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My old friend, whom I’ve known since we went to school together at age seven and used to play in bands with for more than 10 years, wrote me a letter a while back. He was telling his views on finding oneself and on following spiritual authorities. I’ve wanted to write a blog about authorities and gurus for a while and this letter gave me some extra inspiration.

He started off by writing that he liked some of the poems on my blog but that the other entries he really didn’t have any interest in and couldn’t even finish reading them. He told how he had gone to this one yoga retreat where the instructor turned out to be some kind of a egotistic self-appointed guru and my friend was totally disgusted by the scene and he said that only made him take another step into “an opposite direction than where you’re going” and his intuition about all the secrets of life being inside us already, grew stronger (meaning that we don’t need an outside guide in order to find ourselves). He said that we can learn a lot from other people but when it comes down to it he can only follow his own compass, otherwise he will get lost.

In concluding, he said that there are many ways of finding yourself, not just by following others. For me it’s bhakti, for other people it’s other things.

Here’s my public reply.

Dear T

Thanks for writing me about this, I take it as an exercise in clarifying my thoughts on the subject of spiritual guidance and the question whether there are “better” or “worse” ways of self-realization, of learning to know yourself.

It stroke me that although we are apparently talking about the same thing, we are really not, because our background assumptions of what life and our identity is like, are so different. Maybe it’s true if you see yourself only as a circumstantial, psychological and physiological entity that only you can know yourself and that you can’t arrive at real self-knowledge and a satisfying life by following “others”.
But if you have lost your faith in the material sense of identity (as I have) and the world view that that perspective affords through the intellect, mind and senses, it’s practically insane to suggest that you can sort it all out and go above it without the guidance of a person who has gone through the same and has actually popped above illusion.

As you brought up in your description of the bogus-yoga teacher, sure, there are a lot of fake gurus whose motives are mixed with material aspirations, like recognition etc. California especially is like a mecca of all kinds of spiritual cheaters (reference: Share Guide). But who says your “inner compass” can’t lead you wrong? Actually, the way I see it is that the inner compass is going to lead you astray no matter what, because the whole material existence is that of illusion and ignorance. I strongly believe that the materially attached mind is a faulty means by its very nature to find any clarity. That’s why we suffer so much. You can become psychologically balanced in this life through self-searching, but from my point of view that’s not real self-knowing.

In your letter there was a strong sense that all the secrets of life are within us and that you don’t need  teachers to access them. But in my opinion that’s a faulty assumption. You seem to see a spiritual guide as some kind of an outside force, but  when I met my teacher, my feeling was that my heart had taken a human form. In other words, he embodies the kind of feeling and approach towards reality that I was desperately looking for. He had the same feeling when he met his teacher, and his teacher had the same feeling when he met his teacher.
I agree, all the secrets are within us, but if you think you can understand them on your own, I think you fail to understand clearly how utterly in illusion and enslaved by our false identity we are in our present state.
I’ve had this intuition for a long time that the nature of reality is ultimately trans-rational , so no matter how much you think about it and demand intellectual autonomy, you’ll really go nowhere in practically realizing who you are. And this is why I disagree with your opinion that there are different ways of arriving at self-knowing. My conviction is that you have to have a transcendental means to arrive at self-knowing, because the self is spiritual. You can’t eat soup with a fork.

It’s true though, that not everybody needs a guru. If you have faith in life as we know it and in your own power to make your life permanently happy, it’s not a good idea to seek spiritual guidance. I don’t want to hit people on the head with my convictions and try to convince them to act against their beliefs. What I’ve written is my personal conviction and it has given me so unbelievably much in my life, that I can’t just agree with everybody.

What do you say if we talk about this again in, say, 35 years and compare our notes and see what we’ve learned? Don’t erase my email from your address book.

Yours truly,
Gurunistha

Someone wrote me the following message a while ago:

“I read all your page,very fascinating.
I like how you state why you have this myspace page.
I often wondered why Hare krishna people have myspaces when would’nt the internet and myspace be something material just like I wonder why some Hare Krishna Woman dress their kids in Burberry and Benetton,makes little sense to me but your page is nice and makes sense : )”

It made me think about idealism and hypocrisy. (it also made me think that I’m not a Hare Krishna, but that’ll be another blog)
They really go hand in hand. If you don’t have ideals, it’s very hard to be a hypocrite. You just enjoy your beer and the Super bowl on your widescreen, you totally practice what you preach: lighten up, enjoy life, follow your instincts.

But the higher your idealism goes, the greater the possibility and temptation for hypocrisy. We are human. We screw up and are weak by constitution. Idealism in one sense means going against your nature in order to change it, to attain something more valuable, to replace the old nature. Idealism is a declaration of war and the opposing army won’t shoot blanks. It’ so hard to change your nature, no matter how it would make sense to move on. Those damn old habits. . .

Gaudiya Vaishnavism is idealism to the extreme, at least from a worldly perspective. If you are a vegan, a neo-nazi or a eco-activist, the idealism only deals with a part of your being, but Gaudiya Vaishnavism, when taken to its essence, is a total shift of perception and attitude on all levels. We want to completely undermine and blow to pieces the foundation that our lives are now based on. We want to become completely free from the exploiting tendency that almost all human activities are motivated by, and become lovers in the real sense, lovers of reality. There’s nothing that would be more radical or revolutionary. This really is the real revolution, the never ending guerilla war in the heartland. And it’s so easy to be a hypocrite. I admit, every day I fall short. If not in my actions, then in my thoughts or in my focus.

How can anybody bear feeling inadequate every day? Doesn’t it smash your self-esteem and make you another one of those traumatized victims of religion?  This is where a double-standard has to step in. We understand the extremely elevated goal of our path and feel drawn to it, but if we are honest we know we are light years away from it. It’s a very high and rare thing to be a real Gaudiya, but instead of beating ourselves on the head about not being able to come up to snuff, we will just keep the goal always in focus and go from where we are now. What else could we do? Nonetheless, my opinion is that just to have this as your ideal, no matter how short you fall, is way more valuable than being honest and in ignorance. It’s so hard to be a true Gaudiya, but why not try? Even failing on this path is glorious!

So if you see Gaudiyas who don’t fully walk their talk (and there are many), please give us a break. We are practically shooting for the impossible, but we just can’t be satisfied with anything else either.