Do being a guru, by all means, if you feel the need; get the students you want, the friends and supporters that you feel you need, but where is the need or usefulness of invalidating or repudiating Ramana, Nisargadatta or Robert's teachings?
It feels a bit like a moth fluttering about criticizing the eagle in its high flying arc for being aloof and missing out on the splendor of the porch light. what's strange is how you associate with these teachers who were real jnanis when it suits your need, for example to collect donations ("support Robert's work"; your references at being the continuation of the "shared lineage"), but later you attempt to chop their head's off at other times when you're doing being a guru; it's like you're trying to validate your own teachings by criticizing those were really jnanis; ie, the gold standard.
why? i think what you have to say is interesting enough and can stand on its own two legs without chopping off heads.
they (Ramana, etc) were the real thing. to say that they missed out on something feels a bit absurd. you can embrace your feelings, your love, your relationships - en fin, your new approach to the Self without criticizing the greats. the thousands of gurus who claim they have reached some final emptiness or realization of the absolute have not necessarily realized what Ramana spoke of.
the greats never tried to build anything. the people collecting donations and building organizations are attempting to leverage their teachings for the acquisition of some form of cultural, social and/or financial capital. in this context, the legitimization of one's own teachings seems to happen through discounting or, conversely, the teachings of one of the real jnanis. But in the end, as David Godman states, none of these people have truly realized and it's a sort of fraud.
so much better if people would stop doing being gurus and just talk from their hearts without any pretensions of being realized or identifying with a guru status. there's more than enough 'enlightened' people talking now.
Trevor
It feels a bit like a moth fluttering about criticizing the eagle in its high flying arc for being aloof and missing out on the splendor of the porch light. what's strange is how you associate with these teachers who were real jnanis when it suits your need, for example to collect donations ("support Robert's work"; your references at being the continuation of the "shared lineage"), but later you attempt to chop their head's off at other times when you're doing being a guru; it's like you're trying to validate your own teachings by criticizing those were really jnanis; ie, the gold standard.
why? i think what you have to say is interesting enough and can stand on its own two legs without chopping off heads.
they (Ramana, etc) were the real thing. to say that they missed out on something feels a bit absurd. you can embrace your feelings, your love, your relationships - en fin, your new approach to the Self without criticizing the greats. the thousands of gurus who claim they have reached some final emptiness or realization of the absolute have not necessarily realized what Ramana spoke of.
the greats never tried to build anything. the people collecting donations and building organizations are attempting to leverage their teachings for the acquisition of some form of cultural, social and/or financial capital. in this context, the legitimization of one's own teachings seems to happen through discounting or, conversely, the teachings of one of the real jnanis. But in the end, as David Godman states, none of these people have truly realized and it's a sort of fraud.
so much better if people would stop doing being gurus and just talk from their hearts without any pretensions of being realized or identifying with a guru status. there's more than enough 'enlightened' people talking now.
Trevor
Ed's response:
Trevor, how extraordinarily opinionated you are, that having opinions contrary to those of Robert or Ramana is blasphemy. Do you think that Robert would have the same critical opinion of me if he heard my opinions of his way versus a more world accepting type of Self-Realization, a realization of Self in the manifest, in Turiya?
In fact, Robert's own stated realization was within the manifest, not beyond it. He witnessed a light of a million suns, great bliss and energy. All this was EXPERIENTIAL, in Consciousness. I just added what I think is a better method, namely self-inquiry with love, vulnerability and surrender.
I have watched many of Robert's students get lost in the Void, dying to life, because they were too analytical, too visually oriented in their inquiry into Self. I said you had to add love to inquiry, not find it later.
Robert criticized Nisargadatta by stating that Nisargadatta "was "rude" and had added (unnecessary elements) to Ramana's teachings (namely a separate witness)?
If you think those three are the complete measure if truth you are totally mistaken. Even these three disagreed with each other.
Yet you would rob me of my voice to say I disagree with Robert's message of ignoring the world, and using his method of self-inquiry?
I said be aware of the world and your self, and do so lovingly.
Is that such a betrayal Trevor?
I would be betraying Robert even more if I continued to watch more and more people sink into emptiness and sometimes suicide, suicidal ideation, deadness and depression lost in the Void, never having found the bliss.
How dare you call me a betrayer! If anything I have expanded the technique of self-inquiry to make it far more effective and life giving.
Trevor, how extraordinarily opinionated you are, that having opinions contrary to those of Robert or Ramana is blasphemy. Do you think that Robert would have the same critical opinion of me if he heard my opinions of his way versus a more world accepting type of Self-Realization, a realization of Self in the manifest, in Turiya?
In fact, Robert's own stated realization was within the manifest, not beyond it. He witnessed a light of a million suns, great bliss and energy. All this was EXPERIENTIAL, in Consciousness. I just added what I think is a better method, namely self-inquiry with love, vulnerability and surrender.
I have watched many of Robert's students get lost in the Void, dying to life, because they were too analytical, too visually oriented in their inquiry into Self. I said you had to add love to inquiry, not find it later.
Robert criticized Nisargadatta by stating that Nisargadatta "was "rude" and had added (unnecessary elements) to Ramana's teachings (namely a separate witness)?
If you think those three are the complete measure if truth you are totally mistaken. Even these three disagreed with each other.
Yet you would rob me of my voice to say I disagree with Robert's message of ignoring the world, and using his method of self-inquiry?
I said be aware of the world and your self, and do so lovingly.
Is that such a betrayal Trevor?
I would be betraying Robert even more if I continued to watch more and more people sink into emptiness and sometimes suicide, suicidal ideation, deadness and depression lost in the Void, never having found the bliss.
How dare you call me a betrayer! If anything I have expanded the technique of self-inquiry to make it far more effective and life giving.
I have read your blog since 2009. I found it when I was lost: i couldn't find any "spirituality" that suited me, and then I found this blog. Thanks to you I was introduced into this whole world of possibilities in which spirituality is a matter of experiential love, of beingness, of Self.
ReplyDeleteI think some of your teachings are rich. I said the same in my response. To love with all the heart and to then make the association with Self - yes, it's an important contribution. Especially for people who feel in touch with life; the energy, the visceral.
But surely you'd admit that you have a contradictory association with the greats. Sometimes you align yourself with them, while at others you cast Ramana as a guy who avoided conflict and sat back on his laurels while his devotees fed him grapes (quote taken from one of your posts).
Ed, having a rich contribution of your own, why the bashing? Why distinguish your contribution by calling incomplete that of the others? For me I have trouble understanding this simultaneous tearing down and aligning with the greats that you often employ.
It could be due to a lack of knowledge and experience on my part, but i don't see the need to constantly say that the others were not complete in their process and their teachings lack the depth that, according to you, your teachings have. Such comments feel not only absurd but political in nature...like you're employing it as a tool to validate your position. This is my honest assessment after reading you for four years.
Loving the world and being aware of it is by no means a betrayal. That is not what I wanted to say.
Trevor
Trevor. I contradict myself daily, hourly. But to each time qualify what aspects of Robert, Ramana, or Maharaj that I reject and what I accept, you have to look at the context.
DeleteThere is nothing odd about loving Robert at one moment, and throwing his method under the bus because I see how much damage as well as good it has done.
There are people who are not psychologically ready for self-inquiry, and it should not be practiced without a living guide.
For those people, other approaches are needed.
TH ONLY TEACHNIQUE THAT I THINK ALWAYS HELPS, AND WHICH ALSO MAY HAVE A DOWNSIDE, AGAIN DEPENDING ON CONTEXT, IS LOVING ONESELF AND LOVING ANOTHER, AND FINDING SELF LOVE INTHE OTHER.
All other techniques have dangers,, emptiness and depression when self-inquiy becomes only emptiness, and insanity when Kundalini awakenings go out of control due to lack f guidance, or too strong of a practice.
But I like to speak passionately because of 15 years of being lost in emptiness.
I hate logically, because logic is of the mind and superficail.
I want to incense people, aropuse them, cajole them, make them love or dive passionately into their sense of self.
Robert was dead. He preached deadness, silence, non-reacting--he preached zombiehood. I have to oppose his method as much as I loved him,or because I found his Witness Parabrahmman, not a place to permanently alight.
If you want me to post your comment, you must identify yourself. Almost all negative comments are anonymous.
ReplyDeleteBe courageous enough to identify yourselves.
ReplyDeleteI really love the comments where someone said I never fully realized who and what Robert was as deeply as they, who only read his words or listened to his tapes, understand his true nature.
You were never with Robert you guys, you have only known your idea of that he was like.
Guys, just listen.
ReplyDeleteThere are many types of Jnani who further evolve into Jivanmuktas, as has been described in many ancient text including JivanmuktiViveka by Swami Vidyaranya.
1st Ones are those belonging to Monist cults who have formally taken up Sanyas and are totally dried up and dead from within, except in dealing with Advaita and the like, for example, Gaudapada, Vashishtha, Shankara, Vidyaranya, Sidhar, later Shankracharyas, Ramana, Totapuri, (only exception here is Lord himself, Lord Krishna). They even seem to do worldly things but only to make a point in relation to proof of some advaitic/religious principle.
2nd One are Householders who are Jnanis only, who had tasted mundane life but later got knowledge. They still have some desires to help, love to be, and get amused by the Lila with a detachment. They include Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta, Vivekananda, and other Bhakti movement people who later converted/got to Advaita like Smartha Ramdas, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Krishnamurthys', Osho, Nityananda lineage, etc.
This second group includes people of all varieties. At one point Siddharameshwar asks disciples to be desireless but at some other place to please Self in all the other people - a contradictory statement. People of this category have to maintain a balance between non-dualism and the world (existence of duality) and they do so as per the combination of the astrological position in their personal horoscopes. They do all sorts of things like marrying, raising children, doing business, using prostitutes, guiding disciples, preaching advaita, even for sometime (in the eyes of others) falling from the path. But in reality it does not matter. Would a person who has really become free would bother about criticism by others at all unless he has to prove a point (still a lila) or has a hidden agenda of becoming a Guru in which case he is not a siddha himself, but some person high on the path. Shankara did many things which are not connected with Advaita but he had no desire of deriving any benefit from his activities.
Also, almost all of the Monists and Householders Jnanis near the end of their life appear to become acutely passimist, suicidal, depressive and without love and energy which is a natural extension of their mindset before the final will to be (a Mahat phenomena) also gets extinguished and they leave their body without a tinniest trace of desire.
If the will to be and love for beingness is still not extinguished near the end of physical life, the Jnani would have to take rebirth to pass some more time. Don't bother about Householder Jnanis of the past, they are already dead and the current Jnanis of the world are to work out their own charts. In our India, monist Advaitins are still the hallmark of Advaita.
Please pardon me for taking your valuable time and pardon my english.