Agreed - its a matter of trying to get reality at large to corroborate one's own personal reality. If you took some unknown and got a couple people in any community (esp. Fairfield) to claim he was enlightened, people would flock to him. Just look at the film Kumare, and that guy didn't even claim to be enlightened or "awakened"
Try this on for size: 10 Signs of A Fake Guru: Weeding Out the Psychopaths from the True Teachers 1. Let’s start with the big one – money. A real guru often won’t ask for a dime. In fact, some of the most powerful healers on this planet are explicitly instructed by the elders of their tradition that they cannot take monetary compensation for their healing ‘gifts.’ In a documentary about a nameless Chinese healer in urban Java, he told filmmakers that he was not allowed to even talk about how he healed people with his hands (using qi), and that he could lose his powers if he charged for them. This being said, many real gurus take donations, and many healers need to eat and pay rent. If they charge exorbitantly or live opulently while ignoring those in need around them, then they are fakes. Walk away. 2. Just because someone is psychic, doesn’t mean they are realized. We ALL have psychic abilities. Some of us have just advanced this particular ability more than others. It isn’t the sign of a true guru just because they can read your mind – a little or a lot. 3. Someone who lives a real dharma won’t preach about it. They show it in their ‘works’ – that is the way they live their lives every day. If someone is ethical, virtuous, kind, giving, patient, harmonious, has integrity, and lives with a sense of serving others more than themselves, then you can likely trust them. Someone who teaches these principles but does not live them – isn’t a real guru. Obviously someone who steals, lies, and manipulates, or stalks women or children for their own sexual perversions is not a guru. They are psychopaths. If you even get a sniff of this – run and run fast. Tell as many people as you can to save them from being sucked into a fake’s power-lair. 4. Real gurus never claim it’s their way or the highway. There are many paths to a righteous mind, and elevated consciousness. True enlightenment happens to every day Joes and Sarah’s just as much as someone who lives in Nepal, or India, meditates in caves or only eats vegetarian foods. There are many paths to realization. If a teacher offers you a path, and also tells you that there are many – they are more trustworthy than someone who claims to have a direct connect to God or your own higher consciousness. 5. They don’t use disinformation to convince you to follow their path. Indulgences given out by the Catholic church would be an example, as well as gurus claiming to give diksha (the transference of wisdom from guru to disciple), when this can truly only be given by very few teachers and to students who are properly prepared to receive it. While some gurus really can lighten your karmic load, you usually have to do this on your own through a real emotional breakthrough and with plenty of trial and error and, unfortunately, some real struggle. Pain is a tool for transformation. Any guru who says they can take all your pain away is probably lying. A true guru wouldn’t want to. They know how well pain can teach you. It’s called being a spiritual warrior for a reason. 6. There are different levels of realization – Samadhi, is the Sanskrit term. While you can have a very high level of consciousness, being completely enlightened means you would be pretty immune to most things ‘of this world.’ Even Muktananda, Paramahansa, and Osho were still struggling to achieve full enlightenment. While we can learn from those in high stages of spiritual evolution, if they are still on this planet, they are likely still somewhat unenlightened. Some cultivation is not complete ascension. Beware of those who have made a little progress but claim to have lassoed the moon. 7. A true guru, or master of this world will have few desires. In Zen they call this the pure mind. A pure mind doesn’t want for anything because it already knows it is everything. In Sanskrit this is called Sat Chit Ananda. It means All Knowing, All Pervading, Everywhere Present. If you really, truly know that you are all knowing, all pervading, and everywhere at one time –what could you possibly need ten mansions, a new Maserati and countless women (or small boys) for? 8. You will always be allowed to read holy books from whatever tradition suits your fancy. In fact, a true guru knows that this elevates your consciousness, and that minimizing the information you seek can ‘dumb’ you down and make you single minded. Reciting mantras, reading the Bhagavad Gita, A Course in Miracles, The Tao, The Life and Prayers of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Upanishads, the Christian Gnostic writings, Sufi poetry, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Pali Canon, etc. are all expressions of the divine and a true guru knows this. 9. Enlightenment takes effort. Every wisdom school will tell you this. You can’t sit on your ass and expect to wake up fully. The path of wisdom takes courage, perseverance, and a humble ability to screw up often and then apologize to others and yourself, and start again. Any guru who offers a magic pill, book, session, etc. for instant enlightenment is a charlatan. 10. No matter if you call it the Godhead, the Tao, your Original Self, your True Nature, the Realized Self, etc. it’s all you rediscovering the Perfect You. Read what you want, but ultimately the work is to remove much of everything you’ve ever learned. A real guru will dismantle much that you’ve intellectualized in order to install true wisdom. http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/05/21/10-signs-of-a-fake-guru-weeding-out-the-psychopaths-from-the-true-teachers/ ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 1:34 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: A culture of PR and Spin, ending with...uh...more PR and Spin --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@...> wrote: > > I just don't understand people i guess. > > BTW, all you folk who feel a need to seek out the awakened... > > When was the last time you got checked? I was having similar thoughts earlier today, on the train back to Paris. Buck cites some "new gun in town" as some- one who is supposedly awakened. And why? Because he *says* he is, probably. If you look at it rationally, that is the *only* evidence we have that an "awakened" state actually exists -- people interpreting their subjective experience in terms of some past or present dogma about enlightenment or awakening and saying, "Yep, I'm there." Yet many people find these *claims* both inspiring, and believable. Go figure. Personally, I think that the reason people think this way is to Justify Their Investment In A Lifetime Spent Believing In Woo. To me, it's the *same* phenomenon we see in Nabby hoping beyond hope that crop circles are the result of Woo, or that a supposedly spinning statue is an example of Woo. Any Woo Will Do. It's as if they feel that if they can find even *one* example of Woo -- no matter how anecdotal it may be, no matter how based on hearsay and subjective claims it may be -- that one example of Woo will justify all the time, money, and energy they spent pursuing Woo. TM "checking" isn't going to do anything to get rid of such longings, and such hopes. Neither, it seems, is the presentation of rational thought, or the scientific method. The desire for Woo is all-consuming, whatever form of Woo it is that the seeker seeks. If they can find even *one* person they can convince themselves is awakened or enlightened, then (they think) awakening or enlightenment EXIST, and their lives spent believing that they exist were not a waste. If they can find even one example of what they consider real magic or Woo, then magic and Woo EXIST, and again their lives were not wasted pursuing it. That's the only rationale I can think of for why so many New Agey people (in which category I definitely class most TMers) think, and act. If you have other explanations, present them.