RESPONSE TO RICK TATE'S CRITICISM THAT MY TRUTH TELLING IS EGO-DRIVEN

Rick, if I were concerned about what people think and gathering students, I would speak as all other FB teachers speak, in the least offensive way possible, idolizing dead gurus such as Ramana, Osho, or Muktananda.

But I don't, because I am just interested in changing the incredible mess that mainstream spirituality is in the West, into something that gives the seeker a higher degree of clarity about spiritual issues and truth.

There is no clarity now in spirituality because of an abandonment of common sense, clear thinking, and an audience that has actually practiced spiritual disciplines under various teachers long enough to be "seasoned."

I have no interest in gathering followers other than setting them straight regarding spiritual matters such as Self-Realization, emptiness, Advaita teachings versus neo-advaita sillyness, etc.

I don't need students to support me. I make my living editing psychiatric reports. My only interest is to get people to avoid the errors I made over 62 years of seeking, from age 11 when I first read "In Woods of God Realization," and getting into Buddhism at age 14 after my father died and I read evans-Wentz's book, "Tibetan Book of the Dead."

In 1999 I was made the First American World Teacher of Chogye Zen Buddhism by the Korean Chogye Zen school that has several thousand temples and monasteries in Korea, and is also the school of Sueng Sahn Soen Sa--one ofmy teachers.

There is no one better qualified than I to tell the truth about spirituality in all its forms. I am not interested in getting money from studnets, all my writings and books are free, I charged nothing for Satsang for the three years I was doing it online.

I only want people to be able to see the truth rather than seeing only their idealizations of dead gurus, following dead gurus, and avaoid the live gurus who are mostly full of shit or else suffering from mental illness, Da Free Joh.n, Osho, Muktananda, Chidvilasananda.

There are really good teachers alive and well now who do not challenge the nonsense, just because they think it impossible. Even my teacher, Robert Adams, said he had to be very careful about what he taught and said out of fear that he was stepping outside of spiritual policial correctness. He often told me he feared being destroyed by reactions to truth, such as that Consciousness itself was an illusion because it was temporary.

I guess I do have a silent wish that 100 years I will have been recognized as someone who helped seekers cut through the mystical bullshit that surrounds Ramanaand neo-Advaita, and help put spirituality onto a commonsense, rational, yet deep exploration of the Manifest Self--that Self that all can attain realization of through loving self-inquiry and self-acceptance of everything that arises in their own subjectivity, especially of the "I-sensation," which is the pulse of the divine lifeforce that exists in all sentient beings, but which they donot recognize because they look outwards, from birds and insects, to wolves and sheep, to 95% of the human race.

But the barriers to finding truth within is the immense amount of written and spoken idealization of dead gurus rather than an ability to depend on one's one's own truth. This is where I direct students: to look within, not look to Tolle, Ramana, Jeff Foster, Osho, etc. Become a lamp onto yourself instead of attacking those who show you the clay feet of past masters caught in 2,000 years of primitive culture that did not recognize the truth of a divine Self, Atman, and how that is actually experienced.