the Guru principle: Risks
and Rewards
Risks
The risks of entering the guru/disciple relationship with a spiritual
Master are often overplayed in the West, while the rewards are largely
unknown. The increased emphasis on individualism in the West since the
17th century makes the relationship more difficult, but we also find a
greater naiveté about the potential rewards than in the East. The
apocalyptic nature of the Judaeo-Christian tradition seems to be deep
in the Western psyche, and the phenomenon of cult suicide seems pretty
much restricted to this tradition. The risks then seem tremendous : that
we can not only lose our individuality, but all sense of proportion, leading
to the point where we could even lose our lives.
'The risks of involvement with
a Guru seem obvious, while the rewards seem obscure. This perspective
is partly due to the apocalyptic religious instincts of the West,
which have led to so many tragedies. It is time to see apocalyptic
messages for what they are : immature fantasy'
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Rewards
But what about the rewards?
The benefits and purpose of involvement with a living Master can be summed
up in a single Hindu word : darshan. It means simply to be in the
presence of the Master. The actual form that darshan can take is varied,
in that it may or may not involve ritual or ceremonial, and it may involve
the Master speaking or being in silence. What is required from the aspirant
is some intuition that the Master's state of being is in itself significant,
regardless of what they say or do. The Master lives from a space that
is available to everyone, but very few ever find it, hence the mere presence
of the Master acts as a continuous reminder of what is possible. The Master
embodies wholeness, a state of being where the divisive nature of the
mind and the resulting anguish has been transcended.
The Right Master
The rewards of being with a Master cannot be overstated, even if it is
for a short piece of time. It is the single greatest piece of good luck
in one's life. The risk then lies not with the Master-disciple relationship
itself, but with false Masters. The sobering truth however is that the
aspirant is always drawn to the teacher that best reflects his or her
existing ideas, which by definition, because the individual is an aspirant,
are mainly muddle-headed. However in the West, because of our shared intellectual
heritage, one can make some generalisations about the most likely kind
of false Master that will attract aspirants. This type of Master will
inevitably have an apocalyptic kind of teaching, involving a coming disaster
which only they have predicted, and which only they can help one survive.
Avoid them like the plague.
The Dancing Analogy
If we were to draw an analogy with dancing, then one could imagine the
strange situation of individuals or even a whole society which had never
danced, although they had read about it as a cultural activity from history
books. To then see a dancer would be a revelation, but most would deny
the phenomenon; alternatively the credulous would assign 'dancing' to
all kinds of fake systems of movement. For a few individuals however,
in the company of a real dancer, there would arise in them a sympathetic
movement, a resonance with the dance teacher. No words could cause this
sympathetic resonance, though they could then help to explain the details
or externals of the dance. The sympathetic resonance that can take place
between an aspirant and the spiritual Master is a little like this, but
a whole order of magnitude more difficult, because there is no
external activity in the Master analogous with dancing. The metaphor is
still useful however, because the nature of the transcendent spiritual
experience has some similarities with dance: it is creative, fulfilling,
yet sufficient in itself (anyone who likes to dance will know that the
hours spent in the club or dance floor are not to be seen in terms of
other social purposes, though these might also exist, but simply as something
sufficient in itself). There was of course in recent history a great jnani
Master who also happened to be a dancing teacher: G.I.Gurdjieff (more
of whom later). Gurdjieff also happens to be one of the spiritual teachers
often cited amongst those considered suspect, and his case will help us
to explore some of the risk/reward issues.
(continue)
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