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
Word!
haha I saw your title and I was like, how does he know Uri Geller has a tv show in Holland to find the “new Uri Geller”.
I got a reply from my old friend:
I’m the guy Tume replied to here and I wanted to write a few lines to comment back (oh, and I don’t mean to provoke when I use your “old” name, that’s just the only name I know you with, haha.).
Hi,
thanks for your reply. I agree that our background assumptions of what life is like are so different that it feels as if we aren’t really talking about the same thing. However, I do find discussing these issues interesting, to some extent. I don’t think it can do any harm trying to understand other people’s views on things, no matter how far they are from my own ideas. Actually, when I first wrote to you I knew that my views must sound really naiive and somehow superficial to you.
You talked about how “inner compass” will lead us astray no matter what. I think it can’t lead us astray as long as we’re able to follow the real signals coming from inside. I strongly agree with you that all the crap that is forced to our head througout our lives determines our lifes so deeply that following your own compass is not an easy thing to do. In my view, “the real self” is - for many of us - buried under all this nonsense so we THINK that we are following our hearts while we are actually just carrying out what other people think we should do with our lives. This makes us suffer and suffering is important because it gives us a warning signal. Suffering is meant to shake us enough to make us realise that we are off the course and it’s time to start doing something about it. So, when we manage to see through all the layers of dirt that has been piled on us since the day we were born, it is possible to be ourselves again and trust our hearts without all the contradiction. This is what I mean when I talk about following the voice that comes from within. I have met some people who live like this and it’s very inspiring.
What I haven’t seen, on the other hand, is a person who is “enlightened” in the way that all these books describe it. And this is what really struck me at the yoga retreat that I told you about. I saw tens of people whose only concern in life was whether doing/eating/saying this or that is helping or preventing them on their way to enlightment. Most of them had quit work to be able to “get there” faster. I was scared when I looked at these people’s eyes, they were on the edge, ready to slip to some mental state that I really doubt has anything to do with enlightenment. I couldn’t resist to ask my roommates there if they actually had ever seen anyone who is enlightened. They wondered for a moment and the reply was “that’s an interesting question, we need to ask our guru”. That’s when I decided to leave the damn place.
I’ll have to take a few words back, though. I DO think that there is a need for outside guides as well. I know a few people who I consider my “teachers” and from whom I’ve gotten a lot of insight. In these people I see a lot of light and wisdom which they have reached through living their own lives and facing their suffering. But no matter how much I trust and admire these people, I’d never consider calling them my gurus. They are “just” people with a great gift of helping other people (and I’m not talking about clairvoyants or such here).
I don’t want to tell anyone how they should live their lives. If people are happy with the direction they’re heading to, then they must be doing the right thing for themselves. This includes you, my old friend. So there’s no need to erase any addresses from the address book. Instead, I’ll underline your address and we’ll talk about this again in years and see where we’re at then.
All the best,
T