Serial Monogamy

One should never be with more than one guru or one lover at a time.  With one guru, one set of methods, one set of teachings, you can go deeply into yourself.  If you have several gurus as I did in the 1970s, you will go nowhere.  It would be better to be alone than to be with several gurus.  Their teachings are different, their methods are different, what they want to teach is different, and their own experiences are different from other teachers.  You will feel confused and fragmented.

The same holds true with lovers.  It is essential that you be serially monogamous.  Only one lover at a time allows you to go deep into yourself with that person who goes deep into their self.  You both go together deep inside and deep into the other.  Almost everybody I know who is a teacher recognizes this, even though the teacher usually has to deal with many students.  A spiritual teacher, a guru, usually has to “appear” to deal with all people equally.  If it is obvious that he favors one student over another, or above all, it could be fatal to the sangha.  There will be whispers.  There will be complaints.  There will be anger.  There will be jealousy.

Therefore, usually a guru with his favorite students, needs to hide their special relationship, sexual or not, otherwise the entire sangha will be in consternation, unless the guru and student are married or related, or are co-teachers.  Even then gossip will split devotion in the sangha, and create struggles to be on the inside track to either of the two parties.  Therefore, it is absolutely essential that some activities and relationships be hidden from the rest of the sangha, for the sake of the teacher and his close students or lovers, and for the rest of the sangha to not be torn apart by divisive emotions.

On the other hand, some gurus such as Rajneesh provided for open sexuality, either between himself and students, or opening up the entire Sangha to multiple relationships within it, sexual and otherwise.  This is a recipe for disaster as has been proven time, after time, after time.  

Ultimately, there is always a scandal that breaks the Sangha apart.  Someone who is hurt, someone who is jealous, someone who is angry begins to talk about their hurt feelings and “pain,” and their friends turn against the teacher or other friends.  Having been in up a dozen different sangha’s myself, I have seen this time, after time, as well as in newspapers and spiritual gossip communications across the world.  Even special or unique love relationships without sex can cause such problems, but once sex is involved everything gets explosive because of convention, and now, for the last 20 years, because of growing feminism.  Women are finding abuse everywhere, including in consensual relationships of their past, or in the present, which are failing for some reason.

Therefore, in all cases serial monogamy is the way to be, or at least the appearance serial monogamy should be maintained at all times.

In addition, student having multiple teachers will ultimately either go nowhere, or will be so fragmented and drained that they will swear off spirituality as a hoax.  One needs to dig one deep hole, not several shallow ones.  Commit yourself, surrender, worship one person at a time.