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Post by seth60 on Dec 24, 2014 11:47:25 GMT -5
A website for rating spiritual teachers is a very curious & questionable endeavor. The home page states that this site functions as a "timesaving guide" for finding a spiritual teacher, but those who know, know you cannot find your teacher, your teacher finds you, when you're ready. And there's no time to be saved or any way you can accelerate the finding of your ultimate teacher, because the moment you meet your true teacher, the one who is, without question, going take you from being a "seeker" to Fully Awakened Awareness, doesn't take place in time.
I'm not at all "infuriated" by Shawn's ratings, nor do I feel he's in no position to judge, doing harm to seekers, or hasn't studied any particular teacher long enough. Instead I'm left wondering why he's constructing this site. He may "think" he's offering some kind of valuable service or timesaving guide to seekers, but I'm left wondering if he's not simply spinning his mental wheels and forming another construct with which his ego can distract him.
On your Richard Rose page, Shawn, you mention that you were "drawn to this abyss and scared to death of it..." but "I never made the leap." I suggest you make it, then come back and, with the Awakened Eye, see if your site really helps anyone or yourself, or whether it's actually serving as a distraction from you finally ceasing your twenty years becoming a seeker and finder, and actually Being the Found. It is with total respect. love and compassion that I say, I really want you to reach your Goal, and that is why I'm writing this.
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Post by laughter on Dec 24, 2014 12:29:27 GMT -5
A website for rating spiritual teachers is a very curious & questionable endeavor. The home page states that this site functions as a "timesaving guide" for finding a spiritual teacher, but those who know, know you cannot find your teacher, your teacher finds you, when you're ready. And there's no time to be saved or any way you can accelerate the finding of your ultimate teacher, because the moment you meet your true teacher, the one who is, without question, going take you from being a "seeker" to Fully Awakened Awareness, doesn't take place in time. I'm not at all "infuriated" by Shawn's ratings, nor do I feel he's in no position to judge, doing harm to seekers, or hasn't studied any particular teacher long enough. Instead I'm left wondering why he's constructing this site. He may "think" he's offering some kind of valuable service or timesaving guide to seekers, but I'm left wondering if he's not simply spinning his mental wheels and forming another construct with which his ego can distract him. On your Richard Rose page, Shawn, you mention that you were "drawn to this abyss and scared to death of it..." but "I never made the leap." I suggest you make it, then come back and, with the Awakened Eye, see if your site really helps anyone or yourself, or whether it's actually serving as a distraction from you finally ceasing your twenty years becoming a seeker and finder, and actually Being the Found. It is with total respect. love and compassion that I say, I really want you to reach your Goal, and that is why I'm writing this. "Your teacher finds you when you are ready" can be questioned. Are you sure that everyone is going to need a teacher? ... but more relevant, when is someone ready? As a practical matter, I found the brief descriptions of Maharshi and Nisargadatta in one place to be useful when I hit the internet out of curiosity and encountered quotes from people on internet forums. These two guys and the other personalities reviewed aren't really all that well known in terms of name recognition on a popular scale. Not everyone with an interest in the underlying material is going to have heard of them at the peak of a sudden interest in self inquiry and reflective exploration. |
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Post by seth60 on Dec 24, 2014 13:07:43 GMT -5
"Your teacher finds you when you are ready" can be questioned. Are you sure that everyone is going to need a teacher? ... but more relevant, when is someone ready? The only teacher is Awareness. A human teacher is simply someone who has fully dissolved his/her ego in the Infinite, and is thus reflecting pure Awareness to any student, from their "non-self." Some seekers will encounter Awareness, and the guidance they need to surrender to that Awareness, through a human teacher. Others will encounter it directly without need of a human teacher. So every seeker needs the Teacher, which is Awareness, or Silence, but not necessarily in human form. Curiously, if you ask those who Awakened without a specific human guru, usually they will still say they had a Teacher. If you found Shawn's site or any other Internet sites practical for finding useful information about various teachers in one place, I'm glad. But your last line is spoken from the ego's or "seekers" vantage point, not from Truth. Yes, everyone with an interest in self-inquiry and reflective exploration will find everything they need, including a teacher if necessary, at precisely the moment they need to, whether or not the Internet or sites like Shawn's exist. Because it's not you who's doing the seeking, Awareness is seeking you.But mostly I wrote that for Shawn, because I could feel an awareness where his erecting & monitoring this site might actually be a hinderance to his path, rather than a help, and I want all Beings to experience the Full Awakening at the end of their path, not just "seek" on it...if that's what Shawn really wants. |
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Post by laughter on Dec 24, 2014 14:57:32 GMT -5
"Your teacher finds you when you are ready" can be questioned. Are you sure that everyone is going to need a teacher? ... but more relevant, when is someone ready? The only teacher is Awareness. A human teacher is simply someone who has fully dissolved his/her ego in the Infinite, and is thus reflecting pure Awareness to any student, from their "non-self." Some seekers will encounter Awareness, and the guidance they need to surrender to that Awareness, through a human teacher. Others will encounter it directly without need of a human teacher. So every seeker needs the Teacher, which is Awareness, or Silence, but not necessarily in human form. Curiously, if you ask those who Awakened without a specific human guru, usually they will still say they had a Teacher. Sure, this is rather heavy in reliance on the monism of Awareness but I think I catch your drift. The question "when is someone ready?" obviously doesn't have an answer satisfactory to the intellect. In my experience, there's an answer that feels right, but it's nonconceptual. If you found Shawn's site or any other Internet sites practical for finding useful information about various teachers in one place, I'm glad. But your last line is spoken from the ego's or "seekers" vantage point, not from Truth. Sorry, it's not clear to me, the last line of which paragraph? I think (based on the rest of what you've written), you're referring to the 2nd .... Yes, everyone with an interest in self-inquiry and reflective exploration will find everything they need, including a teacher if necessary, at precisely the moment they need to, whether or not the Internet or sites like Shawn's exist. Because it's not you who's doing the seeking, Awareness is seeking you. Yes, I don't disagree, although, does "Awareness" seek? Are you certain of this? But mostly I wrote that for Shawn, because I could feel an awareness where his erecting & monitoring this site might actually be a hinderance to his path, rather than a help, and I want all Beings to experience the Full Awakening at the end of their path, not just "seek" on it...if that's what Shawn really wants. Of course that idea about how finding the resources at a particular point in time relative to events was written from the perspective of a seeker. The aphorism that comes to mind is "God helps those who help themselves", or the story of the guy who prays for God to save him in the ocean and then complains to the guy who hauls him up on deck that God didn't answer his prayer. Regardless of our opinions of Shawn's level of awareness when he put up the ratings site or any other time, how can either of us tell whether or not the content isn't a particular example of one "finding everything they need at precisely the moment they need to"? It seems to me that it has to be exactly that. |
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Post by seth60 on Dec 24, 2014 16:19:30 GMT -5
The question "when is someone ready?" obviously doesn't have an answer satisfactory to the intellect. In my experience, there's an answer that feels right, but it's nonconceptual. Our egos, or intellects as you call them, can never know "when we're ready." The part of us that is Pure Awareness always knows, or more precisely, never asks the question, because there's no time there, hence, no "when" to be ready. Yes, I don't disagree, although, does "Awareness" seek? Are you certain of this? No, Awareness doesn't seek anything...it's just a metaphor to help us drop the "seeker." In our striving & searching (sometimes desperately) for the "right" teacher, the right answers or step-by-step practices that will make us Enlightened, it can be helpful to remember that it's not us striving & seeking to reach Awareness, but that Awareness is experiencing everything through us, even our search for Enlightenment, and as such, "when" we will experience That is determined by It's agenda, not ours. So, poetically, we can say Awareness "calls us home," when It's ready. Yes, we can "help ourselves," but where is the desire to accelerate our Awakening originating from. Certainly not from our ego suddenly deciding that getting Enlightened would be a good idea, and "God helps those who help themselves, so I better get to work." Who is having this desire? To Awaken, to search the Internet for wisdom & guidance, to rate various teachers? Answering that question is what's all-important, and makes trivialities out of surfing the Web for wisdom or deciding which teacher seems the best for us. Regardless of our opinions of Shawn's level of awareness when he put up the ratings site or any other time, how can either of us tell whether or not the content isn't a particular example of one "finding everything they need at precisely the moment they need to"? It seems to me that it has to be exactly that. It is exactly that. So is him reading/heeding my post, that asks whether it would be wise to Awaken first, then see if his site is still relevant for him or others. If he reads it & heeds it. We don't know, he hasn't weighed in yet  |
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Post by laughter on Dec 25, 2014 13:17:52 GMT -5
The question "when is someone ready?" obviously doesn't have an answer satisfactory to the intellect. In my experience, there's an answer that feels right, but it's nonconceptual. Our egos, or intellects as you call them, can never know "when we're ready." The part of us that is Pure Awareness always knows, or more precisely, never asks the question, because there's no time there, hence, no "when" to be ready. That's one answer of course but that fragments the idea of readiness into readiness, willingness and ability, as it would imply that everyone's always ready and that whatever is in front of them in the present moment is exactly the teacher they need. Is intellect the same as ego? For example, is a mugger in an alley involved in ego? In intellect? When you write your replies, are thoughts involved? Is logic? So only a part of us is "Awareness"? Yes, I don't disagree, although, does "Awareness" seek? Are you certain of this? No, Awareness doesn't seek anything...it's just a metaphor to help us drop the "seeker." In our striving & searching (sometimes desperately) for the "right" teacher, the right answers or step-by-step practices that will make us Enlightened, it can be helpful to remember that it's not us striving & seeking to reach Awareness, but that Awareness is experiencing everything through us, even our search for Enlightenment, and as such, "when" we will experience That is determined by It's agenda, not ours. So, poetically, we can say Awareness "calls us home," when It's ready. This metaphor is clear and I don't disagree but is "enlightenment" an experience and where is "Awareness" not at home? Yes, we can "help ourselves," but where is the desire to accelerate our Awakening originating from. Certainly not from our ego suddenly deciding that getting Enlightened would be a good idea, and "God helps those who help themselves, so I better get to work." Who is having this desire? To Awaken, to search the Internet for wisdom & guidance, to rate various teachers? Answering that question is what's all-important, and makes trivialities out of surfing the Web for wisdom or deciding which teacher seems the best for us. Yes, I agree wholly and unequivocally. ... obviously your questions are self-inquiry, and I think you know that. |
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Post by seth60 on Dec 25, 2014 19:35:44 GMT -5
Our egos, or intellects as you call them, can never know "when we're ready." The part of us that is Pure Awareness always knows, or more precisely, never asks the question, because there's no time there, hence, no "when" to be ready. That's one answer of course but that fragments the idea of readiness into readiness, willingness and ability, as it would imply that everyone's always ready and that whatever is in front of them in the present moment is exactly the teacher they need. Is intellect the same as ego? For example, is a mugger in an alley involved in ego? In intellect? When you write your replies, are thoughts involved? Is logic? So only a part of us is "Awareness"? No, Awareness doesn't seek anything...it's just a metaphor to help us drop the "seeker." In our striving & searching (sometimes desperately) for the "right" teacher, the right answers or step-by-step practices that will make us Enlightened, it can be helpful to remember that it's not us striving & seeking to reach Awareness, but that Awareness is experiencing everything through us, even our search for Enlightenment, and as such, "when" we will experience That is determined by It's agenda, not ours. So, poetically, we can say Awareness "calls us home," when It's ready. This metaphor is clear and I don't disagree but is "enlightenment" an experience and where is "Awareness" not at home? |
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Post by laughter on Dec 25, 2014 21:18:35 GMT -5
That's one answer of course but that fragments the idea of readiness into readiness, willingness and ability, as it would imply that everyone's always ready and that whatever is in front of them in the present moment is exactly the teacher they need. Is intellect the same as ego? For example, is a mugger in an alley involved in ego? In intellect? When you write your replies, are thoughts involved? Is logic? So only a part of us is "Awareness"? This metaphor is clear and I don't disagree but is "enlightenment" an experience and where is "Awareness" not at home?  yes, thank you, that answer I also understand wholly and unequivocally. |
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yes, thank you, that answer I also understand wholly and unequivocally.