On the Search For a Perfect Guru

Wot, me??

What we can easily forget in looking for a perfect (or nearly so) guru or spiritual teacher is that our own best teacher / guide is not somebody outside ourselves but actually within ourselves - our deeper levels of consciousness. With regard to 'external' teachers, it can be said that life experience itself is the best teacher of all. The fundamental error of most religions is in their directing their followers to swallow belief rather than gain wisdom and awareness, both of which latter can be gained only by personal experience. You don't gain wisdom by swallowing the words or views of another person as 'truth', or an externally applied set of rigid rules that dictate a 'right' way to live. But even in the mystical traditions the following of a guru can too easily be used as a substitute for the necessary gaining of wisdom through life experience. The external guru's only useful function in the long run would be to activate your 'inner guide', or, in other words, to put you in touch with your sense of personal responsibility for your own life and spiritual progress / self-healing so that you no longer require an external guru to keep you on your path of spiritual opening up.

Psst! That one eats babies! ...And that one over there strangles kangaroos...

As for finding that 'perfect' guru... I have noticed how many a revered contemporary spiritual teacher eventually gets accusations made against them of one sort of impropriety or another. What is one to make of this? Are they all charlatans and hypocrites, as some love to claim? To me this underlines the need to recognise that one's best and ultimately most reliable guide is within one's own consciousness - it's just a matter of tuning in to the ever-available guidance-from-within. Then it doesn't have to be such a burning issue as to the integrity of Sai Baba, Mother Meera, Sogyal Rinpoche, Chögyam Trungpa or whoever. It would be very negative and counterproductive to discount such teachers and healers just because you've heard allegations of one sort or another made against them.

Isn't it better to be open to receive healing energies and consciousness-raising ideas from them as situations allow, regardless of what personal issues of their own they are still working through? And very often the allegations made against a 'master' may be true in a literal sense but based on unenlightened and ignorant interpretation of the particular situations. A highly realized or enlightened person may well behave in unorthodox ways, because that person is no longer bound by social norms or religious rules, but instead is guided simply by the underlying principle of universal, unconditional, compassionate love.

For this reason, when you read that, for example, a particular 'master' has paedophile tendencies (I noted one such case recently), you need to be aware that the important questions concern the personal responsibility of that 'master' towards others, not the degree to which (s)he conforms to social norms and taboos. If you really wanted to know the answers to questions about the integrity of a particular 'master' accused of paedophilia or some other such deviation from what you consider to be proper, your researches would have to go into considerable detail about who (s)he was consorting with and in what circumstances, the intent of both parties and in general what was going on in their minds, and of course the likely repercussions and long term costs and benefits for both of them. What would be important to establish would be the chains of cause and effect - not how you feel about it. Any value judgement of yours would have nothing to do with the reality of that situation, but would be simply an unaware response of your own, based in the culturally-based rules that were drummed into you when you were young. Just reacting out of a social taboo or rigid so-called moral code is ignorant behaviour and takes nobody forward.

In any case, a high proportion of people take a censorious view of any prominent spiritual teacher having particular close relationships, because they hold the belief that close relationships and particularly those with a physical element should not be in the lifestyle of truly enlightened people - except perhaps one ongoing exclusive male-female relationship in marriage. That is a religion-based greatly wrong belief. I outline a healthy view on love and relationships in my page Love Is Not What Nearly All People Believe.

My own view on such matters is simply to keep a lovingly open mind - though with certain cautions. Overall I have no cause to weigh any of these people up and find them either wanting or indeed worthy of worship. I prefer to allow myself to resonate with the enlightened qualities of anyone, whether or not they are publicly recognised as a 'master' or guru, while being aware of but not resonating with the possible unenlightened elements in their current makeup in the Earth dimension. I see all people in the Earth dimension, whatever their status, as having personal issues (emotional and karmic baggage) that they are clearing. Like that I do not have to ask myself, "Is this 'master' perfect?" or maybe "Would I be contaminated by connecting with this 'master', because of what (s)he's alleged to have been doing?" I simply tune into what enlightened elements take me forward.

Watch out for the ego! -- Where discrimination does pay off

Having said all that, I should mention one particular area of circumspection that I do have with regard to healers and spiritual teachers. Some such people project an image that attracts people as followers and draws them into a worshiping and adulation mode. That is not healthy, and stems from the particular teachers being ego-driven and therefore in an important sense the antithesis of a true spiritual teacher. Anyone who has a reputation for carrying out 'miracles' is probably one of those, for such powers of mind over physical matter are used very sparingly and discreetly by true 'masters' and so are not part of their public image. Incidentally, there's strong evidence that many if not all of Jesus' public miracles recorded in the Bible are not historical fact, at least about Jesus. It was normal practice in those times, as indeed it still is in various cultures today, to build up legends about spiritual teachers, and public miracles were usually inserted into the teacher's biography posthumously as part of a process of deification of the teacher.

One of our famous and widely revered contemporary teachers is particularly implicated in my caution. I'd heard so many 'wonderful' things about him, but became increasingly on guard as I sensed the widespread adulation towards him, and the widespread reports of his alleged miracles. Why would anyone perform such acts in front of ordinary people, except to boost his/her own ego? Then, when finally I found the odd portrait of him I was puzzled, for I couldn't connect at all with the person or his energy. I couldn't feel any particular love or compassion beaming out from him, in the way that I do from portraits of various other spiritual teachers who appear to me to be genuine on the basis of other evidence. Indeed, I found his portraits somewhat disagreeable and not something I'd want in my living quarters.

Just recently a healer friend of mine, who has considerable integrity and ability to look below the surface of situations, told me that she had stayed briefly in that particular teacher's community, and observed in one of the gatherings a huge blast of love energy as the teacher made his appearance among the large and admiring crowd. What particularly struck and shocked my friend was that the love energy was all from the teacher's admirers, directed towards the teacher, and there was none coming back from him. In general his admirers were also feeling that blast of love, but misinterpreting it, imagining that it was coming from their teacher, who was in actual fact preying upon their energy. Having sensed that my friend saw what was going on, he made a serious personal psychic attack upon my friend - though she was 'connected' enough to be protected from it, and so she came to no harm. She had reports of various other people who hadn't been so fortunate and had been wrecked by that so-called master's psychic attacks. In his community expressions of love and affection between members were strongly discouraged in favour of directing all their love towards the teacher. I for one would not have anything to do with such a 'teacher', who I see as functioning as an agent of darkness, but there are still no doubt particular people who need that sort of negative experience as a learning situation...

On a more commonplace level, a healer or teacher who smokes (tobacco, cannabis or whatever) or takes other mind-affecting drugs such as alcohol still has significant work to do in order to let go of his/her ego, and is a bad role model, never mind what apparently wise words (s)he is uttering. These substances also seriously affect the energy field and eventually the health of whoever takes them, so such a healer / teacher would not be a very effective healer and promoter of positive change in others.

A true teacher is a catalyst for each person's opening up on his / her own unique life path, and doesn't seek to control others or to keep even one dependent follower. A true teacher radiates love and compassion and does not seek its return from his/her students. The love that actually does return is thus genuine and a reciprocation, never having to be sought or organized. You reap what you sow.

I too am a 'hypocrite' and a 'false teacher'!

I myself - surely with nothing in my life to interest the sexational, prurient and judgemental news media (at least, nothing of significance beyond what you can read on this site!) - have occasionally been vehemently attacked for being a hypocrite and sham on the basis of some error or omission of mine, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. What was very apparent was that the individuals making such accusations were not people of greater integrity themselves and had no knowledge or understanding of what would make a good spiritual teacher, and were reacting out of their feeling threatened by where I was at. 

Actually they were wanting me not to be perfect! They felt they had to find some pretext for dismissing me and my lifestyle ("the lowest of the low", one unstable person was calling me, and others have called me immensely arrogant) so that they needn't feel so much implied pressure to change their own ways for the better. I see a lot of this sort of thing being directed at big-name spiritual teachers. So, when I hear of new accusations against a particular teacher, I keep aware that the particular attacks may be telling us at least as much about the agendas and issues of the attackers as those of their targets. Those who are busily finding fault with others and dismissing them as hypocrites, charlatans or simply 'crap' need to understand that the prime problem is with their own outlook. If such people truly aspire to spiritual opening up they need to learn to put their prime emphasis upon seeing what is good and positive in people and situations, and then seeking compassionate understanding of what had seemed to them to be faults in others.

A Buddhist angle

One time in 2004 I had one of those negatively disposed people pick me up when I was hitch-hiking. He had superficially lovely 'vibes' which I recognised as indicating what I then interpreted as an angel sourced person, and seemed very spiritually open - so I was more open with him about what I said than I'd be with many people who picked me up in hitch-hikes. As we got talking he asked particular questions which led to my explaining that it was only in recent years that I'd found myself opening up as a healing and spiritual 'master'. That did it. I had used the 'M' word! In a sweet tone and with sweet-mouthed phrasing, making him sound extremely reasonable and 'right', he asked how it could be that I was calling myself a spiritual master.

Where was my humility and modesty? He knew of many spiritual 'master's, and none of them went telling everyone who picked them up on hitch-hikes that they were a spiritual master. How did I justify carrying on like that? And evidently I must have a big ego and be doing it all from my ego's direction. How did I tally that with my alleged enlightenment? And because I was evidently ego driven, being a "self-appointed" 'master', I was seeking to teach people that my way was the right way, and so was intolerant of any other ways. His description of me and my functioning as teacher or 'master' was getting quite detailed and in hindsight I feel it would have been a nice touch for me to have thanked him from the bottom of my heart for telling me so much about myself that I didn't know. ...But then again he very likely wouldn't have seen what I was really getting at.

All these conclusions of his (each of them more or less wrong) had been drawn from one innocent sentence that I'd uttered, containing a one-off slip of the tongue! He was quite unaware of the circumstances in which I came to be operating the way that I was. It was not a long ride with him, and so, when we parted company he went off in a sense of triumph for having shown up what he took to be a seriously counterfeit 'master' who thought he was really something but was really absolute rubbish - and he thus had spent no time or attention on finding anything worthwhile in me or gaining true benefit from the encounter, as do the vast majority of people who give me rides when I'm hitch-hiking. What a waste! He clearly needed to do some work on his own attitude and relinquish the hold of his own ego.

And of course one bit of learning for me from that encounter was the pointlessness of using the word 'master' for any sort of teacher at any level - it arouses so many ego and status issues.

Upon the little matter of humility which the young man raised, I have things to say about that attitude in religions in Modesty and Humility - Cutting through the Confusion.

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A Christian angle

I was on the final stage of a hitch-hike, taking me from just east of Penzance to Mousehole. I'd remarked to the two women in the car that I often get guided pickups because I'm a healing 'master'* (although to the censorious that can sound like a boast, it's commonly a very useful opening to test the ground for a conversation with a driver who's picked me up), and at once the driver came in with something like "Oh, indeed it looks as though this is a guided pickup! You are aware, of course, that the only true healing comes to us from God through Jesus Christ...?" The two ignorant women then would not let up in lecturing and haranguing me about the ills of those who claimed to heal and teach but not in the name of the Lord. They would not hear any protestation that I was working with the same energies that a Christian healer would, but simply using different terminology.

* Although the use of the word 'master' here would raise some hackles among the censorious, I'm actually certificated as a so-called Reiki Master (which term actually does not sit comfortably with me and I generally don't use for myself or anyone else nowadays), so I was not off on such a big ego trip in using that expression.

It was clearly a waste of energy trying to say anything to these over-zealous evangelists, so I just sought not to engage with their continuing naggings at me and remained more or less silent, quietly looking at the scenery and focusing on my breathing. At one point the driver remarked "Well, I see you are quite irritated", and continued with her naggings and biblical quotes, quite happy that they were not appreciated. Then she did stop all that, instead commencing an ongoing incantation in Hebrew to protect them from evil as her response to my presence in the car.

I was strongly radiating love energy to fill the car (I had invoked 'Archangel Michael'* to channel through me), and this woman was perceiving great evil instead! Quite surreal, and I've never experienced anything like that before. Meanwhile, against the background of the driver's incantation, every so often the other woman was sniping at me with something else against all these "false" teachers and healers who, like myself, would claim to be teaching love, compassion and tolerance but were the false ones who it was prophecied would arise before the coming of the Lord on His Day of Wrath.

* Later note (August 2007) - There's actually a delicious irony about this, because I now understand that 'Archangel Michael' is just as much an invention of the forces of darkness as was those women's notion of 'God' or 'Jesus' (little or nothing to do with the true historical Jesus). I have no dealings with any seemingly external non-physical beings now. (For more about this see Better Without Channelling).

Well, I did actually pick her up there, asking what sort of god this was who they believed in, who actually got angry and wrathful, like an ignorant, unadvanced human. For a brief moment that threw the two before they re-established their clearly well rehearsed line that I was a false teacher and implicitly a force of evil.

Thankfully, it was not a long ride, and then, when the car had stopped in Mousehole I made to shake hands with the driver, as I do as a friendly gesture whenever parting with somebody who has given me a ride. The woman silently, frostily refused, visibly holding herself away from me. Then, as I started getting out of the car, she patted me on a shoulder, saying something to the effect of "The truly great devote their entire lives to serving" - which struck me as quite funny, seeing that although her tone and energy was indicating that she was emphatically not speaking of me, her words could very much have been doing so, and indeed speaking of countless others too...

Okay, this latter example that I've described here is what many of us would dismiss as part of the lunatic fringe, but there are quite a lot of them around - in places quite enough to be a significant force of darkness and intolerance. A teacher who is true to himself and perhaps unorthodox in style and who has challenging things to say can get demonized from many quarters and in many ways.

Get learning instead of being taught!

It is greatly helpful to remember that if you are looking for a perfect guru, the chances are that in doing so you are seeking to sidestep your responsibility to open up the perfection that is your own innermost nature. In such a case you may be looking for Truth to be administered from outside yourself when the truth that you seek actually needs to be found within. Certainly it sometimes makes sense to enlist a particular guide to assist you temporarily on your way by giving you some pointers, but you, and only you, are ultimately your own guide and teacher. Think in terms of yourself learning - an active process - rather than being taught. And in terms of spiritual insights, what we find again and again is that real learning of such things is not the absorption of new information but merely an opening up of awareness to things that we'd already known deep down within our own consciousness all along. A guru can impress you and others for a lifetime with words of wisdom - but that does little for you if you are not actually taking the initiative and opening up your own wisdom, which has nothing to do with being able to quote reams of other people's teachings. It needs remembering that the enlightened state itself is so simple and ordinary that there is very little that can ever be said directly about it.

And finally, for those who really want to get cracking on positive life change without need to wait for an external guru (there really never is such a need), a fantastic and totally safe way to do so is to start using The Work - the book to read being Loving What Is by Byron Katie - or / and the tremendous self empowerment and self realization methods of Stephen and Lynda Kane, which latter I've been using to tremendous effect since May 2007. You will then find your deepest truths in a way that nobody else could do for you.