Disenchanted

A true teacher would never tell you what to do.
-Christopher Pike

Oh my!  Oh My!  Oh my! 

Bowing to the Guru?

I have always said that I follow  lessons and not the teacher, right?  I do not bow down and worship the ones who carry and pass on  messages.  I can't even say I revere them in the way they do in India. It is customary there to honor and show great respect for one's chosen Guru.  It is actually a Yoga thing. I, on the other hand, try to know as little as I can about them personally so I can focus solely on the message. I don't want to judge or be biased of the learning they offer  by knowing too much information about them as messengers.   If what they say resonates with me, great...  I take that learning inside and I process it there.

Now, I do  respect their missions as human beings, maybe, but I am cautious of how that mission is carried out. I separate message from messenger.  I would never jump into a teacher's following even though I may like what they say and how they teach. I absorb the message but not them.(Or at least I didn't think I did).  Being embodied in human forms, I know that egos can quickly take over a teaching mission (or even begin it) regardless of how pure and essential that message is.

Thin Line between  Guru Worship and a Cult Following

This is how the so called "cult" comes about. We have to be very, very careful about Guru worship and the motivation behind the teaching!  I have been , incidentally, interested in the socialization of cults and how people get lost in them for years now.  For that reason, I prefer to seek  in my own environment in my own way for fear of getting lost in such  socialized ideology behaviour.

Disenchanted

 I bring this up now because I am disenchanted.  I am feeling like a beautiful message I have received is now tainted because I have come to learn that the person who brought it to me via   his writing and translation of Patanjali's sutras was deemed a cult leader and involved in some very unethical and other-damaging actions.  This is not new...the allegations have been out for over a decade. I just didn't know it because I haven't researched the messenger.

This is the third or forth time this has happened.  I would be reading or listening to someone for a while, very interested in what they had to say and how they said it, quoting them and referring to their words often,  and then the information about their antics would somehow land  on my lap or I would notice a Rolex on a wrist, a Hummer or Rolls Royce in the background.   I would then suddenly  find myself jumping up and away from their teachings as if   a basket of pythons was just emptied on my lap rather than hearsay and allegations about their personal antics. This did not meet my expectation of a teacher of Truth.

Paranoid?

I am not sure if it is  my ego or my wise Self making me acutely aware of ego in these individuals who apparently claim to be egoless. I don't know if it is conditioned paranoia or legitimate concern but I watch for hidden egos in others who lead.  I do not believe there is room for it in those positions.  Though I may listen to a few favorites as they teach...I do not follow anyone for that reason. Nor do I follow one train of teaching.  I love the philosophy of yoga, but I also love many of the teachings of Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, Islam and Buddhism. I see a glorious link amongst them all. I do not want to follow one person or one train of thought.  What does that make me, I wonder.

What I do know is that I am very weary of ego...in others and in my self.

Ego in the Leader


I see ego in those who are reaping great personal material abundance while their so called  followers have so little especially when teaching how unimportant materiality is. 

I see ego  in the need to be revered...this individual allowed others to kiss his feet and bow to him.  Now having a picture up of a respected teacher  as a reminder of what you learned  is okay, as is seen in Hindu tradition, but to have pictures up absolutely everywhere is a conditioning action I believe, that comes from ego.

And to tell a person what to do, think and how to feel, to me, is the ultimate no-no and that which defines a cult leadership....especially when what you tell them to do is unethical ( harmful to others/self) and hypocritical. Even if that telling is done in a very covert way as in subtle manipulation, it is not okay. A true teacher would not tell another what to think, feel or do...they would get the person to look inside themselves and determine what thy were thinking, feeling and desiring to do.

Using others for  the satisfaction of one's own ego needs is not what leadership and mentorship is all about. It makes the perfect recipe fro a cult.

Ego in Me

I  don't want my own ego in the way judging and condemning things I do not understand either. I don't know everything that is going in these places devoted to one leader.   I just know that when the teacher becomes more important than the "original" teachings, there is a problem. At the same time,   I still want to see and appreciate the beauty of the message even when I back away from the messenger. Can I do that?

Is Yoga tainted?

His message is still beautiful. In fact,  it wasn't even his message actually...but his human behaviour (if the allegations are true) are now in the way of the transmission of that message to me.  It feels tainted. Yoga...being that all my disenchantment to date seems to come from leaders in Yoga lately and it is that Yogic culture that promotes Guru worship ...feels somewhat tainted to me.

I feel very confused right now.  Disenchanted. I need time to rethink the message as I put away the works of the messenger.

I need some time to process but I really want to get back to this subject of cults and Guru worship someday very soon.  It is a very interesting phenomena in human behaviour, don't you think? :)

All is well.