read Andrew's humility is not sincere. Both men have had a falling out with their past teachers (although Adi Da still proclaims great love for Muktananda). Both men interestingly enough have zero support from their mothers. A devotee told me how occasionally Adi Da would have his (now deceased) mother visit the Ashram where she would be screaming at him "I don't care how many books you've written you are not God" to which he would just respond by laughing louder and louder at her. But a mother knows her son better than anyone else I think.
The power of belief in ones own "reality" is contagious and I sincerely think that both these men completely believe in their Divinity. So much so that it has convinced thousands around them of this same "reality". They are both great spiritual geniuses, of that I have no doubt. Adi Da also is a genius of meditation and transmission of spiritual energy. As I imagine is Andrew also. But I'm coming to realize you cannot equate intellectual and spiritual genius with the inability to ever become deluded.
Therefore I still have great love for Adi Da. Because he sincerely believes in his Mission and he struggles immensely in it. I am grateful for his teachings and all I have gained from being in his community. But I am very glad I did not become one of the "inner circle" or decide to completely drop my life outside of his Ashram (and it got very close to that-- I lived and served at his Ashram for a year). I am still fairly young (26) and will certainly continue on the Spiritual path, but with greater caution.
For all I know complete surrender to a Guru with double standards could still be beneficial. It isn't for me to say. "A fool who persists in his folly, becomes wise" a great poet once said. But myself I am a devotee of Happiness and I did not see that sufficiently in the longtime devotees of Adi Da or the master himself.. In Adi Da's own accounting, nobody had yet gained very much enlightenment at all after 32 years of his teaching! Peace of being and Happiness are for me the most important thing in life. And so I had to leave my guru because I did not find it there sufficiently. And also I could never trust Adi Da so completely as to surrender to Him completely and, in his dharma, anything less than complete (literally every second of the day and night) surrender of attention towards the guru was a barrier to God-realization. So if I cannot trust him completely (after 6 years) I cannot surrender completely and I am wasting my time. So I left.
I hope you will post this on your site for those who have left Andrew Cohen to see that there are others in similar situations with other teachers.
Daniel
There is another living guru just like Cohen. I recently left his fold and stumbled upon this website. You see after leaving my teacher I was strangely attracted to Cohen. Only to realize that Cohen is using the exact same tactics and circular logic of faulting everything to "EGO" as my own "crazy-wise" teacher.
If you haven't guessed already, my teacher was Adi Da. The men's and women's "consideration" groups, the endless "ego-war" and striving for perfection. The constant feeling of being an utter failure and never good enough for the guru. Ridiculously unfair criticisms from the guru. The questionable flow of many and huge donations made by people who can ill afford it. And on and on and on. It is all the same. The two men are incredibly similar in their method.
Andrew comes across at least in public as having all sorts of humility. Adi Da most certainly does not. But from what I read Andrew's humility is not sincere. Both men have had a falling out with their past teachers (although Adi Da still proclaims great love for Muktananda). Both men interestingly enough have zero support from their mothers. A devotee told me how occasionally Adi Da would have his (now deceased) mother visit the Ashram where she would be screaming at him "I don't care how many books you've written you are not God" to which he would just respond by laughing louder and louder at her. But a mother knows her son better than anyone else I think.
The power of belief in ones own "reality" is contagious and I sincerely think that both these men completely believe in their Divinity. So much so that it has convinced thousands around them of this same "reality". They are both great spiritual geniuses, of that I have no doubt. Adi Da also is a genius of meditation and transmission of spiritual energy. As I imagine is Andrew also. But I'm coming to realize you cannot equate intellectual and spiritual genius with the inability to ever become deluded.
Therefore I still have great love for Adi Da. Because he sincerely believes in his Mission and he struggles immensely in it. I am grateful for his teachings and all I have gained from being in his community. But I am very glad I did not become one of the "inner circle" or decide to completely drop my life outside of his Ashram (and it got very close to that-- I lived and served at his Ashram for a year). I am still fairly young (26) and will certainly continue on the Spiritual path, but with greater caution.
For all I know complete surrender to a Guru with double standards could still be beneficial. It isn't for me to say. "A fool who persists in his folly, becomes wise" a great poet once said. But myself I am a devotee of Happiness and I did not see that sufficiently in the longtime devotees of Adi Da or the master himself.. In Adi Da's own accounting, nobody had yet gained very much enlightenment at all after 32 years of his teaching! Peace of being and Happiness are for me the most important thing in life. And so I had to leave my guru because I did not find it there sufficiently. And also I could never trust Adi Da so completely as to surrender to Him completely and, in his dharma, anything less than complete (literally every second of the day and night) surrender of attention towards the guru was a barrier to God-realization. So if I cannot trust him completely (after 6 years) I cannot surrender completely and I am wasting my time. So I left.
I hope you will post this on your site for those who have left Andrew Cohen to see that there are others in similar situations with other teachers.
Daniel
posted by the Editors at
9:31 AM
27 Comments:
Brian/stillanego--
Haha!
But I'm wondering what you think Andrew Cohen plagiarized from Adi Da.
Do you have any specific examples in mind?
Dear Stillandego,
Reading your last post one can understand how righteous anger towards a non-believer can bring about a suicide bomber or a killer-for-a-cause of any sort for that matter. Nazis being te pinnacle of that type of approach in human history my friend. It is not Daniel's fault that you cannot find love in your heart for where he is at even if you believe (wrongly in my mind) that he is as bad as you portray him.
You seemed to have proven precisely the opposite of what you intended to - that Cohen and Jones are the same kind of misled god-men thriving on naive people who offer themselves to be rabbits in their equally misled experiments. But what if Daniel has actually realised that and maybe you are still waiting to hit that full level of disappointment with your guru's false promises. Or maybe your anger is right and proper too, maybe Daniel is being weak here. But throughout it all he just comes across as a much nicer and more human fellow which an average Cohen/Jones devotee simply cannot bear. That sort of 'weakness and niceness' coupled with any type of serious criticism of one's former guru has to be punished. Brutally. And Daniel obviously deserves it, doesn't he my friend?
Wishing you all the best,
Walter
IB,
I think Walter completely got the point of Narciss/stillanego's tirade. With both gurus and their followers (Cohen and Adi Da), how similar the response of disparagement, undermining, insulting, and blaming of any student who dares to doubt, criticize or (even worse) has enough guts to free themselves from their misguided grandiosity!
Both N's and IB's demonstrations of anger, disrespect and superiority toward anyone with a different view --doubtlessly fueled by their follower's mind's own secret doubts-- make a valuable contribution to this blog's examination of spiritual slavery (and how to get free of it.) Thank you.
these postings are so full of angst bitterness and harshness
may we all find peace of mind
may we all find within the ability to communicate with open-heart, dignity and tenderness
x
Thank you everyone especially stillanego from saving me from sickly sweet new-age christian spirituality.
I have gone to be with my new heart master Adi Da
Uh-oh. The fascisti spammers from the demented evil twin blog are back.
They're like rats or cockroaches, very hard to get rid of once their infestation starts.
Telling that Cohen's group would sink to the level of blog stalkers.
Maybe it's better to turn comments back off, only accept by email again?
Yes the fascisti are back but are we really surprised?
Cohen has his publishing empire and his 200 acre ashram in lovely Western Massachusetts - and to take his PR at face value all is going splendidly - so why does his camp get so worked up that it cannot tolerate a wiff of discent?
Personally İ feel that the re-appearance of fascisti though not pleasant at least provides some vivid evidence that the main thrust of this blog ıs onto something.
Perhaps as an alternative to turning off the comments we who respect reason and resent aggressive mind fuckers should disect each fascisti 'contribution' to reveal how sick it really is.
Or alternatively you can send an email to Cohen telling him what you think of his fascıstıs: info@EnlightenNext.org
Actually I like the hirly-birly of it all.
But you communisti or worse than the inquisition!
Rock on
John
Brian
How come you know so much about Saniel Bonder?
Anon
Yuk. These cowardly Cohen minions who are posting their stupid harassments here are vile and obnoxious little critters, aren't they? I, as their fearlesss supreme and perfect leader, completely and utterly disavow them.
And I order each and everyone of you miserable miscreants to never darken my multi-million dollar compound's gate until you prostrate to my picture 1 Million times and give me all your money (don't hide a cent, now)!
P.S. I only accept cashier's checks.
stillanego said:
> The practise of the turning of
> attention to the Guru will
> culminate in Perfect Divine Self
> Realisation [snip]
> Forget that search for
> enlightenment, its an illusion.
> Its no different from the desire
> for power or recognition.
There are 2 quotes from stillanego above. I can relate to the 2nd one. If you want something, if you think you can get something, then you have a problem, have suffering. Whether this thing that you want is power or status or pleasure or "enlightenment" doesn't change the fact that it's still a want. The 2nd quote is suggesting this, right?
The thing is, the first quote seems to say the exact opposite! Can anyone seriously suggest that wanting enlightenment is bullshit, but wanting "Perfect Divine Self
Realisation" is something else entirely?!
What difference does it make what words you play with? If, say, practicing meditation with a desire for enlightenment is a mistake, surely it can't be less of a mistake to attend to a guru while holding ideas of perfection, divinity, realisation, yada yada.
We wake up to the truth of the moment (what are you doing right now?), or we chase after one thing or another. There's a perspective from which it's not necessary to argue that I'm chasing something better than you are, since the chasing itself is the key point.
Tsk Tsk ..
Some really angry and ugly comments coming in from ignoramuses who actually cannot tell who is a Cohen supporter from a non-partisan.
It's really interesting to look at the comments on this blog and observe the strategy the Cohen cult members use to try to discredit, distract and divert the discussion here. It is a method used by those who are too frightened to engage in direct discourse.
Because their direct attacks of the past--such as Craig Hamilton's angry letters-- back-fired so badly, now they adopt silly pseudonyms (like rollin john, dobbins, juju, snipers anon, etc.) and make snide remarks that simultaneously mask yet further their undermining agenda. Or they attempt to gain attention for their equally deceptive and diversionary "counter-blog."
These are the acts of frightened cowards. I think the only reasonable response is to follow the advicePoonjaji, Cohen's guru--who Cohen rejected when he dared to criticize him--once gave Cohen:
"Ignore the barking dogs who will follow you to the village edge and then return to their holes."
Daniel begins his post by saying that "There is another living guru just like Cohen." Daniel goes on to say that "The two men are incredibly similar in their method."
Daniel expresses love for and gratitude toward Adi Da. At no point in his post does he express animosity toward Adi Da.
Stillanego (Brian) responds by launching an ad hominem attack on Daniel. Stillanego writes, "Mens groups are about becoming a man. If you felt inadequate, well thats your own thing."
Daniel didn't say that he felt inadequate, and to make a blanket statement about men's groups being about becoming a man is to deny the social reality: many men's groups that take place in spiritual communities are about the same kind of oneupsmanship we see everywhere else in society.
Then Stillanego displays the very circular logic that Daniel accurately identified in the first paragraph of his post. Stillanego says, "If you know the teaching then you know that the Guru is all offensive to narcissus."
This is an argument, and it is a fallacious argument. The underlying idea of this argument as Stillanego employs it is: If you are offended by Adi Da, it's because you are narcissus.
We could put this same argument in these terms: If you are offended by X, where X is a spiritual teacher, you are a sinner.
To imply that someone is narcissus or egocentric is to shame them. I remember how my wife and I laughed one time when her mother said, "Shame on you" to her dog. My wife's mother is more Catholic than the Pope, and guilt and shame play a big role in her life. We had to laugh when we saw that she even tried to shame her dog. (She's not that bad; she does Father Thomas Keating's Centering Prayer, which is akin to mindfulness meditation, and she seems to have mellowed out since getting into that.)
So we see Stillanego first implying that Daniel feels inadequate, even though Daniel never suggested any such thing, and then we see Stillanego using circular reasoning to argue that Daniel's decision to walk away from Adi Da -- who Daniel walks away from without denying his love and gratitude -- indicates that Daniel is narcissus. In other words, Stillanego attempts to shame Daniel into reconsidering his decision to leave Adi Da.
Then Stillanego predicts what Daniel will think in the future. Stillanego says: "The world and a lot of the people in this site will congratulate you for firing another guru but that will not serve you one iota. It will delude you into thinking 'im ok', 'im back on the spiritual path and everything is groovey man'. Does this world of war and hunger look anything like a place where a groovey spiritual path exists? Horse shit. Dont make whimsical decisions about Adi Da. You are simply baulking at the call."
I didn't see anything in Daniel's post that would give me the impression that he has or is inclined toward adopting the attitude that "everything is groovy man." I saw the reflections of a young man who seems quite intelligent and reflective, and who neither denies nor despises his present limitations.
But Stillanego attempts to shame and guilt trip Daniel into believing that he is "baulking at the call," or is narcissus, contracting away from the "call" to awaken.
It is as if Stillanego wants to persuade Daniel to not trust himself. Daniel must have followed a call in order to become involved with Adi Da in the first place. Daniel is now following a call to leave Adi Da. Leaving Adi Da is not leaving "the path," because Adi Da is not "the path." Devotion to Adi Da may be "a path" for Stillanego, but unless Stillanego is a fundamentalist, he must acknowledged that what is right for him at this time in his life as far as a spiritual path is concerned is not right for everyone. Devotion to Adi Da is "a path" or "a way" for some, but it is not "the path" or "the way."
A sure sign that someone is relating to a teacher and teaching in a way that is blind and "cultic" is when they believe the teacher and teaching is "the path" or "the way." People who leave "the path" or "the way" are threatening to those who believe they have found "the way." Teachers who implicitly or explicitly encourage students to think of their teachings and them in terms of exclusivity and as "the path" or "the way" are toxic, and wisdom and intelligence lies in the direction of moving away from such teachers.
Stillanego says, "I know Who Adi Da is and i know that my search is over."
Who is Adi Da? An exclusive teacher who cannot be left? Is this like being saved by the Lord? "I know who the Lord is, and I know my search is over."
Stillanego tells Daniel, "Dont get me wrong here, im not being righteous or trying to save you..."
But that is exactly what is going on. Stillanego is puffed up with the self-righteousness that is commonly seen in those who believe they have found "the way." And his post is all about trying to save Daniel from himself. He is trying to save Daniel from becoming "deluded," and from thinking that he's "ok" and that everything is "groovey" (sic), and he is trying to save Daniel from throwing away Adi Da "because you are pissed at the community."
With that remark, Stillanego attempts to redefine Daniel's reasons for walking away from Adi Da. It's as if someone has decided to leave an abusive relationship, and the party being left or someone speaking on their behalf says, "Don't leave so-and-so because you can't handle being in a committed relationship." They are not leaving the relationshipo because they can't handle being in a committed relationship, they are leaving the relationship because it's an abusive relationship and they have come to see that with clarity.
Daniel didn't say he was pissed at the community. He said that he left the community because he didn't trust Adi Da, and he gave reasons why. But Stillanego thinks he knows Daniel better than Daniel knows himself. Perhaps this is because Stillanego knows "Who Adi Da is."
Then, an a post further down, Stillanego tells Daniel, "I am an angry fucker today and you need some serious father force boy."
Stillanego starts off telling Daniel that Daniel felt "inadequate," and then tells him that he needs "some serious father force."
And Stillanego thinks he is capable of delivering it.
Stillanego says to Daniel, "Have you any idea what you are doing? turning your back on the greatest thing that ever happened to you or this universe???"
This is the same Stillanego who said, "Dont get me wrong here, im not being righteous or trying to save you..."
This last post by "anonymous" does a really great job parsing stillanego's presumptions. Again, this is so interesting, because the presumptions and strategies used by stillanego to undermine anyone who would dare to voice any criticism of their guru, or leave the group, seem universal. This really seems to be something impersonal in operation here. Everyone familiar with Cohen's group and who left that group will recognize the same voice (although the vocabulary may be different) that they heard raised against them, and will appreciate the analysis in the previous post.
Stillanego wrote:
> Yes i will say it again, I know
> Who ADI DA is. He actually IS
> (impossible as it sounds to you)
> The Divine Incarnate.
Please note that ANYONE could make that claim. Or you could make that claim on behalf of anyone, without exception. "The Pope is The Divine Incarnate." "Mick Jagger is The Divine Incarnate." "George Bush is The Divine Incarnate."
So... since making that statement about someone so clearly means nothing at all, I wonder why you take the trouble to make it.
(Note that if I say, for instance, "Repeating a mantra can help quiet your thinking and give peaceful feelings," that's a different kind of statement. Not because it's right or wrong, but it's something practical, something you could try for yourself, something you could actually DO and then determine if the effect is or isn't there. I say this just as an example, to contrast with a statement like, "Adi Da is The Divine Incarnate," which has no connection to anything practical.)
> Recognition of Adi Da is a heart
> matter. I cannot convince anyone
> of Who He is.
No argument that life is filled with things that are beyond words, beginning with the great question "What am I?" If something is beyond words, then you keep your mouth shut. Isn't that most obvious? So if you say you can't convince anyone, why open your mouth at all?
> You might be aware that in all
> the great religions and even in
> some of the smaller ones there
> is a prophecy of a final
> Incarnation!?
If people want to follow this religion or that, believing in other people's words, that's OK. I prefer believing in my own experience, rather than the words of some long-dead prophet. And I think it's useful for everyone to at least be aware of the OPTION of staying with direct experience, rather than believing in a prophet or religion.
> why is it inconcieveable that
> the Divine should incarnate now
> when things are totally and
> utterly shite in world social
> terms?
Embedded in this question is the assumption of a difference between "Divine" and "not Divine." Like, "Adi Da is Divine, but George Bush and Mick Jagger aren't." With one's thinking, one can create this duality, as well as countless others. But why do that?
> If it was then you would only
> have to sit in your room and
> keep asking yourself 'what am
> i?' for your whole life and
> whoosh, Enlightened.
Likewise, I'd like to draw attention to the fact that "Enlightened" vs "Unenlightened" is a duality made by thinking. I'm not saying it's bad to create this or that duality, but why not be aware that you're doing it, and question why?
> All the habits and fear, sorrow,
> anger, boredom, doubt and
> discomfort are not there simply
> because you havent been asking
> yourself what you are for long
> enough. They are an
> automaticity.
As a speaker of English, I'm not familiar with jargon like "automaticity." I'll just mention that to be bored sometimes and excited sometimes is no problem, to be sorrowful sometimes and happy sometimes is no problem, etc etc.
> I can say from direct experience
> that one week of disciplining
> tendencies is worth 15 years of
> philosophising and asking 'great
> questions'.
I'll agree that actually practicing a discipline is a different realm from merely thinking about something. My start-off point for my prior posting was seeing that "Adi Da is the Divine Incarnate" ISN'T a discipline; it's nothing but an idea.
But when you say "... is worth 15 years ...", how is that measured? "Worth" in what sense? For instance, if you have the clearly defined goal of getting rich, you could say that this job is worth 15 times as much as that job (with respect to moving towards the goal of being rich).
But life isn't like that. We're not born with a goal. We're born with a blank slate, and we make our own goals for ourselves.
So whenever we think of what something is "worth," there's always an assumed idea about what we need to "get" in life. Very often, these ideas are unexamined, don't see the light of day.
For this reason, I like to look into these things: what's the direction of my life? why do I live? what am I trying to get? why?
My thought is that if we don't clarify life direction like this, we can get bamboozled. That is, we can read a book or hear a teacher that tells us our goal should be to get "enlightenment" (or WHATEVER), and we end up following someone elses direction, without looking into the matter for ourselves.
I forgot to add to my prior posting...
> Asking the question 'What am I?'
> might be useful for something, i
> dont know what exactly
> [snip]
> Asking those questions doesnt
> put you up against the reality
> of our life as a self deluded
> and self centered ego.
You speak here of "self" and "ego" as problems (and as "reality"). Maybe, could be. But if one is going to spend time and life-energy on dealing with the problem of ego, isn't it a good starting point to look into what this "self" or "ego" is?
For instance, if your goal is to kill the boogie-man, you SHOULDN'T start out by wondering which weapon to use. The first step is getting clear on what the boogie-man is. Because: who knows, you might see that the boogie-man has no reality, that he's just a creation of thinking, and that the whole concept of killing him is unnecessary.
Confronting the "self-deluded ego" is a similar matter, and that's the value in taking up the question "What am I?"
Ahh the old guru trick. Some quotes from the Seth Material:
It is trickery. It is the old guru trick and it works this way. Whenever you transfer to another those abilities and powers that are your own and he accepts them and says I have them and I will teach you to use them, you are both in trouble. He does not know who he is and you do not know who you are.
...
You can learn to enjoy, understand and accept your creature-hood. You can stop fighting your creature-hood. You can be and realize that your own state of being has its own meaning and that meaning will become yours in conscious terms when you realize that it is yours. You can do this by realizing there is nothing wrong with you. No great battle that need be fought, no great adversaries, either emotional inside or outside. Nothing that you must do to be better, but realize that in certain terms you are all gods couched in flesh, therefore the answers are to be found within your experience as creatures.You are gods couched in flesh experiencing creature-hood, encountering experience through flesh and through accepting and knowing that joyfully you find the divinity that you think you have lost because you look for that divinity in all the wrong places. It does not exist in places in those terms. You look for it in exotic terms outside somewhere else, whether it is in another city or another country or in another dimension of reality still better. But it is within you now.
...
Value your ego. Do not, all of you, be so willing to thrust it aside. It is a good and valuable friend. And forget the term! The ego is a portion of your inner self. It is you! It is simply the portion of you that surfaces at any given time, in your terms. The portion of which you, in your terms, are conscious. Other portions of the inner self surface at other times, and you call them the ego.The ego is a portion of your self—of the inner self. It is only because you have been taught that the ego is rigid that you have a rigid ego. It is only because you have been taught that the self that you know cannot look inward that you find it so difficult to study your own beliefs and to look inward.It is only because you believe that the truth cannot be public that you make secrets. It is only because you believe that the ego is a dirty word that it becomes one.The squirrel would be quite happy with your ego for a day, and quite pleased. He would say, "Oh, wow, and be glad not to chatter. And, he would listen to the squirrel and think, "my, what a blessed animal this is without an ego."The ego is as natural as a flower blossom or a squirrel, or a Rich, or a lady with purple hair upon a mountain side, or a secret that will not be told, and so outrages us even though secrets do not exist. And, as I have told you often and as you surely have heard, and as you know, the universe is good natured. And it smiles at you if you give it half a chance. And the vitality that you sense here tonight is your own. For you all have access to as much energy.In all these boots, are all these toes. And each toe automatically and beautifully uses its energy well. And, moreover, it is quite happy, each toe, and each atom and molecule within it. To be united with another kind of being, and, in certain terms, to be a part of an orgasm that can look out and walk upon the earth, your toes look out of your eyes— you simply do not know it.And now, I bid you all a fond good evening, and, I hope, a merry one.
...
The more you try to lose the ego, the more, of course, you find it!
Anyone enlightened? ;-)
stillanego wrote:
> You start by doing something
> that always surprises and
> disheartens me, guru-bashing. As
> far as i am concerned the great
> Gurus of history are the most
> sacred and most valuable of all
> humanity.
Every day you must encounter hundreds of different people. In the course of ordinary life, you interact with family, with friends, with people you do business with or do entertainment with, or strangers you encounter by chance.
One way you COULD treat these relationships would be to consider them as 100% important as they occur. You could devote your energy & attention to the person in front of you this moment, & then when that's over, move on to whoever appears in the next moment.
But this isn't possible if you're holding ideas that there are "great gurus of history" who are more "sacred" and "valuable" than the people you actually encounter moment to moment. You're in effect bashing EVERYONE (except for those handful of beings you've decided to make sacred and valuable).
Disheartening!
stillanego wrote:
> Stuart, I am not bashing
> everyone except those i honour.
> If you love someone, does that
> mean you hate everyone else???
Yeah, it's kind of like that. If you say that Texas has hot weather, you're saying that other places are less hot. When you say that gurus are sacred and valuable, you're saying that the rest of humanity, the people you're actually with, are less sacred and less valuable.
> his mother says to
> him, "everyone is special" and
> he says to her "thats just a way
> of saying that no-one is
> special".
Right, no one is special. So why not relate to the people right in front of you, rather than some guru who is long dead, or miles away, or exists only in your thinking?
> but to imagine that all people
> are equally spiritually evolved
> or enlightened is totally
> idealistic and naive.
You're the one who's making ideas about "spiritual evolution" and "enlightenment," so for YOU there's the issue of people being equal or unequal this way. Since you're the one imagining "spiritual evolution," that's for you to deal with, not me.
> You are full of shit. Am i
> close to something here or just
> ranting and tirading again.
You're just ranting and tirading again. On the one hand, you hold ideas about sacred and valuable gurus; then on the other hand, you're nasty to everyone else. It's a perfect example: you honor these special gurus, then you dishonor others with a "you're full of shit" attitude.
> Everything is wonderful.
> Yea like fuck.
It's possible, at least for a moment, to put down your personal opinions (this is wonderful, that's fucked-up), and see things with a clarity that you otherwise miss.
1. I assume that many people interested in, or connected to, Andrew Cohen are familiar with the colour-coded value Memes of Clare Grave's Spiral Dynamics. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts about the expression of different vMemes (a) in Andrew's behaviour (b) in the opinions posted on this blog?
2. I recall that Adi Da was asked something like: "Are all enlightened people Gurus?" And his answer: "No. Guru isn't some kind of status. It's a special function that awakens in certain individuals." One of the untapped extensions of this idea is that one needn't necessarily be Enlightened to be a Guru. For some people the guru-function might never activate even if they reach vastly trans-human heights of conscous perfection. Some fisherman of the coast of Borneo who transmit dharma in his very being but just gets grumpy or coy when anyone asks about that "shiny thing" in his soul. For others, a guru-function might activate with no profound realization at all. And for still others, the group Andrew appears to fall into, the guru-function activates very readily in response to the first stable access into the consciousness of Pure Being.
This function has certain characteristics, particulary in association with mystics. The ability to evoke temporary illuminations in others. An endlessly creative exposition of dharma which piggy-backs the specific character traits of the Realizer. Proneness to seemingly irrational behaviour, demands for surrender and devotional resonance, and a natural tendency toward absolutism. All three things are ordinary and expected in someone whose 'unit' is a mouthpiece for higher-natural powers such as Consciousness, Evolution, Being, Inhuman Love, etc. Of necessity this person is delighted only when he or she acts unthinkingly in conformity with the urgent voice of the guru-function or when he or she observes malleable response to this energy from other people, the world, etc.
I think a lot of people might be available to a higher clarity if they could make great leaps of distinction. Illumination IS NOT the guru-function IS NOT deeply compassionate human-maturity and complexity. Often these things are in conjunction. We hope for the greatest possible conjunctions -- but there is no necessary connexion.
Illumination is best hinted at by what the Master did before his/her illumination. The guru-function is a unique and powerful factor in the evolutionary becoming of the universe. And both can function whether the Master is a saint or a despot. Every has these conflicting tendencies, but when we get into the historically rare situation of critiquing spiritual teachers (as this blog evironment is devoted to) we should strive for increasing precision and accuracy.
Can we, for example, try to assess the Master's personal strengths and weaknesses without confusing them for the ceaseless urging of the guru-function? And can we keep our assessments of a wo'man's illumination apart from both of these? Very difficult but perhaps necessary... especially for people still trying to "digest" their experience in a spiritual community with a charismatic leader.
3. It is wonderful to have places for people to energetically express their insights. One of the difficulties this raises, however, is that fervert, almost "fun" haze of self-assertion that comes upon us when we try to describe our emotional experiences with other people -- AND doubly when we spot structural flaws in their responses to our confessions.
My own eyes catches continually upon a certain... weirdness. People expressing themselves both for and against Andrew have this bizarre tendency to dumb down the alternative position. Usually someone wants to reveal what another person "is really saying." Are their words a mere mask for their zealous obedience to a brain-washing cult leader? Are their sentences mere subterfuge for narcissitic, reality-reinterpreting ego-indulgence which lashes out at the wise and well-intentioned? These come in at the same level of discussion. How is it that we discover what someone else is "really" saying? It makes them simpler. Easier targets. More justifiable reactions.
4. After all - is a spiritual teacher responsible for the life and energy dynamics of their community? We'd like to think so. We have to have human accountability, don't we? Or...?
Not sure if this fits your blog or not,
but thank you either way.
Iconosostacles.
stillanego wrote:
> If everyone is equal what is
> your big problem with gurus?
> What you are actually saying
> when you say that we are all
> equal and its a very subtle
> thing is that "no body is
> greater than me".
One interesting thing is how you hallucinate that I said "We are all equal." Since I never said that, it's curious how you imagined this idea, then projected it out onto me (so you wouldn't have to take responisibility for it).
YOU are the one who likes to compare people to each other. Since you're hooked on making comparisons, then for YOU there's this problem: are people equal or unequal? It's not my problem, you're the one who's making it.
You say that people are unequal, and I say that's bullshit. You hallucinate that I'm saying people are equal, since in the world you've created, people must either be equal or unequal. But what I'm really saying, the thing that you're missing completely, is why are you so interested in comparing people? Each moment, you encouter particular people or things. Why not just respond to the reality of what's in front of you? What do you gain by comparing real people to the imaginings of your mind? (Specifically, in your case, comparing real people to some imagined holy guru.)
Please remember that this whole conversation started because you wrote:
> As
> far as i am concerned the great
> Gurus of history are the most
> sacred and most valuable of all
> humanity.
From the get-go, I'm asking why you make this "great Gurus" more sacred and more valuable than the ordinary everyday people you meet? After all, the only thing that identifies a "great Guru" is that you've imagined them so in your mind, and YOU decided to compare them to the rest of humanity in your post. Why do you do that? What's there to gain?
You also hallucinate that I have a problem with "gurus." I don't make "gurus," so there's no problem there. I don't have a problem with how you make "gurus" either. I'm just noting that it's something you make with your thinking, then pretend it's not your responsibility.
People who like to make comparisons, in order to glorify these "special" gurus, so often end up treating other "ordinary" people like shit. I'm sure that you notice yourself doing this in your own life. It's not a problem, I'm just pointing out a perspective that you don't seem to be seeing.
http://home.comcast.net/~sresnick2/mypage.htm
stillanego wrote:
> One of the aspects of greatest
> wisdom is the fact that it is
> owned by so few. It is not
> everyday common knowledge.
I can see why you'd WANT to believe this. If there's really this "greatest wisdom" that's owned by so few, and clearly you believe that you have some access to this ultra-special wisdom, then that makes you damn special.
But WANTING it to be that way isn't much of an argument. It's exactly the same as if I said that I've seen the "greatest movie," and I'm super-special because so few people have seen it. Reasonable people would understand that "greatest" is just a matter of opinion. It's made by thinking, exactly like your "greatest wisdom" is nothing but a creating of your thinking, designed to make you special.
Even beyond that, if I were to claim that I've seen the greatest movie, one would expect that I'd offer at least a BIT of evidence of why it's so great. Notice that you offer nothing to indicate why this "greatest wisdom" of yours is anything so special.
The idea "there are Great Gurus" is not more intensely "just an idea" than the idea "there are no Great Gurus."
The idea "people are not equal in the their transmission of the Divine" is not more intensely a mere idea than "people are equal in their transmission of the Divine."
The idea "some have special wisdom - and I know it" is not more biased by personal desire than the idea "some are biased in favor of special wisdom -- and i know it".
Wow. Feisty. We may have some different feelings about what constitutes a good blog.
Ambiguity is not dead air, but it does require that we go more slowly, more delicately -- allowing the full range of complexity and paradox to enter as deeply as possible into each of our viewpoints so that we don't need to be so energetically "balanced out" by the next counter-ejaculation.
I don't think Stuart thinks "if you love someone you hate everyone else" -- but I DO think his replies were odd in a special way. As I said, the argument that, say, your assessment of the place of Gurus is just an idea that you want to believe... well, that implies that your view is being weighed up against some solid reality and found to be mere self-serving belief. Yet that solid reality is just a counter belief in which he wants to believe.
And, no, I'm not trying to put forward some amateur philosophy which invalidates Reality into the category of mere belief. Quite the opposite actually. I meant to suggest that criticizing someone's expression as being an idea held for emotional reasons is not a criticism at all -- because it applies equally to the criticizer. It cancels itself out, just as the notion that "all is illusion" cancels itself out.
(Not that there isn't a realizable truth which is pointed at by such a verbal formulation...)
Still, a forum isn't much more than the egoic venting of isolated, apparentely contradictory, emotionally charged viewpoints UNLESS we actively try to conduct our "charge" through the body-mind rather than channelling an eruption into our blog-posts. The only way for this mutual expression to be alive as a processor of the blog-topic is to attempt to... grow into each other.
(Not that non-separation doesn't already exist inbetween and everywhere--)
Franklin (Adi Da, AKA Bubba Da Hutt) is not enlightened or anything like it. He is psychotic and a sociopath. That's his secret. He is lying, but he does it so completely, and so totally without conscience, that people buy it.
Sociopaths are charming. They are charming because they are wired differently. But this one is also quite insane with amazing delusions.
No, he is not enlightened, nor anything like it. Franklin shines his "grace" until he sees you have something he wants. Then he takes what he wants. But the "grace" is just an emasculating game of competition with, and hate for, other men. He is a coward, you will see. His "samadhi" is bullshit. He cannot function without tranquilizers. He takes viagra and watches porn.
This is the god-man? Brother, that fat old fucker's game has worn thin. He can't even "maintain" for very long which IS WHY YOU RARELY SEE HIM! He has utter contempt for you Mr. "Stillanego". Utter, complete contempt. You may see it one day. You can sometimes see it on his face when he is walking in the room if you look up as he is walking through the door. Since he's partially blind now, he won't catch you at it. One of his attendants might, but most of them are much too busy.
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