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The other day when we were working on the deck of the temple an old guy approached us. We live far off from people so it’s a rare thing to have unsuspected visitors. This old, Marx-without-beard looking gentleman turned out to be our neighbor. He was trying to find trails to walk on and didn’t realize we were the last property on the road. After explaining how he actually hated exercising and how he had to do it because of his condition, it wasn’t hard to gather that he was an artist of sorts. He built a seamless bridge from the futility of outing into Hegel’s philosophy and the scene for the Ventings of a Nutty Bohemian was set.
By quoting Hegel, he actually wanted to say to us that we can’t achieve what our Guru has achieved just by “hanging out” with him, as he put it. “Just like a student will never become a Ph.D by just hanging out with the professors. Hegel talks about Self Consciousness. You have to attain Achievement alone, no one can do it for you. Achievement is not and easy thing. It’s NOT an easy thing.”
Gaurasundara chimed in and said that isn’t it exactly how students become Ph.D’s that they spend time with their professors and learn from them and finally become Ph.D’s themselves but the neighbor didn’t have an ear for this, “No, no, no, there is always a distance there!”
The sun was shining and the air was light, and I kept thinking what a bizarre moment it was.
After laying his whole life’s philosophy on us he suddenly said, “it was a delight talking to you”, shook my hand and walked away.

It was an interesting encounter and made me think of his view of us. Bands have groupies who don’t normally have talent themselves so they leach off some juice from being around rockstars and wish that some of that glamour and adoration would miraculously rub off on them. They want to cheat the system and get the result without going through the trouble of endless technique practices, band fights, money lost on equipment, tinnitus and so on. Our neighbor thinks we’re Guru groupies. We just ‘hang out” in the woods with our teacher and try to make him do the work for us. A shortcut to salvation.
It is true that in one sense we are helpless and hopeless. Only by mercy can we breakout from under the covers of ignorance that makes us identify with a reality that doesn’t correspond with our true nature. But according to our understanding the spiritual practices, the sadhana, is mercy. It’s not a right but a gift, and it’s up to us how well we put it into use. So in one sense we agree: no one but yourself can do it for you. But we are not isolated entities. Everything has an impact on us, that’s what we are: a product of our surroundings. Since reincarnation is not a part of Hegel’s philosophy, for him achievement happens (if it happens at all) only in one life, but for us it’s a long, long process and keeping a certain company itself calls for a certain prerequisite of tendencies that were created long before our present form of life. Most of the western thought can’t relate to this because life is seen only as this one phase of moments between birth and death, but for us one life is just a still picture in a 38-frames-per-second motion picture.

Anyways, now I started rambling like the old man but one thing I know: fresh air is good for you when you get too wrapped up in your little kingdom of intellect.