Xeno, I've been wanting to reply and tell you that I enjoyed this post and as usual, because it made me think. I actually think that it's the job of other people, the world, etc. "to fall very short of imagined ideals." Maybe that's the only way we can learn to love unconditionally.
Fascinating what Russell says about morality and geography. Maybe will google. As for being average, I think being ordinary is maybe the most relaxing state of all (-: ________________________________ From: Xenophaneros Anartaxius <anartax...@yahoo.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 7:14 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Rama,Krishna, Buddha are nothing *MY* Guru is the greatest guru. No guru is greater than *MINE*. When one says this it is an attempt to puff up oneself by basking in the apparent glory of another, like having oneself photographed with celebrities. No one in the attempt to preserve their ego tends to say, 'My guru was the dumbest, sleaziest bastard I have ever had the misfortune to meet'. All human teachers are human beings; they have what we would in ourselves call faults. Look at how scientists have changed the world and made us so much more comfortable; no one calls them saints. A teacher's wares are what we want, what they can show us to improve our situation; that is the part we take with us. If they are successful, we move beyond our need for them. What they are as people may or may not correspond with what we would call enlightened. That is not what enlightenment is about. Enlightenment is about seeing the world for what it is, ultimate reality, or a ultimate as it is humanly possible to perceive. As for morality (a function of geography according to Bertrand Russell), seeing that religious leaders, gurus, politicians all seem to fall very short of some imagined ideal, is there any tangible evidence that enlightenment or spiritual advancement has anything to do with morality, or can influence it more than in just a passing shot? If this game has to do with seeing the world as it is, how does morality fit into this and why? Why is it that gurus and their students always seem to fall very short of imagined ideals? Look at the lot of us here. The 'average', so to speak, of all of us here, is what gurus have wrought. That, I think, would indicate we are missing something here.
