An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Usually when this subject has come up it hasn't gotten past comments like, “I am so above needing a spiritual teacher. In fact, I've never needed one,” or “That spiritual teacher is such an evil person. I am so above that. In fact there is nothing like that in my character at all. I have never done anything like that and never would. That person is evil. I am not.”

But I thought we might attempt a more integral view. And then if people want to declare how above needing a spiritual teacher they are or how less evil they are than a particular spiritual teacher there will be plenty of room for that as well.

First I think we might notice how there is a guru or the equivalent in every spiritual tradition—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Sufism. There tends to be a leader at the head of every organization, with the exception of informal social groups and perhaps very Green social holons.

There are baseball coaches, football coaches. We get a teacher for piano lessons, guitar lessons. A few people are self-taught, but by and large human beings learn from teachers or at least models of behavior, if not a formal teacher-student relationship.

Why should spirituality be any different? Because everyone wants to think that they are no less spiritual than anyone else, particularly in postmodern culture. “No one tells me what to do! No one is better than me or better than anyone else. Who is to say one person is better? I have my own way, and no one can say it is not as high as theirs.”

At any rate, that is the culture milieu in which this discussion usually takes place. Now let's attempt an integral look. I don't mean to present the following list as being complete; in fact, I think it is just a beginning. Let's first try to fill in the map in terms of, generally speaking, why a guru may or may not be necessary, why they may be beneficial, and why they might even be harmful.


Possible Benefits of Seeing a Spiritual Teacher:

1) For state training. Gurus (and Rinpoches, Zen masters, Sheiks, etc.) can provide practical instruction for state training and, perhaps more importantly, transmission of deeper states.

Transmission is awfully big, but both can save a person a lot of time. I don't believe there is any natural law that says a person must have a guru for state realization, though some gurus talk as if this is the case. But it can move a person along much more quickly.

A person can meditate for years without much state experience or apparent deepening and then, upon seeing a guru, suddenly have a deepening or even a sudden realization. Ramana Maharshi said those who came to him and had a sudden realization of jnani tended to be those had been working at it for a long time.

Could it save a person five years, ten, twenty, thirty? I think it could. Most people who have realized deeper states have done so with spiritual teachers. The evidence is that it helps a great deal.

2) For higher stage training. This gets talked about quite a bit less, but I think it often comes in to play. An Orange guru has Amber students, and part of the work involves learning how to be reasonable and logical or learning a certain ethic. Same with Green, integral, in rarer cases third-tier stages.

It tends to be very easy for people around the world to learn Red—they get Red or the capacity for Red mirrored back to them all the time. Amber is usually not so difficult either; much of the world is at least into Amber, and in many parts of the world Orange and Green are quite common—but they are common because people see these values and learn these modes of cognition from others around them who have realized it.

A spiritual teacher can provide higher-stage training for adults who are out of school. In school, people tend to move through stages, often quite rapidly under significant pressure from parents and school teachers; out of school people tend to slow down. In postmodern society many people flatline when they get out of school and explore horizontal lines for the rest of their life or move through stages very, very slowly.

In an integral society, people would keep clipping along after they got out of school. They would simply continue their education on their own, which some people do, or enroll in some other school. It is rarely not a combination of the two (rarely, if ever, does a person continue one's education entirely on their own—there are gurus at least in books and often in person for periods of time as well.)

At any rate, spiritual teachers will fill a role, probably a very large role, in stage training once people are out of school.

3) Type training. Ken Wilber has said that one of the things you would hope that a spiritual teacher did for you is “nail you on your game.” We get into habits, a certain way of doing things—probably more of a type thing than an super-individual unique-self thing—and we go in circles.

Actually, there is probably a personal-type aspect, a cultural-type aspect, and perhaps a unique-self aspect as well, but if we are to go beyond conditioned behavior this is important. Most people's behavior is determined by body/mind type and culture much more than they suppose (as individual as we sometimes like to think we are).

4) Line training. Affect, cognition, moral, skillful means. The wisdom traditions have encouraged development along these lines and more. In some Buddhist schools, for example, there is particular attention given to cognition; in many schools attention is given to affect.

Affect can also be transmitted—people can see high affect in action, sometimes just a gesture, resonate with it, and behave along that level of affect themselves or be inspired to work towards it. Often spiritual teachers have demonstrated very high levels of affect that have inspired people to raise their affect as well, and seeing this in person can be especially transformative.

5) Psychological issues. Gurus can potentially help with deep-rooted psychological issues, providing a “new father” some believe, perhaps a new mother or family, kind of like group therapy or mentoring. Often gurus have to engage in some of this whether they like it or not. They can also help people develop a higher self-sense (a la Susanne-Cooke Greuter), often by demonstrating one themselves.

~      ~     ~

Those are some of the potential benefits of seeing a spiritual teacher, and not ones to be discounted. In fact, the list covers some of the most important aspects of human life.

This is gotten a little long, so I will just leave it at that and let any downsides come out in the discussion. Please add more possible benefits if you can think of any.

And by the way, we might add the Pandit Principle to this discussion as well—so many people these days want to consider themselves already realized, already enlightened, with no further to go, when in fact they only merit the title “enlightened” by the most feeble standards, and often not even that.

A pandit (and a guru—often or always it is a combination of the two, right? in different measures) can provide the map that tells us what is possible and where we are hanging out relative to where others are hanging out or have hung out. This is very important.

A great deal of the criticism of Wilber and other gurus involves an objection to where they are pointing—generally, less self, more devotion, more service, a different life style, etc. Things that require change, giving up, renunciation, hard work, a loss of their current identity.

Behind much of the criticism, if not most of it, involves one of the pitfalls Roger Walsh pointed out: defending against higher stages, defending against dissolution of self, stage and state wise. I think this is one reason so much of the criticism against gurus is so rabid.

Another reason may involve deep psychological issues involving mom and dad, the narcissistic rage Almaas talks about.

It is also interesting that there are far worse rogues than even the worst spiritual teachers out in the world, but people tend to obsess over spiritual teachers they feel have less ethical development than they do or an evil that doesn't exist in their self-system.

Maybe it's because if they can show that a “spiritual teacher” is unworthy of that title, they, by implication, are, at least in some way.

And if they can show that spiritual teachers are not, in fact, higher or deeper in any way, then they don't have to listen to their teaching either: they don't have to change; their self remains intact where it is; they don't have to renunciate anything or take on any hard work.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Well done, David.

I think that all of these are excellent reasons to consider a guru.

There is a lot of pride that gets in the way of being mentored. I see it in my line of work, where people don't want to admit they could become better at running their learning centres. I see it in myself, when I left counselling not because I had gone as far as I could go but because I felt that I didn't “need” that mentor any more.

As you say, it is perhaps even more so when it comes to spiritual matters. Each of us has such a very very long way to go, why not admit it and seek help?

The only thing I wonder is whether my best guru right now could be my betrothed. I have learned so very much from him about every aspect of my life and heart and spirit that I believe I have much much more to learn, and need to devote myself to this right now.

At some point perhaps I will greatly benefit  from sitting at the feet of some enlightened master. In the meantime, I am seeking other forms of learning.

What do you think, David? Others?

Love,

Nicole 

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David, you forgot this one:

6. Subservient deferral.  A relation that implicitly or explicitly can encourage, and often does so, that I manifest a servile disposition and defer responsibility for the higher, most valuable reaches of my individuation, particularity and creativity—in a word, the very thing for which I am uniquely suited and placed on this earth to manifest

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

And in the spirit of if you see the Buddha, kill him, a little from Buddha:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:   Usually when this subject has come up it hasn't gotten past comments like, “I am so above needing a spiritual teacher. In fact, I've never needed one,

It is important to make a difference between gurus and spiritual  teachers.  Why don't you make that distinction?  That makes your post misleading.

I have not met the attitude you claim above among spiritually oriented people.  People appreciate learning from spiritual teachers, but they are weary of gurus for many good reasons. They have heard and seen doubtful things about and around gurus. They have seen their friends submitting themselves to a guru and becoming really weird, isolating from others, losing their money etc. People don't want that to happen themsleves.

With guru people generally understand someone whose authority you unquestioningly accept in all matters spiritual, and to whom you surrender  yourself. You can have only one guru at a time.

People are not afraid of learning from spiritual teachers. They can have many of them simultaneously. You can get a lot of inspiration by reading their books, by participating in retreats and seminars, and satsangs. And you are not expected to accept anything that does not feel right. These teachers generally don't have that kind of authority over people. This kind of learning from spiritual teachers is increasingly happening everywhere. And there are good reasons for that. It is a relatively safe way of getting your spiritual yearnings satisfied.

David: “That spiritual teacher is such an evil person. I am so above that. In fact there is nothing like that in my character at all. I have never done anything like that and never would. That person is evil. I am not.”

The only people whom I have heard to call a guru evil are the ones who are very painfully leaving behind a guru organization, and have not yet been able of putting all that has happened to them in a wider context. Even these people don't feel themselves to be above the guru.

However there are many spiritual teachers and other spirtually advanced people in the world, who would not want to be gurus in the sense of expecting disciples to surrender to them, and simultaneously making plenty of money by that, and then not taking any responsibility for those disciples who don't do well even if they have spent all their money for the guru.

Too many gurus have behaved this way, and have managed to spoil the reputation of having a guru.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

I recognize that this thread was started most likely in response to the “pathological guru/disciple relationships” thread on the Integral Pod, which I've been reading and to which I've contributed one or two posts, but this is timely for me for another reason.  I received a letter the other day from an old friend in India, with whom I worked at the Krishnamurti school at Rajghat, and in it he asked me if I'd write up my opinion on the role of gurus or spiritual teachers.  As you know, Krishnamurti was quite critical of the notion of spiritual authority and of gurus in general.  I believe my friend, Chaitanya, is asking me this question because he knows I disagree with Krishnamurti in this area – that I think K's criticism's are too sweepingly dismissive of spiritual teachers (he himself was one!), even though I agree in principle with many of his points. 

In short, I believe spiritual teachers can be helpful for the sorts of things you mentioned, such as state, line, and type development; or learning a meditative discipline; or even pursuing a personal line of inquiry (particularly if the teacher helps deepen the inquiry [by exposing unrecognized presuppositions, for instance], instead of simply providing answers); etc. 

I think the “hot point” here is not whether individuals can serve fruitfully as spiritual guides or mentors, but the actual dynamics (and the health or lack thereof) of the student-teacher relationship.  Even here, I would hesitate to completely rule out any particular type of relationship (should the student relate to the teacher as a 'spiritual friend,' like the Theravadins, but not as a 'Buddha,' as in Tibetan Tantra?) because there are so many developmental, psychological, spiritual and other factors to consider in any particular relationship.  The various 'models' out there all have various strengths and weaknesses, and all have healthy and unhealthy manifestations.

In general, I would say the 'feudal' model of subservient master/servant relationship is no longer well suited for mature, healthy individuals in the modern age, and would be a regressive move for many (say, if they were submitting because they were trying to learn something from a teacher who him- or herself had never moved beyond the feudal value system).  But I wouldn't say this is always the case; a modern, healthy person might still enter temporarily into such a relationship as a way of challenging themselves further.  I would be suspicious, though, that something regressive was going on if they remained in such a relationship and didn't eventually move on.

More specifics will probably be helpful, but just speaking generally for now, I would say that outright condemnation of guru-disciple relationships as regressive or pathological is inappropriate, just as sweeping condemnation of people who say they have no need for such a relationship (say, referring to that as a narcissistic 'Green' attitude) is also inappropriate.  Both approaches can be healthy moves at different times, depending on the relative development and maturity of all involved.

Regarding the appropriateness of condemning or criticizing various gurus, I definitely feel there's a need for healthy discernment, given the many abuses that have come to light in the last 50 years.  If a teacher has been found to be exploiting others, I have no problem with people voicing criticisms or warnings about that.  Because of the 'nature' of the 'guru role,' at least as it has been inherited from various feudal cultures, it is, as we know, ripe territory for various forms of narcissistic indulgence and exploitation.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

People have many ways of dealing with their frustrations with gurus. This one is funny: Dan Brown's next novel is based on the TM movement

The poster was himself deeply involved in TM in the 70's.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Hi Nicole, yes I think you are certainly right about pride. The Eastern Orthodox Christians apparently thing it is particularly devilish.  :) We discussed this on another thread (the original “The Divinely Emerging World-Blessing Work of Adi Da Samraj,” as a matter of fact), and I posted a couple of things about it from Andrew Cohen. One is a an excerpt from an interview with Dzongsar Rinpoche and then an excerpt from one of his books called “Pride is Vicious.” I think it is pretty important and relevant to this thread:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom: 6. Subservient deferral.  A relation that implicitly or explicitly can encourage, and often does so, that I manifest a servile disposition and defer responsibility for the higher, most valuable reaches of my individuation, particularity and creativity—in a word, the very thing for which I am uniquely suited and placed on this earth to manifest.


This is among the possible downsides, right? So we will call that number 1 on the list of possible downsides.  :)

Yes, I think that's important to consider. When, at what point on the spiral, do you think a person should “just say no” to spiritual teachers, and do you think it should be a “zero tolerance” policy with spiritual teachers after that point, meaning no more spiritual teachers?

I find it to be a tricky question. Even if someone has made contact with “the guru within,” so to speak, is their interpretation of it the best? How deep is their state realization? Is it turiya, turiyatita? And mightn't state development like that help clarify one's intuition, to the extent that it deepened construct and ego awareness?

Also, is “individuation” really where things are headed on the spiral? How would you describe the higher territory?

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David, in my quick and simple version of things, imagine the following as if on a graph, Y axis = influence on development, X axis = time.  It seems to me there comes a time in life when collective and individual lines of influence, which I posit at max and min values respectively at infancy, cross.  At that crossing point, collective influence assumes less importance than individual influence in driving development.  “Collective influence” can be seen as passive receipt from others—teachings, practices, schedules, curricula, traditions; “individual influence” is actively self-generated and looks into an unknown, unmapped future.  At that crossing point, the value of teachers takes a back seat to what I can bring from my own stitching, weaving, work, investigation, from following promptings that appear from within in their own unknowable sequence.

But note: individual auto-influence, if you will, is likely present from birth—isn't every baby unique?—such that people are probably better taught never to dismiss or disregard any felt individual difference.  Buddha implied this attitude in the quotation above.  Submission is a tricky matter, it seems to me, for values on this side of the developmental scheme.  I doubt Buddha was submissive to others and that his non-submissiveness brought forth that which we know as his teaching—just a guess.  After all, that teaching is known for its particularity; nobody before the Buddha had said words quite like that.

I would thus answer your last two questions, yes, individuation is essential for manifesting anything new, including anything higher, which is a sub-category of “new.”  It's IMO why Integral Life now speaks about the Unique Self, and Cohen about evolution.  Those are highly individualizing teachings.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: It is important to make a difference between gurus and spiritual  teachers.  Why don't you make that distinction? 

Irmeli, that is a very important distinction, thank you. I was sort of using guru as a catch all for guru, rinpoche, sheik, etc. But we could call spiritual teachers “informal” teachers, perhaps, and gurus “formal teachers.” The former would be more like a coach or consultant; the latter would be something more intense. For example, Genpo Roshi, in the discussion I attach to this post, mentions both Maezumi and Trungpa giving him some rather tough love, something that was painful but which Genpo Roshi evidently feels was the right thing for him and helpful (for the most part, he seems to advocate a lighter touch than Maezumi took with him—Maezumi told him he was “arrogant” all the time, and my impression was that Genpo thought that this strengthened his own self-critical superego.)



Irmeli: They have seen their friends submitting themselves to a guru and becoming really weird, isolating from others, losing their money etc. People don't want that to happen themsleves.


Yes, I think it is good that the abusive spiritual teachers have been “outed,” hung, dried, quartered, tarred and feathered—it will discourage such behavior in the future.  :) And this was an area where people, due to some magic and mythic thinking, perhaps, idealization, etc. easily fall prey to this.

I think the entire teacher-student relationship needs to be redefined for integral stages, for each stage, really. I think Genpo Roshi gives a good expression to it with his talk about flexibility but also on the importance of respect and such.



Irmeli: However there are many spiritual teachers and other spirtually advanced people in the world, who would not want to be gurus in the sense of expecting disciples to surrender to them, and simultaneously making plenty of money by that, and then not taking any responsibility for those disciples who don't do well even if they have spent all their money for the guru.


A lot of interesting things in here.

 I think that “total surrender” to a guru is probably a Red-student, Amber-guru kind of of thing. It doesn't make sense to me moving a student from Turquoise to—then again in one respect it does or might: one needs to surrender within eventually, to one's higher self, if you like, which may seem like Other, and having a guru might help with that. But I think one needs to learn to discriminate and make ethical decisions in particular on one's own; after a point it seems counterproductive.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: But we could call spiritual teachers “informal” teachers, perhaps, and gurus “formal teachers”.

  I think the concept “spiritual teacher” as it is commonly used nowadays does not fit well in the category of “informal”. A spiritual teacher can function very professionally without being a guru. He/she can write books, lecture, and give seminars and retreats all over the world without being a guru. I could take Deepak Chopra as a prominent spiritual teacher in this category. His teaching is not informal, but he does not function in the role of a guru.
  Also a person can function both as a spiritual teacher and as a guru. To me Andrew Cohen belongs to this category. When I have been critizing Andrew Cohen, it is about his guru role, not his work as spiritual teacher.

  David: I think the entire teacher-student relationship needs to be redefined for integral stages, for each stage really.

  I agree with you on this. The traditional typical guru organizations have amber/red meme organizational structures. When I have read what the ex-disciples of Andrew Cohen have written, the overall structure, the way the guru and the disciples relate to each other also in that community has plenty of amber and red features in it.
 It may be necessary in such settings to occasionally regress even to red structures to be able to heal deep wounds. However if this level becomes a permanent way of relating to each other, if fear of losing the favor of the guru dominates, if you cannot openly discuss your doubts about the guru, if you cannot have an open and sincere dialogue with the guru, the community has most probably declined functioning from amber structures.
 If you get also pressured to give big donations, when you yourself are in a very vulnerable state, this is already red structure in my opinion. And something like this seems to have been going on in Andrew's community.

   What makes this kind of regression and abuse possible, and confuses people, is the blissful advanced state experiences that are strongly cultivated there through different types of techniques. These UL quadrant state experiences get interpreted as all important simultaneously diminishing the role of actual structures in LR and in LL quadrants. Apparently it is also easier to get profound a blissful state experiences, when you simultaneously regress in the stages.   Sometimes people may want to do this in spite of the possible regression.
 
However the possibility of regression should be made explicitly clear, and people should actually be helped see their regression also. The danger of pathological lasting regression to lower levels of relating to others could be less permanent then.

   David: I think that a “total surrender” to a guru is probably a Red-student, Amber-guru kind of thing.

  I agree with you also on this. This type of traditional guru role works relatively well at those structures. At the red meme people are not year capable of being in a true dialogue with others, and it is not even the next possible emergent structure for them.   The capacity to be in a true dialogue with others appears only after individuation, and from that place people then can learn to take the position of another. This results in the capacity to be dialogue with others. Then you are not anymore an extension of another person, or you don't expect the others to be extensions of you.

There is a great danger that when you surrender to a guru, you fuse with him in a symbiotic way, you become an extension of him, and lose whatever you had of individuality and own thinking. And also a lot of your true capacity to take empathetically the capacity of another person gets lost then. Fear, and different types of threats starts to dominate in relationships.

   The modern guru should be able to enhance people's individuation processes whenever that is not yet fully achieved, and hence the person is not capable of being in a true dialogue in some personal areas of once life.
 What still this day seems to be going on is that the gurus have themselves some weaknesses in this regard, and cannot hence recognize regression in the individuation process and communication in his community. This regression tends to take the form of strong dominator power structures fueled by different types of  threats and fear. Expressing your honest doubts, discriminations and fears concerning the structures of the community is not anymore possible.

  I have been for 27 years an active Freemason. That organization is very hierarchical. However the organizational structure there is such that these hierarchies can relatively easily become healthy functional hierarchies. I see hierarchy as essentially important  for an successful spiritual organization. But the traditional guru/disciple hierarchy  is developmentally a low structure.
Regrettably many teachers who take upon themselves the role of a guru, gradually slip into those old patterns in spite of their initially good intentions.

  A guru/disciple relationship is very intimate and hence vulnerable. There should  be very strict road rules for such a relationships, clearly more strict  than for the spiritual teachers.
  First the guru should not have sex with his disciples. Another and maybe even more important rule should be that the guru would not be allowed to accept any money to himself or his organization from the disciple.
  I understand that the guru has to make a living also, and it costs money to run a possible organization. But I would expect an relatively enlightened guru to be able to make the money otherwise. E.g. he can function simultaneously as a spiritual teacher, healer etc. And take fees for his services in this role.
Neither should excessive amounts of volunteer work by the disciple to the guru or his organization accepted.
  Already these changes would make the whole thing much healthier. Strictly following collectively these rules would immediately drop away many prospective guru candidates.
 
 Irmeli    

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Hi Irmeli, just a note referencing Andrew Cohen respecting what you say here: 

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Bruce: I believe my friend, Chaitanya, is asking me this question because he knows I disagree with Krishnamurti in this area – that I think K's criticism's are too sweepingly dismissive of spiritual teachers (he himself was one!), even though I agree in principle with many of his points.


That's a nice point. Yes, and Krishnamurti is interesting to look into in this respect because so many people these days seem to take a Krishnamurti-esque attitude about it. As if it is entirely individual and as though adopting a spiritual teacher and tradition would be exactly in the wrong direction because it implies a certain loss of individuality. But, —I think it's paradoxical: as we go higher on the spiral more true individuality (rather than biological or cultural conditioning) and at the same time less self, less individualization.

I think Krishnamurti is quite good, for his time, that is. It is to a large extent with AQAL hindsight that some things look questionable, right?

What do you think about his destroying the organization? (Though parts of it seemed to have remained intact, yes?) On the face of it it is Green, but I don't know the character of the organization. He may just have seen that this organization, for whatever reason, wasn't delivering. You probably know a lot about that.



Bruce: I think the “hot point” here is not whether individuals can serve fruitfully as spiritual guides or mentors, but the actual dynamics (and the health or lack thereof) of the student-teacher relationship.


Nice expression! Yes, I think the dynamics would probably have to be different at each stage and that often a teacher would have to shift gears from student to student. Eventually some testing would probably be helpful. Each wave will approach things differently (not to mention types); putting students from different waves into one classroom is like putting school kids from different grades in the same classroom.



Bruce: In general, I would say the 'feudal' model of subservient master/servant relationship is no longer well suited for mature, healthy individuals in the modern age, and would be a regressive move for many (say, if they were submitting because they were trying to learn something from a teacher who him- or herself had never moved beyond the feudal value system).


Yes, I agree with that, with the possible exception I mentioned earlier of a student learning not to get his or her egoic way through submission to a guru, but I am a little doubtful there as well. I think higher stages are characterized by more autonomy, not less. The way I see it a person's ethical discrimination is really key, and how will that develop if someone else is making too many decisions?

Wilber has said, in speaking about modern spiritual communities, if I remember correctly, that “it's either a regression or” something higher, I believe he said. I think in a lot of cases it might be both. It's sometimes kind of revealing to look at the LR of these organizations.



Bruce: I would be suspicious, though, that something regressive was going on if they remained in such a relationship and didn't eventually move on.


Yes, Jun Po Kelly made a criticism like this of Tibetan Buddhism in the interview that it's in the current issue of EnlightenNext, that he didn't see an “exit strategy” there.

I think there's a lot to learn still about integral-level students and where they are headed and the proper role of a spiritual teacher in that context. But I think Genpo Roshi's idea of flexibility in that relationship, where sometimes the guru would be higher, sometimes the student would be higher, sometimes side by side would be really important. If it didn't have that flexibility it would be regressive. It would have to be about the guru's continued development as well but in such a way as not to lose hierarchy and respect.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom: “I've listened to Andrew speak in a retreat format.  When I listen to him in these contexts, my spider senses are often triggered.  One prominent aspect of his teaching style, I've noticed, is an aggressiveness around the content of what he is teaching.  The sense I get hearing him is that he wants students to see and believe the way he sees and believes, and that he does not tolerate disagreement.  This comes out in many ways.  For instance, when he asks questions to his audience, he will often follow with the question “right?”  And if he doesn't perceive sufficient positive response or something, he'll quickly follow with another “right?!”—this one a little more emphasized than the last, very aggressive.  Hence it is typical to hear him say “right … right?” after almost every important statement he makes.  What's equally unnerving to me is the audience typically responds to the second “right?” in a quick, uncomfortable and subservient way, as if feeling a little attacked or threatened.”

Very well observed, Tom. I've noticed this behaviour also. (I'd say, those who do not notice it need to make some serious efforts of integrating Orange into their system.)

It's kinda frightening, really. Cult-warning - BEEP BEEP!
 
(Of course, the reason he's aggressive is because there are attachments underlying the teaching.)

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: Also a person can function both as a spiritual teacher and as a guru. To me Andrew Cohen belongs to this category. When I have been critizing Andrew Cohen, it is about his guru role, not his work as spiritual teacher.


That is a very good distinction to make. The two roles activate some different lines. The role of the spiritual teacher, as you have defined it, doesn't activate the interpersonal line so much, nor the ethical line, nor other lines (not that buy entirely the writings of Andrew's disaffected students).

What I meant by informal/formal wasn't unprofessional/professional. It basically had to do with a level of intimacy and interaction.



Irmeli: What makes this kind of regression and abuse possible, and confuses people, is the blissful advanced state experiences that are strongly cultivated there through different types of techniques.


Yes, I think you are right about that. That is one reason anyway. In an earlier thread I mentioned a guy who had a peak experience and then looked at a picture of Jim Jones and decided that he had something to do with it, so he joined that community. That would be a pretty extreme of it, but the basic phenomenon is people trying their salvation with one particular person and only that particular person—if not that particular person, no salvation.

But if you didn't have UL experiences and then went to a particular retreat and did, you might very well connect that experience with the teacher—and you might be exactly right; the teacher may have had a lot to do with it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the teacher excels in all lines and quadrants, that he or she is necessarily right about everything under the sun.

That's a big issue that integral clears up—different lines, contexts, quadrants. The guru will have an area of expertise here and will be out of his or her expertise there.

But if someone tied their salvation to a particular teacher, and especially if they didn't see levels, lines, types, and quadrants themselves, then they could be taken for a ride.



Irmeli: There is a great danger that when you surrender to a guru, you fuse with him in a symbiotic way, you become an extension of him, and lose whatever you had of individuality and own thinking.


That's a very interesting point, like a regression to a young child-parent relationship—or maybe a better comparison is just pathological communion where the other's needs are more important to the extent you are neglecting your own needs (which is perhaps fine in some relationships, a parent sacrificing something for the sake of his or her child, for example).

Of course it could actually be someone's authentic life work to serve someone or someone's work (or simply support another person in their work without making the other into some higher divinity), but for others that could be a very unfortunate turn.


Irmeli: And also a lot of your true capacity to take empathetically the capacity of another person gets lost then. Fear, and different types of threats starts to dominate in relationships.


Yes, I think it's possible that some could actually have a regression (ethically) at that point. Others may have not been advanced enough to have a regression but rather fit right in with the dominator hierarchy.



Irmeli: Regrettably many teachers who take upon themselves the role of a guru, gradually slip into those old patterns in spite of their initially good intentions.


I think this is a very important thing to consider—that power itself can corrupt, or rather, provide an opportunity for subpersonalities and shadows to act out and have an impact.

Everyone has shadow and subpersonalities, but the impact of those things depends on how much power a person has. The faults of a person in power get magnified; they have a greater impact.

 The same person might be a perfectly good citizen without that power—it's the power, to a large extent, that allows those things to manifest in the way that they do. Some of that person's critics might be just as bad or even worse if they were in that position themselves, or make different kinds of mistakes.


Irmeli: A guru/disciple relationship is very intimate and hence vulnerable. There should  be very strict road rules for such a relationships, clearly more strict  than for the spiritual teachers.

  First the guru should not have sex with his disciples. Another and maybe even more important rule should be that the guru would not be allowed to accept any money to himself or his organization from the disciple.


Yes, a set of standards would be very good. A number of well-respected teachers could endorse them, and students could then use that set of standards to help them understand their situation and make decisions.

Ideally, it would be best if no money were involved, but I wonder how many spiritual organizations out there don't take any money from students or even could survive without it.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:Ideally, it would be best if no money were involved, but I wonder how many spiritual organizations out there don't take any money from students or even could survive without it.

A true authentic guru/disciple relationship does not need an organization to support it. It can happen in many different external forms. Spiritual traditions need organizations to support them. Spiritual teachers may also need an organization in order to be able to reach more people, and be successfull.

Many spiritual organizations have survived without money. The co-freemasonic organization I belong to has survived over 100 years without collecting money expect for paying the rents. People in high positions there  do a lot of work for the organization, and do not get paid. The higher the position, the more responsibility and work . Some of these people also have to travel a lot, and they do even that on there own cost.

In organizations where different forms of dominator power and exploitation prevails, people lower in the hierarchy have to do more work often without any payment. And people in the higher ranks collect the money.

Money does not guarantee the success of a spiritual organization. Rather it can become a stumbling block, if the money gets missused.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:The same person might be a perfectly good citizen without that power—it's the power, to a large extent, that allows those things to manifest in the way that they do. Some of that person's critics might be just as bad or even worse if they were in that position themselves, or make different kinds of mistakes.

I agree with this fully.

I also claim that those people who recognize this in themsleves, do not feel attracted to be in a role of an enlightened superior guru. In a position where the guru has always right, where the egoistic behaviour to get rid of is in others.
It is a situation, where you focus mainly on changing others.

The idea of others needing to change comes directly from ego, from the separate sense of self.

When you don't perceive yourself as separate from others, the need to transform others ceases. The world changes, as I get transformed.

And I get transformed by knowing myself better. And when I know myself well enough, the need to change others ceases. However I may occasionally feel a need to set  in pretty firm ways limits to how other people treat me, and that may initiate changes also in the other, not only in me.

I repeat: the need to change others comes from the separate sense of self.

I quote Gopi Krishna, who has made accurate perceptions on this issue from another perspective:
“But how can Nature allow man to win this sovereign poistion unless he has also gained the capability to shoulder the highly increased responsibility in a befitting manner, and not to abuse the almost unlimited powers gained?
This is the case why in every case of the awakening of the evolutionary mechanism secret devices in the brain come into play to mold the individual towards a state of mind, where possibility of abuse of psychic power is eliminated.
The desire for self reform is the first sign of the activity of this dormant prycho-physiological mechanism. This is also the reason why almost all those who possess psychic talents are never capable of control the power, or to exhibit them at their own will and choice, or often even remain alert or conscious, when the phenomena come to pass.”

By elimination of abuse of psychic power I undersatand Gopi Krishna to mean, the person's behavior taking so weird, and absurd forms that he loses his capacity to influence people, he loses his reputation, and maybe also some of his actual capacities. They get spoiled much more easily than acquired talents on grosser levels.

My observation is that an authentic guru/disciple relationship is not tied to a certain external form. You cannot choose your guru or disciple. You dont' need to perceive yourself either as a guru or disciple, and still that relationship works.
It lasts only for a while, or as long as it is needed. And all of this happens actually better in silence.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom: I've listened to Andrew speak in a retreat format.  When I listen to him in these contexts, my spider senses are often triggered.


I think there is something, first of all, to what Wilber says about a true guru scaring you—if the guru doesn't threaten you very deeply in a particular way, really scare you, he or she may not really be able to transform you. The person should be quite threatening to the person's identity, because the idea is to knock that person out of there or have that identity “die.”

There are perhaps other ways in which it could happen; I'm not saying it always has to be that way, but that is a legitimate perspective to take on it, and he bases it on decades of personal experience and third-person study.

That's not to justify in anyway things that actually harm the person, but if all that's happening is that someone scares you that doesn't necessarily mean anything against the guru. It could also mean you are projecting, or that there are a combination of things going on, some legitimate, some not legitimate. Here is an excerpt from Wilber's oft-referenced forward to one of Andrew Cohen's books:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: “You can go search for one, if you like, on YouTube, and we could discuss it.  :) Maybe you'll find one.  :) ”

A few weeks ago I came across this one. I switched it off after a few minutes because I was so unimpressed with both the content and manner of his replies.

I just now watched it all the way through and my response hasn't changed. My gut feeling is that his belief in his own understanding is genuine. In other words, I don't get any sense that he is knowingly pulling the wool over people's eyes. He really believes this stuff, and thankfully not all of it is as poor as the content of this video.

He may well have had some real insights / illuminations or whatever, but just like any of us, he is more developed along some lines than others.

FWIW, and given Tom's observations, here are some interesting replies from youtube commentators:
“What a disappointing video. God created the universe because he had nothing (else to do)? I'm already over Andrew Cohen and I've only known of him for half an hour.”

“This answer is crap, he completely rearranged her question into what he had memorized and could answer , thats why he was practically shouting “RIGHT” , “RIGHT”, well in front of a big crowd and on the spot of course she is going to agree with the guy. I have not seen enough of his stuff but on first glance , I don;t like it.”

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Yes, the “right” at 2:26 is in the zone of what I was talking about.

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James: I switched it off after a few minutes because I was so unimpressed with both the content and manner of his replies.

I felt the content of the video repugnant. The only clear statement came from the young woman, when she said: I don't know.

Cohen was discussing, how did God feel before he created the Universe. I have myself no idea. I do not know either if there exists an unmanifest God in that state. I just do not know. I leave those type of questions open, but Cohen does not.
Instead he forces his faulty ideas upon that woman. I wouldn't like that happen to me. In that  situation, I would have felt like gotten overriden. Or maybe I  would have continued to insist that I don't know.

Even if I don't know how God felt before the Universe was created, I know that it couldn't have been something Cohen claims it was.
 
He explains how there was no time, no space, no form, no problems to overcome. How could anything have been better? God was abiding in this perfectly blissful state billions of eons of no time, Cohen explains.

What the hell does billions of eons of no time mean, when there is no time? If there is no time, there cannot be billions of eons. Without time you cannot get bored either.
No problems cannot exist without problems. Better cannot exist without worse, bliss without friction, peace without restlessness. Without time, space and form,  none of these pairs of qualities can exist.

What is there then? I do not know. Neither does Cohen.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Very well said, Irmeli.

<thumbs up>

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Ditto.  Not even a scratch of I don't know in AC's mind.  Concomitant with this, he doesn't listen, but tells.  What he knows with certainty, of course.

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“What do you think the attachments are?”

Attachment to self/inherent existence at the root. Same old. And from there individual and personal attachments flow, and God knows what they are; a need to be right, a need to know everything, a need to be looked up to; fear of being being criticized, fear of the unknown, fear of abandonment, of loosing control. Whatever.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Ya, it's gotta be in that ballpark.  AC feels a tremendous passion for what he does, the downside and possible darkside of which is a pushy semi-aware purposefulness that I-Andrew-Cohen must manifest: it's so important, after all.  There's an I in the centre of that mix.

Saying “right” in the way he does suggests to me he wants to leave his work (ie, himself) in others.  I don't recall Ramana saying right in that fashion even once.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Hi James, yes, he chose to answer her with a highly speculative myth, a “theological fantasy,” in his own words. This is very much like and probably inspired by Ken Wilber's “useful myth” about Eros.

The idea is to provide some interpretive story that supplants the personal myth most people live by. You know, “I was born in 19— and then.” What very few people get is that Andrew—and Ken Wilber and A. H. Almaas—are spinning myths like this because they are very interested in introducing people to a deeper and higher relative dimension of their own being (the authentic self, deeper psychic, optimizing force.”

They want to get people into nondoing and interpret it in a way that makes sense and works and jives with other forms of knowledge that we have, such as evolutionary theory.

He can be kind of in your face and such, and a lot of people don't like that. And most people have absolutely no interest in nondoing because it really requires them to drop themselves. They want to get into “nondoing,” but their nondoing isn't the transpersonal sort, just the I-don't-want-to-do-what-I-don't-feel-like sort.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Yes David

I can see the indications of a useful myth here, because he does indeed use the word fantasy. And it could well be that he is “very interested in introducing people to a deeper and higher relative dimension of their own being”. But as an observer, it seems to me that he's not very good at it.

As I said previously, some people are more well developed along certain lines. Andrew's linguistic and interpersonal skills don't seem to be particularly effective.

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Dawid: Attachment to self/inherent existence at the root. Same old. And from there individual and personal attachments flow, and God knows what they are; a need to be right, a need to know everything, a need to be looked up to; fear of being being criticized, fear of the unknown, fear of abandonment, of loosing control. Whatever.


It's exactly the opposite. His view requires less attachment. He is trying to work people toward transpersonal enactments, to go beyond the “I” vertically, not just horizontally.

He is really trying to teach what Wilber calls “vertical enlightenment,” not simply the traditional, horizontal enlightenment of most of the wisdom traditions. It is one version of what Shunryu Suzuki is talking about in this post.

Also, much of the time he is simply trying to move people from Green relativism and malaise to Teal be-all-you-can-be-ness. That's what most people need; they need to move from postmodern slackerdom to ILP or the like.

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Tom: The downside and possible darkside of which is a pushy semi-aware purposefulness that I-Andrew-Cohen must manifest: it's so important, after all.


This is the sort of attitude he argues against, the postmodern, nothing-is-important view. This simply enables the personal self to keep doing as it pleases. That is simply the stategy it uses: deconstructing everything or if that's not possible impugn the character of whoever is arguing for something different, and then it can go on living its life and not have to dissolve for real.

I personally also like Almaas' view, which is heading in the same direction but in a more open manner, as well as Aurobindo's and Maharshi's, which are more passive (but passive in this context does not mean not active; it just refers to the interior orientation). Some would say they are more metaphysical perhaps.

I don't think it's something that's well understood yet, but let's not make the mistake of everyone else and simply think he's not getting nonduality or is still attached or something. There is something much more profound in there if you care to look.

Wilber and Cohen speak about the typical arguments against this view here:

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David: This is the sort of attitude he argues against, the postmodern, nothing-is-important view. This simply enables the personal self to keep doing as it pleases.

I see it the from a different angle.  AC's prominent complaint against what he calls our modern era's heightened narcissism strikes me a form of narcissistic projection.  Isn't heightened individuality an evolutionary emergent?  We are more individuated than our parents, they more than theirs.  My children—those defining AC's uber-narcissist type—are even more individuated than I was at their age (early 20s).  Their more individualized personalities seem more “egoic,” to use that dread word, because at their age they cannot but be less self-aware, less seasoned, less tempered than a person at 40, 50, 60.  That is as expected.  So is as expected their heightened individuality and more visible, more active self-concern etc.  They are overall shooting higher on Maslow's hierarchy, and the path to that end is by way of immaturity first thank you very much.

Why call this narcissistic?  From the vantage point of spiritual maturity, things are as they are perfectly.  Life works its own way, and “I” am not separate from that.  This “way” that life works is, to my perception, toward greater individual expressiveness, as you surely embody relative to your parents. 

So not only is this “narcissism” natural, expected, part of the growth of things, it is also—and here I stake a claim—the very basis of a deeper inward experience than probably we can muster.  It is actually the doorway to spiritual evolution.  Do you think the Buddha would have had the profundity of experience he did if he had been a Neanderthal?  Not possible.

So rather than a sign of ill, greater selfish narcissistic egoic me-me-me-ness—call it what you will—is the necessary ground of moving to a wider expanse.  This is the march of consciousness, David.  This is how consciousness incarnates on this little planet.  People must become self-aware before they are other-aware, they must become self-concerned before other-concerned, and peoples' “self” awareness and concern becomes deeper over time.  Increasing narcissistic intensity (“Oh, that selfish younger generation blah blah”) IMO intimately reflects the ceiling of self-expansion, of inner mature depth.  That we think otherwise signals restricted self-expansion in the spiritual sense.

Cohen is therefore barking up the wrong tree.  He's got a wrong theory on narcissism.  I mean, his buddy Wilber was an uber-narcissistic path chaser for decades—pure “self” motivated self-concern.  And look where it brought him: to a profound inner depth.  Do you think Wilber would now exhibit that depth if he'd continued his biology degree and lifepath with its picket fences and Lazy-Boy recliners?

What else would fall if Cohen were to stop ranting against narcissism, if he were to view what he calls narcissism as natural, good, expected, desirable, a flower-in-waiting?  He would have to lose his Missionary Man zeal that stamps his view on this inexorably complex, unknowable thing called nature's march.  He would have to let be what is.  His zeal is a smaller world-view IMO that impedes the deepening he desires for his students.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

“It's exactly the opposite. His view requires less attachment. He is trying to work people toward transpersonal enactments, to go beyond the “I” vertically, not just horizontally.”

He may say so. To me it matters very little what people say. Instead I judge a person's spiritual understanding in terms of how the person generally behaves.

For example, when Andrew's beliefs in Evolutionary Enlightenment is criticized you can notice very clearly how there is a strong emotional reaction. He becomes defensive, doesn't let the person finish his/her sentence, uses the “right” word, laughs hysterically, etc. Tom has seen it. I've seen it. Irmeli has seen it. James has seen it.

To compare, and I've said this before, I once criticized e on the grounds of some matter we were discussing, and I remember I for some reason turned it into an ad hominem attack. I expected things to turn really sour at that point. But he didn't even react, and just continued with the discussion. In my eyes, that's how you know somebody is not a fake; when one walks the walk, not just talks the talk.

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Irmeli: When you don't perceive yourself as separate from others, the need to transform others ceases.

I am thinking about what you say here in relation to service, and deeper care. Couldn't it be equally argued that the more one doesn't perceive oneself as separate from others, the need to transform others increases. I am not suggesting that this is the case, just pondering it.

Although that takes that somewhat out of the context of power and potential abuses of power by teachers, it seems at least worth considering, also in relation to 'teachers.'

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Lisaji: I am thinking about what you say here in relation to service, and deeper care.

Service and deeper care are not authentic, when they appear from the need to change others.

Useful deeper care comes from feeling into the suffering, the desparation, the real worries in the other as the other perceives them. Feeling it as my own suffering, but now from the position of the other. In that place I can join the other, and we can together try to find out how to get through with the resources available, now added by my understanding. I have to be able respect the developmental level of the other. I can kind of only try to function as a midwife to something that is naturally struggling to emerge in the other, all the time respecting the very particular individual path of the other. From my part it requires a very sensitive tuning into the reality of the other.

When truly wanting to help others, you cannot expect them to tune into your 'higher' reality by dropping pearls from above. When people cannot use those pearls in a way that could truly help them, you cannot put the blame on them.

Evolving through the stages is a slow process, and if you want to help the other, you have to respect those stages available in the other, and function from there.
Skillfull mothers behave this way quite naturally with their children.

I tell you how I perceive many spiritual teachers having started their careers, and what at least in part motivates their teaching. I suspect this can feel very hurtful. However I do not demand you to change your view. With the freedom of thought available to us now in our advanced and liberal societies, I have the right to express also my view.

First the aspirant starts studying spiritual ideas and teachings. If this tradition is an eastern one, he soon perceives how much authority there is given to persons, who are seen to be enlightened, who have no ego, no “I”.
The aspirant has maybe secretly wanted to be seen as special, to be superior to others. Here he now spots his chance. He too wants to get enlightened. And it is actually rather natural to want to be something truly great.

He starts doing spiritual practices with new vigor. At some point he may start experiencing very special blissfull spacious states. He interprets these, as also his teacher has done, as being beyond ego. He gets convinced that the no ego state the tradition talks about is very real.
 
Now starts the next phase in his spiritual pursuits, to get finally rid of the ego.
All aspirants don't manage to do this, and they feel themselves to be inferior. Some however do, and they are destined to become spiritual teachers or gurus even. However they have to first break themselves out from their community.

Why? There seems to me to exist a correlation between having no ego, and the compulsory need to rescue other people form their egos.

As long as people have an ego, they are not terribly annoyed by the egos of others. But after you have got enlightend, and have not anymore an ego, suddenly the egos of other people disturb you really badly. And you embark yourself on a glorious crusade against other people's egos.

People in general have no natural need to get rid of their egos. Their problems are elsewhere. Therefore you have to start teaching them that all their problems actually are caused by their egos. You tell them that by unquestioningly accepting your authority and superiority, you can rescue also them from  their egos, and with it all their problems will be gone.

The teacher is hardly capable of inquiring if he really can do this. There is no place for this kind of questioning in him, because he is driven by a compulsion to get rid of the ego, no appearing in disturbing ways in others.

Actually he sees always the failures to be in the students, who have not surrendered fully enough. And the students tend to buy this. They don't see the fact that in the community there can be only one person who can project fully his ego on others, and through that projection get a superior position over others. There cannot be two egoless superstars inside the community. It is impossible.

People inside the community are often so blinded by these projections, that many acts of the guru, which to outsiders come across as extremely narcissitic, get explained away in the name of the higher mission the guru is on. When the mission is really big and urgent, almost anything can get justified in the name of it for the guru.

And if someone dares to express this type of thoughts to the members of the community, it activates a narcissistic rage in them with a lot of durty low level accusations and blamings. Clarity and healing would appear, if they instead started to feel into the rage, and started to defend their views only after they have reached inner calm and tranquility around this topic.

I think here would be needed a 3-2-1 inquiry process of starting owning disturbing egos seen in the world and in others.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Excellent post, Irmeli.  I likewise find those who hop on a crusade bandwagon against ego actually quite egoic in the way they crusade and speak of ego.  Cohen is a fitting example of this, and his bulldog style to me shows a lack of skill in perception.  Here's one perception he appears to me to lack: when I look over my life, I see a development through stages much as Irmeli describes and most people on this pod accept—one stage following another in a necessary sequence of unfolding where no stages can be skipped.  When I look a little more deeply into the various transitions I experienced in this development, and if I ask if I knew or could have predicted at those transition points exactly what I needed for the transition, the answer is an almost absolute no.  I who inhabit this particular life, who am lightyears more intimate with who I am and what I've been—even I could not and cannot predict the stages and necessary influences in my future unfolding.  Hopeless! 

This aspect of growth has led me to this observation: if I cannot even predict what I will go through and require, how can I know what another needs?  I can't.  I can only attend what is presented and do my best within my own understanding to attempt to appreciate what possibly might be the direction forward.  That takes much listening, which is a skill difficult to develop, requiring years of practice.  Sure, you can preach platitudes until the cows come home, to degrees appropriate for a generalized audience sitting in a lecture hall.  But platitude preaching has little real, personal content about it, little or no real personal seeing and meeting another.

In the video clip, Cohen simply dismissed the woman's view and failed to notice, or simply didn't care out of a sense of “I'm right,” that the woman actually didn't accept his view—probably because it was irrelevant to her and didn't touch her particular stepping point in her particular stage.

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Tom:When I look a little more deeply into the various transitions I experienced in this development, and if I ask if I knew or could have predicted at those transition points exactly what I needed for the transition, the answer is an almost absolute no.

This applies to me also. I have not seen cosciously what I needed for the transition.
And still I have evolved. For me the essential thing has been that I have trusted the processes inside me. I have not resisted them mostly, even if they have seemed strange and weird to me. To me it seems there has been a deep guiding intelligence behind these processes, and also an unconscious knowing.

Also in situations where I have been pushed from outside to trust a spiritual teacher, I have trusted this intelligence behind my inner processes instead.
For me it would have been clearly an inferior choice to follow the instructions of a teacher, when those instructions were in conflict with my inner unfolding process even if I had no idea where it was leading.

Tom:This aspect of growth has led me to this observation: if I cannot even predict what I will go through and require, how can I know what another needs?

My similar observation has made me humble about my capacity to activate others to change. How can I know what is best for them?

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli, this for me touches on an essential point in this conversation, and I like how you put it, “humble about my capacity to activate others to change.”  Human development is very complex.  In the face of this complexity, I consider simplistic dualities, like simplistic pronouncements that “ego” and “narcissism” are bad or undesirable, somewhere between irresponsible and damaging, and just plain immature for a teacher.  What is appropriate for one person at one stage of development can be inappropriate for another.  I personally do not see how a young person can healthily be told ego is bad and to drop striving, fighting and stretching.  It's like telling a baby not to cry.

Even more than that, presumably so-called “narcissistic” ego development is the basis for a possible deeper life experience.  It's almost a truism that those who have reached considerable heights of development had to pull themselves from a low so low it was suicidal.  These two are not unrelated.

So, too, a more normal development: it requires all manner of stage-appropriate growths and behaviours that, from a later stage, can seem childish, inappropriate, immature.  I hope in certain respects they would!

I thus take even generalities with a large dose of salt.  They cannot be applied universally.  Hence added to the uncertainty of what exactly will activate this person before me is an awareness that whatever will so activate won't fit a tidy “ego is bad” or “narcissism is bad” polarity simplism.  “Right??  Right??”

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom:In the face of this complexity, I consider simplistic dualities, like simplistic pronouncements that “ego” and “narcissism” are bad or undesirable, somewhere between irresponsible and damaging, and just plain immature for a teacher.

I agree. And this is going on everywhere in our societies, not only in spiritual settings.
As you say human development is very complex. Also when I discuss it here I have to grossly simplify. Often I try to emphasis perspectives that are not looked at.
Having multiple perspectives in a dialogue with others is necessary for me to be able to put different phenomenon in area of the complex human development in a wider context.

In our societies people are expected to have certain values and behave in certain ways. Here the politically correct values start to be the pluralistic green ones.
Actually very few people are steadily at green, but instead they imitate they are.
That creates pathologies. This imitation is problematic, not the fact that you are not yet at green.

Already during our upbringing we are expected to behave in ways that is not stage appropriate to us. And many of us learn to behave as we are expected to.
But then we only learn to imitate an higher stage behavior. It is not the real thing. And it creates a false self, that is a survival strategy. This creates stagnation. A massive shadow, where your developmental center of gravity is actually much lower than it looks like to be.

Also with the concept ego people may mean many different things. It can also mean the false self. Then dropping it off can make sense to me. This means becoming honest to your true self, that is normally developmentally lower, than the imitating false self.

The false self is quite a burden as it needs huge amounts of continuos control to operate properly. If a person identifies this control to be the “I”, dropping it away may feel like there is “no I”. A true “I” does not require control to operate.

Healthy developmental levels are internalized structures, that operate automatically. E.g on moral line this means the moral level becomes your true conscience that guides your behavior effortlessly.

I think people would develop better and in healthier ways, if we could understand that we can be in different lines developmentally at quite different places, and accept people as they are. This does not however mean that we have to tolerate whatever behavior.
 
Clear limits to improper behavior has to be set. I think this together with acceptance of the person as he is, is the best means of enhancing development through the stages.

As long as a person somehow manages to get along with the means available to him, he does not drop attachment to those means. At least for me dropping attachment to a way of being, has been the doorway to the next stage to emerge.

It is important to observe that the formation of the false self is a strategy of the true self to get along with the expectations put on it with no actual stage shift appearing.

Irmeli

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: Actually very few people are steadily at green, but instead they imitate they are.  That creates pathologies. This imitation is problematic, not the fact that you are not yet at green.

I agree.  For me, honesty is of primary value to inner process.  Some important psychologist (Rollo May, I think) said attention is curative.  I've seen that in my own life.  Honesty, to me, is the lens that focuses attention, such that if the lens is unwilling or unable to allow within its view this or that aspect of my behaviour, feeling or thinking, attention—the sunshine that activates development—cannot work.

Faking of any kind therefore looks to me to impede development.  Faking is of course takes any variety of forms, one of which is as you say imitating some level (“I'm at white light”) that one is not.  Like you say, stagnation and a massive shadow result. 

Green pluralism, for its part, asks that one put away one's “selfish” me-centred motivations.  Yes, that statement in some respects reflects green-level operating, but that operating is stage-specific and cannot be generalized except by way of force-fitting to some other mode of operating better left to its own non-green rules.  More developmental simplism.

The ability to appreciate stage-appropriateness—not just in theory but more deeply in one's relations and emotional responses to others—is yellow.  Thus when I hear spiritual teachers preaching the binary developmental simplism of “larger-concern good, narcissism bad,” I generally assume these people are pre-yellow at some important level of their being, because yellow sees a role, place and necessity for earlier so-called less mature stages and styles of behaviour, whereas binary simplism does not.  In integral circles, many teacher-types, and seemingly everyone younger than 40, claim higher than yellow status, and sometimes much higher than yellow.  Absurd.  Even Wilber who rants against green surely can't be even yellow in that ranting?

But j'digress.  The control you say is required to maintain a fictional self-projection consumes one's energy and attention.  I remember when I transitioned some 20 years ago into a more honest, realistic view and presentation of myself.  This was a project I undertook deliberately and with focus because my image-projecting and its sidekick pal dishonesty was causing problems in my life.  I was struck by a few things regarding this process.  It took probably the most intense application of willpower I'd experienced—I had to fess up and eat crow many times—it accelerated my development into fast-forward, and it created an entirely new and fresh view on life and my relations to people.  I remember then appreciating that the saying “say what you do, not do what you say” held a lifetime's wisdom.  But what I most noticed is the energy I received back from dropping all the head-fake behaviours, responses and vocal mannerisms and strategies.

As to the latter half of your post, I agree entirely, well said.  I agree that internalized structures operate automatically.  They can operate so automatically as to be entirely unconscious.  I suspect they cease operating automatically only when one has transitioned to a more developed state of being.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom: Green pluralism, for its part, asks that one put away one’s selfish me–centred motivation.

 Do you think that one has to evolve this way to green necessarily? When I look at my own life path, I cannot detect a phase were I had put my self-centered motivations aside for pluralism.  Maybe I am not yet at green?

I have always been pretty self-centered, and I still am. However my  self-centeredness has not  been of the type that I would try to manipulate money from someone etc. It is of the type taking time to myself, to my practices, my well-being, not allowing others to intervene too much to my unfoldment. My capacity to integrate my needs and the needs of others together in a way that is mutually enriching has improved gradually.

Irmeli

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Irmeli, by no means, no.  I was merely stating what I perceive to be a characteristic voice of green.  I  do not, for my part, use “selfishness” language, as I tend to consider it contradictory.  I mean, gurus who are developed well beyond green to White Light (I'm joking) still eat—for instance, hamburgers—which I view as fundamentally selfish—ask the cow that supplied the burger.  For me, all perceptions, including perceptions of cosmic expansiveness, of big-S Self, even of non-self, are “self” perceptions.  I basically don't buy the dualist split that says non-self is “real,” because that realization requires an entire substructure, the entire human physiology, which hums away on such things as burgers.  That substructure, to me, is a self, a closed-off encapsulation, to speak a little more technically.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom, there are studies to back up what some people call the “narcissism epidemic.” Wilber wrote a blog about it here, for one, and there is an interview with Jean Twenge in the current issue of EnlightenNext.


Tom: Isn't heightened individuality an evolutionary emergent? 


Yes, and transpersonal stages are also an evolutionary emergent. In some ways Gen Y probably is more evolved than Gen X, which in some ways is more evolved than the Boomer's, etc. But there can also be regressions along particular lines.


Tom: Why call this narcissistic?  From the vantage point of spiritual maturity, things are as they are perfectly.


That in itself is not a spiritually mature position. A spiritually mature position would be more like things are perfect as they are and there is a lot of suffering, unfairness, and such that needs to be addressed.

A spiritually mature view is paradoxical: there are no others; therefore I must serve everyone.


Tom:  He's got a wrong theory on narcissism.  I mean, his buddy Wilber was an uber-narcissistic path chaser for decades—pure “self” motivated self-concern.


Tom, this is just projection on your part.


Tom: He would have to let be what is.  His zeal is a smaller world-view IMO that impedes the deepening he desires for his students. … Ditto.  Not even a scratch of I don't know in AC's mind.  Concomitant with this, he doesn't listen, but tells.  What he knows with certainty, of course.


I agree that he could be a little more laid back. It is projection again, though, when you say “there is not a scratch of I don't know” in his mind. There is more I don't known in his mind than you can imagine. You are simply not recognizing a third-tier interpretation and are likely thrown off as many people are by some lines that aren't in third tier.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David, are you a disciple of Cohen?

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Irmeli: I felt the content of the video repugnant.


Repugnant? That's a strong word, Irmeli. When people use words like that to describe a video like that it starts to look like projection.

It was obviously a highly speculative answer, a “theological fantasy,” in his words. I wouldn't make too much of it, unless of course people are looking for an excuse to rail against someone, in which case I suppose it will do, but we were started on a substantive discussion; it would be a shame to see it turn into another MGM feeding frenzy on Andrew Cohen.



Irmeli: What the hell does billions of eons of no time mean, when there is no time?

The idea of statements like that is to point toward the nonconceptual, nonduality. Zen masters say things like, “Without moving, go to New York.” It is paradoxical. It's simply a speculation on the birth of the universe taking a second-person perspective. He anthropomorphizes too much for my taste, but some people like that.



Irmeli: A true authentic guru/disciple relationship does not need an organization to support it.


That's true, but an organization is not necessarily an evil, corrupting entity.
An organization often becomes necessary once things grow. There is nothing inherently wrong about that.


Irmeli: In organizations where different forms of dominator power and exploitation prevails, people lower in the hierarchy have to do more work often without any payment. And people in the higher ranks collect the money.


Yes, I agree. I doubt there are many organizations out there, spiritual or otherwise, that we would find fair by integral standards.


Irmeli: I also claim that those people who recognize this in themsleves, do not feel attracted to be in a role of an enlightened superior guru.


Yes, I agree with you here, too, and this is interesting. Many if not most people in power these days, I believe, were motivated by a craving for power rather than an intention to do something really high minded with that power. Meanwhile, the people who are high minded and aren't motivated by power end up with no power. That is going to have to change. The high-minded folks are going to have to learn to fight for positions of power if things are going to improve.



Irmeli: The idea of others needing to change comes directly from ego, from the separate sense of self.


This is not necessarily the case. A parent, for example, could authentically want his or her children to grow into healthy adults. Leaders of a race that is being discriminated against could authentically want the behavior of those doing the discriminating to change. Citizens of a country could authentically want the leaders of their country to act with less self-interest. Teachers could authentically want their students to realize their full potential.


Irmeli: When you don't perceive yourself as separate from others, the need to transform others ceases.

This is not necessarily the case. Nonduality can be interpreted at several different worldviews. What you describe here does describe the interpretation from a particular worldview; Ken Wilber offers another interpretation here (I will post it again because I notice it got cut off the first time):

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: Repugnant? That's a strong word, Irmeli. When people use words like that to describe a video like that it starts to look like projection.

This a problem I have, as I write in a foreign language. I picked up the word from a dictionary. Repugnant is a foreign word to me. I don't know anything about its connotations. The Finnish word I tried to translate is not a strong word, rather some sort taking distance from, drawing myself back, also closing myself.
It is very important that someone points out these to me! Than you, David.

David:The idea of statements like that is to point toward the nonconceptual, nonduality. Zen masters say things like, “Without moving, go to New York.” It is paradoxical. It's simply a speculation on the birth of the universe taking a second-person perspective. He anthropomorphizes too much for my taste, but some people like that.

I'm not used to having metaphors forced onto me, and I don't like that a bit. Freemasonry is all over ritual, symbolic, full of metaphors. Teaching through metaphors is its approach. But the metaphors there are of different type. They leave plenty of space for people to interpret them as they resonate true in their hearts.
The metaphor AC uses sounds to me more like an interpretation. It leaves very little space for my own interpretation, which I find to be crucial for my development.

Irmeli: When you don't perceive yourself as separate from others, the need to transform others ceases.

David:
This is not necessarily the case. Nonduality can be interpreted at several different worldviews. What you describe here does describe the interpretation from a particular worldview; Ken Wilber offers another interpretation here (I will post it again because I notice it got cut off the first time):

Stop theoretizing and look at the sentence you quote.
Answer me, how there can be a need to change others, if you are not separate from others?
I am not claiming that this is the stage I all the time operate from. I just wonder is anyone else either there honestly?  Or are they expressing themselves inaccurately, when they talk about the need to get rid of ego, the separate sense of self.
When I look at my life, I see myself having evolved quite differently. Clearly there is less and less present a feeling of being separate from others. But there is very clearly still present a separate I, or ego or whatever. And I have never felt attracted to start eradicating that, and still I have been evolving.

From my perspective it looks like I have been evolving pretty well. I feel good about what is going on in me and around me.

I respect also other paths other people grow through. I realized long ago that I cannot force my path to anyone else. And I tend to make observations where I might be developmentally in my responses to others from moment to moment and where others are. When something triggers a low level response in me, I recognize what level it might represent. I make also similar observations of others. I don't try to explain away those perceptions, when I'm dealing with a guru or president or a popstar, or whatever people might tend to idealize.
This feature has been with me all my adult life, and has not formed an obstacle for my development. Rather I think it is possible, that this feature has helped me a lot, and protected me from useless detours.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Dawid: For example, when Andrew's beliefs in Evolutionary Enlightenment is criticized you can notice very clearly how there is a strong emotional reaction. He becomes defensive, doesn't let the person finish his/her sentence, uses the “right” word, laughs hysterically, etc. Tom has seen it. I've seen it. Irmeli has seen it. James has seen it.


Yes, and David has seen it and Lisa has seen it and Bruce has seen it and e has seen it and Rick has seen it and people I have spoken to who have actually seen more of him than a YouTube video have also seen it. But the whole thing is pretty multifaceted, and people do have different interpretations of it.

I think we need to separate lines a little bit here if we want to do an adequate analysis from an integral perspective. Sure, you can find faults if you like; that is not hard to do. But we can also look more deeply and see if there is something interesting there. Some people really think so. For example, in the ILP book that recently came out, Patten, Leonard, and Morelli say this in their acknowledgments:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Ya?  And who did Buddha bow to?  Cohen must be thinking of the wrong Buddha if he thinks Buddha's about bowing.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

I'm not, Tom, but I was in their international student program for two years (living in Chicago) and went to several retreats, met with him in private settings, etc.

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That was Shunryu Suzuki, Tom.

Buddha lived 2,500 years ago; he would not have understood the structure Suzuki was using.

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Irmeli: The idea of others needing to change comes directly from ego, from the separate sense of self.


David: This is not necessarily the case. A parent, for example, could authentically want his or her children to grow into healthy adults. Leaders of a race that is being discriminated against could authentically want the behavior of those doing the discriminating to change. Citizens of a country could authentically want the leaders of their country to act with less self-interest. Teachers could authentically want their students to realize their full potential.
 
That's what I was also getting at when I mentioned service and deeper care.

Irmeli: Service and deeper care are not authentic, when they appear from the need to change others.
 
Where was the expression 'the need to change others' arriving from? I probably missed something somebody said. But thinking about it more, I think a more realistic definition and way of stating this would be to say that there may be 'an increased desire to help others help themselves.' And deep care is very much involved in that, as far as I can see. Not an attachment to any such end result, i.e: a transformed person. That really wouldn't be ones business in this day and age. People are responsible for transforming themselves, - in a sense of doing the work with oneself, delving into all the parts of oneself, including the undesirable parts, and gaining various forms of awareness, and healing. 

All teachers are eventually annihilated through insight. And they are very useful and important part of this process until that point. Their usefulness then changes form, such as providing an ongoing inspiration to continue to change, and go more consciously into our own unfoldment, taking full responsibility for ourselves etc… And for those who continue to have a close relationship with a living teacher, I would still guess that the dynamic would change form. A minority may become dependent in a regressive way. From what I've observed, the letting go of the teacher is a necessary part of development.

Sort of reminds me of learning to ride a bicyle. First you have stabilisers, then your father may take them off and at first you ride around in front of the house wobbling everywhere, then you turn around briefly, to catch a glimpse of their face, as your wheels begin to pick up speed and you make haste and bomb it down the street with your newly found sense of freedom. :)




 

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Lisaji:Where was the expression 'the need to change others' arriving from?

I mean by this a pretty common need in people to change others, even it those others don't perceive a need to change. This has often to do with projection of ones problems to others.
I accept that there may be a real need to put limits to the inproper behavior of others. That may result to real changes in the behavior of the other.

Lisaji:All teachers are eventually annihilated through insight. And they are very useful and important part of this process until that point. Their usefulness then changes form, such as providing an ongoing inspiration to continue to change, and go more consciously into our own unfoldment, taking full responsibility for ourselves etc… And for those who continue to have a close relationship with a living teacher, I would still guess that the dynamic would change form. A minority may become dependent in a regressive way. From what I've observed, the letting go of the teacher is a necessary part of development.

I like this. Maybe not the minority part. Those who become dependent are not necessary a minority in many communities. Some people may eventually break that  dependency, but it is often a long and painful process.
I consider it also likely that the process is an important growth process for them, which the guru episode managed to activate.

Irmeli

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Lisa: Not an attachment to any such end result, i.e: a transformed person. That really wouldn't be ones business in this day and age.

Lisa, apart from your use of 'attachment,' it's this desire to see transformed people that characterizes many guru types and in varying degrees of urgency.  I perceive this quality in AC who looks to me to reside on the urgent end of the continuum, and generally impatient the world is not marching at the pace he wants to see.  “Right??”

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I sense you have an underlying facination with AC, as you come across as sounding invested in understanding what he is going on about. After all, there are plenty of other 'guru's or self styled guru's we could further extend this question of: An integral look at the guru principle, to. So far we have maybe mentioned Ramana in the passing, a brief appearance of Adi Da, I would like to see other examples entered into this equation. I say Deida, a self style 'guru' of the tantra realms would be an interesting character to consider too, among others.

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Nope, his name just happened to come up and I just happen to have some familiarity with his history, behaviour and thought patterns, which also importantly are accessible to others on the internet.  I actually like some of what AC says, really like it.  I shouldn't be read as saying my only impressions when talking of AC seemingly unseemly side, which relates to his missionary zeal (not a sideline issue for Andrew).  My sense is: let's dissect this aspect and see what it shows, attempt to elucidate some connections if we can.  Cohen's a type, you'll remember, who accepted $2,000,000 from a woman who was evidently (from her own testimony) in a vulnerable state.  That's worthy of dissecting, painful (or not) as any dissection might be.

Most gurus look to me as appropriate as Cohen for a guru-bake.  We could talk for instance of Saniel Bonder.  Check this and this.  I personally don't know these others or their reputations, but if anyone else wants to pipe in ….

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Hi Lisa
I'd be happy to consider Deida in this context. What aspects come to mind?
James

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Hi James,
Perhaps how he fashions himself as an authority spokesman-guru-teacher extraordinare of the subject of sex with 'spirituality' in the 21st century.

Lisa

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Hi Lisa
Yes, he and/or his publishers take the best possible quotes from prominent people who have reviewed his books (e.g. Ken Wilber, Lama Surya Das, Marianne Williamson)  and use them to advertise his courses etc. It's called marketing :-)  I think that's how he makes a living, selling books and audio, and getting fees from lectures, workshops and courses. It seems he now has a new guy doing this for him, Adam Gilad. I am unimpressed with the way he works. For me oversells stuff.

From listening to lots of audio of Deida's courses, he seems more humble about what he can offer. He has told audiences on numerous occasions to take what he is saying very lightly and not to hold onto it like it's some big secret “Truth”. I'm comfortable with that.

“how he fashions himself as an authority spokesman-guru-teacher extraordinare of the subject of sex with 'spirituality' in the 21st century.”
What do you think of this?

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Irmeli: “Answer me, how there can be a need to change others, if you are not separate from others?”

If you've truly found a way to escape the wheel of suffering, then if you care about others you will offer them guidance, given they are willing.

Just because you realize reality is not-two doesn't mean your conventional moral compass disappears.

Tom: “And who did Buddha bow to?”
 
Bowing is a symbol of letting go of attachments, so the Buddha bowed to everything. If you have a problem with bowing, that usually points an attachment.

Just for the record, in the conventional world attachments are vital. (Read: in this time of 1-tier dominance.) For example, I would not bow down to Andrew Cohen or Bernard Madoff as they are individuals I do not respect. However in the zendo I have no problems bowing to the Buddha, because I respect him as a conventional being. That said, in reality, the Buddha, Andrew Cohen and Kim Jong-il are but reflections in a puddle so bowing to either of them is bowing to the infinite Dharmakaya. So we can bow conventionally, and bow as a divine expression of reality.

“Anger is an emotion without which the human race could not do.”
-Christopher Hitchens.

“What we need is hatred. From it our ideas are born.”
Jean Genet.

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Irmeli: “Answer me, how there can be a need to change others, if you are not separate from others?”

Dawid: If you've truly found a way to escape the wheel of suffering, then if you care about others you will offer them guidance, given they are willing.

You add meanings to the sentence you quote that are not there. I have not said that someone has found a way to escape the wheel of suffering, if he doesn't feel separate from others. Nor has this statement nothing to do with morals.

My question is very simple: How can there be a need to change others, if you are not separate from others? If I'm not separate from others, and there is suffering, it is not individual, it is not just in the other.
I doubt this could be a nondual state at all, rather it is a symbiosis with no real perceived others.

Irmeli

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Irmeli: This a problem I have, as I write in a foreign language. I picked up the word from a dictionary. Repugnant is a foreign word to me. I don't know anything about its connotations. The Finnish word I tried to translate is not a strong word, rather some sort taking distance from, drawing myself back, also closing myself.
It is very important that someone points out these to me! Than you, David.


Sorry, Irmeli. I thought that might be the case. Your English is excellent! I admire the way you Scandinavians speak such good English, and I am glad you can so we can talk.  :)



Irmeli: Now starts the next phase in his spiritual pursuits, to get finally rid of the ego.
All aspirants don't manage to do this, and they feel themselves to be inferior. Some however do, and they are destined to become spiritual teachers or gurus even. However they have to first break themselves out from their community.


It's an open question whether anyone has ever gotten rid of their ego 100%. Maybe they have, but Wilber and Cohen were talking about it once, and neither of them were sure whether it had ever happened, and those two have met with as many people claiming enlightenment as anyone. Perhaps the Dalai Lama has met more, but that would be just about it.

I think it's possible but that it's hardly ever happened. Andrew Cohen said that of all the people claiming enlightenment that he met there were two who seemed as though they may have entirely gotten rid of their ego or, in his words, it didn't seem like “anyone was there.” They were Ajja and Vimila Thakar.



Irmeli: The metaphor AC uses sounds to me more like an interpretation. It leaves very little space for my own interpretation, which I find to be crucial for my development.


The evolutionary view is interpretation, and I agree with you: It is important to stay open about things. If we are not we will not move into the nonconceptual as a stage, in action. But holding things too lightly can also keep us from moving into the nonconceptual in action, in transpersonal realms, but rather cause us to lapse back into conditioned, habitual behavior.

Openness is very important. That is why I find Almaas' “open-ended inquiry” interesting. He does not posit a end state, a desired end point. However, I don't think this is entirely true. He does have a lot to say about higher territory, state and stage wise. I think he is trying to steer people away from the grossest forms of seeking and goal making, but clearly there is seeking and goal making in his work as well.

If we adopt a post-metaphysical stance view is particularly important. At the same time I don't think it's ultimately necessary to steer the boat in some very important respects. I think it is paradoxical.



Irmeli: Stop theoretizing and look at the sentence you quote.
Answer me, how there can be a need to change others, if you are not separate from others?


Okay.  :) Well, for one thing, even if we see and feel things to be One or Not One, Not Two, we will still recognize that there are still billions of different sets of feelings. It is not that, since all is one, it is about me (one individual person). It is, since all is one, it's all about us. So, if some of us are making it difficult for others among us, we will want to evolve those who are making it difficult for some, because it's all about me (meaning everyone). I gave the example earlier about civil rights and such.

Also, I think we need to look at it in a more evolved way than “changing others” or even “evolution” at the end of the day. I think true evolution is much more subtle than that, true skillful means much more subtle than changing others, though sometimes it has to be kind of forceful (as in the case of a justified war, or capturing a criminal or something like that).

I also think that deeply accepting others just as they are is deeply transformative and will help them transform as much as anything. We might call that feminine evolutionary love. But the masculine type has its place, too.



Irmeli: But there is very clearly still present a separate I, or ego or whatever. And I have never felt attracted to start eradicating that, and still I have been evolving.

Yes, here is what Ken Wilber said about getting rid of the ego:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Lisa: But thinking about it more, I think a more realistic definition and way of stating this would be to say that there may be 'an increased desire to help others help themselves.'


That's a very nice way to put it.

I think as we go up the spiral we get a better sense for what is truly of value.



Dawid: Bowing is a symbol of letting go of attachments, so the Buddha bowed to everything. If you have a problem with bowing, that usually points an attachment. … So we can bow conventionally, and bow as a divine expression of reality.


Nicely said. We can also bow to our “higher selves,” within.

Here is Suzuki again:

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Thanks David

I have had similar experience with Israeli students when working at a UK university.

So yes cultural influences on the manner of communication can be profound. In Japan for example, depending on the social occasion, communication tends to be highly “listener active”, with the listener giving continuous indications to the speaker that they agree with, or at least get, what is being said and thereby encouraging the speaker to continue.

After being in this mode for several years in Japan I was often confounded by people back in the UK just looking at me blank while I spoke. Actually they were simply being polite and attentive, but I was unnerved as I wasn't getting the “support” from the listener I'd been getting in Japan. :|

“I also spoke to a couple of people in the EnlightenNext group in Israel who said the same thing, that in their culture they interrupted each other right and left and were having to change their style of conversation to do Enlightened Communication discussions.”
So maybe Andrew needs to do the same training!?  :-)

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Tom: When I look a little more deeply into the various transitions I experienced in this development, and if I ask if I knew or could have predicted at those transition points exactly what I needed for the transition, the answer is an almost absolute no.  I who inhabit this particular life, who am lightyears more intimate with who I am and what I've been—even I could not and cannot predict the stages and necessary influences in my future unfolding.  Hopeless!


Yes, I think this is a very important perspective. We often can't know what will be most evolutionary (sometimes we have to take our best shot, when we have to make flight plans, for example). I like Almaas' open-ended inquiry for that reason. He takes a more passive approach and says things like life is given to you, not unlike the sort of pre-determination Ramana Maharshi spoke about.

At the same time, though, Almaas does provide people with a lot of orientation about what lies ahead, with the Diamond Guidance, for example. I think people are helped also when they understand things like greater affect and integration lie at the higher stages, less selfishness, etc.

But I agree with you: we generally can't know what will be most deeply evolutionary moment to moment ahead of time. If we decide in advance, things might change and we might wall ourselves off from our greatest depth.



Tom: This aspect of growth has led me to this observation: if I cannot even predict what I will go through and require, how can I know what another needs?  I can't.  I can only attend what is presented and do my best within my own understanding to attempt to appreciate what possibly might be the direction forward.


I generally agree with this, too, with the addition of information about what lies ahead on the spiral, where others have gone before. For example, we can have some idea, a general idea, about what people need when they are born when we know they need to develop physically and thus need certain kinds of nutrition, knowing that they will pass through Magenta, Red, Amber, Orange. I think there's still a lot of work to be done there, with regard to type in particular (I imagine some types do well in some cultures and some types do not and that that might be remedied in the future).

With regard to the video clip, we might also add the difficulty of speaking in public—it was not a retreat setting but a weekend seminar, an afternoon talk or something. That is much more difficult. In that situation you are trying—as with the case of that woman—to show people a higher worldview.

That is like trying show Amber the Orange worldspace or Orange the Green worldspace or Green the integral worldspace—it is a very, very difficult thing to do, and likely not everyone in the crowd is going to get it. Robert Kegan said it can take on average 5 years to move through a worldspace. It's a very hard sell.

On a retreat it is much different. Virtually everyone there already buys into the worldspace—if they didn't they wouldn't have put a lot of money down—so it is a matter of learning how to function in that worldspace, or dropping out of it in the case of meditation. At any rate, it's much easier than trying to convince someone of a higher worldspace.

The way to really get it—and this is also in response to what James said—is to go to a retreat, spend 3-6 hours a day in meditation, avoid all TV and reading, avoid the internet, and listen. Many people really do see a lot more of themselves and what he is talking about when they do that. It's not likely one will get that experience watching a YouTube video clip, though they are good, too.  :)



Tom: Human development is very complex.  In the face of this complexity, I consider simplistic dualities, like simplistic pronouncements that “ego” and “narcissism” are bad or undesirable, somewhere between irresponsible and damaging, and just plain immature for a teacher.


At Andrew Cohen's retreats he encourages people to use deeper state experiences to take a good look at their ego, to actually learn something about themselves. In other words, to use those deeper-state experiences for stage development rather than as an amusement-park ride.

One way he teaches it, which is also a way Da taught it, is that ego always sees there is a problem. It does. It always imagines itself to be in a problem, in a dilemma. This is not pleasant; it is suffering. When people see that they can learn to differentiate from it, cease to identify with it, and not always feel that life is a problem.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Often I think people hear a little bit of Andrew Cohen and jump to conclusions a little bit. Here is an excerpt from a talk ego you might appreciate:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Further to my mini-conversation with Irmeli above regarding developmental complexity, I want to suggest a link between “binary” developmental simplism and the Superman zeal that infuses so many spiritual gurus. 

In the simplistic “binary” view of inner process, development proceeds from A to No-A.  One can observe this simplism in most spiritual teachers.  Process, for them, is from:

ego            —>      no ego
self            —>      no self
narcissism  —>      no narcissism
form          —>      no form (formless)
slavery       —>      no slavery (freedom)

and so on.

In my view of the world, development proceeds stepwise on a continuum from less to more complex, less to more subtle, etc.  Most steps down this continuum are very, very small, practically unnoticeable to a given life.  Some steps are relatively larger, and can be felt as such by the individual, but taken in proper contexts, these steps are also in my opinion very small.  What is this so-called proper context?  Evolution.  Evolutionary development is now 13 billion years old in just this universe.  If other universes preceded ours, God knows how much time has preceded our moment now to produce this moment.

Under this model of development, the simplistic binary view looks almost laughable.  What saves it from being merely laughable is the feedback thought that human development seems to proceed in the language of binary stepping.  Of course, this language would be Hegel's view of history.

But Hegel was a pre-evolutionary thinker, and once evolutionary context is admitted, any form of binary-ism must be taken to refer not to the thing (ie, no-ego) but to the process by which the skin of an older view is shed to allow growth into a more complex, more encompassing skin.

This is to say there is no no-self or no-ego in any literal sense.  There are only increasingly complex modes—more encompassing skins—of self or ego operating.  This statement can be tested.  Find the nearest no-self Superman and look with your eyes to see if you can see a self.  Anything approximating what might look like a human being is good enough for me.

Now notice the following connection.  Binary simplism is a potent motivation of thinking the last developmental step I made is All Important.  If I literally went from self to No-Self (don't forget to capitalize), well, that's some Gargantual Important Step.  If I truly think I underwent a Gargantual Important Step, I will be prone to donning the Superman cape and preaching Conversion to the masses.  The last time I saw Andrew Cohen, he was wearing a Superman cape.  What He has to Say is So Urgent don't you know.

Here's another connection.  I think yellow is the first level of development to move away from binary developmental simplism.  Only at yellow does one appreciate developmental complexity and the necessity of a step-wise, stage-appropriate model of development.  In that recognition, yellow can perceive the necessity for lower levels thinking they're IT as stage-appropriate, but those lower levels cannot return the favour.  Notice that thinking I'm IT is binary: me good, you bad.  See the parallel there?  Less than yellow will therefore probably necessarily adopt a binary view of things (no-ego, no-self, etc.).

This is how I see things.

I'll go a little further.  People like Adi Da, Guru Extraordinaire, fell into the (less-than-yellow) binary trap.  You can see how important he considered every tiny change he underwent by the simple fact he changed his name 6 times to advertise his latest Final Arriving.  I suppose only death stopped him short of changing his name a 7th time.  King of the Hill.

Another interesting example of this is Bernadette Roberts.  She's not so brazen as The Dazzler, but a binary view does manage to slip into her understanding.  Thus does she call the highest stage she achieved No-Self.  It perhaps goes without saying she thinks this stage is final, which is to me ludicrous.  This is the stagnation Irmeli mentions that infects this form of viewing.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: Already during our upbringing we are expected to behave in ways that is not stage appropriate to us. And many of us learn to behave as we are expected to. But then we only learn to imitate an higher stage behavior. It is not the real thing. And it creates a false self, that is a survival strategy. This creates stagnation. A massive shadow, where your developmental center of gravity is actually much lower than it looks like to be.

That's interesting to reflect on, Irmeli.

Sometimes also the “higher stage” behavior is not so higher stage, and that causes shadow issues as well. For example, an Amber upbringing could be too repressive, an Orange upbringing too achievement oriented, a Green upbringing too permissive and without enough direction.


James: So yes cultural influences on the manner of communication can be profound. In Japan for example, depending on the social occasion, communication tends to be highly “listener active”, with the listener giving continuous indications to the speaker that they agree with, or at least get, what is being said and thereby encouraging the speaker to continue.


I now recall this from my relatively brief visit there. But the custom that really got me was the fill-the-empty-glass custom. If you finish your glass of sake there, the other person is obligated to fill it up. I once went out to dinner with a friend's employers, in the school system, and I kept draining my glass of saki, and they kept filling it up.  :) So I kept draining it! I didn't really want more, but when they poured more I felt I might as well drink it, or maybe I felt obligated to drink it; I can't remember.

I imagine that listening in Japan comes part and parcel with their more communion-centered culture.


Tom: I agree.  For me, honesty is of primary value to inner process.  Some important psychologist (Rollo May, I think) said attention is curative.


That makes sense to me. I have seen people starved for attention and then relax when they get it.


Tom: In the simplistic “binary” view of inner process, development proceeds from A to No-A.


I think those black-and-white opposites you list are Amber. Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, Good and Evil, Love and Hate. They arise in Amber.

There is something naive about it, but at the same time there is something very inspiring and powerful about seeing things like that. “Enlightenment,” for example—as opposed to ignorance—is an inspiring concept, but also misleading since at the end of the day it is a relative thing if we consider all levels and lines.

So, are these black-and-white opposites to be jettisoned entirely or included in some way? I think probably they need to be included but with awareness and then refined. They are like powerful engines, drivers, that can be refined for higher purposes. Yes?


Lisa: I say Deida, a self style 'guru' of the tantra realms would be an interesting character to consider too, among others.


That's an excellent idea. We could discuss it in this thread or another; I don't particularly mind. I will start contemplating it, but if anyone else wants to start a new thread or just start talking about it that's fine.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: So, are these black-and-white opposites to be jettisoned entirely or included in some way?

I view these opposites as a life-given oppositioning process, the very process whereby one objectifies a previous way of being, per Kegan.  No jettisoning for sure.  That objectifying process, if you look at it very carefully, is a form of saying “I'm not that (previous way of being).”  The “not” carries the oppositioning, the objectifying.  It's a disidentifying, the “dis-” being the “not.”

A fuller discussion of “not” of course casts a wider net than our objectifying inner process.  For instance, all language looks to me to distinguish by using the “not” function.  Any word thus says “this,” which necessarily implies its negative, “not this” or “that.”  A distinction is essentially that: a pointing to that blocks out (negates by opposition) everything but the thing pointed to.

I find that people confuse inner and linguistic negation processes for actualities themselves.  Thus when Bernadette Roberts says she's achieved “No-Self” (don't forget to capitalize) and that this is the final step available to humanity …. ever …. I interpret her as having confused her inner objectifying, negating process with reality, to have projected the merely latest step in that process as literally real.  Yes, she's surely achieved a subtle inner state of some cosmic or super-cosmic expanse, and yes, that state is surely “not” the previous state she lived in.  I'm not arguing against either of these.  What I am saying is she's unaware she's projecting her inner “not” dynamic and its natural “not” language as reality.  She has not objectified that inner dynamic, nor has she realized she will move beyond—objectify—her current No-Self state if she lives and experiences long enough.  Then it will be time for a name-change in an Adi Da confusion.  Notice that the objectification process requires that one withdraw a projection: what I previously thought was real, very real, has changed.  Oops.  Very interesting link, that one.

Let me add one more detail.  It's natural to call one's current state by a negative word (call it no-self, emptiness, non-dual, etc.).  Why?  Because one simply cannot be fully objective about what one currently is, and thus there is no name for what one currently is except a negative that distinguishes “current” from the most recently objectified state, what I was yesterday.  But, again, people get into a tangle thinking this naturally negative naming is really real.

What I was saying above, in part, was that spiritual teachers and gurus can inflate their importance to High Grandiosity by confusing inner process with reality.  To repeat, if my development has been truly and really to No Self (which is permanent, final, no more process, etc.), then that's a very important development.  But if it's one step in a process spanning billions of years, then I think I can be a little more relaxed and small about it.

Btw, David, this binaryism I'm describing in my mind goes well beyond Amber.  It is, quoting Kegan, an essential aspect of inner process itself.  However, projecting this process as real stops at yellow.  All previous colours all think they're it, that no one else's mode has value, etc.  That attitude is to my appreciation a form of projecting this negating inner process.  As high as green literally negates any different modality as practically worthless.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:So, are these black-and-white opposites to be jettisoned entirely or included in some way? I think probably they need to be included but with awareness and then refined. They are like powerful engines, drivers, that can be refined for higher purposes. Yes?

The opposites cannot be taken away from our thinking without doing harm. However they don’t need to be fully black and white. Also different shades of gray can form two opposites in one’s mind. The important thing is that they are both there in a dialogue with each other, without neither of them  getting denied or suppressed. Through this dialogue a more comprehensive view can form as a synthesis. If the process of evolving continues at some point this synthesis finds its opposite. These hopefully can again start a dialogue.

 A healthy mind operates in this way. If also spontaneous free association is allowed, evolving will appear almost inevitably.

 I have written about this issue earlier here and here.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Yep, good idea for another thread maybe, as there is so much interesting stuff emerging right now.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom: I view these opposites as a life-given oppositioning process, the very process whereby one objectifies a previous way of being, per Kegan.  No jettisoning for sure.  That objectifying process, if you look at it very carefully, is a form of saying “I'm not that (previous way of being).”  The “not” carries the oppositioning, the objectifying.  It's a disidentifying, the “dis-” being the “not.”


Yes, that sounds like Hegel's “negate and preserve.” Cohen likes “transcend and exclude.” [1]



Tom: Let me add one more detail.  It's natural to call one's current state by a negative word (call it no-self, emptiness, non-dual, etc.).  Why?  Because one simply cannot be fully objective about what one currently is, and thus there is no name for what one currently is except a negative that distinguishes “current” from the most recently objectified state, what I was yesterday.  But, again, people get into a tangle thinking this naturally negative naming is really real. …
What I was saying above, in part, was that spiritual teachers and gurus can inflate their importance to High Grandiosity by confusing inner process with reality.


Yes, there can be a veiled grandiosity in the negative formulations. “No-self” = completely beyond ego, personality, where everyone else or nearly everyone else lives. “Emptiness,” same thing. “Non-dual”—unlike everything in the universe.

That's not to say that aren't useful or even accurate terms, just to say there can be (not always) a veiled grandiosity in them.

I don't have a problem with expressions like that being used for meditation or meditative experiences; I think they become problematic when people use them with reference to behavior, action, responses.


Tom: As high as green literally negates any different modality as practically worthless.


Yes, that is quite true. That's why politics is such a mess.



From Irmeli's blog: The most systematic evil and the evil that has raged the most excessively in this world has almost without exception been connected to persons who have been raised to the status of a god or a saint.


That's interesting to reflect on, Irmeli. That seems to be the case.

Of course, I am also recalling situations where evil did not follow from such elevation: Ramana Maharshi, Martin Luther King, Rumi.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:Of course, I am also recalling situations where evil did not follow from such elevation: Ramana Maharshi, Martin Luther King, Rumi.

I tend to allow all kinds of perspectives appear to my mind's internal dialog.This comment of yours triggered the following perspective. I'm not sure of its validity.
I still think this viewpoint deserves a serious consideration.

 Martin Luther King got murdered and Rumi's lover possibly got murdered by his own disciples. Is it possible that these heros contributed to these murders, by disowning some darker aspects in themselves?

The heavy, dark aspects belong to life also, and if a leader is seen to be without those qualities, it can create a collective intensification of disowning those qualities.
The collective disowning can create an uncontrollable, destructive eruption of the darker aspect.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

That's very interesting, Irmeli. I've wondered about that sort of thing as well. John Lennon is another like that, Jesus, Gandhi.

Of course, lots of people who don't have saint-like status also get killed, and not everyone who does have saint-like status does get killed, but it still seems to me there is something there.

We could look at it developmentally as well—some of these people threatened the status quo ushering in new worldspaces. That's a sure-fire way to put yourself in the line of fire.

But disowning is another thing that could happen—Wilber has talked about disowning parts of yourself and then having that disowned part attack you.
Yes, I think being a whole person can make a big difference.

Another perspective is that one person pushing things forward could move everyone forward, and in some cases that just brings a lot of latent violence or unresolved stress to the surface.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: We could look at it developmentally as well—some of these people threatened the status quo ushering in new worldspaces. That's a sure-fire way to put yourself in the line of fire.

This is the established way of looking at it through martyrdom.
It would be interesting to know if  research has been done on this topic while looking at the phenomenon mainly from LL and LR quadrants.
 A plain zone 4 structural look could give important new perspectives. Thist would mean putting aside all elevated ideas of love and supremacy. Forgetting for a while the felt inner we space of meaning, and instead look at the actual structures through which people relate to each other.
 
What kind of methods of conflict resolution do these groups of people use,as they perceive their leader as incomparably good and superior? It is clear that the system cannot tolerate well any internal criticism of the leader. There cannot be full freedom of thought. And without  threats and punishments the control of thought cannot be upheld. Add to this the  known fact that the prevalence of violence is considerably higher at the less evolved structures.

All guru organizations I have some familiarity with seem to have  an amber LL structure. These groups however can make a lot of effort to hide these features in the group dynamics from the outside world.
 
As an example of an guru organization that has succeeded in this hiding unusually well is the one around the hugging guru Ammachi. A few years ago I attended a weekend l seminar. It was a beautiful summer day, and I felt I did not want to sit inside listening to the talks, but instead went to the nearby lake shore with a stunningly beautiful panorama. There was already sitting another woman, and we changed a few words. She told me  she was a long time disciple of Ammachi. I got curious, and made some questions of her life with Ammachi.
 
The woman started to tell her story. I was in a open and receptive mode, and listened to her story for three hours in an approving mindset. However even if my conscious mind was not critical, the deeper levels in me, that function automatically, made many observations and discriminations. My outwardly approving mindset got probably the woman also to reveal more than these people usually do. And what I saw, was there was present many of the very naive features of a cult with a strong dominator hierarchy  with threats and punishment etc.  There is  list of these mentioned in  the famous Guru Papers by Kramer and Alstad.

It would be also interesting to look at these issues from the LR quadrant. How is it with the distribution of material wealth in these organizations?  At least In TM  it was of  similar type as in Saudi Aurabia, where the Royal Family is the state, and owns its resources. I functioned as an auditor for the Finnish filial of TM for almost ten years. During that time the teachers had to give 50% of their gross income to the international headquarters. Their true income through the teaching was hence infinitesimal, sometimes even negative. Criticizing this situation was not possible. For the true believer it would be equivalent of losing his chances of enlightenment. Here is important to look at the structure of controlling of people’s thoughts, not just the morality of it. In other guru organizations the morals can have different content, but the overall structure of controlling people is still the same.

  David: Another perspective is that one person pushing things forward could move everyone forward, and in some cases that just brings a lot of latent violence or unresolved stress to the surface.

  If we think of the life of  Jesus, was it truly his advanced teachings that got him crucified? Or was it caused by the fact that  he let himself to be hailed as a king while riding on an donkey? (My knowledge of the biblical stories is very poor, but I have a faint memory of something like that having happened.) And that understandably maid the actual ruler  to feel his position threatened.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli, very interesting post. I think this brings up a lot of important issues.


Irmeli: This is the established way of looking at it through martyrdom.
It would be interesting to know if  research has been done on this topic while looking at the phenomenon mainly from LL and LR quadrants.


Yes, I think that's right—the usual way of looking at it is of a leader, of sorts, descending on a particular worldspace and trying to move it forward into what the person feels would be a higher worldspace. It also happens on an individual, one-to-one basis, where the objective is to create another evolved human being.



Irmeli: What kind of methods of conflict resolution do these groups of people use,as they perceive their leader as incomparably good and superior? It is clear that the system cannot tolerate well any internal criticism of the leader. There cannot be full freedom of thought. And without  threats and punishments the control of thought cannot be upheld. Add to this the  known fact that the prevalence of violence is considerably higher at the less evolved structures.

All guru organizations I have some familiarity with seem to have  an amber LL structure. These groups however can make a lot of effort to hide these features in the group dynamics from the outside world.


Yes, and then one of the questions would be, is the worldspace the leader is enacting with his disciples actually higher, or is it simply pretending to be higher, or is it higher in some ways and perhaps even lower in other ways?

I contemplate just these questions you've asked very often, and I see it as you do: Often the wordspace being enacted is Amber, and it is generally taking place (in the West) in a larger Orange or Green context and thus is often lower in at least in some respects.

How conflicts are resolved is a real tell-tale sign, in my view. Not many social holons really enact a fully Orange worldspace. I would doubt that very many “integral” social holons are actually enacting a consistently Orange worldspace, and the important thing to look at, as you say, is how conflicts are resolved.

There is also an LR aspect to this—written law, actual courtrooms of some sort, a system of resolving conflicts with both an interior collective agreement that this is the way to do things (LL) going all the way to the top of the social holon and some visible, exterior components: some sort of written law, a setting, even if variable or used for other purposes, where such things are discussed in a formal matter when things go that far.

Too often, in my experience, there is no deeply embedded Orange worldspace in either the LL or LR, so after a point it is done according to the feelings of the leader and those in charge; it is done more often than not along personal lines, according to personal relationships, personal preferences, and power dynamics (including projections and shadow), rather than some larger ethical framework with LL and LR components.

In an Amber worldspace, the person higher in the hierarchy is right, period, and I think it's rare to see any social holon do better than that these days. In my view, the only place it happens consistently is in the most transparent aspect of the public domain, in courts of law, in government, though even there it is only rarely entirely consistent or stable.

Corporations and other groups probably don't fare much better usually. Often corporations simply enrich those at the top, just like in TM or for Osho, who had 93 Rolls Royces. And they probably lag a little behind the public domain in terms of resolving conflicts as well. Much of the time it is probably only the threat of lawsuit that keeps them aligned with larger Orange context or some kind of regulation.

Should spiritual communities be regulated?  :) There probably should be some organization that would study such organizations and give them a passing grade or not, tell people what sort of transparency there is. Sarlo's Guru Rating Service is probably a step in that direction.



Irmeli: How is it with the distribution of material wealth in these organizations?

TM sounds like a particularly bad example. It might have been par for the course, however, in India, at least at the time. In Finland, of course, it would be subpar. Rajneesh was also a stunning example—93 Rolls Royces!



Irmeli:  If we think of the life of  Jesus, was it truly his advanced teachings that got him crucified? Or was it caused by the fact that  he let himself to be hailed as a king while riding on an donkey? (My knowledge of the biblical stories is very poor, but I have a faint memory of something like that having happened.) And that understandably maid the actual ruler  to feel his position threatened.


I think Jesus is a very interesting example as well, and I could also know the stories a little better. I think one perspective we can take on it is that, as far as we know, his teachings were advanced and he lived them, but 1) he didn't realize the structural aspect of it and how far the people in his culture were away for enacting the worldspace he was talking about; 2) at least partly because of 1, he didn't have the skillful means to deal with the Romans and Phariseees; and 3) there might have been some spiritual bypassing going on, thinking his connection to the divine could actually move structures as it could “move mountains,” not having the proper respect for the structures and how they would have to be evolved.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:Yes, and then one of the questions would be, is the worldspace the leader is enacting with his disciples actually higher, or is it simply pretending to be higher, or is it higher in some ways and perhaps even lower in other ways?

I think it can be higher in the domain of advanced states, but as a rule is lower in the actual stages. In the guru cults  the states are given much higher value than the stages. Possibly up to this day the stages have not been seen at all.

Robert Kegan claims that as people evolve in the stages this happens through spiraling from differentiation to integration. The problem of our time is that the differentiation tends to have too many pathologies in it, and cannot hence lead to integration. Pathological differentiation is felt as distressing alienation.

This feeling of alienation maybe why people are drawn to a cult. There they experience a regression to a stage, where integration is possible for them, and that is often amber. It is much simpler to integrate to a coherent whole a simpler worldview than a complex one.

In this sense I don't see the regression necessarily as bad. However mostly these cults lack means of supporting people in a renewed way to a more healthy differentiation or individuation.

David: In an Amber worldspace, the person higher in the hierarchy is right, period, and I think it's rare to see any social holon do better than that these days.

I think the hierarchies are needed in social holons. Not all hierarchies are oppressive dominator hierarchies. Rather they are functional hierarchies.
Businesses where dominator hierarchies rule, don't get the best workers, and the creativity of the workers suffer.

The intense competion in businesses has created demand for leaders who can instead encourage the employees to more own initiative and creativity. Team work and co-operation is needed in the fast changing markets. And that is not an amber structure, although amber hierarchies are included in a fuctional way.

 In many modern working places authoritarian despostism doesn't rule anymore. If a leader regresses to those methods, the business tends often to suffer, and he gets thrown out.

In a deeply authoritarian system, like that of an infallible guru, this cannot happen, as the whole thing revolves around the person of the guru.

David:Should spiritual communities be regulated?

I think they should be strictly regulated. They should not be able to market themselves by making claims that cannot be proved to be realizable by most of the disciples.

They should not be allowed to use threats like chritically evaluating the actions of the guru will make impossible for the person to gain enlightenement. Neither should they be allowed to pressure people to stay in the cult.

Also they should get punished for pressuring people to give donations. If that happens they would have to pay the money back.

These kind of regulations would put an actual and realizable pressure instead on the cults to evolve, and on its members to evolve to more advanced structures.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: I think they should be strictly regulated.

Right on, Irmeli.  Imagine the backpedaling and panic that would arise in guru communities if states announced they were going to regulate them like they do, say,  psychologists!

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:So he went into the temple tipping over tables thinking he had a power over them that he didn't have, but it is interesting that that “mistake” had such a lasting effect on culture around the world, that it created a religion that has moved millions into Amber and beyond.

The capacity to see the “mistake” hardly existed at that time, so it wasn't really a mistake then.
Christianity has clearly been the best of the big religions in its capacity to help people to evolve through the stages. Eastern religions have overemphasized the state development at the cost of moral and ethical development, and the use of reason in practical everyday life.

David:I wonder what it really was that inspired the early Christians so much and made it take hold and grow: the teachings, the martyrdom, the idea of rising from the dead, “miracles,” some combination of these.

The early Christianity adopted many of its elements from Mithraism, that was the prevalent religion in Roman Empire until Christianity took over. Mithraism and Judaism merged to become Christianity. Communion, the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, martyrdom, and rebirth were already there in Mithraism.

However Mihtraism was a religion for the privileged only:military, aristocracy and only for men.
I think Christianity won over because it included in itself the elements of Mithraism, and allowed also women and the ordinary people to participate.
It was clearly more inclusive.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: Robert Kegan claims that as people evolve in the stages this happens through spiraling from differentiation to integration. The problem of our time is that the differentiation tends to have too many pathologies in it, and cannot hence lead to integration. Pathological differentiation is felt as distressing alienation.


Yes, also there is very little information about integration out there, and once you showed that information to people not many would really be interested in it.



Irmeli: This feeling of alienation maybe why people are drawn to a cult. There they experience a regression to a stage, where integration is possible for them, and that is often amber. It is much simpler to integrate to a coherent whole a simpler worldview than a complex one.


Yes, it does seem that Amber belongingness needs figure pretty big in those groups.



Irmeli: The intense competion in businesses has created demand for leaders who can instead encourage the employees to more own initiative and creativity. Team work and co-operation is needed in the fast changing markets. And that is not an amber structure, although amber hierarchies are included in a functional way.


Yes, I was just wondering to what extent these places were really meritocracies and functioning according to Orange rules and to what extent personal likes and dislikes still played a role. Of course transcending those personal likes and dislikes fully or consistently doesn't really come until later, even not until third tier in high-pressure situations.



Irmeli: I think they should be strictly regulated. They should not be able to market themselves by making claims that cannot be proved to be realizable by most of the disciples.


I don't think government could provide regulation, except perhaps on financial issues. I was thinking more of a within-the-field review team that would write reviews that people could read. There are some real potential downsides to that, however; the team might have inherent biases and such.

But I don't we could say that the claims have to be realizable by most of the students. Ideally yes, but that's never been the case in enlightenment-type circles.


Irmeli: They should not be allowed to use threats like chritically evaluating the actions of the guru will make impossible for the person to gain enlightenement. Neither should they be allowed to pressure people to stay in the cult.


Yes, I agree completely, at least when we are enacting a post-Orange group. But to say that people couldn't be pressured to stay would probably mean outlawing Amber to some extent. Amish are really pressured into staying; they are shunned and such. I think some reasonable limits might be imposed though, covering physical and verbal abuse. I don't know whether Amish or Amish-type communities go beyond that often, but sometimes they do.

There was a well-publicized case in Texas a year or two ago of an Amber group that crossed a few lines.



Irmeli: Also they should get punished for pressuring people to give donations. If that happens they would have to pay the money back.


What would constitute pressure?



Irmeli: The early Christianity adopted many of its elements from Mithraism, that was the prevalent religion in Roman Empire until Christianity took over. Mithraism and Judaism merged to become Christianity. Communion, the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, martyrdom, and rebirth were already there in Mithraism.


Thank you, Irmeli; I wasn't familiar with that.

It's interesting to me to consider how political pressure shaped early Christianity. Jesus was crucified, to begin with, so it was not a teaching that would be popular with the Romans or the religious authorities of the day (as would any new religion, probably), and as I understand a lot of it went underground after Christ was crucified.

It's been a while since I studied it, but as I recall some early texts were hidden or buried. The Nag Hammadi Library, for example, which some people consider to contain Jesus' teachings in their purest form, didn't turn up until 1945, in Egypt.

“Deep” spirituality has been repressed in a lot of places. The Sufis have been terribly oppressed in a lot of places; Bhuddhism has been terribly oppressed in Tibet, of course, also Myanmar, Vietnam, probably a few other places. The Chinese have also oppressed Chi Gong in a big way. I imagine some Christian mystics were burned at the stake and such as well, but the only one I can think of is John of the Cross.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:Yes, also there is very little information about integration out there, and once you showed that information to people not many would really be interested in it.

Quite many people show nowadays interest for integration, although mostly only through a personal crisis.
There are many routes towards more integration, and I must admit people have very little interest in my way of integration. Instead I enjoy observing the many different ways people try to accomplish integration. However people seldom aim towards a profound integration, which we may call enlightenment.

People may also be afraid of integration, because what they have seen around them in terms of integration, has meant at least in some respect regression to an amber worldview. They are afraid of that happening to them too.

David: But to say that people couldn't be pressured to stay would probably mean outlawing Amber to some extent.

I suspect that at some point, when we collectively evolve further some forms of amber collective behaviour will become illegal. That can at best put on evolutionary pressure on amber.
 At least here in Scandinavia physical punishment of children has already for almost 20 years been illegal. No one has so far got fines for giving a small slap to her unobedient child, but illegal it is.

Irmeli: Also they should get punished for pressuring people to give donations. If that happens they would have to pay the money back.

David:What would constitute pressure?

A wide public discussion would be needed to define that.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Hi Irmeli, alot of amber currently is illegal.  That process will continue.

Alot is made of fear (much like anger) in spiritual discussions, literature, dogma, etc.—the big bogeyman.  It seems to me fear exists for very good reasons, and that if a person feels fear of stepping into what some more advanced person would consider a deeper integration space, the fearful person probably has not developed appropriate structures to stably, and without self-damage, take that leap, and fear tells her so—a true protector.  Development happens of its own accord, and when appropriate structures are laid down to take a leap, the leap will occur.  In fact, I think its happening could not then be prevented.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Tom:Alot is made of fear (much like anger) in spiritual discussions, literature, dogma, etc.—the big bogeyman.

I agree fully. There is very little discussion and discriminations made between different types of fear, and on the overall context where fear appears.
Making fear the big bogeyman, tends then to get used to manipulate people to bypass their healthy and very legitimate fears.

On the other hand many types of threats and fearmongering is in use to keep people loyal to the organization and the guru.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: However people seldom aim towards a profound integration, which we may call enlightenment.


Yes, that would be a vertical enlightenment. That is something that Andrew Cohen's teachings focus on: a context in which there is that profound integration and an emphasis on holding that context through thick and thin. Because people might test at an integrated level, but whether they act from that integration consistently is another question.

It's particularly interesting to me examining stressful moments, moments when the chips are down, something is at stake, interests are threatened—from what context do people act from then? That's when it really matters. But that's also when it's most difficult to hold that higher context.



Dawid: People may also be afraid of integration, because what they have seen around them in terms of integration, has meant at least in some respect regression to an amber worldview. They are afraid of that happening to them too.


Yes, a lot of people are mistrustful of groups, and I think for good reason. Even if there are not gross abuses there will likely be subtle abuses that have an effect one's interior. There may be energy vampiring, for example. Nothing that breaks any laws but that will none the less leave people feeling depleted. In the Freemasons is there any energy vampiring in your experience? In addition to the financial exploitation was there energy vampiring in TM?


Irmeli: At least here in Scandinavia physical punishment of children has already for almost 20 years been illegal. No one has so far got fines for giving a small slap to her unobedient child, but illegal it is.


That's interesting; I hadn't known that. It is a little more varied here in the U.S. I don't know anywhere where it is illegal to give a child a spanking, for example, but it is less and less common these days. And now it is said that because people aren't spanking they are sometimes yelling at their kids when they get frustrated. There was an article about that in the New York Times recently, “For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking.”




Tom: Alot is made of fear (much like anger) in spiritual discussions, literature, dogma, etc.—the big bogeyman.  It seems to me fear exists for very good reasons, and that if a person feels fear of stepping into what some more advanced person would consider a deeper integration space, the fearful person probably has not developed appropriate structures to stably, and without self-damage, take that leap, and fear tells her so—a true protector. Development happens of its own accord, and when appropriate structures are laid down to take a leap, the leap will occur.  In fact, I think its happening could not then be prevented.

It's an interesting subject, Tom. I think fear should be listened to, but at the end of the day there is no need to act from fear. If we act from fear, we will really be acting from the ego, from the separate-self sense; this will really mess a person up. It could also mess a person up if they never listened to fear or if for some reason their information system had gone haywire and they didn't feel fear at the proper time or something.

But when we are acting from fear we are not acting from the deepest part of ourselves, which is beyond fear, really beyond fear or desire but only “evolutionary.” The great Jalalud-din Rumi understood this:

Keep walking though there is no place to get to.   Don’t try to see through the distance, that’s not for human beings.   Move within but don’t move the way fear makes you move.


We leave a burning house, for example, without acting from fear. There would likely be a lot of fear attending the event, but if we act from fear, will be acting out of panic, perhaps do something not particularly evolved like leave someone inside who we could have saved or try to save someone who we couldn't save and kill us both. If we act from fear we will probably be acting from Magenta or Red.
We can also, when acting from fear, simply act to preserve the status quo—me as I am now. If we can't differentiate from that, we will never get into self-transcendence.
Wilber touches on this at the end of this quotation:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:In the Freemasons is there any energy vampiring in your experience? In addition to the financial exploitation was there energy vampiring in TM?

In both organiztions I have got generally well along with people. I have no experience of energy vampiring in those places. I have felt depleted of my energies in quite different settings. Altough I do much better nowadays also in those situations. I see now that being depleted energetically hyad mostly to do with my personal incapacity of owning my shadow issues.

On the level of subtle energies I have felt better with the TM-people. The experienced meditators in TM can be pretty advanced in that regard.

In TM my problems were mostly with my cognitive dissonance with the approach the organization more and more got tilted towards. And with the fact that I couldn't openly express my views and own understanding there.
An insane hierarchy got also created there, where people's developmental status and position in the movement was determined by what new expensive meditation techniques they paid for. I stayed there active pretty long however as I didn't expect people and organizations to be perfect. There were many good things there also.

I finally lost my interest, when I perceived the organiztion's main purpose  having become collecting money for their vedic pundit project in India.  Everything else sereved that purpose. They also managed to collect huge amounts of money for that purpose.
 However many people have suspicions that a major part of that money has ended in the pockets of the insiders, not to the pundit project. There is very little transparency in the organization. It is very authoritian, and all over amber in its structure.

My observation is that as long as the basic structure(LR) in an organization is amber, whatever higher intensions people might have there, the end result tends to be amber also in (LL), and also in UL people show very little if any advancment through the stages.

I haven't encountered  these problems in Freemasonry. There  the members are encouraged to express their own thoughts and understanding. Something that really touches you deep inside. The structure of the organization is such that it helps people to find their own path to deeper truth.

Freemasonry helps people to evolve much better through the stages, not just cognitively, but also interpersonally, morally, and ethically. It is less effective in facilitating advanced state experinces in people.

Freemasonry is strongly a collective endeavour. It emphasises the collective aspect in our evolving. It is not even aiming at individual enlightenment, but towards collective enlightenment.

If a typical guru/disciple organization is structurally amber, freemasonry is structurally already second-tier. Of course for a lodge to actually be fuctioning from second tier it needs at least two or three of its member's already to be at that altitude.

People, who are at second tier, have an easy time in that organiztion, others will find it more challenging, and may end up to some conflict or crisis there. And all are not capable of facing that challenge. People have very little space there to act out their narcissistic dreams of becoming superstars or even dominion over the lodge.

Still our aim is that every person, who gets initiated to freemasonry, will one day lead the lodge as its Master. The Master has plenty of power and is very much respected inside the lodge, but this power gets supervised in many different ways. Structurally there is very little space for abuse.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: I think fear should be listened to, but at the end of the day there is no need to act from fear. If we act from fear, we will really be acting from the ego, from the separate-self sense; this will really mess a person up. It could also mess a person up if they never listened to fear or if for some reason their information system had gone haywire and they didn't feel fear at the proper time or something.

This is the very first thing that is taught to an initiate to freemsaonry, when s/he steps over the treshold to the lodge. It is done very concretely in that situation. Later the intiate is being asked to ponder on the symbolic meaning of that part of the initiation ritual. Had s/he escaped the challenge, s/he would have been in danger to get killed. And also if s/he had rushed in too eagerly without fear, her/his life would have been in severe danger also.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David: But when we are acting from fear we are not acting from the deepest part of ourselves, which is beyond fear …

You've entirely overridden my point again, David, with your spiritual superman superstructure dogma.  Of course that dogma comes with a sermon and a quote from the KW Bible.

Fear wouldn't exist evolutionarily if it didn't serve a life-enhancing and life-sustaining role.  If you held an evolutionary perspective, you'd see that.  You'd also see that anything later but expresses and is but for everything earlier. 

Yes, one symptom of greater maturity is a lessening of fear, but fear actually guided the so-called mature person to that place of maturity.  Why?  Because it existed as a stage-specific function.  And because the so-called mature person doesn't get to stage 7 without passing through stages 1-6.  Your “deepest part of ourselves” is itself but a higher stage (therefore not “deepest,” because will be superceded) built on earlier stages.  And until inner structures are sufficiently developed to allow an aware operating with less fear, fear, if heeded, will keep a person from inappropriate behaviour, like a time- and stage-inappropriate “submission” of “ego.”

What on earth would a fear-free baby look like?  I can just hear the “spiritual” mother: drop your ego, baby, drop it.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: I see now that being depleted energetically had mostly to do with my personal incapacity of owning my shadow issues.


That's an important subject. Also wanting things to be a certain way in an egoic manner, not recognizing, for example, that something unpleasant may actually be evolutionary.


Irmeli: My observation is that as long as the basic structure(LR) in an organization is amber, whatever higher intensions people might have there, the end result tends to be amber also in (LL), and also in UL people show very little if any advancment through the stages.


I think that's an interesting point: Unless things are written down in a post-Amber way (and perhaps also unless there are some right-hand correlates to those by-laws) things could slip very easily into Amber, and often do. Orange ethics are inconvenient for many people, and they want to have vague by laws that sound nice but at the end of the day often mean just what they personally want to do or their little group of friends.


Irmeli: I haven't encountered  these problems in Freemasonry. There  the members are encouraged to express their own thoughts and understanding. Something that really touches you deep inside. The structure of the organization is such that it helps people to find their own path to deeper truth.


So there isn't an overarching philosophy that people move into, just a kind of meta-philosophy that is geared toward each person individually and their own path?



Irmeli: Freemasonry is strongly a collective endeavour. It emphasises the collective aspect in our evolving. It is not even aiming at individual enlightenment, but towards collective enlightenment.


I guess this partially answers my question above. So it is more about moving toward a higher stage collectively, in the LL, rather than individuals shooting way up, perhaps higher than the rest?

Interestingly the evolutionary enlightenment of Andrew Cohen is similar to this and is also the subject of his quote of the week this week:

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:So there isn't an overarching philosophy that people move into, just a kind of meta-philosophy that is geared toward each person individually and their own path?

In Freemasonry there is an overarching philosophy, but it leaves plenty of room for individuation or differentiation, room for personal interpration.

I quote the constitution of the Freemasonic organization Le Droit Humain:

 “Composed as it is of Freemasons, men and women, fraternally united without distinction of ethnic, philosophical or religious order., the Order prescribes, with this end in view, a method of working which is both ceremonial and symbolic, by means of which its members build their Temple to the Perfection and Glory of Humanity.
In addition to respecting independence from all religious institutions and organisations and all beliefs concerning survival or non-survival after death, its members seek, above all, to realise the greatest possible degree of moral, intellectual and spiritual development for all people. It believes this to be the pre-requisite for all happiness attainable by each individual, in a fraternally organised Humanity”.

 In the lodges this is done by symbolically building the temple of humanity. Each member forms an individual stone in this temple with a crucial function in it. All the stones have a somewhat different function in the  make-up of the temple.

 The rituals have been skillfully crafted in a way, that the different roles in it represent the different internal functioning of an developmentally advanced mind. Pretty often our experience after a lodge session is that we were again working as one mind in spite of the fact that ideas from wildly differing perspective got expressed during the session.

The members during their career in Freemasonry get circulated in these differing functions. If you take care of your duties diligently and skillfully, you are gradually given a more demanding tasks. If you manage to make through all these employments, in ten years you can become eligible to be voted to be raised to the chair of the Worshipful Master in the lodge.
 The Worshipful Master is elected once a year among those who qualify as eligible. You can function in the role of the Master only two consecutive years at a time. The role of the preceding Master is to supervise and support the Worshipful Master in his/her demanding work. Also all the previous past Masters can do this, but not the members who have not yet functioned in the position of the Master of the Lodge.
 The Master has a lot of power in the workings of the Lodge. Basically her/his word is the law. The possibility of abuse of power gets minimized by this system of supervising and yearly election. Also we are encouraged to find our natural place and function in the bigger Temple of the whole humanity. All the stones in that building have their important role in the whole.
We also get the experience that the role on the top of the lodge is a demanding one with more responsibilities than others have. I have been together four years in that position, and don’t hope for getting elected too soon again. And luckily that does not look likely, as many of us tend to give our votes for the newcomers among the eligible ones.

 In every organization you need something that connects people together. In many religions and spiritual organizations it is the dogmas and belief systems that hold people together. Freemasonry does have much less of those.

 We highly appreciate freedom of thought, and also encourage the kind of own thinking that really touches you. This can be very threatening  to some people. They feel like they are left on empty in Freemasonry. There is no teachings to hold on, or to follow. Everything is symbolic and is expecting your very own interpretation.

In Freemasonry basically it is the rituals and symbols that connect people together and form the shared symbolic language between the members. This language unites people there, not their beliefs, or other conceptual frameworks. 

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: This is the very first thing that is taught to an initiate to freemsaonry, when s/he steps over the treshold to the lodge. It is done very concretely in that situation.

David:How is this done?

I have given an oath not to reveal the secrets of Freemasonry.
However what constitutes those secrets today is also an inerpretation. A lot of the freemasonic rituals are actually out there in the net, and they have been described in many books written by freemasons themselves.

Therefore I do not consider describing some parts of the rituals to constitute anymore a revealing of the secrets of freemasonry.

Also the need to keep the rituals of freemasonry secret comes from old times, when revealing them meant a concrete threat to the existence of the organization as a cradle of freedom of thought.

So here it goes:
When a person is being prepared to be initiated to Freemasonry, s/he is asked to take her clothes off. Then he is asked to put on a pretty humiliating clothing. His eyes get covered by a black mask, so that he cannot see anything.
In this position a rope is put around his neck The initiate does not know anything about this.
 
Equiped this way the initiate gets guided to the door of the Temple. When he steps over the treshold as a blind initiate, he is asked to stop. He can feel something touching his left chest, but he cannot see it. Actually it is a sharp dagger. The same person that holds the dagger,  holds also fast of the rope that is around his neck. (Actually there is also a guide, who holds the initiate in place, and asks him to move, when it is time for that.)

The initiate cannot see anything of this as his eyes are covered. Later during the initiation the mask is taken away, and then the  rope around his neck and the dagger that was pointed towards his heart are shown to him.

It is then explained to him that he has avoided too great dangers. Had he tried to escape from the initation after he had stepped over the treshold, he would have got strangled by the rope. Had he rushed forward recklessly, the dagger would have pierced his heart. He is then asked to ponder about the wider symbolic meaning of this.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

That's all very interesting, Irmeli. It looks as though Freemasonry provides a very wholesome community for people.

It looks as though it could provide a nice space for healing and development as well.

What gets people in trouble there? Why can't you do or say, and when people do something wrong, how is it resolved?

What about the “humiliating clothing”? Some people might regard that as a negative thing, the humiliation. That's one thing that comes up when people criticize some gurus, that they humiliate their students. Of course it's just one small ritual, but since you used that word I thought I would ask.

The symbolism is very interesting. What is the symbolism of the dagger and the rope in your view? I know it doesn't mean this in Freemasonry, but some might construe that as threatening—if you try to get away, the group will strangle you; if you are too ambitious (or something like that) the group will pierce you in the heart with a dagger. I think it is a good contemplation and initiation and seems harmless in the overall context of Freemasonry (as long as no one freaks out and runs into the dagger—have there been any accidents?), but if that were the initiation process for a group that was already being criticized, say Andrew Cohen's group, people would probably read some very insidious things into it. I imagine no one is pressured to stay in the Freemasons if they want to leave, right? There may be a significant cultural difference in Finland, also, that I am not aware of.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:What gets people in trouble there?

Many things. For some people already the initiation ritual may be too much to contain.

First the initiates become apprentices, who are lowest in the hierarchy, and who have no right to speak during the lodge meetings. Their task is just to observe the rituals, and observe in silence their emotional states.

The rituals seems weird to them, and there can get pretty powerful subtle energies activated in the lodge. The apprentices are given symbolic tools to work with their emotional states, but some still cannot cannot deal with emotional stirring that gets activated in them.
These people leave the lodge without telling why, or maybe they say  it is all too weird, or they sense some evil energies etc.

The next stumbling block can become the shift to the next degree. Each shift is possible only after you have shown you master the demands of your degree well enough. In the final test before the shift you must write a paper on your own learning experiences in that stage, and then present it in a very formal setting to the lodge. This too people feel surprisingly difficult and threatening sometimes.

Usually you get transferred to the next degree after one and a half year, if you attend regularly all the meetings.But people often encounter problems here too.
They can feel some resistance to go to the meetings. They have not enough inner discipline to overcome that, and are not capable of looking behind their emotional states. They start to find excuses for not coming. They stay as apprentices, and after some time of irregularity they simply drop off.
People don't get pressured to stay. And many careers as a Freemason ends up this way.

The severe conflicts between people tend to arise much later in people's career in Freemasonry.

The next degree, Fellow of the Craft, is normally relatively problem free. This degree is more a degree of reason, or actually reason that includes emotions and feelings also.

In the next shift you get initiated to a Master Mason. and from hence on you are given different offices or tasks to carry out during the ritual meetings and some responsibilities also outside the lodge meetings as teaching the apprentices or the fellows of the craft. And you stay only one year in one office. You get continuously circulated in the different officies. Every year there is a new office to learn. Often when you have learned your duties well enough so that its tasks and responsibilities have become relatively easy for you, it is already time to shift to a next job. And this is too much for some people. Many of the offices have pretty complex duties, and people tend to take mistakes. The challenge becomes how you deal with your incompetencies internally. Some people start to blame the organization, or say they have not enough time for this and leave.

When you have managed to make it through the different offices dutifully, you can become eligible to lead the lodge as a Worshipful Master. Everyone except the apprentices can give one vote, and it is a closed voting. No one can know whom others are voting for. Often the newcomer among the eligible ones gets elected, but not always. Some people experience its as a narcissistic insult, if they do not get immediately elected. These people leave the lodge in intense anger or even rage.

The last stumbling block comes after you have  been leading the lodge as the Worshipful Master, and you are already among the influential group of the Past Masters. This crisis tends to appear, if you your center of gravity is still at green.
 
The greens appreciate the member's right for own interpretation, but only to a certain degree. Now when they are in an influential position, they start to make demands for the lodge to behave according to their understanding of pluralism.

I suppose in many lodges green people can actually manage to dominate the work of the lodge. They start often  to manipulate the members to support their views and approaches. They tend to try to stifle the views they don't like. At this point the work is not anymore done fully according the high principles of the organization.

However if there are  people in the lodge, who are at second tier, they can detect these tendencies over dominion, and start to fight against it. The rules of conduct of the organization clearly are on the side of the second tier approach. In this conflict the green person either has to shift to second tier functioning, or if not, s/he will leave the lodge feeling very disappointed in the whole organization.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:What about the “humiliating clothing”? Some people might regard that as a negative thing, the humiliation. That's one thing that comes up when people criticize some gurus, that they humiliate their students.

It is just a clothing people feel to be humiliating. The person being initiated does not get humiliated.  Humiliating people, or treating them high-handedly  is not on the agenda anywhere in the initiations or rituals of Freemasonry. The rituals are pretty safe in this regard.

David:What is the symbolism of the dagger and the rope in your view? I know it doesn't mean this in Freemasonry, but some might construe that as threatening—if you try to get away, the group will strangle you; if you are too ambitious (or something like that) the group will pierce you in the heart with a dagger.

I don't want to make any interpretations here, because here they would be outside the overall context of Freemasonry. This is the danger of revealing and interpreting freemasonic symbols outside their proper context.
I have never heard anyone make the interpretation you suggested. Possibly, because people don't feel they get treated that way.

David:I think it is a good contemplation and initiation and seems harmless in the overall context of Freemasonry (as long as no one freaks out and runs into the dagger—have there been any accidents?)

Actually there is a guide who protects the initiate from making any harmful movements. The whole initiating ritual lasts maybe for two hours, and can be pretty demanding and challenging for the initiate. Therefore s/he has a guide, who helps and supports her/him during this whole journey.

It has some resemblance to the initiation rituals of ancient Egypt. There however the initiates had to do the journey all alone, and were at a real risk of getting harmed.
Freemasonry has these initiation rituals at every shift to a higher degree.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Irmeli: First the initiates become apprentices, who are lowest in the hierarchy, and who have no right to speak during the lodge meetings. Their task is just to observe the rituals, and observe in silence their emotional states.


I like it that this is an established rule rather than an unspoken rule, which could lead to confusion. I imagine it evolved to this over time, like the initiation ceremony.


Irmeli: The severe conflicts between people tend to arise much later in people's career in Freemasonry.


This is pretty interesting. I imagine it's because people have invested a lot of time and energy in the organization and have gotten attached to certain things.


Irmeli: The greens appreciate the member's right for own interpretation, but only to a certain degree. Now when they are in an influential position, they start to make demands for the lodge to behave according to their understanding of pluralism.

I suppose in many lodges green people can actually manage to dominate the work of the lodge. They start often  to manipulate the members to support their views and approaches. They tend to try to stifle the views they don't like. At this point the work is not anymore done fully according the high principles of the organization.


The mean Green meme! The performative contradictions of pluralism trying to impose its value sphere on everyone!  I find this particularly interesting. I wonder if Green is even worse in this regard than Orange because of the Red narcissism that can infect Green. On second thought it's probably not the case (Orange also imposes its laws on everyone else, rightfully so in many cases), but it is interesting to see the Green shadow.

I have seen that before as well, Green suddenly trying to impose it's way of seeing things on everyone else.



Irmeli: However if there are  people in the lodge, who are at second tier, they can detect these tendencies over dominion, and start to fight against it. The rules of conduct of the organization clearly are on the side of the second tier approach. In this conflict the green person either has to shift to second tier functioning, or if not, s/he will leave the lodge feeling very disappointed in the whole organization.


Probably because the organization has strong, embedded roots in Amber and Orange as well as Green, right? That might shift a person to second-tier functioning if they were ready and it was the right time, but it wasn't the right time for them they would probably leave disappointed, as you say. Has anyone ever tried to rewrite the tradition or by laws to reflect a more Green worldview?

Are there any ideas about God or the Ultimate or life and death in Freemasonry?

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

David:Has anyone ever tried to rewrite the tradition or by laws to reflect a more Green worldview?

Small changes get through all the time to the constitution of our organization Le Droit Humain. Bigger ones can be more difficult to get through. It is pretty much similar as trying to make changes to the constitution of the country.
Le Droit Humain is a co-freemasonic organization, and its constitution is more modern than in the older male only organizations.
Still many of the rituals we use are pretty much the same as in the male only organizations.

David:Are there any ideas about God or the Ultimate or life and death in Freemasonry?

We have rituals, where we work in the first degree to the Glory of the Great Architect of the Universe. These are the same as in the old male organizations.
In those God seems to be a given in their constitution.

We have also rituals, where the lodge works instead to the Perfection of Humanity. These rituals have a secular and more humanitarian symbolism, and are very popular in France and Belgium.

A lodge can choose which type of ritual it uses among the ones that have got accepted by the organization. I got accepted in a lodge that works to the Glory of the great Architect of the Universe as an atheist. This would not be possible in the male organizations, but our constitution permits it.

There are plenty of symbolic stories and other symbolism in Freemasonry concerning life and death. However these permit many types of interpretations. The essential thing is that the member's attention is put on these things, and they have to ponder about these things, and also face them in the rituals.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

Thank you, Irmeli. I am glad to know something about Freemasonry.

I think it's interesting that you got accepted in a lodge that works to the Glory of the great Architect of the Universe as an atheist and even made it to the leader of the lodge as Worshipful Master. That means it must be pretty nondogmatic.

Have you ever seen The Man Who Would Be King and all the masonic references in there? Is there really that camaraderie between people from different lodges?

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

I'm not really an atheist, although I don't use the signifier God in my thinking, and get well along with atheists. I was asked, if I believe in the existence of an higher organizing principle. I actually have surrendered myself to something like that, so this issue has never caused any trouble to me in Freemasonry.

Masons can be recognized from certain expressions they use. That does not need to be camaradie. Earlier it was important to regognize another Mason through secret unobserved signs  as Freemsonry had to function underground.

I once attended to a lecture on different types of meditation given by a person whom I knew to be an ex-mason. However I would have guessed that anyway, because of the metaphors she used, and from her way of classifying the different types of meditation.

It took me actually a pretty long time to recognize how powerful approach Freemasonry is. I have not been a very dedicated Freemason, but I have taken care of all my duties there, and I have attended the meetings regularly.

I have not been very eagerly pondering about Masonic symbols. I have stayed there, because it is a place where I feel myself be at home. I have never felt at home in guru systems nor in Christianity.

 With my Freemason friends I can pretty freely express my understanding , and people there don't try to make me adopt their beliefs or view. Our communication is more about sharing with each other our ideas. And I thought that was all Freemasonry could offer me.

Therefore I felt truly suprised, when I one day observed that some of its symbols were actively guiding and structuring my activity in the world.
 
Freemasonry has ancient roots. As a spiritual approach it is very different from Christianity. It has similarities with Mithraism and the practices of ancient Egypt, and also with Stoicism.

Irmeli

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

A famous atheist, on a lecture tour, once told me that he separates atheism into two camps. Atheists with a little a, are people that simply have no belief in a personal, or anthropomorphic deity, and atheists with a capital A, which have a belief that there absolutely is no type of god.  The latter being a minority.  He said this, because I stated that atheism means different things depending on where you are. In the US it becomes a positive statement as much as a negation. In many parts of the Muslim world it can be a death sentence. In Japan, or Norway, however it becomes generally meaningless.

I think that what you've expressed about Freemasonry, is the Sangha which is probably more important than a guru, in many guru systems. I am currently without such a community, and it is worse than not having a teacher.

Re: An Integral Look at the Guru Principle

I believe that a supportive Sangha, where people can relatively honestly express their deepest truth and understanding without fear of getting rejected or being put down is a truly precious treasure.

Irmeli