NO RECIPIES FOF REALIZATION
Make Your Own Stew!
One of the things I use this site for is to help my readers to question the value of the guru, and to ask strong questions of any spiritual teacher that you may be associating with. What are they in this game for? What do they want from you? What can you really get from them? On my links page is one to spiritualteachers.org where you can find a quiz that can be taken
But this little post is about something else. Following a teacher who is not even alive.
Any teaching from anyone who is dead is suspect. All you have are some words, supposedly said or written by him, but you can’t call the dead guy up on the phone and say, “hey this book says you said this, did you say it.?” At least from someone alive you can get an answer. And you can ask directly what that means. Maybe it is of use or not, but at least there can be no misunderstandings. The writings can be verified directly.
A big problem with any religion, is that the supposed founder- their great saviour- is dead. You can’t check for sure what they meant, what they said, or know for sure if the dead guy really existed, or if the story is just that, a story. Thus you are left with some words that may have come from the dead guy, or may be originally from the dead guy, but altered by future guys who changed things. Or there may not even be a dead guy, just a fictional charactor used to explain a very deep symbolic understanding of something- the most likely case, but again, no one can really be sure.
Worse is when followers take over the teaching. That is guaranteed to become a mess. The followers now preach what they think the dead guy meant, but with him not around anymore- no one can check. This is how the neo-Advaita satsang mess came about in the West. But people wanting to believe so bad just assume, well he knew the dead guy so he must know what the dead guy meant. I hope you see the great danger trap in this. Following the words and ideas of anyone not present to ask directly. That includes dead guys, or any gurus who do not give you their phone numbers, email addresses, or home addresses. Gurus look good at the workshop when you give them $1000, but what is their home like, how do they treat their kids and pets. Why can’t you ask them personal questions when you need to- or only when you are paying $1000? See the similar trap! It's another reason why I liked Richard Rose when i read about him, or some of the teachers I was lucky enough to find- their basic premise was "my home is your home, but if you are going to be in my home, yuo better be working on realizing Self and not screwing around.
Once someone dies who may in some way be thought of as a spiritual teacher, the followers- ALL OF THE FOLLOWERS- should disband and begin their own things without reliance on the old teacher. Make them a bridge to something new, but let the dead guy go- otherwise there is still dependency, still a need for someone other than you. The dead guys’ books can’t even live on, because the only one who could honestly translate them is gone. Everyone else is just giving their opinion of the dead guy’s book. This destroys all religion right there. No religion has alive guys, but dead guys and a bunch of followers telling us what they meant. Trap, Trap, Trap. The only use of those text is to see what all the dead guys had in common, not pick one and follow what they did. They are not you! There are no recipes in a cookbook for realization- look for good dishes and see what ingredients are common- then make your own stew.
No anyone who made it knows they can not really help anyone, that there is no method…i.e. one program suits all. In fact one program can only suit one, the one person it is right for. All anyone can do is simply be there as a reminder of what reaching the absolute is, a pointer. To offer reminders from their journey, perhaps show another ego layer not yet seen to be dropped- or some past event still held onto. And then wish you well. There is no program, method, or teaching that is universal.
Only a dead person really knows that!