A new model for a nondual community

Things have been changing -- inside, I mean. For a couple of years I was part of a small group which went very deep. We spoke from the depth of Being and we gazed into each other's souls. I had always wanted this, came to wonder if it were possible, and then I found it. And now the group members have moved on, and I find that is all right. Whatever I needed from it, I got my fill, and I too feel ready for what comes next.

I no longer feel the need to seek out people with whom I can have a "deep" experience -- no longer believe that I can only have satisfying spiritual connections in this way. I am open to whomever shows up. A meeting that is not "deep" today may be deep with the same person tomorrow. Each encounter is unique.

So, I'm thinking about a nondual spiritual community in which people of all degrees of experience in nonduality can come together.  At the same time, I haven't found a community I'm completely comfortable with. I've always been reluctant to be part of an organization where there is a "teacher" on the one hand, and "students" on the other; or, in the more traditional parlance, a "guru" on the one hand, and "disciples" on the other. I've also felt something was wrong about asking for money for the Teachings.

But I haven't been able to articulate very well why these things bother me -- until now:

Everyone is ALREADY the complete embodiment of Truth, although they may not be conscious of it yet. And how does one become conscious of it? Of course, it's different for different people, and often it's some combination of meditation, a teacher, reading, retreats, etc. But all of this amounts to SEEKING that which one already is, however much one may ignore that fact. And having a teacher sitting in front of the room, whom one has paid to teach what one already knows, reinforces the idea that some know Truth and others need to learn it. This can become a habit. And each time there is a realization, the mind goes, "Oh, see, this is working. I'm getting more and more enlightened!" And so each success reinforces the methods one is using and the search.

I'm not saying there is no place for this, nor for the projection onto the teacher than usually accompanies this search. But I think it usually continues too long. And the reason for that is that the "seekers" have no other way to experience their deeper being than the methods of seeking they are  familiar with.

But what if there were another way? What if people who are waking up could have a chance to speak from that which is awake in them -- not as teachers, but as fellow travelers on the journey? What if we could all be students and teachers to each other -- even while recognizing that some may be farther along on the path than others? What if, that is, we could exercise the "awakeness muscle" well and often? We could then know through experience, and not just as an idea, that we embody that which we have been seeking.


The model for this community is explained on a separate page oo this blog. See above.

Comparison with others is never helpful

I've noticed that comparing oneself with others is never helpful, especially in spiritual matters.

Comparison come in lots of packages. The most obvious is, "I'm better (more enlightened, have a better spiritual path, etc.) than you." But just as unhelpful, though it disguises itself as humility sometimes, is "You are better (more enlightened, etc.) than I am. If I were more like you, I'd be a better person."

In fact, the second kind of comparison can be more insidious because something in us often reacts to our putting ourselves down this way, and we end up with a projection that looks something like, "That person thinks s/he is so much more enlightened than everyone else!"

Comparing ourselves to a beloved spiritual teacher is even more tricky -- just because it is so natural to do this. It seems that if we could just have the experiences our teacher has had, we would be just as enlightened. So we often ask the wrong questions of him or her. "How did that experience of illumination come about?" "How did you learn to live in the eternal present?" We want cues -- a road map. And if our teacher claims to have followed a road map that doesn't feel like the right one for us -- or doesn't feel like one it is possible for us to follow, it can be distressing. But it can also turn into the teaching we really need.

I remember once one of my teachers was saying that this, that, and the other was true. (I don't remember the details anymore.) I finally raised my hand in exasperation and said, "That doesn't seem right to me."

She replied, "Well, what's the problem?"

It was obvious to me what the problem was: here was a teacher who was the embodiment of what I wanted, but what she was saying seemed wrong.

My teacher kept probing: "Why do you think you have to see things as your teachers see them?"

"Well, they are enlightened, and if I want to be enlightened, then it seems I need to learn to have their view."

"But you see things as you see them and therein lies the enlightenment."

And so it was.

The Central Question of "KUMARE" -- Can an Unrealized "Guru" Lead One to Truth?

I've been meaning to write about the film Kumare but there is so much to explore that I haven't been able to find a focus.  Today, what is coming to me concerns core issue of the film:  whether one needs a guru in seeking Truth.

For those who haven't seen the movie, a brief description:  an American filmmaker with family roots in India decides that he will become a fake guru and see whether he can deceive people into following him.  An East Coast resident, he goes to Arizona, where he is not known, dons robes, a beard, and a fake Indian accent modeled on his grandmother's speech, and invents yoga poses and doctrine.  He does indeed convince quite a lot of people that he is a real guru.

After I saw the film, I watched a couple of interviews with the filmmaker on-line.  He says at one point that he wanted to show people that the truth was in themselves.  I don't know this person, but judging only from the narrative in the film itself, this seems a rationalization to justify, after the fact, his deception.  In the film, his reason is simply that he wants to see if he can get away with it -- if people will be gullible.  He finds that they are.

I may come back another time to the question of whether it can ever be ethically justified to pull this kind of ruse, but I want to focus on something more important here.  I was turned on to this film by someone I met only on-line who said that it was an example of how a fake guru can produce real effects.  I'm glad this person turned me on a fascinating movie, but now that I've seen it, I find that I don't agree with her view.

(Note: A bit of a spoiler is coming here.)  It is true that all of Kumare's main disciples wanted to make changes in their lives, and they first relied on him to help them but most later found that they had the inner strength to pursue these changes without him.  But what kind of changes were they?  All, without exception, were self-improvement projects -- losing weight, dealing with personal difficulties, etc.  They were all within the realm of personality.  And here is the crux of it:  no one who is not awakened can lead someone who is also not awakened to awakening.  There are no exceptions to this that I know of.  Re-arranging the personality has nothing to do with awakening because awakening is seeing that, although the True Self reveals itself through the personality, it is not, in essence, the personality.

It is true, though, is that we are also drawn to teachers who reflect where we ourselves are in our life's journey.  If we choose a teacher -- fake or real -- who is operating at the psychological level, that is because something in us needs to deal with psychological issues before going deeper.  There's nothing wrong with this -- the only error is in assuming that there is something of the nature of absolute truth in it.

The assumption in the end of the film is that, since most of the disciples found what they needed in themselves, they didn't need a teacher in the first place.  This may or may not be true when addressing psychological issues.  But the role of a true guru is not to help one have a better marriage, or address body image issues, or find a satisfying career.  There are lots of experts who do have a role to play in this but their title should not be "spiritual teacher."  A spiritual teacher in the deepest sense is someone who helps us see that we are not simply this temporal being struggling to improve but rather that we are not separate selves at all.  Since there is absolutely nothing in the culture around us to point us back to this truth, a spiritual teacher is often needed to do that.  But s/he has to have realized this before being able to teach it.   

Dead Gurus

In the past, when the topic of spiritual teachers would come up in a conversation, and the person I was speaking with told me their teacher had died long ago but they learned from his or her books, I'd sort of smirk internally.  I never really considered a dead teacher a genuine one because I know the mind's tendency to self-deceit:  if our guru is only known to us through books, we can easily read anything we want into what he or she says and ignore anything that doesn't suit us.  A real guru, in the flesh, on the other hand, can give us the individual attention that points us to the ways we deceive ourselves and defend our ego.  How can the ego itself see its own deceptions?

So this is the way I always thought.  And now I've had reason to change my mind.

My first spiritual teacher was wonderful but he belonged to a spiritual community I had lived in when I was young that I could not abide.  He kept begging me to come back there and I knew I never would.  Finally, he cut me off.  It was horrible for me -- the worst thing that had ever happened in my life -- and I didn't recover until I met my second teacher sixteen years later.  I thought at that time that the problem with my first teacher was resolved and that I could just love him for what he did give me, which was much.  Not long after, I learned second hand that he had died, so the possibility of seeing him again in the flesh had vanished.

Recently, I've gone back (psychologically, not actually) to try to resolve my issues with his spiritual community, and found myself thinking about him much more than I expected.  In the end, a whole new understanding of what he is to me emerged.  In fact, I finally understand why Christ had to die to become the true savior for his disciples.

I suffered a lot from separation from my teacher.  When I was with him, it was great, but I wasn't with him often.  And recently, I mourned the loss so greatly, mourned especially that I could never share with him what has happened to me since I lost contact with him -- never, because he has left this earth.

And then it shifted one day recently.  I saw that the one I loved and believed in was not really the one in the flesh.  What I loved of him was beyond flesh, was what he and I both were and are, because it is eternal.  He is always with me because spirit doesn't die.