Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I've just finished reading the book Enlightenment Blues  by Andre van der Braak, an ex disciple of Andrew Cohen. The impetus to this reading I got from the many critical comments of him on this pod.
  I knew about Cohen only through his Enlightennext magazine. I consider it to be of high quality, especially compared to the Finnish spiritually oriented magazines, that  all the time conflate prerational to transrational.

  I have also my own history in a guru movement, and hence still feel a need to understand better the guru phenomenon from different perspectives. I was involved in the Transcendental Meditation-movement  for 20 years. I got involved in it through learning TM-meditation. That meditation worked wonders for me. I also appreciated, and still do, many aspects of the philosophy that TM-organization teaches.
   I was pretty much in the periphery in the hierarchy of that organization, because I felt an aversion towards surrendering to a guru. It was impossible to me to look up to a guru whom I saw to be too grandiose, exaggerating up to dishonesty, or just mixing fantasy and reality as it suited him. It was  not  allowed to use one's own discriminative intelligence in issues considering his policies and  aspects of his teachings. The world you could criticize as much as you could, but not the guru. That was considered to be a very harmful type of negativity, that destroyed the smooth unfolding of enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment was not my goal, and I never tried to squelch my critical observations of Maharishi.

   The TM-organization did not  expect every TM-meditator to surrender to its guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. However many people did, and anyone who wanted to become a meditation teacher in the organization had to.  I could pretty well co-exist with these people, and have them even as my friends. This gave me plenty of opportunity to observe this guru phenomenon from close without being myself drawn to it.

  Maharishi came from Indian Hindu culture, and Andrew Cohen from atheist upper class Jewish New York background. Therefore it was shocking to observe how similar he is portrayed as a guru in the book in his way of relating to his disciples as Maharishi was. Throughout the book I saw similar alarming behavioral patterns.
 To me these issues are severe transgressions of how to constructively to relate to others, and how there is lack of mutuality and true dialogue. Also to me both these gurus show too many traits and modes of operation typical to narcissistic people. My mother was also a narcissist, and my fight through that hell has given me a strong foundation  against the attraction and allure these people have on others.

  Cohen has, as also Maharishi had,  intellectual clarity and courage. Maharishi was verbally skillful, and had good interpersonal skills. He was a reformers who tried to enliven and purify many invaluable aspects in the old spiritual traditions, and leave away aspects that are not anymore useful, or have got distorted. I like many aspects of his teaching. This could apply to Cohen also, although neither of them is as unique, or special in their teachings as they consider themselves to be.

  Both of these reformers are however as gurus on the fundamentalist side on of the guru scale.  At least for Maharishi his way of being a guru was not a role he chose as a useful method to work with his disciples. He was totally indentified in being an enlightened guru. Also Cohen seems to perceive himself as an enlightened perfect master without any shadow issues. In this type of relationship the guru has always right, the will of the guru is the law, and if something goes wrong, the mistake, the wrong doing is always on the side of the disciple. In this respect the guru and the disciple are fully separate from each other. Still these gurus teach about oneness and unity, the falsity of a separate sense of self.
  Both of these types gurus  control in detail the doings of the close disciples. They also  perceive themselves much superior to their disciples, and have an  impersonal, detached  relationship to them. They  interest him only if they are useful to him, and want to serve him or donate him money. The disciples are expected to act in every detail according to the gurus wishes and impulses, not questioning the policies of the guru, and suspending one's moral understanding in this regard.
  This approach creates a strong dominator hierarchy. It is not a natural hierarchy or holarchy. The guru does not include the disciples as they are with their weaknesses and faults in himself. This dominator power is kept going by rewarding those who best serve the guru in his career, and help him make money.
  There is also continuous manipulation of the disciples through skillfull useof  high ideals and concepts like enlightenment and transforming humanity. These are used as  dazzling shields and facades giving justifications to the actual policies and behaviours of the guru, which on their own couldn't stand the daylight.

  Without being blinded by these highly idealistic concepts and that seem to get also some validation through grandiose interpretation of some bypassing blissful meditative state experiences, people would have much more easier to discriminate the behaviour of these gurus as abusive.
   Being an enlightened master or king or god whom others surrender to and obey is a dream come through for a  narcissist. They are ready to do almost anything to get there. They feel they are extraordinary, much superior to others. A spiritual awakening experience other people are more  humble about, tends to give more fuel on their perception of themselves as extraordinary and superior to others. And an intelligent narcissist will stage this perception of himself in 3-D in his relating to others in a truly grandiose way. If the narcissist is interpersonally skillfull there will appear people, who get hooked on his projections, especially if the guru has been able to mix in between these projections something truly valuable also.

  Narsissistics tend to perceive themselves to be perfect. The flaws and problems that arise in their interactions with others, are always in others. I wonder how these people would do with the 3-2-1 Integral Life Practice of trying to own the issues that disturb them in others, or in the world?
  A narcissist tends to relate to others by controlling them, as their capacity to take emotionally the position of the other is weak. They tend also to see others impersonally as something that can be useful to them. If a person is not useful to him anymore, he is thrown out as useless trash, without feeling any empathy on what that person may have to go through.  These people tend also to retaliate  to people, who hurt them or don't obey them. Intelligent and interpresonally skillfull narcissists may manage to create strong dominator power over the lives of many people. These type of people have been and still are common also in many other positions of power, as CEO's, politicians and dictators.

   Most successful these gurus seem to be in creating fame and material wealth and riches to themselves. They are not good leaders under whose leadership people truly can prosper.

   However maybe these type of gurus have some useful  function in helping people to transform themselves through the hard way.  Many of us have in our shadow some narcissistic features. This can create attraction towards  narcissistic leaders.  This shadow we can also project out to the narcissistic guru. We cannot see the guru to be a narcissist, because our own narcissistic features are deeply suppressed from our awareness. Instead we perceive the shining facade of the narcissist as something very attractive and alluring.

   The narcissistic guru  may  in some cases succeed in forcing people to work through their own narcissistic residues. This is because a true narcissist cannot tolerate another narcissist in his vicinity. There cannot be another competing enlightened star close to him, only submissive servants.
 
  Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Very insightful post, Irmeli!  Thank you.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Nicely balanced approach to guruship, Irmeli.  I personally see the guru relationship to harbour the distinct possibility of personal power-related abuse.  We are not similarly situated in life, which is to say there exists a differential spread of life's gifts and qualities.  The typical guru, in my experience, is typically more educated than average, has a better start in life than average, has better internal skills than average, etc.  Where such a person has applied him- or herself to inner matters, that person can look as if a god to a person having lesser of the qualities required to reach the facility the guru has.  It is exactly that relation which to my perception is most open to abuse.

I agree that people who want a following are generally narcissists.  Life's pathways are so individual and unique that it must take quite an overriding something to eliminate the sense of that very individuality and uniqueness.  That something, which might be called a root narcissistic need to be (seen, on top, teacher, leader, etc), generally operates under the banner of some form of necessity: do this or you will suffer, do this or the apocalypse will come, do this or the environment will die, etc.  The “this” which a follower is cajoled to do is of course the guru's idea of what must be done.

We thus can guess that narcissism is but a crude form of idea propagation, which is but a form of genetic replication in the softer realm of memes or ideas or prescriptions for living etc.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Thank you Tely and Tom!

  I still feel myself somewhat puzzled by this guru/disciple thing. It would be nice to hear a personal perspective from someone, who feels she/he has truly benefited from such a relationship.

   This type a surrender does not seem possible to me. There is nothing that would draw me in that direction, but I would like to understand better people who do feel that way. Maybe a full surrender has an important function. I can relate to that.
 I have only difficulties to understand the odd forms this surrendering can take. In spite of liberating, it seems to make people prisons of a guru, who cannot  encourage their disciples' discriminative intelligence to blossom. That would require also permitting doubt and critical observations of the guru. That I consider to be crucial for inner well-being and development.

   I have surrendered myself also long, long ago. As good atheist at age 16 this surrender did not happen to any human being or God, but to the deep intelligence beyond life. That intelligence was then, and still is, transcendental to my conscious mind. This surrender changed my life profoundly. It gave me great inner stability. I would say I got grounded in Being, even if  I could not formulate it that way then. Since then I have felt being carried by life. In that shift I lost  my need to be or become something.

 This surrender never required me to control  my thoughts or feelings, or to categorize them as negative or positive. It never required me to staunch any aspect of my doubting or critical mind. It also made me much more open minded. It made me more capable of observing  the world and people with an open mind while letting them to be who they were. No need to awaken others to this type of realization has never appeared.

  Even if I cannot surrender  to another entity, I do tune into different aspects of people's subtle energies that I do appreciate. In the 90's I regularly attended to a fitness centre, where many of the top athletes of our city trained. There I enjoyed to observe how those athletes used their muscles on a subtle energetic level. I think Ispontaneously did the same thing with Maharishi and some other people in the TM-movement. I just tuned into some subtle energetic aspects of their being.

 Neither have I never felt a need to get rid of my ego. My ego or self has simply gradually and spontaneously become more inclusive as I have evolved. This is why I also have difficulties to understand the types of meditations that aim to get rid of ego. Again and again the question arises in my mind: what the hell is that about?

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: This type a surrender does not seem possible to me. There is nothing that would draw me in that direction …

Me either.  I guard my own processes fiercely and normally do not allow others' ideas of what should or needs to happen budge me off track.  If I do allow that I feel it as an inner dissonance.

I can listen to and read others, but I tend to do so with one eye always to my difference, which I nurture.  That difference, I have found, goes deep and affects my becoming in basically any way I can distinguish.  One could say that listening and adhering to that call to and those signs of difference has been my greatest teacher.  Aloneness can arouse great fear, and death, which to me is a form of aloneness.  These, I find, are processed foremost in heeding my difference.

Irmeli: Neither have I never felt a need to get rid of my ego. My ego or self has simply gradually and spontaneously become more inclusive as I have evolved.

Me either.  People who say “no-self” look to me to project inner process onto reality.  In my view, inner process moves dialectically—call it transcend and include, or subject becoming object, etc.  I like to view it as a form of positive (a position), that which was once naively lived, being negated in the emergence of a new wholistic positive (position).  The negating process—the saying 'no' to previous—is an essential distinguishing moment.  I find that people usually project this 'no' as absolutely real.  Yes, the old self may be gone, so yes it's true there's no old self as I once lived it.  But a new self has replaced it.

Same with ego.

Same with any perspective.  The world is evolutionary.  People, and their ancestors, right back to algae and hydrogen before that, etc, have been no-selfing into higher self definitions for billions and billions of years.  In light of this evolution, saying “no self” can sound preposterous to me.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom:I guard my own processes fiercely and normally do not allow others' ideas of what should or needs to happen budge me off track.

This applies to me also. Eg in TM-movement many people tried hard to get me start doing the so called siddhi techniques. I felt my simple meditation technique was evolving fast on its own, although I did not know where. It was real inner strength training for me to again and again politely keep on turning them down. And I learned also to be very cautious of not telling them what was going on in my meditation. If I tried their reaction was that something had to be terribly wrong in my meditation. I had then and still have deep inner guidance, and I trust that. This has also made me trust the inner processes my meditation spontaneously lead me to. I guess most people would have got scared and tried to stand back.

 I also have understood all the time that this is very specifically my process. I cannot teach it to others. Other people have so different strengths and weaknesses. I can only help them by tuning into their reality, and from there together can we try to find an opening.

Tom:Yes, the old self may be gone, so yes it's true there's no old self as I once lived it.  But a new self has replaced it.

This is how I also understand the 'no self' claims. Here lies the danger that if the 'no I' state becomes a doctrine and a sign of advanced nondual realization, your unseen narcissistic ego can make you get stuck in this state of no perception of  self. If you cannot acknowledge the new self, the self cannot evolve further.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: I can only help them by tuning into their reality, and from there together can we try to find an opening.

That is my attitude also.  I also, like you, do not feel I can teach my inner process to other people.  I tend to float in inner space, invite and follow feelings and thoughts as they arise, and actively generate feelings and thoughts to see under what circumstances they arise, etc.  I tend to pay careful attention to the sensation of any inner such investigation, as the sensation becomes my guide to what the given inner state means in the context in question.  Any feeling or thought is of course referable to my larger understanding of life and process, and I have much difficulty conveying that context to any other person. 

I have no idea how any person outside me could ever teach me this method, which is so dear and close to me.  I can see the utility of teachers giving prescriptions of various sorts, but I feel that any prescribing hits a hard limit by denying a person, or by guiding a person's attention away from, individual-specific explorations that could, as I sense in my own life, reveal such sweet revelations.

Mind you, the underlying and generalized self-trust could be taught.  But that form of teaching leaves wide scope to a student to seek and find student-appropriate methods of inner process.

Irmeli: Here lies the danger that if the 'no I' state becomes a doctrine and a sign of advanced nondual realization, your unseen narcissistic ego can make you get stuck in this state of no perception of  self. If you cannot acknowledge the new self, the self cannot evolve further.

Well put, Irmeli.  I've been saying this in many ways on forums I visit.  Let's innovate the Buddha, is one way I've put it.  Projecting the binary yes-no process as reality is in my mind an evolution-stopper.  Adi Dazzler is a beautiful case in point: he thought he reached the heights, and changed his name to advertise and invite payment for which, then reached the new Final Stop … again and again and again. 

Another example of this 'no-projection' dynamic is Bernadette Roberts.  She reached what looks to be the nondual unitive state—quite firmly established this in her attitudes and awareness, thought she reached The Goal, then bumped into an even higher realization!  This new realization she called “No-Self,” by which she meant something like this:

• the unitive state assumes a subtle operating self, some notion of grouping-together, a here-not-there which then feels itself at one with all other here-not-theres;

• the no-self state realizes that a 'self' of some sort (some 'grouping' relation) underlay the unitive, nondual state, which she dropped in tripping into the so-called no-self state.

I don't doubt her realizations, but smack in the middle of her formulation is this evolution-stopper notion of having reached the final state called no self.  Binary formulations (of which no self is one) cannot evolve except once.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: Here lies the danger that if the 'no I' state becomes a doctrine and a sign of advanced nondual realization, your unseen narcissistic ego can make you get stuck in this state of no perception of  self. If you cannot acknowledge the new self, the self cannot evolve further.

Tom: I've been saying this in many ways on forums I visit.  Let's innovate the Buddha, is one way I've put it.  Projecting the binary yes-no process as reality is in my mind an evolution-stopper.  Adi Dazzler is a beautiful case in point: he thought he reached the heights, and changed his name to advertise and invite payment for which, then reached the new Final Stop … again and again and again. 

I find this to be of crucial importance. I encourage you to keep going on with this in spite of the difficulties to get your message through.
In Enlightenment Blues, is to me a very telltale story at the end of the book. When Andre tells his friend Harry, who is also a long time disciple of Andrew Cohen, that his decision to leave the community is final, Harry comments:” Now you are nothing more than all these people here in the park, ignorant and lost in their ego, people that only live for themselves”
This type of expression come from an “I” that need to perceive himself extraordinary and as superior to others to feel good about oneself. It is difficult to recognize, when it is staged to pursuing enlightenment. This is an narsissistic attachment to one's need to feel superior to others. As an attachment it inevitably overrides any seeing of truth that could threaten it. That could of truth could be starting to question the quality of the enlightenment of the one's object of idealization. In Harry's case it is the guru.When such a person manages to make his dream come true, and becomes himself an infallible guru, this type of seemingly innocent attachment starts to grow without restraint.

This is an evolution stopper at best, at worst it becomes a furnace for creating more pathologies and regression.
Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Very nice post, Irmeli.  I also have never felt attracted to enter a formal guru-disciple relationship.  I have had several 'gurus,' in the Tibetan tradition, but I always maintained my autonomy (and they were quite comfortable with and accepting of that).

I think one way to understand the guru system is through Heinz Kohut's self psychology.  In Kohut's terms, the guru can be seen to serve selfobject functions.  For instance, the guru serves mirroring and idealizing selfobject functions for the disciple, and for many individuals, the guru relationship (or, I would add, the Jesus relationship) provides a second chance at having early selfobject needs met.  In Kohut's view, the mirroring, idealizing, and kinship selfobjects serve particular roles in early development, providing externalized functions which, when internalized, become essential aspects of self structure.  When we are injured in development through neglect of these selfobject needs (being adequately mirrored, prized; being able to idealize another), we do not develop self-structure, and then structure-building work is needed (through therapy, in Kohut's work:  the therapist serves as the mirroring and/or idealizing selfobject, for instance).  I think the guru relationship can legitimately serve these functions. 

But for many other people, who do not suffer particularly from such structural deficiencies, the guru relationship may be unnecessary for these reasons, and entering into it can be felt, with appropriate dissonance, as a regressive move.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Balder:In Kohut's terms, the guru can be seen to serve selfobject functions.  For instance, the guru serves mirroring and idealizing selfobject functions for the disciple, and for many individuals, the guru relationship (or, I would add, the Jesus relationship) provides a second chance at having early selfobject needs met.

 This makes sense to me.

 The Finnish word 'kuru' means a narrow deep passage grooved by water in a mountainous difficult terrain through which a wanderer can get to the side. This methaphorically describes to me what a guru's function in its healthy form is.

Maharishi in spite of his many strengths, and in spite of his cosmic unity consciousness, was also clearly a big narcissist. And isn't narcissism a pathology in self development? Many other gurus have had, and still today have this pathology. Why on earth are so many people attracted to grandiose gurus having ego weakness themselves? These gurus cannot too well serve to the selfobject function in a way that would lead to strengthening of the fragile ego structures. A therapist would be much better in this regard.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: Mind you, the underlying and  generalized self-trust could be taught. But that form of teaching leaves wide scope to a student to seek and find student appropriate methods of inner process.

That may be true, but to be of deeper value this type of teaching should be done with great skill.   I take as an example the stage shift in my self line that spontaneously happened to me at age 16  I have already written many times about. This shift was hugely important to me, but truly many things could go wrong, if I tried to teach it to others.

Firstly this shift did not mean that I started to follow certain ideals and principles that I had deeply and thoroughly understood. Instead it was a dramatic shift, that radically and permanently changed my way to relate to the world and to myself. There was no returning back possible. Only now in retrospect I can say that I possibly surrendered myself to the 'deep  intelligence beyond life'. And this had not been an ideal I had cherished in my mind or had been striving towards.

Only with my present understanding of the developmental stages, I can now say that it was a true stage shift in the self line. A new Operating System got installed. It included in itself most of the features of the old operating system. However the new one had some very important features, that had been completely missing in the old operating system.

 It inevitably permeated everything I did, as it was the new “I”. I did not need to pay attention on how it worked, to make it work properly. I was also fully embedded in it, because it was the new subject.

Out of curiosity I did however pay some attention to how this new system operated, as  my being in the world and with myself changed so dramatically to the better. My fruitless struggles ended. My anxiety was gone. I felt almost like being invincible.

 I remembered  that preceding this shift there had been a deep frustration. I had been struggling with my many severe problems and traumas.  I wanted to be more outgoing and relaxed, but failures and disappointments followed each other. My level of anxiety soared higher and higher.

  I had also recently read  a book by Freud and felt enthusiastic about it. Especially I felt attracted to the principle of  free association and to concepts like suppression and subconsciousness. Simultaneously in school I had in biology been studying evolution rather thoroughly. Both of these had  influenced me deeply. I could see how a tree grew from a seed to a beautiful big tree without any effort.  I realized this to be happening everywhere in nature.

 Simultaneously I saw how my own struggling with getting myself to heal and grow, seemed only to make things worse. And the same thing seemed to happen to  many other people.

Today I suspect these  disappointments, experiences and considerations were moulding the ground for the shift to appear. Also only much later have I understood that a prerequisite for the shift, was my former “I”. In spite of its many limitations, it was provided with a mind, that was keen on doing inner inquiry. I was often long hours engaged in internal dialogues. One part of my mind created an idea, a proposal. And then an other voice in me tried to turn that proposal down. This second voice I did not experience as a nuisance I would need to get rid of.  I don’t remember having felt any guilt of the quality of my thoughts, everything was permitted. The deepening of my understanding happened through this peaceful inner dialogue in which both types of voices were equally important.

 I suspect many people have all the time troubles with multiple voices inside them. Contradicting voices cannot be felt as complementary to each other. Talks of wanting to get rid of the ego indicates to me the existence of this problem.

 This new “I” did not require me to start to get rid the patterns of my former “I”. Luckily  at that time I had not got exposed to any spiritual teachings having grown up in an atheist family. I simply called this new operating system 'active passivity'. The passivity part meant that I had stopped trying to be or become something. My struggle had ended.

 In the eyes of Life, that now was ultimate to me, I did not need to be anything. By not trying to be somebody, the deep intelligence beyond life was able to start working more properly in me.

 That did not mean that all striving and struggle was gone. I just took it much more lightly. Becoming something was not anymore of ultimate importance. I was not anymore attached to becoming.

 I didn’t give up my desires. My strong desire to be healthier was intact. But I didn’t anymore struggle to get healthier. I could accept myself as I was, and appreciate life fully with my defects. It meant being in the now.

 Accepting what is, provides the best ground for true transformation, when the acceptance is natural and spontaneous, and not a doctrine. When it becomes a beliefsystem, the effect is the opposite.   When there is acceptance, and a detachment from one’s desires, the mind is in a settled state, calm and alert. In this settled state a spontaneous impulse can appear that is in line with my desires and yearnings. The calm mind is free and able to act upon that impulse. That tends to lead to spontaneous fulfillment of one’s desires. This is the activity part in active passivity.

 'Active passivity' is something that includes simultaneously both activity and passivity, and is also something much more. When I look at all of this, I can see truly many instances, where things can go wrong, if this all is made to a teaching which people would start to follow.

  Eg people who say they trust themselves or their inner guidance, often mean they trust their intuition instead of their discriminating intelligence. Rational discrimination is looked down upon, and judged to be something low. When I say I trust my inner guidance, it does not  mean that I would prefer intuition. No, intuition is just one voice, my rational understanding is another, my feelings, the perspectives of others are have influence.

 Spontaneously staying grounded in being, and hence detached, I let these different voices to be in a dialogue with each other. The synthesis all of them form together, create the first part of the inner guidance. The other part comes from a place that is transcendental to my awareness. This is however not intuition. It is an unseen influence, I am open to. This influence seldom rides over the first type of guidance, rather works together with it, or becomes operative in a situations of not knowing, which are pretty common to me.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Lovely recounting, Irmeli.  I'll come back to your post with some comments when I can grab a few moments.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

An excellent discussion, so enjoying all the viewpoints. Looking for time to really get into each post, just skimmed so far.

The following blog on the subject points back to a discussion here in this pod, but check out the cool comments, also. http://adliac.gaia.com/blog/2007/10/gurus_the_good_bad_and_ugly

Also, while I have never “surrendered” to a guru, I did have one experience with a guru I was interested in, mostly energetically. At a foot-puja ceremony, I found myself suddenly and unaccountably overwhelmed with loving devotion to the guru. It didn't last long enough to affect my future behavior, but it was a very surprising experience for me, very unlike me. 

I interpret it either as a past-life recollection of guru-devotion surfacing during the ancient ceremony which probably I had experienced before, OR it was simply a “second face of God” experience showing up for a brief few minutes.

Irmeli, I so resonate with your description of what you “surrendered” to, the intelligence that operates everything. That is an excellent, but perhaps not whole, description of what is happening to me nowadays. I am going to devour all your words in this thread, as soon as I can.

Blessings, OM Bastet 

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM, what on earth (or elsewhere) is a foot-puja ceremony?

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

P.S. I have extraordinarily benefitted from Adyashanti, but in a teacher-student relationship, not a guru-disciple one. Some folks would call him a guru, or their guru, but he really discourages that, and really focuses on turning people inward.

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Well, this is my description, accuracy not guaranteed. It's a “2nd-person face of God” type of worship ritual, in which the feet of the seated guru are honored in a long series of bathings and annointings, with milk, honey, etc. 

Maybe someone else knows more. I don't remember a lot of the specifics.

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I don't know what this foot puja is about, but I have encountered something in my often disastrous adventures in the wondrous guru land that this foot puja could explain.

A few years ago I participated in a vedic recitation weekend seminar in Tallinn in Estonia, that was offered by the TM-organization.
A rather big group of Finns participated. We were already at noon in Tallinn on Friday, and had a guided sight seeing tour in the beutiful old inner city of Tallinn. It was done by foot, and lasted for an hour and a half. This is at the upper limit I can be on feet at a time because of my distal muscular disease.

From there we took taxi to the address of the seminar place. When we got there, we could not find the seminar place. It was just grey weary looking appartment houses seemingly endlesly in every direction as we walked around in the neighbourhood. We called the only number we had, which was of the  Finnish arranger's. He did not answerthe phone. We walked around and around, and myt feet got so exhausted that I could not stand anymore. I was about to collapse, but there was no place to sit on. It was November, and already dark. The temperature was a little bit above zero in Celsius, and it was raining. I had to take a taxi back to the hotel. The others still continued searching. They finally managed to get through to the Finnish arranger, and found out that we had been given a wrong adress by him. The group got to the seminar place just, when the Friday evening session was about to end.

Next morning we decided to walk to the seminar place as we had been given the information that the hotel was just in fifteen minutes walk away from the seminar place. Well it wasn't. The walk was much longer. My feet had not recovered from last evening's exhaustion yet. The last 200-300 m were so difficult to me, I didn't know how to pull through it. I seriously considered  creeping.
After I had managed finally to get to the seminar room, I was told that people who don't need translation should sit in front row. I went there. My husband found from somewhere a chair he put in front of me, so I could lift my feet on it. I was in terrible pain, and felt totally exhausted.

Pretty soon an English speaking woman appeared in front me in full rage. She started yealling at me that I should immediately take my feet down. I explained to her my situation, but she didn't even want to listen to me, just kept on making her demand. I didn't accept to take my feet down. I just couldn't understand why she could not relate to my pain. Now I was also in full rage, and in that kind of situation I can become very determined. At some point I managed to ask, if she could explain me why I have to put my feet down. She looked at me surprised and said that my soles headed towards the picture of the guru Maharishi in front of me. I had not even observed that picture, and had no idea that having my soles towards that picture would be a criminal act.

In my present state of mind I was not very co-operative, so I said to the woman that she could easily move the picture a little bit on either side, so that it is not anymore in front of my soles. This suggestion was hard to swallow for that woman. But when nothing else helped she finally did that. But then she said that I have to be exluded from the seminar. I spoil the whole atmosphere there.

The woman turned out to be the wife of the teacher, who was a renownd French scholar in Vedic recitation. When the teacher came into the room, his wife requested him to ask me to leave the place.

The man looked me into the eyes, and there was a clear deep resonance between us. He said I can stay. His wife clearly felt she had got badly abased, and couldn't get over it during the whole seminar.

This story is also a good example of how the true believers in these cultish guru organizations tend to behave. The guru is mistakefree, the fault is always in others or in the world. However this pecking order tends to go down all the way creating a powerful dominator hierarchy. Those upper in that hierarchy often feel they have right to give orders and humiliate those lower in the hierarchy. In these instances a dialogue or taking empathetically the position of the other is not possible.

These true believers carry around them a feeling of superiority that needs to find an outlet by someway getting at people lower in the hierarchy in the group. They behave towards others in similar ways as the guru treats them.

In TM-movement I have truly many times encountered this kind of behaviour even if this was the most extreme case. In the Enlightenment Blues book I could clearly see the existence of a very similar type of pecking order and dominator hierarchy in Andrew Cohen's community.

Irmeli




 

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi Irmeli,
Haven't been here for a while, but the thread title caught my eye. I've not read it all, just the one on the foot puja, and one the other day in which Ramana came off as a major narcissist in your opinion! [a wild proclamation] :) This one interests me a bit.

In TM-movement I have truly many times encountered this kind of behaviour even if this was the most extreme case. In the Enlightenment Blues book I could clearly see the existence of a very similar type of pecking order and dominator hierarchy in Andrew Cohen's community…

With the feet pointing to a picture causing offense, isn't this just down to plain old just temporarily getting on with abiding by the social grammar of the situation. And with an interest in participating in something to that degree, surely you'd be willing to go along with the things they were observing, just for the few hours. Regardless if you can see through the hierarchy, or are not interested or skeptical about guru-disciple relationships.

It just struck me that this was about rules, and whether you can hold them for a short while without having to have fully succumbed to something your not that into. Just like we wouldn't wear a bikini to a funeral [unless it was on a beach], you just sometimes observe these things without it being a major deal. Without it meaning you've lost any sense of autonomy.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

ps: I realise now you are probably talking about the TM Maharishi. :) Well, sorry about that, the closeness in names and all that jazz, you've gotta laugh! The prospect of Ramana being an extreme narcissist did make me really laugh, with the obsurdity! :)

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Lisaji:With the feet pointing to a picture causing offense, isn't this just down to plain old just temporarily getting on with abiding by the social grammar of the situation. And with an interest in participating in something to that degree, surely you'd be willing to go along with the things they were observing, just for the few hours. Regardless if you can see through the hierarchy, or are not interested or skeptical about guru-disciple relationships.

Are you quite serious Lisaji, would you also, when a person has a very painful fit of illness and is completely exhausted, start to scream and yell to her that her feet point to a wrong direction?
In my case, when that deep exhaustion appears I even stop to see the colours. The world I see have only different shades of grey, and my thinking is not clear.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Not at all, don't misunderstand where I was coming from. She might have offered you somewhere more comfortable and quieter, and more appropriate to sit and rest for example. My comment was general, based on the whole view you presented, not just that drama. The way I was referring to rules, i.e. the social grammar of the occasion, was just that - not in the way OM is using them below to discuss 'following rules as a path to awakening.' For the record.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

In a normal situation I would have apologized and swiftly moved myself to another place. However in retrospect I think it was good that I couldn't accommodate myself to her angry demands.
My interpretation of the situation is that it was not the social grammar of the occasion. No one had told us that the participants would be expected to behave according to an Indian Hindu tradition. The participants didn't even need to be TM-meditators, even if I think all actually were.
If people who behave in arrogant ways are not challenged, there is little chance that they will never learn to behave in more respectful ways towards others.
We Finns should also have demanded part of the payment back because of having been given a wrong adress and hence lost part of the seminar.
And one thing is sure, success in business is not made this way. After this occasion my treshold to participate in anything organized by a guru organiztion got considerably more higher. I don't want to pay for being mistreated by cultish nutcases.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: However this pecking order tends to go down all the way creating a powerful dominator hierarchy.

Good point, Irmeli.  The hierarchy is built into the original projection of Maharishi or whoever as God, The Arrived One, etc.  The original projection itself then seems to dominate in structuring relations between the followers, and between followers and those outside the clique, movement or cult.

The sense of having arrived, having reached the goal, is thus powerfully hierarchical.  This seems a necessary implication.  Hey Lisa, didn't Maharshi think he had arrived?   He called his state “permanent.”  I would be tempted to call that narcissistic.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi Tom,
I don't see his realisation as narcissistic. Who knows, he may have been a narcissist before hand though, like the rest of us. :) But he seemed genuinely engaged in selfless service and dedicated his life to simplicity and deeper realisation, - obviously wrapped up in the cultural trimmings of the context and time he lived in. His central practice of inquiry is still second to none. Vastly simple, and just as powerful as ever too. I know where you are coming from, I just can't agree with your use of narcissism there.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi Lisa, I don't doubt Ramana helped others.  I'm more interested in what can be perceived about underlying motivations for his actions.  From what I can see, Ramana's core understanding is what might be called realized absolute permanence.  Absolute permanence implies absolute arrival, and per Irmeli's musings above Arrival is a Hierarchy Fantasy.  It must be, because it's fundamentally anti-evolutionary.  Think Adi Da: I'm The One, totally totally Arrived.  Ramana was not so forward as the Dazzler, but a little digging into Ramana's operating assumptions to my mind shows a cultish-arrived leaning.  Didn't his followers call him God?

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: Firstly this shift did not mean that I started to follow certain ideals and principles that I had deeply and thoroughly understood. Instead it was a dramatic shift, that radically and permanently changed my way to relate to the world and to myself. There was no returning back possible.

I had what probably was a similar experience to yours a little over two years ago.  The change felt embodied in a permanently-changed fashion, and deeply reoriented me.  I was suddenly interested in books, including spiritual books, about the inner journey—these are books I had previously actively rejected for various reasons—and felt for the first time I resonated with what was said. 

In my own case, this experience followed what had emerged spontaneously in me as a project to 1) see what I could see as clearly as I could see it, including every aspect of life that crossed my perceptual horizon (joy, suffering, love, pain, death, birth, power, inequality, war, the works) and 2) to accept as me what I saw.  This project proceeded on course for about eight years.  My interior shift came at the end of that period.

A few interesting points about that shift.  First, it was precipitated by hearing a female friend say a single word, 'soul.'  This friend, Helen, has an interesting and to me unusual last name, Sheridan, which means 'seeker.'  When she said 'soul' in the conversation in question, I felt as if my skull had split and I was thrown into an energy whirlpool.  This feeling state lasted about 6 weeks.  During that time, I felt desires for external things drop.  I saw this clearly in several instances.  For example, I strongly projected wisdom onto Helen, then in single event realized I was projecting—this realization was a clean break.  One after another, desires for externals dropped.  In my recollection, this was a move from green to yellow, into being needs. 

Interestingly, I saw the name 'Sheridan' for 18 months after the experience, and in some significant meaningful ways.  This synchronicity started then stopped.  I hadn't recalled seeing the name previous, and haven't seen it since.

I have since that time deepened into the being-modality this event signified.  One cornerstone attitude that has accompanied this deepening is trust, trust of what is, trust of what I am, trust of anything that happens.

The shift also held interesting ramifications for how I processed emotions.  I explicitly began viewing emotional dynamics as inner movements related to my circumstances and my understandings and my assumptions, and not as something I cared to project out, the projection cord having been cut.  Thus with anger, for example, I saw that, at least in my own experience, I would feel angry typically when an assumption I had held about a person was incorrect.  In the projection mode, I would throw the anger out to attempt to change the person to better line up with my assumption.  In the post-projection mode, I saw the anger as the energy required to change my own assumption about the person.  I thus was profoundly less disappointed in, less angry with, less engaged negatively by others—my partner, parents, children, friends, etc.

With all these changes branching in so many directions in my life, you could say, using your phrase, that a new operating system was installed.

Irmeli: Only now in retrospect I can say that I possibly surrendered myself to the 'deep  intelligence beyond life'.

I love this phrase of yours, deep intelligence beyond life.  I have found myself lately viewing life, and time and space and consciousness and all that, as but a minute manifest sliver of the vast potential and power that underlies life. 

Irmeli: Today I suspect these  disappointments, experiences and considerations were moulding the ground for the shift to appear.

I like the attitude you express in this statement.  My own pathway was probably feminine leaning, and the experience I described above was to me very feminine—a form of radical acceptance of what is and what I am whatever I am etc.  Acceptance has a deep passive aspect, and that aspect resonated deeply with me.  It was as if the feminine element of universal process struck at deep operating assumptions.  In line with this, I felt everything that led to where I am now was included in this now as a form of birth: but for the earlier, no later, which is but a flowering of the earlier, in fact contained implicitly in the earlier.  I felt no prompting whatever, and remains of this attitude, to reject anything whatever.

I also like what you call active passivity.  That has been my experience likewise.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: I have since that time deepened into the being-modality this event signified.  One cornerstone attitude that has accompanied this deepening is trust, trust of what is, trust of what I am, trust of anything that happens.

Tom, I appreciate you also describing your stage shift experiences. Like for you, for me the result of the shift was a deep trust in life, and trust in my internal processes. Acceptance was part of this trust. I have also been able to better  allow the natural spontaneous , sequential unfolding of learning and evolving appear through me.
For me the shift happened clearly just in the self line. Evolving in emotional intelligence started only after it, and has been of type gradual learning. I cannot distinguish any clear distinct shifts there. Or maybe there was one, but it happened much later.
The shift  in the self line itself was fast. It happened, when I walked downstairs at home, and I could clearly feel it happen. I felt immediately  very different. And it had clear effects on my everyday life, eg my mother was not anymore able to torment me.  I started to do much better in school etc.
For a little while I was making observations on  how this new mode of being worked. Then I got used to it, and did not much think about it. And that did not mean that it would have stopped to function. No, it was my mode of being now. I did not need to think about it for it to work.
 I feel  lucky I hadn’t had any contact to eastern spiritual traditions yet at time.  6 years later I learned to meditate, and only slowly after that I started to hear descriptions about different types of awakenings, and recognized that I had experienced something similar to it long ago. The eastern traditions give plenty of status to these kinds of awakenings, which tends to make people getting stuck or attached to those structures. Then the awakening itself can in certain aspects lead to an egotrip or power game, and  your further evolving starts to suffer from pathologies.
I have later had another shift in self line starting to appear around 10 years ago. It happened much more slowly. I had had occasional state experiences preceding it during a period of 20 years. I had for a 5-6 years period  a lot of internal tumult, before the operating system started to work properly. This shift is still so close, that I cannot explain it properly in words.  I have not yet shaped for myself its meaning in a larger context. My style in these matters is leaving that question open, to be in a not knowing mode. That was also the case with the earlier shift. I am only now willing and capable of discussing it.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Oh, this is such an exciting discussion!!

A bit of detail-work:

Ken Wilber in defining stages calls them permanent states. Not always in the foreground, but always accessible. So “arrived” in that way from that perspective, is simply a self-assessment, not a judgment or a put-up or put-down, an observation of an inner “fact,” not narcissism in the sense it is usually meant. 

Adyashanti has an even more detailed view, in that he says,( if I am repeating his view correctly,) the “awakening” is renewed and renewable each moment. It can come or go, unpredictably. So “arrival” would not be applicable from that perspective, except as a statistical statement about the history of the number of moments the person has already spent in what they would call expanded awareness or enlightenment or whatever. Of course, we all have differing ideas and experiences and definitions. God is easily bored, I often say.

Irmeli, the way I would describe that teacher's wife is the same as nearly every other “spiritual” seeker or student. They mistake the form for the content. They are into “rules” because they mistake the effects of higher (more expanded) consciousness for the cause. They think by mimicking/imitating the effects, such as peacefulness or lovingness, they will attain the cause. Of course, she was into loving the rule of respect as defined in that tradition, not into loving you!!

 I actually pity her, and others like her, because this mistake causes them great suffering. The suffering is, all these people have a deep inner self-judgment/condemnation of themselves as spiritual failures, because indeed they ARE failures, because they are attempting something impossible to achieve, namely, awakening by following rules of behavior!!

I don't see how you what you recounted “explains” the experience I had during the foot puja. Perhaps you meant it explains the existence of such a kind of worship ritual?

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM: So “arrived” in that way from that perspective, is …

OM, 'permanent' is a key word in Ramana's overall expression and doesn't refer to what Wilber refers to as 'permanent states' which die with the person who rendered them “permanent.”  Here's an example from Ramana:

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM:I don't see how you what you recounted “explains” the experience I had during the foot puja. Perhaps you meant it explains the existence of such a kind of worship ritual?

I meant exactly that.

OM:Ken Wilber in defining stages calls them permanent states. Not always in the foreground, but always accessible. So “arrived” in that way from that perspective, is simply a self-assessment, not a judgment or a put-up or put-down, an observation of an inner “fact,” not narcissism in the sense it is usually meant.

I like the metaphor Operating System from the computer world for the stages. Once it has got installed, and as long as it stays installed, it inevitably works in the background. It is not at all permanent in that sense that I would always operate or try to function in a way that all the superior qualities of that system are in use. I spontaneously in many situations function in a way where those  advanced qualities are not used. Many times they are also in use in the background although I'm not aware of that.

OM:I would describe that teacher's wife is the same as nearly every other “spiritual” seeker or student. They mistake the form for the content. They are into “rules” because they mistake the effects of higher (more expanded) consciousness for the cause.

One of the serious problems with the cultish guru idealization organizations is, that this type behavior almost as a rule starts to get extreme forms. Cruel dominator patterns appear as in every other dictator ruling. The external forms of this terror only differ. The deep structure is the same. In Cohen's community this is justified in the name of getting rid of the ego.
 
This makes me truly wonder. At least for me the road travelled is the goal. I personally feel a kind of nausea each time encounter this. I also nowadays think that, when I encounter it, it is better to question that pattern rather than politely go with it. I have done that too may times earlier. I'm much less patient with it now. And I consider this to be healthy development on my part.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I'm pretty unstudied as far as gurus' teachings go, which is probably a positive in this crowd, haha. 

No disagreements. The problem with “permanent” is that it's a time-space concept, and doesn't even apply one way or the other to that which is the Ground of Being, outside of space-time. I too have, within space-time awareness, an evolutionary perspective, and do appreciate finding the errors in gurus' thinking or proclaimings. Love your last sentence. For me, it's expression/portion. 

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM:The suffering is, all these people have a deep inner self-judgment/condemnation of themselves as spiritual failures, because indeed they ARE failures, because they are attempting something impossible to achieve, namely, awakening by following rules of behavior!!

This is truly a pity! So many people, not just the spiritually oriented ones, are in this trap. They try to make their lives get better, to get better along with others, by trying to control their behaviour, fullfill the  expectations put on them by others around them, or the society in general. And they are bound to fail in this, and end up feeling as failures.

The crucial insight preceding my awakening at age 16, was the insight that this mode of functioning does not work. It is a disaster. I dropped that pattern as I saw it fully futile, because it doesn't lead anywhere but to anxiety and desperation and feeling a deep failure. In that empty space a new structure, a new operating system emerged, that was not cosciously created be me.

The sad story in the guru/disciple relationships is that the disciples believe the guru through his/her enlightenment can get the disciple out of the suffering. But that kind of relationship cannot easily heal this pathology, because it is very difficult to start to trust your own insights, your own discriminating mind, and your doubts a structure where the guru has always right no matter what. Many of the mind's natural impulses have to be controlled.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: My own pathway was probably feminine leaning, and the experience I described above was to me very feminine—a form of radical acceptance of what is and what I am whatever I am etc.  Acceptance has a deep passive aspect, and that aspect resonated deeply with me.

Here I see once again beutifully the fact that words and concepts are just gross approximations we use, when verbally trying to express our inner experiences.
To you Tom, the acceptance seems to have meant a somewhat different thing than to me.

To me the acceptance of what is, is what I am without striving to be anything. It was not just a passive stance, it included in itself also a very active element. My acceptance was more of the type of stopping striving and struggling, and instead accepting what ever spontaneously arose inside my mind, and also that which was seen as the outside, and being in tune with it, not resisting it, not blaming it.

 It did not mean starting to act out all my questionable impulses. It was not even possible because I have internally many different voices that question each other, and a strong capacity to spontaneously take the position of another.

 When a person has that capacity, she very naturally you doesn't act out those impulses that clearly are harmful to others. You feel the harmfullness in yourself.

I have also a strong need for freedom, both internal and external. Because of this I have clear rebellious tendencies. There is a fighter and warrior inside me. And I have to admit I occasionally enjoy fighting very much. I don't get any gualms from that. Anyway, my poor husband, who is often the target, has been abble to survive with me already for almost forty years.

The awakening at 16 did not make the rebellious qualities go away. Instead I was now capable of fighting more effectevely and truly win.
 
My mother had  both physically and mentally abused and tormented me all my childhood. After the awakening I could pretty soon put a stop to it. I had always tried to please her out of my fear of her. Already for years she had put me to do almost all the household work through her threatening behavior. Now I was not anymore afraid of her. I denied doing the dishes, and when she started to threaten me, but I was equipped with a sharp kitchen knife, that I pointed towards her. I also said I will do the dishes if you ask me beautifully.
I did thid that three different times to her.  I felt also totally detached by her verbal abuse. It couldn't distrurb my inner stability. Finally after a few days for the first time ever my mother asked me in a friendly tone if I could do the dishes, and I did. And for the first time she said thank you to me after the work I had done.

I have to thank my mother for my capacity to see through these abusive narsissistic patterns in guru/disciple relationships and in many other instances as well. My mother was a grave narcissistic. I have grown up to become very discerning of even mild and subtle narsissistic tendencies in people. It is an important survival instinct to me and my need for freedom.

In most cases children have not so easy to critically be discerning the patterns of their parents' behaviors as the they are too dependent of their parents.
Because of lucky circumstances I was not that dependent. Even if I use the signifier mother for the  person who gave birth to me, I actually never accepted her as my mother, and never called her mother.
I had a warmhearted and wise grandmother from my father's side, who often took care of me, and who was the foremost caretaker for me for the two first years of my life. I perceived her as my true mother.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi Irmeli, I think you've read something I didn't intend into what I said about acceptance.  What I refer to as acceptance is very close to what you say here:

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom, apparently I misunderstood you. I suspect we express  very similar stage experiences by using a little bit different wordings.

I especially like this:
Tom:In this acceptance state, I pursue these activities with less drivenness than previously attained, but with a greater conscious willingness and directedness to do for my and others' developmental unfolding.  I find I also act with lessened regard for consequences, ie, with less hiding or faking, bullshitting, lying or evading, as I care much less what people think of me.  In fact, I now walk rather more willingly into difficult encounters to see what is there.  My deep link is inside.  External circumstances are mere externals, and my relation to externals has weakened significantly.

I could have described my experiences this way also, if it had occurred to me look at it from that perspective. This thing can be looked at from many perspectives, and every time we get different nuances of it.

And this is also a great way of expressing  how my life got shaped after the stage shift:
Tom:The lack of drivenness corresponds in my experience with a deep satisfaction with (acceptance of) what is, and from a fundamental trust that what I need will appear, so I need not 'do' anything at all.  My optimal unfolding is assured.

And I just love the metaphor of the fairy tale, when put in this context. All our striving to become or be creates plenty of friction that obstructs our capacity to tune in more with these healing and evolutionary impulses of life we all receive regularly.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Btw, I wanted to add a few observations of a more personal note regarding your path.  I'm always quite inspired hearing about your development, Irmeli.  Your childhood presented a formidable challenge that looks to have become your main source of growth.  Most people, I suppose, would have crumbled in self-pity under the workings of your mother, but you seem to have seen the gold in working the difficulties she presented.

I also like how you express yourself here:

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: Most people, I suppose, would have crumbled in self-pity under the workings of your mother, but you seem to have seen the gold in working the difficulties she presented.

When young my mother was my worst enemy. I started to see the gold in our relationship only much later. However I have never blamed her for my problems. She had her own reasons she behaved as she did. I do believe she did the best she could considering how serious her personality disorder was. Even in best forms of modern treatments these type of pathologies cannot be healed.

Also my battles with her have mostly been of internal type. The external encounters with her were relatively rare. Through these battles my relationship to her slowly changed from avoidance and negligence to real warmth.

My mother seems to have functioned as an effective upa-guru to me. The powerlessness I have felt in relation to her have forced me to stretch beyond my present way of being. This together with my deep yearning to be healthier has made me to drop the known, and open myself to unknown ways of being.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: However I have never blamed her for my problems.

This seems to me key to inner movement, development, complexification and maturation.  Was probably what saved you from, how to say, quite a different path.

1) Non-blaming combined with 2) your powerlessness, that's a potent combination!  Under 1) you wouldn't walk away in any event; under 2) you in some respects couldn't if you tried.

I think submission to a guru can operate to prevent one (undisciplinedly) turning away from difficulty.  If one puts oneself in a position of entire trust with a guru, one must work through, to completion or some such, implications of the guru says and does.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

This thread would better-titled something like “A Chat with Irmeli, during which we discover her amazing wisdom and let some of it rub off onto us.”

That's a complex way of expressing my admiration, Irmeli. As you express your views and experiences, I am being greatly enriched and expanded!!

It's very interesting how our childhoods give each of us a special sensitivity to some issues, such as freedom and narcissism for you. As another example, I have a friend who can smell authoritarian attitudes a mile away! 

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Thank you OM. This is a topic that has already for a long time been important to me.
And I have given a lot of thought to this issue.
I think it is important to understand how our early years colour how we see ourselves and others.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli you said:
I think it is important to understand how our early years colour how we see ourselves and others. 


I don't think it is “important.” I think it is absolutely essential !!!!!!!!! No one can be a mature consciousness without a thorough deep knowing of how their early years shaped them, and without appreciating the strengths and dealing with the pain and shadow. I doubt any of us would disagree with that !!!


Thanks for clarifying, Lisaji. What you added modified my interpretation of what you had said before.


Blessings to all, keep it going, keep it going, this discussion !!
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hey, here's a blog by someone I greatly respect, Jeff Brown. On the very subject we are discussing !!!
http://soulshaping.gaia.com/blog/2009/10/a-warning-about-gurus#comments

I shall link to here from there, too.

Hugs, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli: And I just love the metaphor of the fairy tale, when put in this context.

I do too.  I often find fairy tale images to communicate profoundly.   I adore them.

Just one further note about the acceptance motif as it appeared in my life.  My experience of acceptance was also an experience of the necessity and place for everything in life, including all those previous stages that led, in their uncountable ways, to what I am now.  I have a dim but strong understanding that, developmentally speaking, each phase of my development, or of human or other development generally, is taken up into later phases in a way that, but for the earlier, no later.  The later being thus not but for the earlier must by implication be taken to be an expression of the earlier, in fact, just a more developed version of it. 

This view holds certain ramifications for living.  Perhaps foremost, it prevents me from dismissing, or in a sense discarding, anything past.  Thus if I have a strong experience of inner unity, I personally realize that but for so-called separation, no unity, such that separation contains unity as its real developmental potential.  Separation thus paradoxically is unity in a very real sense, not just metaphorically: it is that from which unity is born.  This same view can be applied to any of the so-called spiritual higher goods: so-called no-ego, so-called no-self, etc.

This view is of course yellow in that it respects anything past as constituent of the present, and feminine in my use of that term because the view is birth-respecting.  The later is born from the past.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: Separation thus paradoxically is unity in a very real sense, not just metaphorically: it is that from which unity is born.  This same view can be applied to any of the so-called spiritual higher goods: so-called no-ego, so-called no-self, etc.

This brought to my mind the words of the late Finnish theologian Martti Lindqvist:

“It is difficult to discern God who is hidden in his absence. This experience reminds of the most critical moment in the story of crucifixion when Jesus cries out his agony saying: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” (Matt. 27: 46) It is a deep paradox. The Son of God on the cross expresses his agony because of the total absence of God.”
“It has been said that the incarnation is possible only if one accepts for an intensive moment that in him or her there is no place for God. In that moment the whole person is just one big experience of the loss of God. Only after this kind of experience the resurrection can take place. In some way, the feeling of God's absence presupposes God's presence because absence has no emotional meaning if there is no experience of the presence simultaneously. The longing for somebody makes this somebody present in a secret way.”

In a similar way rejection of ego, or no-ego, no-self, make ego or self present in a secret way.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Yes, that's a fabulous perspective you both are articulating. Because the later is born from the past, and the present will someday be a past, I find it helpful when the present is challenging and unpleasant, to zoom out and see the other end of the timeline, too. I see the present as a phase of a more mature and probably more pleasant future. This helps counteract the beliefs of “This is never going to get better. This unpleasantness is never going to end.” This helps ego “trust the process.” It encourages and emphasizes continuous surrender to the Larger Awareness/Intelligence.

Loving this conversation!
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Oh — and that could get flavored by a view that the future is determined, but the future I imagine is simply viewed as a probable future, one perhaps made more likely by the energy I/Awareness am/is giving it.
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi Om, the future would be viewed as determined in outline, but its constituent components would be left to circumstance, chance, contingency, etc.  The so-called outline predetermination is but an extrapolation of past observations that time seems to work holonically: that which is present becomes data synthesized into a new whole, which itself becomes part of the whole the supersedes it.  The future will presumably work in some fashion like this, ie, is thus determined in Whiteheadian, Hartshornian synthesizing.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Yep.
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: I think submission to a guru can operate to prevent one (undisciplinedly) turning away from difficulty.  If one puts oneself in a position of entire trust with a guru, one must work through, to completion or some such, implications of the guru says and does.

This is why I put a question mark in the title of this thread. Also narcissistic gurus can for some people function as effetive catalysts for transformation.
At the same time my worry goes for all those who do not benefit. These gurus are not capable of detecting the pathologies people form as long as they stay submissive to the guru, and continue serving him.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I hear you, Irmeli.  We in developed nations have perhaps passed a point of no return where individual development has become sufficiently strong that submission to a guru hurts more than it can in the best of instances help.  I could never imagine myself submitting to another's understanding or process as that act would derail an essential element my own, that element being borne of my process's particularities.  Yes, I can pick up pieces here and there, and exchange viewpionts and learn, but submit?  Not without damage I'm unwilling to undergo.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I came across an interesting article Andrew Cohen exposed at Integral World

I personally don't perceive this phenomenon as black and white as Lane. And no amount of therapy could help Cohen as long as he has followers, who look up to him. These people keep Cohen in his trap.

I'm also willing to give some credit to Cohen, and also to TM-guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom I know better. Cohen is at least a succesfull business man and business leader in the area of spirituality, as was Maharishi also. Maharishi with his TM-meditation was for many people their first more serious step into spritual practice. From there truly many continued to other spiritual arenas that fitted them better.

The narsissistic gurus clearly fill a niche. Whores wouldn't exist if there were no demand for them. This metaphor is not meant to be just a putdown, more a concrete example from other important areas of life.

Many people have a strong need to idealize another person. This is not the same thing as aspiring to evolve as a person, and having ideals. This type of idealization is false to begin with. It means projecting unrealistic qualities to another person in order to fill in the hole in one's inner landscape created by having denied parts of oneself. It is a kind of reverse projection of one's shadow issues.

This makes these type of idealizations inevitably false, unrealistic. Practically the only ones who can projectively identify with these expectations and supply to that type of demand are the narcissists. Fullfilling that demand  is the very essence of narcissism, and creates the real success some narcissists have.

 Narcissists are in constant need of being seen as something extraordinary by others. Being seen as superior is to him the equivalent to truly being superior, even if this superirority is accopmlished by skillfull manipulations while hiding many qualities of oneself that don't fit in the idealizations. Actually the narcissist's capacity to so easily manipulate others, createss in him a confirmation of his true superiority. A narsissist's superiority is an illusion maintained by others, in the case of gurus by his followers.
This is a phenomenon that will go on as long as people have these type of needs.
As the narsissistic gurus get exposed one by one, new ones will inevitably appear with new type of disguises and manipulations.

Irmeli

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli, I was listening to Adyashanti the other day.  He's a modern guru type who fashions himself as something of a non-guru, and by this is thus caught in a certain denial, which I find tends to go hand in hand with narcissism.  At one point, he said something like “I'm no different than you all.”  That, of course, is a lie, a kind of false modesty that probably arises from some uncomfortable feeling about his functional status as “better than.”  When he said that, he was probably wearing a robe, he identified as enlightened, he has a shaved head, he has a changed name …. no different?  Are you kidding me?  He also speaks for a living, which speaking, in an essential aspect, is anchored in a comparison: I know how to live better than you others.  Of course, his false modesty would never allow him to say that, but it is a necessary implication of his entire circumstance.  I'm-superior-in-denial.

I agree that projection must end in a realization that the projection must stop.  I think that is the natural healthy development of the projection mode, though a development that is very difficult.  I also see a certain utility in projection, a stage-specific naturalness.  Projection seems to play an important role in ordering social relations, largely according to power, I think, but also entailing other dynamics.  For instance, without projection, sons would possibly never leave the home, as they do, in search of the 'projected' anima.

But viewed from a more developed standpoint, projection seems a mess: contradictions abound, one is typically caught in narcissism and denial, and one's personal power centre is given over to externals, which then rock and batter the person. A tidy little arrangement!

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Fabulous insights all around. What a wonderful education and analysis going on in this thread, amazingly there is so much to say on this particular topic, and soooo valuable !!!!!

But I'd like to add a mite different perspective on Adyashanti and that quote, Tom. First of all, I have usually seen him wearing quite ordinary shirts and slacks obviously chosen to suit his own personal human taste (and not by someone with better taste, LOL !!!!!!!!!)

Second, he does not identify as enlightened. It is much more complex than that. He identifies as someone in whom Awakeness has re-awakened. And he has said there is no guarantee this will last into the next moment. And he also says there are thousands of others who are also Awakeness re-awakened, so he's hardly unique. And he also regards this as the “Natural State” and also not at all an attainment for which any ego can take credit!!! So his ego is hardly being stroked by his declaration that up til the moment he is speaking, at least, he is in the Natural State.

Third, when he said “I am not different…” one would need to figure out which “I” was speaking. And for him, it is not the human “I.” So from the what we might call universal “I” - identity he was speaking AS, I would agree, he is no different. For him, that I subsumes the human I. For us, they are often seen as separate.

 So, we could look at him and say he is obviously different from his followers, both internally and externally. For him, these differences might be so trivial that he could in all truthfulness say “I am no different…” We don't look at someone dressed differently from us, or with different opinions, as really “different from us.”

So I think that level of refinement of meaning would be useful to bring to bear in this case.

I don't think he's perfect, but I don't think he's in the kind of denial you were affirming. Mainly because IMO the identity who was speaking is not the identity you are thinking he was speaking as/from.

Does that make any sense?

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

So far, from what I have seen, I would also say his behavior is the most non-guru-like of any similar person I have ever encountered. And I've encountered a few really good teachers, like Jo Dunning.

Oh, and he calls himself a teacher, not a guru, and to me that's the way he behaves. They are different behaviors. He makes very little of any siddhis he might have, almost never pulling off superiority-affirming tricks (I heard him indirectly imply he could see past lives, and he also is clear he senses energies, but that's about the extent I have heard so far.) And he's always talking about himself in very – well I won't say unflattering ways because there is no judgment involved – ordinary ways that show up his present and former “shadow” sides, or what one might regard as “oooh, spiritual teachers are not supposed to think or feel that way.” He is constantly affirming (clearly truly) how much he can empathize with the struggles and anguishes and doubts his students exhibit.

Also, he has said that while he sometimes “tells people what to do” his basic approach is to “cut and trim” all the “must do” and “must not do” tendencies people bring into their relationship with him, and into their spirituality, and throw people into themselves. So he's a really minimalist at typical guru “do this and don't do that.” 

And I've never heard him ask for any surrender or obedience, and explicitly he says “Don't BELIEVE anything I say, go inside and see for yourself.” And implicitly he says that, too !!!

I am not a true believer; I just want a more accurate view of him recorded here than what you  might have been implying, Tom.

OM 

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Om: almost never pulling off superiority-affirming tricks …

You mean like his trick where he says I'm not different?  His stance, perspective and means of livelihood, to describe it in simple terms, is premised on his superiority in the behavioural-and-being realm called “how to live.”  Om, are you saying he really thinks he has nothing to teach, and that followers really don't have anything at all whatever to learn from him?  Let's just call a spade a spade, for honesty's sake: I know how to live better is quite some superiority!  And he denies it.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hi, should we rename this thread; 'Lets trash the guru' —!! :)

Tom: Yes, I can pick up pieces here and there, and exchange viewpionts and learn, but submit?   

We submit, or surrender all the time. If we are open to continually refining and changing our script that is, working with what we’ve got. In order to move on, to develop, it’s what we do, inbuilt. This is the propensity to evolve itself. So what’s the problem with submission in the various forms? What is it that one is loosing?  

Irmeli: And no amount of therapy could help Cohen as long as he has followers  

The way you are talking here is problematic and misleading. I’ve spoken to at least a few Cohen students, and read countless others. What I’ve found are some of the most intelligent folk I’ve ever come across, people who discern and take responsibility for themselves to a degree that doesn’t fit well with your theory that folk with a teacher are lobotomized submissive androids, engaged in a sole purpose of maintaining a persons super-ego.  

I find the way you guys are framing this discussion to be unkind, uncalled for, boarding into the realm of dark a pathology itself, and preoccupied with dissolving the value and any such sincerity that exists with any  such teachers. There will indeed always be criticisms. Any criticism is good. But this doesn’t appear to me to belong to the realm of health criticism, because you seem to be speculating too much on the positions taken of all student/teacher relationships. 

Irmeli: Many people have a strong need to idealize another person. This is not the same thing as aspiring to evolve as a person, and having ideals. This type of idealization is false to begin with. It means projecting unrealistic qualities to another person in order to fill in the hole in one's inner landscape created by having denied parts of oneself. It is a kind of reverse projection of one's shadow issues.  

How do you know this? Is this from negative personal experience you may have had with the TM movement? If so, I think this puts a different spin on things. 

Irmeli: As the narsissistic gurus get exposed one by one, new ones will inevitably appear with new type of disguises and manipulations.  

Isn’t it always better to remain open to possibilities? Not tarnish everyone with the same brush. The future will contain many teachers, some with refined insights. Shall we tarnish them all with the same brush from the outset? Throw out quality insights because we are too afraid to trust anything that we haven’t conjured up from our own findings? Do we always know it all? And my final ponder: is there no longer any such place for ‘spiritual’ teachers?

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Lisa: So what’s the problem with submission in the various forms? What is it that one is loosing?

I meant submit entirely, whole-potato-like.  Why do you disagree with me?  Wouldn't you rather submit?  Submit to me, Lisa, come on, join The Truth of this discussion, put down your ego.  What have you to lose?

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Lisaji: I find the way you guys are framing this discussion to be unkind, uncalled for, boarding into the realm of dark a pathology itself, and preoccupied with dissolving the value and any such sincerity that exists with any  such teachers. There will indeed always be criticisms. Any criticism is good. But this doesn’t appear to me to belong to the realm of health criticism, because you seem to be speculating too much on the positions taken of all student/teacher relationships. 

If you find my ponderings  pathological, that is fine to me. All I know I have tried to describe very honestly how I perceive these issues. I have made observations and done a lot of pondering on these issues during a long period of time.

 I have not claimed here or elsewhere these teachers and their teachings would have no value. I have also said in my earlier post here that some disciples seems to benefit from this type of relationship. There are however many also who actually suffer mentally, spiritually and economically.

And I repeat once again that I value many of the teachings of both TM- guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Andrew Cohen. I mainly have reservations about them as gurus.
I perceive both of them to be narcissists. I wonder why perceiving very clear narcissistic features in gurus would be pathological? If I would make a similar kind of observations and analysis of some politicians or CEOs, and the harm they have done, you most certainly wouldn't find any problem in my thinking.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Irmeli, here are a few websites regarding Andrew Cohen.  You might find them informative.

“We don't slap students here 1.”

“We don't slap students here 2.”

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Then there's this good old thread that I started here a couple years ago:
There's Something About Andrew
It was a little controversial and a rep from “What Is Enlightenment?” dropped by to chime in.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Nice thread, Bruce.  Good 'n spicy.

Anyone who wants to submit to me, I'm taking applications.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I like Robert Masters' view from that thread Bruce linked:

Robert: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was a guru; I had students, not disciples (blurry though the line between the two often was). I did, however, hold an authority then (that I have no interest in holding now) that certainly had guru-centric qualities.

How do I feel about the guru-disciple relationship? Well, first of all, I think that it’s plagued with transference issues, power imbalances, and parent-child concerns that all too often go unaddressed (especially in settings that don’t value psychotherapy). Those who haven’t explored and dealt with their psychological patterns, including unresolved parental issues, may benefit in some ways from having a guru, but in other ways will only obstruct and postpone their growth. Those who are more mature will do much better with a guru, being far more capable of making wiser use of him or her.

The role of the guru in a contemporary context? To serve as a guide, inspiration, and awakening presence, but with far less authoritarianism than before. I think that we as a culture are in the process of outgrowing the need for traditional gurus; this doesn’t mean, however, that we should not be cultivating and deepening our relationships with gurus/spiritual teachers with whom we have a deep fit or connection. For example, I don’t view Ramana Maharshi as my guru, but he does serves as a spiritual beacon for me, for which I am very grateful. Thich Nhat Hanh once said that the next Buddha would not be an individual, but a community. I resonate with that. A group of spiritually mature peers, and not necessarily all from the same spiritual path, is far less likely to abuse power and lose touch than a single individual.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Hmmm. Tom, I can't map what I think you are saying I said onto what I thought I said, so I have no way to respond. He doesn't talk about “how to live.” Specifically, not. So I don't see what you are talking about wrt him. 

Om, are you saying he really thinks he has nothing to teach, and that followers really don't have anything at all whatever to learn from him?


No, I am not saying that. Thanks for asking.


But what he teaches or what people learn is not about how to live or what to do. And he comes very close to saying, if not actually saying, he has nothing to “teach.” He does have something to offer, though. He definitely thinks he has something of value to people that he can offer. Namely, encouragement for people to go inside themselves, and a bit of guidance about ONE way (not THE way) to go about that. He supports people to learn from their own experiences. Most of his “teaching” involves simply describing his own experiences. Not prescribing anything. He teaches “If x then y, in my experience, but try it for yourself and see. Don't accept what I say. Get your truth, not my truth.”


What I find most valuable about him is his descriptions of his experience, which provides me the opportunity to match my experiences to his descriptions, which enriches my understanding of my experiences and facilitates growth. That is wonderful. I don't need a teacher or a guru, but I love having someone to bounce my own experiences against; it enriches me.


And I just love experiencing such a clear healthy person. The vibe is nourishing, and like a breath of clean fresh air. Very supportive and encouraging to me, just the example he is, just observing his way of being in the world.


Yeah, that Cohen thread of old was incredible. One of the longest ever in the community. 

Great to have Lisaji offering different perspectives. I have to agree that Cohen followers include some pretty awesome people. I guess we could say that the best people will outgrow a teacher or guru, and find another more suited to their new level. Until perhaps they are so tuned into the higher wisdom available directly from within themselves, that they don't even need to hear any other human speaking. But then again, even if one is not learning (does that ever happen?) there's the fellowship aspect I was partly describing just above.

I believe there ARE possible healthy teacher-student and even healthy guru-follower relationships. Prolly not common, but definitely possible. But IMO only for short times. The longer they go on, the less healthy they are likely to be. And obviously there are pathological short ones too. I don't think that we can make generalizations that ALL guru-disciple relationships or student -teacher relationships are by nature pathological. Is anyone affirming that? It seems to me there are a huge variety of possible flavors of relating, some of which are described in this thread, but many of which are not described here. They aren't all the same.

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Om, you're still misreading me.  I'm not saying teacher-student relationships are unhealthy.  Krikey, make a distinction and some people cannot but think you're making a value judgment.  Regaring Adyashanti, I'm first saying this: he has something people want, he knows they don't have it and he knows they want it.  That “thing” he has is a way of being, perceiving, knowing, understanding—call it what you will, it's a form of spiritual development, and he has it.

I then say this: that's a difference, and not just a difference in hair colour, it's a difference that goes to how one lives.  This is very simple, Om.  The “thing” Adya has relates to a core manner of living.  He knows he has it and others want it.

He just doesn't want to say so.  That was the point I was making.  He's not being honest on that point.

Actually, he was somewhat honest at one point in his talk.  He said he often is asked why he doesn't start a community around himself.  His answer was revealing: “To have you people around me all the time?  That would be my worst nightmare (uncomfortable laughter).”  Sound like a little denial coming to the surface in a sideways comment?  You bet.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Just to toss in a little humor here, I said somewhere else that I would be quite willing to BE a guru if it meant I could have people washing my feet, and someone doing all the shopping and cooking and cleaning and ironing for me. I could get into that lifestyle, LOL!!!!

OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Tom: I meant submit entirely, whole-potato-like.  Why do you disagree with me?  Wouldn't you rather submit?  Submit to me, Lisa, come on, join The Truth of this discussion, put down your ego.  What have you to lose?  

Tom brother, show me an interesting idea that puts all of my own to shame, :) or refines them, which I can integrate and perhaps use in my life, and I will submit to it. We submit to better view all of the time. I still think you are entirely confused thinking that people are walking around like zombies, or that the spiritual world has turned into one big S & M session in a misty night club. Come on. Your view of ‘submission’ is archaic here! : ) Come on, update yourself, we are not living in the 70's. :)

Whether you are calling it guru-disciple relationship – which is what you have the problem with, or teacher-student, a dressing that is just making the salad taste a little better, in this day and age they are the same thing.  

People sometimes give heaps of money to hear their teachings, do their practicum and the really switched on folk reap the rewards of all their hard earned effort, and hopefully lead more integrated and honest lives with themselves and others.

Some come out of it with nothing and return to the bookshelves. It’s a complex thing, people often need something other than what they are seeking. Robert picks that up in the excerpt you posted.

Tom, why do you like this, and not what Adyashanti has to say about pretty much the same predicament?  

Robert: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was a guru; I had students, not disciples (blurry though the line between the two often was). I did, however, hold an authority then (that I have no interest in holding now) that certainly had guru-centric qualities.  

Even Robert says it himself, that he had students, not disciples – in his words – ‘blurry though the line between the two often was.’  

I like what Robert had to say, he talks nicely about all the ‘transference issues, power imbalance and parent-child concerns.’ Guru’s to me seem to be summed up when he refers to them as ‘spiritual beacons.’ That is definitely my experience. And as such, giving them up seems to be part of that happy process, yet at the same time, you cannot undo any transformation you may have found from the association. They light things up, and if your on to it, you can see it for yourself better. Can continue to inspire etc…

I agree with Robert’s commonsense take that those with their deeper issues fully intact may have a less beneficial time than more mature folk.   I thought Roberts comment here was very interesting:  

A group of spiritually mature peers, and not necessarily all from the same spiritual path, is far less likely to abuse power and lose touch than a single individual.  

Most gurus are not operating in any such wholeheartedly singular way - focusing of self-aggrandizing, not these days anyway, not any that I can think of. This then opens up the question of group abuse of power, and group shadow, which even a group of spiritually mature peers will stumble across among themselves, and I find that a very interesting ponder. Nobody is immune.

OM: I believe there ARE possible healthy teacher-student and even healthy guru-follower relationships. Prolly not common, but definitely possible. But IMO only for short times. The longer they go on, the less healthy they are likely to be. And obviously there are pathological short ones too. I don't think that we can make generalizations that ALL guru-disciple relationships or student -teacher relationships are by nature pathological. Is anyone affirming that? It seems to me there are a huge variety of possible flavors of relating, some of which are described in this thread, but many of which are not described here. They aren't all the same.  

Nice one, OM.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

fascinating thread. I would like to link it to one in the God Pod just started, some wonderful insights here. Thanks so much,

Love,

Nicole

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Lisa: Tom brother, show me an interesting idea that puts all of my own to shame, :) or refines them, which I can integrate and perhaps use in my life, and I will submit to it.

Lisa, I'm not doubting this, and I'm not devaluing learning, which like you say can be viewed through the lens of submission.  But notice what you're doing in your post, you're supporting a Lisa-based discernment.  You're not submitting that, hey?

As to Robert Masters' comments, he goes a little beyond what you represent him to say, as he's actually lining up with much I and Irmeli are saying here.  Robert says yes, gurus, but gurus as teachers who resonate, “with much less authoritarianism than before.”  I've spoken with Robert about gurus.  He considers Ramana basically alone as a shining example, and has little respect for people like Da who wanted, in his mind, a submission beyond what he considers healthy.  What did Da want?  Among other things, your wife, and you should submit to that because it's good for you.

The problem I see affecting so many people panning their wares on the spiritual marketplace is many such seem to me largely insensitive and untrained and sometimes uncaring about the very real power difference between them and others who look upon them.  Spiritually realized people have something of tremendous value—there's good reason monks of old considered enlightment the jewel of living, the secret good.  To have peace in one's life is of tremendous personal value.

People who look upon those who have that vary in their capacities, backgrounds and dispositions.  Some people simply do not have the ability or enough remaining time to manifest that in their lives; some do; some maybe do.  Those who don't seem to me vulnerable to actually being hurt—made worse in their lifestance or experience-stance—by a spiritual teacher who applies methods to that person assuming they can manifest that.  It seems to me this variation in capacity at least partly explains why so many people have been disaffected, and claim to have been hurt, by Andrew Cohen, who is not but a bull with his methods: my way or the highway.  Even Ken Wilber has commented on this aspect of Cohen's character, insinuating that a move to greater maturity in this regard would be welcome.

Yes, everybody bears responsibility for themselves and anything that happens to them, but does this principle exclude the principle of those in the know taking responsibility for how they trade in the marketplace?  Hardly.  Those in positions of power bear responsibilities those without power don't have.

Psychology has gone through decades of dealing with issues arising from power imbalances and the necessity of building into psychological method a sensitivity to that dynamic.  Spiritual teachers are relatively unregulated in this sphere.  Which is why discussions like these can help develop a better understanding among people regarding certain insidious aspects of spiritual teacher functioning.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

His answer was revealing: “To have you people around me all the time?  That would be my worst nightmare (uncomfortable laughter).”  Sound like a little denial coming to the surface in a sideways comment?  You bet.


I dunno. I think it's more complex than calling it “denial.” It does seem to contradict “I'm no different from you,” but again, I think the matter is complex, and depends on who “I” is.


Actually all I can do about that comment is laugh in empathy. And in understanding. Differences in vibrational level can be experienced by the embodiment like the sound of fingers scratching a chalkboard. 


Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

“To have you people around me all the time?  That would be my worst nightmare (uncomfortable laughter).” 

I'm actually wondering if he meant that comment facetiously.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Quite a statement, ey?  I didn't hear him as being facetious.  It came out spontaneously, and he and the audience seemed uncomfortable after he said it.  He then followed by saying something like “you people who follow” intimating he's not one of them follower types.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Or like acid being poured on the skin. 

OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

This is very simple, Om.


Thank you for further explaining such a simple thing so that I could finally understand it, Tom. What you meant is much clearer to me now.


Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM, I think it's even simpler than that.  Perhaps if you were to submit to Tom as your guru, then you would finally, really, truly understand.  ;-)

I'm finding myself wondering how much truth there was in the joking suggestion that was made about this earlier.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Oh, pshaw, how could the divine Adya say something like that?  He's a person.  Just a person.  He gets grumpy, he's got his hangups and peculiarities: he's just a guy.  Cohen's just a guy.  These people aren't special.  Ya, they've got one area of life in some generally desirable state or form, but really, these people are just people.  Guru?  What an overestimation, the ground of major projection-stuff.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Thanks for the suggestion Tely (me rolling eyes in amused irony.) I've already submitted to my own inner guru, and my devotional practices keep me pretty busy, haha, no time for another guru. :))))

Well, to me Adya IS “special,” because I FEEL him as quite different energetically from other people. That's what I said earlier. A breath of fresh air. That was not a metaphor. 

I suspect if one were to move into his inner experiential world, it would be quite different from the ordinary. He's not “just people.” But “guru” isn't the only alternative to “just people.” IMO. There are other categories available.

Anyway, I myself define guru as someone who is emanating extremely strong powerful vibrations, not someone self-declared, or with followers, or with one area of life or line of development in a high state. A guru to me is simply by definition of the gu and ru, someone who helps move us from darkness (unawareness) to light (awareness.) To me, the energies do that. IOW my personal definition of a guru is more the transmissions they are capable of than anything else. By that definition, many many people are gurus. Not even an upa-guru (hey, thanks for that concept) because the transmission process is usually mostly unconscious for both the sender and the receiver!!!! I might not be remembering well, but wasn't an upa-guru someone who stimulated a lesson-learned, or insight, for you? In what I am describing, your vibration simply goes up. Harmonic resonance. Tuning forks. Simple physics. 

By my definition, many ordinary people are gurus, and some official gurus are not, and some official gurus are great energetically but their words are mostly bullshit (IMO Ammachi is one of these.) Or to put it more politely, I just don't resonate with their words.

Actually perhaps I do have another definition of a guru, but it wouldn't have to be a teacher or someone with followers or disciples. It would have to do with whether the person's primary identity is that “eternity looking out through the eyes” that Adya described once. But of course that is hard for another person to assess.  Anyone walking around in that awareness is a guru in the sense that they affect everyone around them, merely by transmission/presence, in a consciousness-expanding way. Nothing explicit needs to take place.

Just thought I would toss in these perspectives which haven't showed up yet in this thread.

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Thanks OM. I just realized that I'm surrounded by many Gurus according to your definition. (slaps forehead) Being fixated on the idea that I had found a living Satguru in a powerful lineage, I was blinded to that fact. But no more. Thanks again (and a few more times just to enjoy the expansive opening :).

xoxo

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Theres a great entry on Terry Pattens Integral Heart blog that seems relevant to this discussion arguing that (as with any thing) there is a middle way.

http://www.integralheart.com/blog/integralheart


Where hes talking about the polarity in Teachers /Gurus of Purity Vs Openness.

Heres an excerpt

The virtues of purity:

Without integrity we have nothing. With purity, we have “quality control”; areas of clarity and agreement are highlighted, educating people about healthy and unhealthy forms of spirituality, and protecting the psychological, financial, and sexual safety of aspirants, as well as the reputation of integral spirituality.

The virtues of openness:

The radical, transformative power of living spirituality is not suppressed; passionate creative experiments can flourish; the free choices of aspirants are respected; tolerance and generosity thrive. Openness is also attuned to the competitive spirit of the larger marketplace of ideas.

Too Much Purity:

Overvaluing purity is impractical; it empowers everyone with any complaint about any teacher, undermining the whole premise of spiritual teachers and teachings, suppressing boldness, creativity and experimentation, disrespecting the choices of spiritual aspirants, and potentially becoming spiritual McCarthyism, a mood legitimizing every complaint, regardless of its veracity, motivation, or validity. And since there's no consensus about this, one person's purity is another's unsavoriness!

Too Much Openness

Produces a chaotic, indiscriminate spiritual marketplace in which “caveat emptor” rules the day, instead of a larger “meta-sangha” that actually feels like a sanctuary for the soul. Unwary people might be exploited (especially financially and sexually) and psychologically injured due to the unhealthy power dynamics of unfettered spiritual authority. Too much openness might damage the reputation of “Integral” or “evolutionary” approaches to spirituality, or the luster of our collective “brand.”


Steve

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Mascha, so happy to be of service !!!! Yeah, thanking someone is a GREAT open space, isn't it. I never thought of it that way. Now you have opened ME in return !!!!

Steve, thanks so much for that new angle to view from. I really really really like and respect Terry Patten, even if, sob, he isn't IMO perfect. 

Can't wait to hear what others think of his views.

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Dear OM, since you asked… I also appreciated Patten's analysis very much. Thanks for posting that, Steve. It's insightful and worth re-reading again, even.

One thing you've probably never heard about the guru/disciple relationship is an observation Poonjaji made more than once. He said that in all the years that thousands of Westerners had sought him out to receive the direct transmission, he had never found a single one who had what it takes to be enlightened through the path of devotion. Only Asians, and among those only a rare few, were capable of being true bhaktas ( ecstatic lovers of the divine). But extreme bhaktas couldn't function in the world - which is why they had to be taken in by an ashram in the days of old. And anyway, everyone benefitted from a healthy dose of self-inquiry and the resulting discriminating wisdom, which makes you a jnani, rather than a pure bhakta.

In Poonjaji's Satsangs in Lucknow, there was one Indian man who was a pure bhakta - the stories about him are legendary. His sensitivity and rapport with Poonjaji was such, they became almost a single ectoplasmic organism… freaky for some Westerners to behold, that's for sure. But not for me. I have a strong devotional streak - left over from my lifetime as a Baul mystic, I suppose. LOL, we were insane, then! Much better balance now, thank you, though still a bit uneven.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Mascha, what's a “Baul mystic?” And what do you regard as “uneven?” Balance of what?

I too have a strong devotional streak which is totally unexplainable by anything from this lifetime. When Terry Patten spoke in Seattle, after his talk about the Second Person Face of God, some of us in conversation got up the courage to admit to one another that our personal spiritual practices involved — arising spontaneously for each of us and unique to each of us — 2nd-person experiences and practices. We “came out of the closet” which we had been in for fear of being regarded as Purple or Blue !!!!! It was absolutely delightful and reassuring!!! (Of course, we could ALL be Purple or Blue. But somehow I don't think so.)

However, as I recall, for none of us was the 2nd person devotion to another person. That seems to be quite different. But interesting, to ponder what the differences are. 

In fact, is guru-devotion 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person Face of God stuff? I can see arguments for all three !!!!!!! Or shall we say, I can see devotee perspectives which would be 1st, devotee perspectives which would be 2nd, etc. Maybe if you have all 3 going re your guru, that's not pathological. Question mark on that. Anyone have an opinion?

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

OM, the Bauls are an Indian tribe, not genetically connected to each other, only through the heart of their devotional practices and god-realization. They used to dress in blue, strum primitive string instruments or beat on drums and wander around in an ecstatic trance. IOW, useless sadhus with nothing better to do than dancing, weeping, laughing and getting lost in profound states of samadhi while on earth.

A balanced being develops both: wisdom and love, jnana and bhakta. If you have both wings equally developed you're no longer a lame duck. lol.

Of course, a seasoned devotee will eventually experience all of the nuances of devotion/surrender inherent in that path.

Good for you, if you have access to the bhakta wing. You'll be so much more likely to take off and soar with that rather than a Kentucky fried chicken wing.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

I've contributed this thread to the Collective Wisdom Library of Community Threads, in the Spiritual Wisdom Room. Posted here. My reasons are given there, but basically, there is a heck of a lot of COLLECTIVE wisdom represented in this thread, so it belongs there. An education on the topic, for any interested reader. Especially with all the cool links.

Thank you Irmeli, and all,

Blessings, OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Right now today, given my current life, that lifestyle holds some appeal.
ROTFL.
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Well, you could start by rolling on the floor laughing and weeping while dressed in blue without much further ado.

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

Forgive, Irmeli, gotta respond to this.

Tomorrow perhaps when I am well rested. Don't have the energy to do all that tonight.

Big amused grin,
OM

Re: Pathological Guru/Disciple Relationships?

This discussion has been continuing lively here at Integral Archipelago. New perspectives and understanding keeps on emerging there too.

Irmeli