Some of the pitfalls and dangers of this approach, in terms of potential for deception, manipulation, abuse, and the messy rest, have been well documented. But one of the underlying weaknesses of the system, the root of many of the problems, is to my knowledge rarely appreciated. It is this: the guru normally turns up as the finished product. The Great One appears on the scene already enlightened, awakened, or whatever. Or, if not quite enlightened, still so far ahead in the game that it makes no difference for the disciple, staggering along light years behind.
The guru-as-finished-product presents difficulties. Foremost is that it creates an impossible obstacle to meaningful communication. There is no shared journey between teacher and student, simply one person who has already reached the destination, providing a map for another person stumbling hopelessly and haplessly through the swamps of samsara.
While he was at pains to distance himself from the hardline guru-disciple mould of some Tibetan and Theravadin schools, still my former Buddhist teacher came firmly embedded within the guru model. While, to his credit, he greatly encouraged the development of friendship among his followers, still he founded the Order and, in his view at least, anything of import should come from him or pass through him for the thumbs-up. Most relevantly, although he wrote at length about his earlier life in India, during the twenty-plus later years that I was formally a student of his, he never (to my knowledge) gave any inkling that he was following a path himself, learning and changing as he went. It was as if the process had stopped, no longer appropriate for such a person. Once more, any dialogue based on the shared experiences of two people following the same or similar paths was out of the question. In latter years, my former teacher's life has been beset with a variety of problems and scandals typical of those that tend to descend on those set in the guru mould ( a fact which gives me no pleasure at all, by the way). Much of this, in my view, could have been avoided, or at least minimised, if he had presented as a man on a journey rather than as a finished product.
Imagine how heartening it has been to emerge into the wider spiritual world of today, and find people, openly warts and all, but doing their thing. As an example, Neil Kramer is somebody with a lot of experience and wisdom under his belt, along with a rare ability to communicate it clearly and effectively. Yet to watch, read, or listen to Neil, it is clear that this is a person following a spiritual path, undergoing the process of unfoldment, as he would put it, in the company of many others doing likewise. We're all in this together, baby: thus, dialogue is immediately opened up, the possibilities enriched and widened.
Here is another case, potentially less straightforward. I was recently pondering my own experience of life, and the way that I frame it. 'Consciousness' and 'energy' are words that I use frequently. My view is a bit 'substantive': there is something, which makes my style not quite Buddhist -at least not in its 'purer' forms, and not in the manner I believe my former teacher to be pushing nowadays. Some Tibetan schools talk of 'the luminous void' rather than 'the void'. While this is closer to my own experience, hardliners may consider it degenerate. The vague notion arose in my mind that, while knowing little about it, my angle might be akin to that of Advaita Vedanta (though I should add that any viewpoint is, for me, a working model rather than a final ontological statement).
In one of those synchronicities that provide an unexpected twist to circumstances, I casually flicked on the television to Conscious TV (occasional programmes on Showcase 2, Sky channel 192 some evenings), something I have known exists but never paid any real attention before. Imagine my surprise when I was just in time for an interview with Florian Schlosser. His was a new name to me, but it soon became clear that, if he could be called anything, it is a teacher of - neo-Advaita...!
It transpires that Florian has many interesting things to say, particularly about how Awakening needs to be 'embodied'. More of this some other time, perhaps. He sometimes refers to himself as Florian Tathagata, which makes me cringe, although this is unfair: 'Tathagata' is a favourite epithet for the Buddha, but it never bothered me then. Yet, despite his apparent 'Awakening', Florian speaks openly and unashamedly about the path that he is on: the process he has followed until now, and the issues he continues to deal with. You feel like you can travel along beside this guy. Even in the traditional, orient-derived bastions of consciousness work is the guru-disciple model crumbling, or at least softening significantly. There is an emerging democracy of unfoldment. This, I feel, can only be a good thing.
Photo: Guru Poornima festival
