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Post by Reefs on Sept 22, 2023 23:50:21 GMT -5
This raises the issue of being of service to others, and how that can be best done, under what circumstances, or if that is even possible at all. So, continuing with your analogy, if you are meandering down the highway with your bald tired jukebox, sometimes on the road, but mostly close to the ditch, what kind of example do you give for others to follow? What will those who come after you conclude? They will conclude that this is a bumpy road with lots of dangerous twists and turns, when in reality, it isn't. And so they will instruct others to follow your example and dismiss those who will tell you that there's actually an easier, direct path thru the snow as heretics. Because the original path is not easy, not direct and dangerous. So, how much of help are you, really then? Tricky question. If you have a 'the end justifies the means' and a 'no gain no pain' attitude, it probably looks like the most straightforward approach. But if you have a 'the means bring about its corresponding end' and a 'there is no gain in pain' attitude, that approach would look more like madness. As Abe always say, you cannot have a happy ending to an unhappy journey. But a lot of non-duality teachers teach unhappy journeys that are supposed to lead to happy endings. And when their own journey ends unhappy, we are supposed to excuse it with the message/messenger thingy? I don't think so. Adya is a brilliant teacher. But he is not perfect. There are things, obvious things, that he is apparently unaware of. And so his message is therefore a mixed message. The descriptive part may be brilliant, but the prescriptive part is not. A messenger in alignment would have given a different message. That's why it is difficult to separate the message from the messenger in non-duality. The way I see it there is a root misconception. The metaphor (based on that misconception) can be applied to any profession. The misconception has a very deep root: functionalism. Niz was a shameless spiritual bypasser, which, when it comes to the truth is a way of most efficiently cutting to the chase. Guys like Niz and Adya say what they say because the living truth is expressing. If we want to climb one foot off the ground up the trunk of a tree toward the simians, we could say that the living truth demands expression, regardless of the medium through which it expresses. People are interested in stuff and because of their formative years they're in the habit of looking for guidance. As you say, none of these people speaking the truth are perfect, and how any one individual relates to the specifics of how that truth gets said to them has the potential to vary quite a bit. Conversely, there is that common note that can be heard by those who are not tone deaf, regardless of the medium. Clearly, your alignment model and the distinction between alignment and truth realization is high quality, and explains quite a bit to anyone willing to give it open consideration. Here's how I see it. I've observed that with many teachers over the years. What it comes down to is what it means to return to the marketplace and remain free at the same time, i.e. not getting sucked into the matrix again, in the hustle and bustle of ordinary, everyday life. And I'd argue that can only be done successfully if you know about alignment. If you don't and just keep floating along, your engagement with the matrix will take its toll after a while. Apparently, lot of non-duality teachers face this problem. When they came down from their mountains, they are fresh and clear in their perspective. They have no following, no spiritual business to run and so there's minimum entanglement with the matrix. But then they become famous, attract a lot of attention, take on the role of teacher, take students and turn it into a business and slowly they get entangled in the matrix again, with occasional escapes (meditation retreats). This probably also happened to Adya. When you listen to his podcast, there's a "me and my mountains" theme at the end. And here is also the difference between Niz and Adya. Niz didn't turn his realization into a business like Adya, it remained a hobby. But they both met a lot of people, troubled people, needy people (rock bottom on the emotional scale). And if you are exposed to such people all day every day, it will eventually have an effect on you if you don't know about alignment. Especially when you are very sensitive and compassionate by nature. Now, what's interesting in the context of alignment and sickly gurus is that every baby and every toddler instinctively knows about alignment and what to do when they are out of alignment. But apparently, self-realized masters don't seem to know that. Weird! |
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Post by inavalan on Sept 23, 2023 0:34:48 GMT -5
... But they both met a lot of people, troubled people, needy people (rock bottom on the emotional scale). And if you are exposed to such people all day every day, it will eventually have an effect on you ... This looks like a "chicken-and-egg" situation ... You believe people are a certain way, so you experience people being that way. You can't change something from what you believe it is. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 0:40:08 GMT -5
From the alignment/misalignment perspective this can be explained easily. Obviously, even the greatest teachers go in and out of alignment, and some of the greatest teacher aren't even aware that they are out of alignment (or they think its not important). So their experiences will be accordingly. IMO, there's a significant difference between the Eastern and (modern) Western perspective though. If we pin it down to SR and alignment, we get 4 scenarios: 1) SR and also in alignment 2) SR and not in alignment 3) not SR but in alignment 4) not SR and also not in alignment The focus in the East, especially the yoga traditions, seems to be on #1. In western non-duality circles, #2 seems to be the standard. The self-help community is mostly concerned with #3. And #4 seems like the default state of being for most people as they go thru life. Yes, that's about as clear as it gets on the topic. But ... look at that branch over there! Hand me that vine! ... In my treehouse, SR isn't always single realization, and some of the intermediate realizations can have the same quality of permanence even before seeking has ended. Alignment is always a matter of degree, and it's quite possible to have experienced extreme levels of alignment at one point in time that don't last. Well, you can replace SR with TR, if you like. It wouldn't make a difference. The point is this: the end of existential suffering doesn't automatically mean the end of physical suffering. I think Adya made that point himself in his books. Now, Adya knows the works of existential suffering. What he apparently doesn't know is the works of physical suffering. And so he approaches it with the tools he uses to cure existential suffering - and it gets all messed up (spiritual bypassing). Abe always say that there are two main indicators for your actual state of being, your mood or emotions and your experiences or manifestations. Now, you can lie to yourself and others about the first indicator. And most probably do, even great teachers. But the second indicator, you cannot mess around with. And so the second indicator works as a reality check. And a severe illness or severe pain does serve as a reality check, I'm sure most will agree. The question then is, what do you do about it? Do you ignore it (like Ramana), do you manage it (like Adya) or do you address it (as Inavalan suggested). And here, the challenge for ND folks is to resist the temptations of going into "I am not the body" self-hypnosis. Because that would be going back to a half-circle perspective. The full circle perspective is "I am the body". The "I am not the body" perspective is only an intermediary step. Now, I don't want this to be misunderstood, because what I am saying here may come across as sickly gurus are a problem. That's not what I am saying. Because from the larger perspective, in the same way that SR cannot be said to be the purpose of life, total health can't be it either. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with sickly gurus. What I am saying though is that there's something fundamentally wrong with the attitude that being able to tolerate severe pain or physical suffering is some kind of heroic act and the epitome of spiritual mastery, or the ticket to sainthood. That's absurd. The natural state is total well-being. It therefore takes no effort to be healthy or prosperous. Which means for these gurus to not be healthy and not prosper, they have to apply a lot of effort. And my guess is that these sickly gurus put a lot of effort into fulfilling their role of teacher. From the LOA perspective, i.e. birds of a feather flock together, if you are mostly in joy or bliss, as most of these teachers claim, you wouldn't have a natural inclination to interact with people who are in doubt or depression. It's a clash of perspectives and energies that are incompatible. However, in the name of service and doing good, many teachers seem to override their natural instincts in that regard. And the result is split energy, their inner guidance pulling them in one direction (naturally gravitating toward happy people) and their intellect or conscience into the opposite direction (these people need help, your help!). It's a common problem in psychological counselling. And it also applies to spiritual counselling. In that sense, a lot of spiritual teachers seem ill-equipped for their trade. And that's why we have sickly gurus. But there's a simple remedy - alignment. So, as usual, there's nothing serious going on here.  |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 1:16:50 GMT -5
... But they both met a lot of people, troubled people, needy people (rock bottom on the emotional scale). And if you are exposed to such people all day every day, it will eventually have an effect on you ... This looks like a "chicken-and-egg" situation ... You believe people are a certain way, so you experience people being that way. You can't change something from what you believe it is. It's not about beliefs. It's about vibration. Beliefs don't even have to factor in here. And in relationships, it always takes two to tango, co-creation. You create your own reality and no one else. The same is true for everybody else. What you believe about anybody else has no effect on anybody else - unless they pay attention to what you believe. Then you've got a tango. So applied to our sickly guru scenario, if the guru makes alignment the top priority instead of being of service, the guru returns to his natural selfishness and alignment. That could mean that the guru is inaccessible to disciples or withdraws attention from their neediness for some time until he is back in alignment. Which means this kind of spontaneous living is difficult to make work with fixed time tables, calendars and business plans, because there is no sense of greater responsibility. The selfish and spontaneous guru knows that we are all equal, that everyone is a Buddha in disguise and that no one actuality needs his help. And so a satsang canceled or a scheduled podcast missed is of no concern. There is no urge or need to justify or explain anything to anybody (see UG). But since the guru is mostly in alignment, the guru and the community both thrive. The responsible and commercial guru is different. He thinks that he has to be (unnaturally) unselfish and justify his existence by being of service to others and sacrifice his alignment for the sake of humanity, to do good deeds. So the guru will make an effort to be accessible to all people all the time, or at least to as many people as possible as often as possible. That's when it becomes a role, or a mission, or a business. Then a satsang canceled or a podcast missed becomes a problem. Things have to be rescheduled, explained and apologies made to the needy (see Adya's podcast). So what you then get is a guru and a community out of alignment. And that's the road to disaster, for both guru and disciples. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2023 4:09:45 GMT -5
heh heh .. perhaps I'm imagining it, but this seems to raise the 'ole message/messenger question.  Some of Adya's pointing was as clear as it gets. Show me an immortal human body. Show me a body that has never felt pain. Conversely, depending on how that body/mind is conditioned, clarity can sting, like tilting your head back and up to a sleeting sky. The world is, what it is. Just because the suffering ends for one body/mind, doesn't mean they can't see it happening for others, and this can elicit an emotional response - an unconscious one even. Not saying this is what happened to Adya, but the link to the potential for physical pain from that is quite possible. I don't think so. Firstly, if you don't know about alignment, then what Adya did (and before him Ramnana and Niz and many others) - stoically enduring physical pain - must seem like a heroic feat, it usually makes you look superhuman in the eyes of most seekers. But if you know about alignment, that attitude is just plain stupid. Sorry. Secondly, non-dual teachers like Waite who say that they just teach non-dual philosophy but lay no claim to enlightenment, are allowed to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma without looking phony. But teachers like Adya, Ramana, Niz etc. etc. don't say that. And so to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma has to look phony. Have you listened to the podcast? It's a very interesting talk. He tries really hard justifying what happened and what is happening to him. And the explanations he gives are hinting at the actual problem. Remember what Ramana said, that both the jnani and the ajnani say "I am the body". Somehow that didn't really get thru to Adya. His attitude toward pain gives it away. And if we wanted to be meanies, we could easily make the case for spiritual bypassing. Now, that doesn't change the fact that Adya was and still is one of the clearest voices in the western non-dual community. So the descriptive part of his message is fine. But when it comes to the prescriptive part of the message, there's obviously something not quite adding up. This is where an understanding of alignment would be helpful. So the question should be allowed to ask, if I, as a seeker, do what Adya suggests doing, will I have a similar fate? If your teaching makes you sick, then there's something wrong with your teaching. And if you have conquered existential suffering but are still physically suffering, then there is still something amiss. So, no. The message/messenger cop-out doesn't work here. You can't really separate the message from the messenger in non-duality, because this is about the living truth (aka truthin'), not some scholarly dogma (aka truth). ok. Spent the time to listen to the podcast, thanks for being the impetus for that. Making a hero story out of a health challenge is misguided, but said before on the topic of Ramana, that idea doesn't naturally occur to me. Simians gonna' simian, after all. As far as "walk/talk" with these guys, I'd say it depends on what they're offering (the specifics of the "talk") and what the "walk" issue is. As the topic is the existential truth, there's always a context mix involved, which is simply unavoidable, and not a problem if it's approached consciously. Either way it's a two sided coin, and the opinion on what it means introduces another dichotomy, so, three outcomes: as it's THIS "walking/talking" then the opinions don't matter. The message/messenger question is monkey mind, which isn't to dismiss it as inconsequential. From the individuated perspective the walk/talk issue is opined as either significant, or not (the other two outcomes). In terms of what I know of his pointing to the existential truth, I don't find a significant contradiction, and he explains that in the talk. He, Niz and Ramana are all quite consistent on the question, all giving the same answer worded slightly differently. He made a point of punctuating the end of what I take you to refer to as those explanations. The way he put it was "we look for reasons". So that's all relative. All conditional. Did his teaching cause his illness and pain? I can't say one way or the other, but even if it did, then as we're talking relative, conditional appearances, I'd say you have to evaluate this on a cost/benefit basis, and I'd opine that the value of his pointing was worth it. Which I'm pretty sure you can infer in what he said himself. That said, there is another aspect to this. He mentioned that many of his students are therapists. So in that regard, there might be a nontrivial contradiction, but in order to further opine I'd have to learn more about that aspect of his cultural influence. I'd agree that someone suffering from a health issue while offering health advice has the potential to have a significant walk/talk issue, but then again, the snowplower metaphor applies. Another version of that metaphor (there is one for every occupation): the customers of a family-run bakery can get high-quality fresh baked bread every morning. The children of bakers often live on stale bread as a consequence of the vocation of their parents. Just like the cobbler's kids never see new shoes. So even if the contradiction is significant, again, we're back to a cost/benefit analysis, albeit a far more nuanced and complicated one.
Now, you mentioned the difference between Adya's descriptions and his prescriptions. Perhaps I haven't read or listened to enough of his material, but what would you say his prescriptions are? I've always found his pointing to be a sort of soothing, discursive sort of poetry of perspective. Seems to me his prescription is to "look, honestly, and gently, but unflinchingly", although never so direct, always layered and woven into that discursive poetic context. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2023 4:28:50 GMT -5
The way I see it there is a root misconception. The metaphor (based on that misconception) can be applied to any profession. The misconception has a very deep root: functionalism. Niz was a shameless spiritual bypasser, which, when it comes to the truth is a way of most efficiently cutting to the chase. Guys like Niz and Adya say what they say because the living truth is expressing. If we want to climb one foot off the ground up the trunk of a tree toward the simians, we could say that the living truth demands expression, regardless of the medium through which it expresses. People are interested in stuff and because of their formative years they're in the habit of looking for guidance. As you say, none of these people speaking the truth are perfect, and how any one individual relates to the specifics of how that truth gets said to them has the potential to vary quite a bit. Conversely, there is that common note that can be heard by those who are not tone deaf, regardless of the medium. Clearly, your alignment model and the distinction between alignment and truth realization is high quality, and explains quite a bit to anyone willing to give it open consideration. Here's how I see it. I've observed that with many teachers over the years. What it comes down to is what it means to return to the marketplace and remain free at the same time, i.e. not getting sucked into the matrix again, in the hustle and bustle of ordinary, everyday life. And I'd argue that can only be done successfully if you know about alignment. If you don't and just keep floating along, your engagement with the matrix will take its toll after a while. Yes, I can attest to this from direct experience. I don't know if you caught Adya's use of the word "challenge" in the podcast. Struck me as a funny sync. Apparently, lot of non-duality teachers face this problem. When they came down from their mountains, they are fresh and clear in their perspective. They have no following, no spiritual business to run and so there's minimum entanglement with the matrix. But then they become famous, attract a lot of attention, take on the role of teacher, take students and turn it into a business and slowly they get entangled in the matrix again, with occasional escapes (meditation retreats). This probably also happened to Adya. When you listen to his podcast, there's a "me and my mountains" theme at the end. And here is also the difference between Niz and Adya. Niz didn't turn his realization into a business like Adya, it remained a hobby. But they both met a lot of people, troubled people, needy people (rock bottom on the emotional scale). And if you are exposed to such people all day every day, it will eventually have an effect on you if you don't know about alignment. Especially when you are very sensitive and compassionate by nature. Now, what's interesting in the context of alignment and sickly gurus is that every baby and every toddler instinctively knows about alignment and what to do when they are out of alignment. But apparently, self-realized masters don't seem to know that. Weird! Yes, dealing with troubled folks just is what it is, as are the demands of running a business, and the teaching business has an inherent built-in walk/talk issue. As any self-respecting simian will point out, "why not just do it for free?". Also from experience, even just a brush with the existential truth has the potential to be transformative, but as one rock-'n-roll poet put it, "noone here. Gets. out alive". When someone dies people mourn, and they fixate on the negative experiences that often accumulate around the process of dying, forgetting about the life that was lived. Fixating on the health of old men just because of some profound shit they said along the way?  Similar vines, similar branches. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2023 4:46:25 GMT -5
Yes, that's about as clear as it gets on the topic. But ... look at that branch over there! Hand me that vine! ... In my treehouse, SR isn't always single realization, and some of the intermediate realizations can have the same quality of permanence even before seeking has ended. Alignment is always a matter of degree, and it's quite possible to have experienced extreme levels of alignment at one point in time that don't last. Well, you can replace SR with TR, if you like. It wouldn't make a difference. The point is this: the end of existential suffering doesn't automatically mean the end of physical suffering. I think Adya made that point himself in his books. Now, Adya knows the works of existential suffering. What he apparently doesn't know is the works of physical suffering. And so he approaches it with the tools he uses to cure existential suffering - and it gets all messed up (spiritual bypassing). Abe always say that there are two main indicators for your actual state of being, your mood or emotions and your experiences or manifestations. Now, you can lie to yourself and others about the first indicator. And most probably do, even great teachers. But the second indicator, you cannot mess around with. And so the second indicator works as a reality check. And a severe illness or severe pain does serve as a reality check, I'm sure most will agree. The question then is, what do you do about it? Do you ignore it (like Ramana), do you manage it (like Adya) or do you address it (as Inavalan suggested). And here, the challenge for ND folks is to resist the temptations of going into "I am not the body" self-hypnosis. Because that would be going back to a half-circle perspective. The full circle perspective is "I am the body". The "I am not the body" perspective is only an intermediary step. Now, I don't want this to be misunderstood, because what I am saying here may come across as sickly gurus are a problem. That's not what I am saying. Because from the larger perspective, in the same way that SR cannot be said to be the purpose of life, total health can't be it either. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with sickly gurus. What I am saying though is that there's something fundamentally wrong with the attitude that being able to tolerate severe pain or physical suffering is some kind of heroic act and the epitome of spiritual mastery, or the ticket to sainthood. That's absurd. The natural state is total well-being. It therefore takes no effort to be healthy or prosperous. Which means for these gurus to not be healthy and not prosper, they have to apply a lot of effort. And my guess is that these sickly gurus put a lot of effort into fulfilling their role of teacher. From the LOA perspective, i.e. birds of a feather flock together, if you are mostly in joy or bliss, as most of these teachers claim, you wouldn't have a natural inclination to interact with people who are in doubt or depression. It's a clash of perspectives and energies that are incompatible. However, in the name of service and doing good, many teachers seem to override their natural instincts in that regard. And the result is split energy, their inner guidance pulling them in one direction (naturally gravitating toward happy people) and their intellect or conscience into the opposite direction (these people need help, your help!). It's a common problem in psychological counselling. And it also applies to spiritual counselling. In that sense, a lot of spiritual teachers seem ill-equipped for their trade. And that's why we have sickly gurus. But there's a simple remedy - alignment. So, as usual, there's nothing serious going on here. What you say about alignment is certainly worth considering - again, from personal experience. I completely agree that the mindset that suffering is noble in this context is misguided. In terms of what comes and goes and changes and appears, and specifically with respect to the individual, there is this dichotomy: the conditioning of the body/mind, and the conditions that the body/mind is in at any given point in time. Some people's fine messes are finer than others (the conditions), and the progression of conditioning and conditions is at least partially a time-bound process of change. Evaluating the quality of the conditioning is thereby also a relative matter of degree, and potentially quite multi-faceted. Evaluating the quality of any given message by the quality of the conditioning of the messenger is like judging the quality of a steak by the quality of the packaging - there certainly can be a correlation, and vacuum packed is going to last longer, but you can vacuum pack a rotten steak as easily as a fresh one. And even the distinction between TR and SR is still a conceptual point. In the abstract, there's no denying the gateless gate, but abstractions are ever and always treacherous on this terrain. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2023 4:54:36 GMT -5
This looks like a "chicken-and-egg" situation ... You believe people are a certain way, so you experience people being that way. You can't change something from what you believe it is. It's not about beliefs. It's about vibration. Beliefs don't even have to factor in here. And in relationships, it always takes two to tango, co-creation. You create your own reality and no one else. The same is true for everybody else. What you believe about anybody else has no effect on anybody else - unless they pay attention to what you believe. Then you've got a tango. So applied to our sickly guru scenario, if the guru makes alignment the top priority instead of being of service, the guru returns to his natural selfishness and alignment. That could mean that the guru is inaccessible to disciples or withdraws attention from their neediness for some time until he is back in alignment. Which means this kind of spontaneous living is difficult to make work with fixed time tables, calendars and business plans, because there is no sense of greater responsibility. The selfish and spontaneous guru knows that we are all equal, that everyone is a Buddha in disguise and that no one actuality needs his help. And so a satsang canceled or a scheduled podcast missed is of no concern. There is no urge or need to justify or explain anything to anybody (see UG). But since the guru is mostly in alignment, the guru and the community both thrive. The responsible and commercial guru is different. He thinks that he has to be (unnaturally) unselfish and justify his existence by being of service to others and sacrifice his alignment for the sake of humanity, to do good deeds. So the guru will make an effort to be accessible to all people all the time, or at least to as many people as possible as often as possible. That's when it becomes a role, or a mission, or a business. Then a satsang canceled or a podcast missed becomes a problem. Things have to be rescheduled, explained and apologies made to the needy (see Adya's podcast). So what you then get is a guru and a community out of alignment. And that's the road to disaster, for both guru and disciples. Good points, but there is another possibility that I think applies to Adya, at least to some degree, and I already expressed it: the living truth demands expression. Further, a medium like this guy doesn't both come around and choose the life he did all that often. So there is this manifestation of passion. Now, I can see this sliding into the story of a heroic sacrifice, but that's just a secondary overlay. "The truth finds expression" is at ground level. "The truth demands expression" is one step up the tree. Passion is a swing on the vines, but hey, simian's gonna' simian. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 9:19:44 GMT -5
I don't think so. Firstly, if you don't know about alignment, then what Adya did (and before him Ramnana and Niz and many others) - stoically enduring physical pain - must seem like a heroic feat, it usually makes you look superhuman in the eyes of most seekers. But if you know about alignment, that attitude is just plain stupid. Sorry. Secondly, non-dual teachers like Waite who say that they just teach non-dual philosophy but lay no claim to enlightenment, are allowed to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma without looking phony. But teachers like Adya, Ramana, Niz etc. etc. don't say that. And so to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma has to look phony. Have you listened to the podcast? It's a very interesting talk. He tries really hard justifying what happened and what is happening to him. And the explanations he gives are hinting at the actual problem. Remember what Ramana said, that both the jnani and the ajnani say "I am the body". Somehow that didn't really get thru to Adya. His attitude toward pain gives it away. And if we wanted to be meanies, we could easily make the case for spiritual bypassing. Now, that doesn't change the fact that Adya was and still is one of the clearest voices in the western non-dual community. So the descriptive part of his message is fine. But when it comes to the prescriptive part of the message, there's obviously something not quite adding up. This is where an understanding of alignment would be helpful. So the question should be allowed to ask, if I, as a seeker, do what Adya suggests doing, will I have a similar fate? If your teaching makes you sick, then there's something wrong with your teaching. And if you have conquered existential suffering but are still physically suffering, then there is still something amiss. So, no. The message/messenger cop-out doesn't work here. You can't really separate the message from the messenger in non-duality, because this is about the living truth (aka truthin'), not some scholarly dogma (aka truth). ok. Spent the time to listen to the podcast, thanks for being the impetus for that. Making a hero story out of a health challenge is misguided, but said before on the topic of Ramana, that idea doesn't naturally occur to me. Simians gonna' simian, after all. As far as "walk/talk" with these guys, I'd say it depends on what they're offering (the specifics of the "talk") and what the "walk" issue is. As the topic is the existential truth, there's always a context mix involved, which is simply unavoidable, and not a problem if it's approached consciously. Either way it's a two sided coin, and the opinion on what it means introduces another dichotomy, so, three outcomes: as it's THIS "walking/talking" then the opinions don't matter. The message/messenger question is monkey mind, which isn't to dismiss it as inconsequential. From the individuated perspective the walk/talk issue is opined as either significant, or not (the other two outcomes). In terms of what I know of his pointing to the existential truth, I don't find a significant contradiction, and he explains that in the talk. He, Niz and Ramana are all quite consistent on the question, all giving the same answer worded slightly differently. He made a point of punctuating the end of what I take you to refer to as those explanations. The way he put it was "we look for reasons". So that's all relative. All conditional. Did his teaching cause his illness and pain? I can't say one way or the other, but even if it did, then as we're talking relative, conditional appearances, I'd say you have to evaluate this on a cost/benefit basis, and I'd opine that the value of his pointing was worth it. Which I'm pretty sure you can infer in what he said himself. That said, there is another aspect to this. He mentioned that many of his students are therapists. So in that regard, there might be a nontrivial contradiction, but in order to further opine I'd have to learn more about that aspect of his cultural influence. I'd agree that someone suffering from a health issue while offering health advice has the potential to have a significant walk/talk issue, but then again, the snowplower metaphor applies. Another version of that metaphor (there is one for every occupation): the customers of a family-run bakery can get high-quality fresh baked bread every morning. The children of bakers often live on stale bread as a consequence of the vocation of their parents. Just like the cobbler's kids never see new shoes. So even if the contradiction is significant, again, we're back to a cost/benefit analysis, albeit a far more nuanced and complicated one.
In general, I can agree with your cost/benefit point. I made a similar point in the past, that even the most self-deluded gurus have something to offer, even if it is just showing everyone how not to do it. So there's always a potential benefit no matter what happens. And maybe look at the message/messenger or walk/talk question in terms of branding. For someone like Waite who just writes scholarly books about Advaita, the brand is Advaita and he's just the delivery boy who hands you over the product. And you are only interest in the product, so the way Waite behaves and lives is of no relevance. But if you are a satsang teacher who teaches Advaita or non-duality like Adya, then you are the brand and the product and the messenger all in one. And then it does matter how you behave and live, because that is part of your message, whether you want it or not. Now, you mentioned the difference between Adya's descriptions and his prescriptions. Perhaps I haven't read or listened to enough of his material, but what would you say his prescriptions are? I've always found his pointing to be a sort of soothing, discursive sort of poetry of perspective. Seems to me his prescription is to "look, honestly, and gently, but unflinchingly", although never so direct, always layered and woven into that discursive poetic context. That's basically it, yes. And those are good tools for SVP related issues. But how did that work out for him re: his body-mind issues? Not at all. He's been in severe pain for the last 18 (!) years... And it took him that long to realize that this is probably not working. This is where inner guidance enters the picture. When you put your hand on a hot stove, you pull it back immediately, instinctively. It doesn't even require thinking. You don't just stand there and observe the pain. So if you only have one set of tools and apply them in a context where they don't belong, you are right there in brown bear territory... A: Here, hold that coffee cup for me, will you? B: Sure. Ouch! That's hot! Where can I put it down? A: Don't resist the pain. Just look at it. B: I'm hurting. Can I put it down, please? A: Stay with it, right there. And ask yourself, who is hurting? B: Dude! Get a grip! * drops hot coffee cup on the floor and looks for an ice pack * A: You flinched. * shakes head sadly * I found his take on pain at the beginning of the podcast quite telling. He said that (paraphrazing) if you are an athlete and want to amount to anything, at some point you have to do pain management, which he has obviously mastered and seems very proud of. And that was the first red flag for me in that podcast. It tells me that he has no clue about inner guidance and alignment. You see, from the alignment perspective, pain is an indicator, as is negative emotion, it's inner guidance. They indicate resistance, split energy. A severe physical illness is also just an indicator, an indicator of severe resistance. So negative emotion is neither good or bad, it is just a small warning light blinking. Pain is just a bigger warning light blinking. And a severe physical illness is an even bigger warning light blinking that is so big that it gets our attention because it has such a huge impact on your life that you can't ignore it anymore. The other small warning lights we usually are unaware of, ignore or 'manage' in some way. So basically, he's been in severe resistance for the past 18 years. All it takes is to acknowledge that and act accordingly. And when the residence is gone, the indicators will also disappear. So you don't need to manage your warning lights, you just have to understand what they mean and act accordingly. This is not rocket science. And it is also not a mystery or an exciting adventure as he likes to rationalize it. It's just an indicator, neither good nor bad. Point being, to master alignment you have to be in touch with your inner guidance. Looking at your warning lights is not going to make them go away. The warning lights will only get bigger. You have to know what these warning lights mean and then act accordingly. And we are all born knowing what these warning lights mean and what to do about it, instinctively. This is not something one has to learn. But it seems that after years of socialization and spiritual practice, most people are totally out of touch with their inner guidance and have to be taught it again. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 9:30:48 GMT -5
Here's how I see it. I've observed that with many teachers over the years. What it comes down to is what it means to return to the marketplace and remain free at the same time, i.e. not getting sucked into the matrix again, in the hustle and bustle of ordinary, everyday life. And I'd argue that can only be done successfully if you know about alignment. If you don't and just keep floating along, your engagement with the matrix will take its toll after a while. Yes, I can attest to this from direct experience. I don't know if you caught Adya's use of the word "challenge" in the podcast. Struck me as a funny sync. Apparently, lot of non-duality teachers face this problem. When they came down from their mountains, they are fresh and clear in their perspective. They have no following, no spiritual business to run and so there's minimum entanglement with the matrix. But then they become famous, attract a lot of attention, take on the role of teacher, take students and turn it into a business and slowly they get entangled in the matrix again, with occasional escapes (meditation retreats). This probably also happened to Adya. When you listen to his podcast, there's a "me and my mountains" theme at the end. And here is also the difference between Niz and Adya. Niz didn't turn his realization into a business like Adya, it remained a hobby. But they both met a lot of people, troubled people, needy people (rock bottom on the emotional scale). And if you are exposed to such people all day every day, it will eventually have an effect on you if you don't know about alignment. Especially when you are very sensitive and compassionate by nature. Now, what's interesting in the context of alignment and sickly gurus is that every baby and every toddler instinctively knows about alignment and what to do when they are out of alignment. But apparently, self-realized masters don't seem to know that. Weird! Yes, dealing with troubled folks just is what it is, as are the demands of running a business, and the teaching business has an inherent built-in walk/talk issue. As any self-respecting simian will point out, "why not just do it for free?". Also from experience, even just a brush with the existential truth has the potential to be transformative, but as one rock-'n-roll poet put it, "noone here. Gets. out alive". When someone dies people mourn, and they fixate on the negative experiences that often accumulate around the process of dying, forgetting about the life that was lived. Fixating on the health of old men just because of some profound shit they said along the way? Similar vines, similar branches. What, for free? I usually hear them politely ask for an appropriate 'energy exchange' (code for 'please send me money'). What a hoopla! |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 9:44:10 GMT -5
Well, you can replace SR with TR, if you like. It wouldn't make a difference. The point is this: the end of existential suffering doesn't automatically mean the end of physical suffering. I think Adya made that point himself in his books. Now, Adya knows the works of existential suffering. What he apparently doesn't know is the works of physical suffering. And so he approaches it with the tools he uses to cure existential suffering - and it gets all messed up (spiritual bypassing). Abe always say that there are two main indicators for your actual state of being, your mood or emotions and your experiences or manifestations. Now, you can lie to yourself and others about the first indicator. And most probably do, even great teachers. But the second indicator, you cannot mess around with. And so the second indicator works as a reality check. And a severe illness or severe pain does serve as a reality check, I'm sure most will agree. The question then is, what do you do about it? Do you ignore it (like Ramana), do you manage it (like Adya) or do you address it (as Inavalan suggested). And here, the challenge for ND folks is to resist the temptations of going into "I am not the body" self-hypnosis. Because that would be going back to a half-circle perspective. The full circle perspective is "I am the body". The "I am not the body" perspective is only an intermediary step. Now, I don't want this to be misunderstood, because what I am saying here may come across as sickly gurus are a problem. That's not what I am saying. Because from the larger perspective, in the same way that SR cannot be said to be the purpose of life, total health can't be it either. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with sickly gurus. What I am saying though is that there's something fundamentally wrong with the attitude that being able to tolerate severe pain or physical suffering is some kind of heroic act and the epitome of spiritual mastery, or the ticket to sainthood. That's absurd. The natural state is total well-being. It therefore takes no effort to be healthy or prosperous. Which means for these gurus to not be healthy and not prosper, they have to apply a lot of effort. And my guess is that these sickly gurus put a lot of effort into fulfilling their role of teacher. From the LOA perspective, i.e. birds of a feather flock together, if you are mostly in joy or bliss, as most of these teachers claim, you wouldn't have a natural inclination to interact with people who are in doubt or depression. It's a clash of perspectives and energies that are incompatible. However, in the name of service and doing good, many teachers seem to override their natural instincts in that regard. And the result is split energy, their inner guidance pulling them in one direction (naturally gravitating toward happy people) and their intellect or conscience into the opposite direction (these people need help, your help!). It's a common problem in psychological counselling. And it also applies to spiritual counselling. In that sense, a lot of spiritual teachers seem ill-equipped for their trade. And that's why we have sickly gurus. But there's a simple remedy - alignment. So, as usual, there's nothing serious going on here. What you say about alignment is certainly worth considering - again, from personal experience. I completely agree that the mindset that suffering is noble in this context is misguided. In terms of what comes and goes and changes and appears, and specifically with respect to the individual, there is this dichotomy: the conditioning of the body/mind, and the conditions that the body/mind is in at any given point in time. Some people's fine messes are finer than others (the conditions), and the progression of conditioning and conditions is at least partially a time-bound process of change. Evaluating the quality of the conditioning is thereby also a relative matter of degree, and potentially quite multi-faceted. Evaluating the quality of any given message by the quality of the conditioning of the messenger is like judging the quality of a steak by the quality of the packaging - there certainly can be a correlation, and vacuum packed is going to last longer, but you can vacuum pack a rotten steak as easily as a fresh one. And even the distinction between TR and SR is still a conceptual point. In the abstract, there's no denying the gateless gate, but abstractions are ever and always treacherous on this terrain. You also have to include the receiver. Even if the messenger is perfect and the message broadcasted flawlessly, if the listener is not perfectly tuned into your station, he may just get static noise on his end... |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 23, 2023 10:01:05 GMT -5
It's not about beliefs. It's about vibration. Beliefs don't even have to factor in here. And in relationships, it always takes two to tango, co-creation. You create your own reality and no one else. The same is true for everybody else. What you believe about anybody else has no effect on anybody else - unless they pay attention to what you believe. Then you've got a tango. So applied to our sickly guru scenario, if the guru makes alignment the top priority instead of being of service, the guru returns to his natural selfishness and alignment. That could mean that the guru is inaccessible to disciples or withdraws attention from their neediness for some time until he is back in alignment. Which means this kind of spontaneous living is difficult to make work with fixed time tables, calendars and business plans, because there is no sense of greater responsibility. The selfish and spontaneous guru knows that we are all equal, that everyone is a Buddha in disguise and that no one actuality needs his help. And so a satsang canceled or a scheduled podcast missed is of no concern. There is no urge or need to justify or explain anything to anybody (see UG). But since the guru is mostly in alignment, the guru and the community both thrive. The responsible and commercial guru is different. He thinks that he has to be (unnaturally) unselfish and justify his existence by being of service to others and sacrifice his alignment for the sake of humanity, to do good deeds. So the guru will make an effort to be accessible to all people all the time, or at least to as many people as possible as often as possible. That's when it becomes a role, or a mission, or a business. Then a satsang canceled or a podcast missed becomes a problem. Things have to be rescheduled, explained and apologies made to the needy (see Adya's podcast). So what you then get is a guru and a community out of alignment. And that's the road to disaster, for both guru and disciples. Good points, but there is another possibility that I think applies to Adya, at least to some degree, and I already expressed it: the living truth demands expression. Further, a medium like this guy doesn't both come around and choose the life he did all that often. So there is this manifestation of passion. Now, I can see this sliding into the story of a heroic sacrifice, but that's just a secondary overlay. "The truth finds expression" is at ground level. "The truth demands expression" is one step up the tree. Passion is a swing on the vines, but hey, simian's gonna' simian. Gotcha. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 24, 2023 13:04:18 GMT -5
Yes, I can attest to this from direct experience. I don't know if you caught Adya's use of the word "challenge" in the podcast. Struck me as a funny sync. Yes, dealing with troubled folks just is what it is, as are the demands of running a business, and the teaching business has an inherent built-in walk/talk issue. As any self-respecting simian will point out, "why not just do it for free?". Also from experience, even just a brush with the existential truth has the potential to be transformative, but as one rock-'n-roll poet put it, "noone here. Gets. out alive". When someone dies people mourn, and they fixate on the negative experiences that often accumulate around the process of dying, forgetting about the life that was lived. Fixating on the health of old men just because of some profound shit they said along the way? Similar vines, similar branches. What, for free? I usually hear them politely ask for an appropriate 'energy exchange' (code for 'please send me money'). What a hoopla! Some of the stuff that falls out of the branches and vines is worth considering. There's a flip side, of course: the issue of audience reach, and perceived value. Either side of the equation can be worth balancing with argument, depending on the situation.  |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 30, 2023 2:37:26 GMT -5
What, for free? I usually hear them politely ask for an appropriate 'energy exchange' (code for 'please send me money'). What a hoopla! Some of the stuff that falls out of the branches and vines is worth considering. There's a flip side, of course: the issue of audience reach, and perceived value. Either side of the equation can be worth balancing with argument, depending on the situation. |
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Similar vines, similar branches.