In my inbox this morning:
Nice to meet you. I have been reading your book: Strippin the Gurus and i hava found it really brave and interesting. But in the other hand i see lots of generalizations which dont bring exactly hard fundaments to many of your conclusions. Even i can notice that that book has been writen from a space of wound and you can tell about that in this words from you:
“One would further hope that the best of our world’s sages would be able to distinguish between valid mystical perceptions and mere hallucinations, and that the miracles and healings which they have claimed to have effected have all actually occurred.
Sadly, none of those hopes stand up to even the most basic ra-tional scrutiny.”
That’s just competent rational skepticism; it has nothing to do with hurt, anger, or any other emotions.
This paragraf resumes many of the ideas that are under your words. I agree with you in exposing what is “behind” scenes, that means: expose the humanity and common mistakes any human being is capable of commit.
But he thinks that the miracles and catatonic samadhi are still real, and that therefore my denying of that “reality” must be a problem with me.
Other thing that calls my atention is at the end of your book when you recommend to do a deep scanning to any new church or spiritual group which is not traditional before even thinking on joining. That makes me wonder that such deep scanning is necesary also for the people who is ALREADY in traditiongal religions.
Yes, of course it is, as the chapter on the Catholic Church would indicate.
I agree with you in protecting our friends and family from any cult or sect, but what i also can perceive is that now we are seeing the birth of a new cult: the anti-cult cult, or also called: everything which is not the traditional is a cult.
But so are traditional organizations like the Catholic Church … not to mention the “Chosen People.” Any “one true religion” is just an overgrown cult, okay?
I am not saying you are thinking like that, but i see that some of your ideas tend to put everything in the same box and that my friend i will not agree. I have met many people as you have described in your book, but thankfully i have met also people who is really honest and transparent, but still having all our human weakeneses embedded (and i am talking about leaders and about followers)
I was not trained for following “leaders” or “gurus”. My friend, while we are here, darkness and light will share spaces and places, that will not save us from leading with all kind of people. Even the most “enlightened” person still has a percentage of risk of falling in to any conduct seen as “inmoral” or “ilegal”, the difference is that as a leader or as a teacher you have more responsability because you have to be the example for other truth seekers.
I have seen two arquetypes on this: the victim and the abuser. Both arquetipes are manifested in abused students and a leader who abuses his power and money. Still i will invite you to review your belief sistem very deeply and to be honest about the way you GENERALICE and rests clearity to the original teachings that are being taught in the whole world.
The teachings as they are have nothing to do with the way people uses them, example: pedophilia is not in the Bible, treating women as objects is not in the Coran, fucking all students is not writen in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras etc etc.
Incest in the Bible: Lot and his daughters (and implicitly, Adam and Eve and/or their children). Pedophilia in the Koran: Mohammed (role model, he of the “perfect life”) and his 9-year-old wife, Aisha. Treating women as objects, whose place is in the kitchen, standing meekly behind their husbands, with their heads covered in church: all over the Bible. Remember: I grew up in a Mennonite community, and have heard those very same verses quoted by the ministers at weddings.
That’s where “original teachings” will get you, if you actually bother to read them.
Plus, even gurus and priests who aren’t abusing their followers still can’t distinguish between hallucinations and “real” mystical experiences, nor are they able to perform the miracles or healings they claim to perform. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand gurus abuse their followers, emotionally and/or sexually, and are wildly self-deluded about their own spiritual attainments and powers; the other one out of a thousand is merely wildly self-deluded about his own spiritual attainment and powers. Follow that latter “rare sage” if you wish … but he can’t lead you to where you want to go. And even if you were to get there, with a guru’s help or without, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between hallucinations and “real” spiritual experiences. And most probably, there is no difference, i.e., none of it is ontologically real.
But at the end i will say thanks for sharing your big analisys around spiritual groups. Just remember this new movement is kind of young …
No, it’s as old as (shamanic) religion itself. Or do you think that shamans never brought back information from the spirit-world which “just happened” to benefit themselves, and disadvantage their adversaries in the tribe?
… and the shakes are natural, and the craks are part of the aquantance of “new” information put inside a vessel filled with the old information. We are still learning but being aware about the power structure in all human organizations will be always a healthy choice.
Thanks so much for sharing your books.
HAve a nice week
namasté
I really wish people would stop trying to “help” me like this. Because even when it’s done with all possible politeness, it’s still so far off the mark that it does more to erode my little remaining faith in humanity than to restore it.
[...] was minded this morning of the unsolicited “lesson” I received in my inbox several days ago: The teachings as they are have nothing to do with [...]