What are ‘near enemies to the truth’? Borrowing this phrase from Buddhism, I use it to refer to slightly distorted versions of spiritual teachings—statements that are close to a profound and subtle truth, but are distorted just enough to make a big difference over time. When we’re talking about deep and fundamental truths, getting it a little bit wrong doesn’t matter in the short run, but it does in the long run, just like a tiny adjustment to the rudder of your boat makes little difference at first, but after 1000 miles, it lands you on a different continent.
Now, some people object to the use of the word ‘wrong’ in the previous sentence, subscribing as they do to the idea that the only necessary criterion for truth is it feels true to me. This view is as dangerous in spirituality as it is in politics, because it usually means I want it to be true, so I'm going to believe it, regardless of the facts. If you don't see how dangerous this is, or if you doubt whether there really are facts or universal truths, please read the first blog post in this series.
Understanding the Near Enemies to the Truth, and why they are near enemies and not the truth itself, is hugely important for any spiritual seeker who wants to get past the beginner stages and into the deep (and deeply fulfilling) spiritual work. Having said that, it’s important to note that if a Near Enemy is near enough, it can be a Temporary Ally for a beginner. But as the stakes get higher in spiritual practice, there is no such thing as ‘close enough’ anymore, and your comforting affirmations must be sacrificed on the altar of truth, or else your spiritual progress stalls. With that introduction, let’s turn to this month’s Near Enemy.
NEAR ENEMY #14: “I am my own guru”
In the ’60s and ’70s Westerners were remarkably trusting of gurus, especially gurus from the East. One might say that many were naïve and credulous as well. People didn’t seem to have much discernment or understanding of how a very charismatic figure might also be a very dangerous one. But this credulousness also had beneficial effects in some cases. If you are very open and trust a teacher implicitly and that person actually has your best interests at heart, it can be highly beneficial for your spiritual life, because you receive what they have to offer on a very deep level. This was the case in my own life. I was very fortunate that the guru I followed when I was younger, and trusted implicitly, and yes, pedestalized, was interested in nothing but supporting my spiritual unfolding. However, if the guru-figure doesn’t have your best interests at heart, or even worse is deluded and possessed by a god-complex, then you are in a dangerous situation indeed. The number of fraudulent and half-baked gurus proliferated in the 1970s, and things took a very dark turn with Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple cult, culminating in the famous 1978 mass murder-suicide at Jonestown. This event was the most effective possible demonstration of the worst-case scenario in abdicating one’s sovereignty to a guru-figure. The general public started to realize then just how dangerous implicit trust of a charismatic guru figure could be. In subsequent decades, as more and more famous gurus got outed as charlatans, frauds or abusers, the tide really turned against the guru paradigm in the West. Despite this, the cult phenomenon continues, and people continue to be harmed by fraudulent self-appointed gurus.
However, I will still argue in this chapter that the pendulum of public opinion has swung too far the other way on this issue, leading many people to claim that having a teacher is not necessary on the spiritual path, often proclaiming ‘I am my own guru’ without realizing why that statement is a Near Enemy to the truth. <SNIP>
TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST, PLEASE BUY THE SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED BOOK Near Enemies of the Truth, in which it appears in a much-improved form.
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS from a live teaching session:
Student: How can I not give away my authority and keep self-responsibility but still open up deeply to a teacher and be receptive to transmission?
Hareesh: You know, I do have a hard time with this question because I don't see how it's even a problem. The answer is to open up deeply, be receptive to transmission, and don’t give away your authority. You listen fully, you receive and then you work with what you have received. If the teacher says something and you wrestle with that statement and you ultimately decide that you don't see how that’s true, you might then go to the teacher and say ‘you know that you said this and I don't see how that's true’. The teacher might say ‘oh I’m sorry, I didn't express it quite right’, or ‘you misunderstood me, this is what I meant’. Who says you have to agree on everything? Maybe the way the teacher is trying to point with that concept just doesn’t land for you. Should you force it? No! Why would you? Being open, being receptive, doesn’t mean suspending critical thinking, it doesn’t mean being totally credulous and taking everything at face value. You can’t take anything at face value on the spiritual path, you’ve got to wrestle with it and hold it up to the light of your own experience.
Student: Is this need of a teacher mainly because I cannot resolve my blind spots myself, or for myself, without external intervention because I am caught up within my own system?
Hareesh: Blind spots are often in the realm of psychology and those are worthy of taking a look at. What teachers do best is they point out pitfalls before you fall into the hole and enable you to avoid them. They can say “okay, at this point in the path there's a big pitfall that looks like this”. Then you come to that point, you see the pitfall and you get to walk around the hole instead of fall into it. Other times you've already fallen into the hole and they tell you how to get out because these are universal principles, not particular to your psychology. The teacher's job, traditionally, is not to point out the blind spots in your individual psychology because the teacher is wholly uninterested in your individuality because that's just your personality construct. They share universal principles which ends up being remarkably helpful, even if, when you first heard it, it didn't make any sense to you. What's really helpful is a teacher who's true, a teacher who's fallen into a lot of pits as they're going to point out the pitfalls better and in more detail.
Student: I am curious whether more people awaken in the presence of a teacher or by themselves?
Hareesh: If you mean the initial awakening, the awakening that really jumpstarts the spiritual journey can happen in any context whatsoever and is completely unpredictable. It can happen in the presence of a teacher or it can happen not in the presence of a teacher — it's absolutely unpredictable. It's the bit after when you need the teacher. You can flounder around and you need the key insight which could be one sentence from a book or a video landing at the right moment and boom it gets you unstuck.
Student: It's partly about questioning and challenging your teacher and having open communication?
Hareesh: Yes but on the spiritual path, unlike in academia, it's not really beneficial to question your teacher as part of a game of intellectual one-upmanship. In academia, it can actually be helpful to get into an intellectual fight with the teacher as you can learn a lot that way. That's a different context to spiritually questioning which has to come from a heart level, not an intellectual level, to be spiritually beneficial. It has to be a genuine honest question, from the heart level, of something you're struggling with or a genuine honest question of “I really felt uncomfortable when you said that and it seems off to me and here's why”. It can help to share where you're coming from as questioning and challenging is coming from that deeper level right. It's also not about proving how much you know or showing off to other students.
Student: can you speak about shaktipāt?
Hareesh: There's this common misconception, from the point of view of classical tantra, that shaktipāt is something dispensed by a teacher or guru. In the original tradition shaktipāt is just the name for the initial awakening that really jumpstarts the spiritual path. Even if you thought you were on the spiritual path for decades before, it turns out you were just dabbling compared to when the whole thing really gets underway. It could be that your shaktipāt moment happened when you were a teenager, only you can really say. Shaktipāt is not, according to the tradition, something given by a guru, it is spontaneous awakening. There are other terms for the energetic transmission that can come through a teacher and only certain kinds of teachers. These sort of charismatic type energy transmitting teachers exist and people often get hung up on that experience. The actual term for a powerful energetic transmission that comes through a teacher or guru is sankramana. This however can become an addiction for the wrong person. An addictive personality who gets a powerful energy transmission could be at a disadvantage on the spiritual path because it's something they get hung up on, want more of that and get dependent on. Then they’re no different from a junkie. One of my teachers said that if you are addicted to spiritual transmission, you're no different from a heroin junkie. Actually you're worse because you think you're better than the junkie, but you're the same. That's not to say you should avoid energetic transmission but you don't need to seek it out either. A massive infusion of awakening energy, whether you call it kundalini or not it doesn't matter, can come through a teacher or it can come through some other in means. It could come through a dream, it can come from a disembodied siddha, it can come from a tree, it can come from a bolt of lightning. So there's no need to be dependent on anyone or anything.
Student: Is it necessary or useful to report about experiences in our awakening process to a teacher in order to stay on track?
Hareesh: no, largely not because experiences are not particularly relevant! You can get hung up on this experience or that experience. You can say: “it was amazing and I saw the light, or the serpent spirit came and talked to me, or I left my body, or I arrived in my body, or my central channel exploded, or the top of my head melted away. All these things can happen and more and they're wonderful, they're just not significant. Their only significance is to say that you're on the right track keep going. Every experience is not something to wallow in or to build a new spiritual ego out of. As you get lost in eulogizing your own experiences and insights you're stuck. That's what the teacher can help with, to say why are you so hung up on your experiences - do you think they make you special? Keep going! Also, the teacher might challenge your interpretations of your insights or experiences, in a good way that pushes you towards greater clarity and away from narrative story spinning.
Student: If I choose the teacher, does she/he have to choose me as well?
Hareesh: In some cases yes, but in general, no.
Student: How can you evolve a student-teacher relationship to a one-on-one relationship?
Hareesh: if it's meant to be a one-on-one relationship, it'll become a one-on-one relationship. If you feel drawn to a specific teacher and you can go and spend time with them in person you do, or you get deeper into their offerings. Maybe they offer a program with one-on-one component but it's not to say you need that. I don't want to give you the wrong impression that you need a one-on-one teacher. Some people greatly benefit from it but that's not to say you need it. If the teacher is giving clear teachings and powerful effective practices that's all you need and if all your questions are answered somewhere already by that teacher, or by other teachers recommended by that teacher you trust, your questions are all answered already. A lot of the time, people want the one-on-one thing as part of feeling special not because they actually need it spiritually. It's not wrong, it's just good to see it for what it is. In general, no, you don't need the teacher to say you are my student and also what kind of teacher would say that? You should be sceptical of any teacher who says they have chosen you as their disciple. Those are probably red flag words. A relationship can develop and it can be one-sided or it can be two-way. Don't get hung up on what the relationship needs to look like.
Student: Can’t my inner guide or voice or higher self be my best guru?
Hareesh: I'm just gonna be blunt and say ‘No!’ What is this higher self? Do you imagine that if you get quiet then ultimate wisdom will automatically bubble up from within? And that it’s infallible guidance? Maybe, but the thing is, it's very tricky as the subconscious can masquerade as anything. When I was maybe 10 or 11, I had a sort of inner voice arise and it was like the voice of God. I thought, ‘Oh! Awesome! So I have a special connection to God! I can ask God any question’. The voice would proclaim, in a magisterial way, about this or that or the other thing. Finally, I got suspicious and I asked the voice, “Wait a second, are you me?” The voice said “Yes, Chris.” in the same magisterial tone. It didn't say, “No, I'm God!’, it said ‘yes’. I thought, “Okay, it's actually just me, talking to myself!” And then the voice went away and didn’t come back. If I talk to myself in a magisterial tone that doesn't necessarily mean that it’s the ultimate wisdom. There might be a little bit wisdom if I consult it, if I ask, if I try to seek out the best programming I have. That can feel like my higher self. If I’m searching around in my brain and my subconscious, there's a lot of stuff in there! There are just about a billion trillion neural connections and I’m searching around for the best version of my conditioning and, if I find it, it's gonna feel like the wisdom from my higher self. It's still just the best version of your conditioning and what a great teacher offers is way better than that. It takes a lot of work to rummage around in your brain and find the best your conditioning has to offer and even then it's an order of magnitude less than what your best teachers have to offer. So why would you go that route? It’s one of two things. It's a lack of humility or fear. Fear is understandable as there are people out there who just can't wait to take advantage of you but develop your intuition. You know who they are when you practice sobriety. If you are willing to fall in love with a charismatic figure who offers to take you to liberation on their coattails, then you're probably gonna get hurt. Commit to sobriety and look and see with clear eyes and you’ll see who you can trust and who you can't. One of my teachers said you can trust everyone to be exactly who they are. So you can trust some people to be charlatans and you'll see that. So I understand the fear but your discernment is enough to get past that and then you have to deal with this lack of humility issue. This issue is the inability to submit yourself to wisdom. I don't know anyone who's actualized the goal, to any significant degree, who didn't go through that process of learning to submit and humble themselves. To submit to wisdom, not to a person. In the Indian tradition, you live in your teacher’s ashram for a while. It's rough because you're learning to humble yourself and you discover that you're the sort of person who constantly self-doubts. You might not have realized that you have a big ego problem but if you constantly self-doubt, you discover you do have this incredibly stubborn strong ego. You constantly have self-doubt and seeing that is humbling. It might at first be humiliating but then it's humbling and then it's sweet and then you soften and submit yourself to the wisdom of the path and your teachers and their teachers and you start to taste the nectar and it's glorious. So for anyone who doesn't know what it's like to humble themselves, all I can say is that I kind of pity you because it's so hard to just keep carrying this big ego around that says “I don't need anyone else and I'm my own teacher!” How can you carry that burden?
Student: In some of my readings on tantra they talk about initiation by a teacher into a lineage. I thought this was the same as, or included shaktipāt?
Hareesh: No that's the misunderstanding. Shaktipāt is an awakening that comes from the universe. It comes from Shiva, comes from god, from anywhere and nowhere. Initiation (dīkshā) is relevant only if you wish to undertake esoteric tantric practices. If you wish to do these practices then, technically, initiation is necessary but this is not the context for most of you. If you want to work with esoteric mantras that are only for initiates and undertake esoteric rituals and esoteric yogas, that may or may not have anything to do with awakening, then you need initiation. There are certain things that are password protected in the tradition but the wisdom teachings are available to all.
Student: my heart has been crying out for a teacher for some years and someone told me that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I asked how would I know and I was given the answer that ‘you will know’.
Hareesh: That's such an unsatisfying answer in the moment but later it turns out to be true! It doesn't mean you're looking everywhere, you meet a teacher and boom you're in love! N. It might be that one of your teachers that you already have, at some point, transmogrifies to this teacher on a deeper level. Just like a mantra can become a vehicle for transmission for you, even when it wasn't before, it can come alive. Let's say you were singing a mantra for years and then suddenly it comes alive! It becomes much more powerful for you and you realise this is a whole other level. That can happen with teachers. You can realize this is my teacher, in a way that wasn't there before.
Student: Are you saying there’s no higher self?
Hareesh: Yes! This is a very dangerous whole other Near Enemy of the Truth! Small self/big self, ordinary self/divine self, higher self/lower self. That is a very spiritually disadvantageous perspective. Don't split yourself into two selves. Why would you do that? That's not a good idea on the spiritual path! Look at what you're doing when you say ‘i'm appealing to wisdom, to my higher self’. In that very statement, you are communicating that you are not your higher self and that you are the lower self. Do you see how that's a really bad idea spiritually? It’s the opposite of how you want to position yourself. What would it mean to have a higher self? You don't want to position yourself as the higher one as then you are cradling your poor crying inner child. Why would you position yourself as the lower self, being the screaming child? There's only one self and the self does not recognize itself.
A great meditation teacher put it this way, for years and years and years it is like looking through a window at a view outside and what you're actually trying to see, in this metaphor, is your own face in the window because you know how windows reflect just a little bit, they're tiny bit like mirrors, but we don't notice that because we're looking at the view beyond the window. So this meditation teacher said, very wisely, that you're constantly looking through the very thing you're trying to find (yourself reflected in the glass) and what happens when you recognize this is a simple act of refocusing. Many meditation teachers will say to be mindful of the trees, look at the wind and the trees, look how beautiful but they're not actually helping you with what you need. You need to recognize what you are and that's seeing your face reflected in the glass. You've got to refocus and then you’ll see there is one self and it doesn't recognize itself. Why should you recognize yourself if you're constantly looking at everything but yourself? Even when you think you're looking at yourself, you're not, you're looking at your psyche, you're looking at your mind, you're looking at your samskāras, you're looking at your autobiography, you're looking at your memories. None of that is self. The self is the one who's looking. The one you are looking for is always the one who is looking and you're literally looking everywhere in the universe except at your actual self. This makes sense because you can't actually look at your actual self in a literal way because you are the point from which all seeing is done. The act of recognizing what you are happens when you stop looking for yourself in memories, thoughts, psyche, emotions, some samskāras, and autobiography. When you stop looking for yourself in all those places you retract your gaze and land in yourself. You feel the simplicity of your own being. It's something you knew as a child but couldn't recognize in a clear way. The main reason people don't recognize the self is because they're not ready to see how simple it is. It's just simple presence, it's pure being and when you recognize it, it's so simple. Then there's a whole other step beyond that, of course, which is to recognize it in everything, to slow down enough to recognize this pure being is manifest as all. First, you recognize it as yourself then you recognize it as all. A lot of this talk, a lot of this endless talk, is just a way of passing the time until you're ready to recognize it. There are some practices, some stuff, some things and maybe the right thing at the right time, that helps you get unstuck but ultimately you're just playing a game of ‘the spiritual path’ until you're really ready to recognize what you are. For most people, that is almost too simple, it's not dramatic enough. Everyone wants to be special and the self that is presence, or being, or pure consciousness, or whatever you want to call, is not special. It's sweet, perfect and perfectly present. It's just you when you're not trying to be anything or anyone. It's nothing to write home about and it's not going to win you any awards. So you keep overlooking it and looking for the dramatic find that you hope to make. It's true that's it's incredibly incredibly incredibly simple but it's also true that it goes much deeper than you suspect when you first recognize it.
This is something that's hard to put into words but you recognize that you are the simple presence. When you first see it, if you've been looking for a while, you're probably gonna go “really? It's that simple? It's just my own presence when i'm not trying to be anything or anyone or prove myself or what I am just being? That's all? That's what we've been talking about? That's what all this fanfare is about? Why do all these books make it so hard?’ That's real recognition. I invite you to see that you are the simple presence, the simple being awareness presence. If you go deeper into it, it opens out into everything and so then, what seemed like ‘oh my gosh, no, this is just so simple’ opens out into everything. You see that it's vast, you see that it's infinite, that it is this very sweet simple nothing. There's nothing to it, it's just presence being itself, revealing itself as the infinite, as the one who has seen through every pair of eyes throughout history, on every planet. It's awesome even though it's simple at the same time. No more need be said but, like I said, we can just chat until you're ready to recognize it, however many years that takes.
Student: What is true self?
Hareesh: As one Zen poet put it, true self is no self and the greatest person on earth is Nobody. What you are, in your true nature, is not someone, it's radiant no-thing-ness. Your true identity is nobody, yet before you're ready to realize it, that's your greatest fear - “what if I turn out to be nobody”? In our society, that's the worst condemnation. Everybody should be somebody, the highest goal in our society is to get listed and be in the Who's Who of the rich and famous. It's people's greatest fear that they turn out to be nobody but in truth it's actually the greatest joy! It's the greatest possible triumph when you realize you're nobody! There's nothing to live up to. All the burdens are lifted and you are free, you don't have to be anyone. It's magnificent if you actually realize the implications of it, you go running out of the house going “Hallelujah! I'm nobody!”. It turns out nobody's perfect! Get it? That's that's my fun little pun that I can't really claim credit for. Nobody is perfect, you're nobody and nobody's perfect! It's your very nobodyness that's perfect. Perfect beyond description! Exquisitely perfect! Somebody will always be imperfect but nobody's perfect!
Student: Do your teachers need to be from the same school of thought or the same tradition?
Hareesh: Usually, yes because it's very takes a lot of hard work and discernment to compatibilize teachers from different lineages. It's easy to go awry so you're much safer if your teachers are from the same tradition or kind of grouping of traditions/ lineages.
Student: what about those of us who have been deceived by the organizations surrounding a guru?
Hareesh: You've realized it, you've moved on and you're not gonna do that again. You're not gonna be in that sort of organization again and you know what the red flags. There's no point in you staying stuck in that and rehashing that reality.
The transmission of spiritual awakening or energy or power or powerful practice transmission can come through anyone and if people don't know that, they are in danger. It is possible to have a totally corrupt guru, who takes advantage of their students in every possible way. I've known these guys personally and seen that a completely corrupted person can still be a vehicle for transmission and that's something that makes very little sense to our brains. I’ve seen dramatic examples of this, where the person in private is engaged in the most reprehensible behavior you can possibly imagine and yet people still can receive transmission through that guru authentic transmission awakenings. This is the principle of the shakti, the spiritual energy. When somebody's ready to receive a transmission, they get the transmission. Shakti knows no impediment, she will move through any vehicle. People can receive transmission through anyone, in the right place, right time, if you're open enough. The point of exercising discernment is realizing this person is largely fraudulent so that you don't place your life in their hands, you don't give them all your money, and you don't take their advice on who you should marry right.
Student: Discernment can be so hard. I thought I was discerning with this teacher but three years later, I realized I had been wrong.
Hareesh: But none of that's wasted time. You're doing your practice, you think that this person's the right teacher for you and then three years later you realize you're wrong. Well they were the right teacher for you for three years! If you realize six months later they were the right teacher for you, for six months, six weeks, whatever, it doesn't matter as none of that time is wasted. Please don't imagine otherwise or you are shooting yourself in the foot but also when you realize it's time to move on, you move on. This is part of the ‘buck stops with you’ principal. Very few teachers are going to tell you that they think it's time for you to move on.
Student: How important is it to be close to a teacher, to live closely and work closely with them?
Hareesh: there's no answer to that. How important is it to you and if you think it's important, do you just think it's important or is it actually important? Maybe you've got to find out there's no universal answer to that.
Student: Couldn’t your intuition be an inner teacher?
Hareesh: Your intuition shows you what teacher to work with. The buck stops with you and you're not abdicating your authority, your intuition shows you what teacher to work with and your intuition tells you when to move on. You could be, however, mistaking your fear response for intuition. Maybe you think, “Ah my intuition's telling me it's time to move on. Oh what a coincidence, only yesterday my teacher started challenging me! Before that they were all nice and sweet! Yesterday they started challenging me, so now it's time to move on.” Commit to sobriety! Take a sober clear hard look at yourself and realize, “Okay, wait a sec, is this really intuition or is this my fear response?” Maybe it's really intuition, so move on. Your intuition is your ultimate teacher but unless your ego is unbelievably stubborn, you're gonna realize you need teachers. Your intuition will show you what teachers to work with. It's only hubris that says, ‘no i don't need a teacher’ — it's hubris, or fear. Humans need teachers for everything so why would spirituality be different? There's a little formula you can trust, that you'll know what you need to know, when you need to know it. That's the magic of the path.
Student: my question is, aren't we all teachers to each other? Is there a pitfall in that and if so what is it?
Hareesh: Yes we're all teachers to each other. I love this principle of ‘the kula is the guru’. The kula, the community, is a collective guru. The pitfall is when our value of egalitarianism causes us to overlook the value of different levels of experience. Yes, we're all teachers to each other and we're all inherently equal because we're all equally an expression of the one but there's also different levels of experience in spiritual practice and in hard-won wisdom, of falling into pits and getting out of them again. It's important to acknowledge that just because we're all teachers to each other, doesn't mean everyone's point of view is equally valuable or equally valid depending on the topic. For example, if we're talking about spiritual philosophy and the discussion strays into psychology, all of a sudden my opinion is less valuable and some other people here in the group, who are professional psychologists, have a more valuable opinion.
Student: a teacher who I perceived as misogynistic told me that I was disrespectful for asking a question. Can you comment?
Hareesh: now that's a good example of what i would call ‘a deal-breaker’. Whether your diagnosis of the person is misogynistic is correct or not, doesn't really matter because a teacher who says you're disrespectful for asking a question is, in my world, a deal-breaker, the statement is a deal-breaker. There are, you know, any number of deal-breaker statements and we might not agree on exactly what they are but they certainly exist. In a sense, it doesn't matter how much more wisdom that person has because if they say it's not okay for you to ask a question, they've just closed the door you that you have to have open in that relationship. Also, don't get into the trap that some people do of thinking that maybe the guru is just testing me, maybe I’m supposed to show how humble I am by humbly submitting to this correction. There are plenty of opportunities to humbly submit but they're not like that.
Student: Isn't what you have with a guru or teacher personal? What if that's part of what somebody needs in order to really be able to fully interact with a guru or a teacher?
Hareesh: That's an important difference in the student-teacher relationship and, say, the psychotherapist and client relationship. People might end up blurring these lines but in the traditional student-teacher relationship it's not like the psychotherapeutic relationship meaning to say that the teacher might like you as a person but they're as a teacher they're not interested in you as an individual. Your individual psychology has so little to do with your awakening so they're not there to help you sort out your individual psychology, which a therapist very much is and it is valuable, the guru is there to point you past it and show you how you got mired in it. The teacher is always fielding universal principles and maybe tweaking them in a way that they think might be more effective for you. That's where some knowledge, or some understanding, of psychology, is useful. Oftentimes, the student will take things personally, such as praise, when actually the teacher is just trying to point out that's what clear seeing looks like, so that other students can benefit from it. If a student takes it personally, they're in dangerous waters because they can add it to their spiritual ego, ‘ah the teacher just acknowledged me, the teacher thinks I’m close to enlightenment!’. That would be taking it personally in a way that's bad for you. By the same token, if you get chided, or reprimanded, or slapped down, it's not personal, rather it's an opportunity to make a point that involves everyone there. They would make that point differently if there was only you there.
Student: Can a guru confirm someone else's enlightenment?
Hareesh: Yes, but then you still have an epistemological problem. An awake person can recognize an awake person, that's just true, but until you have abiding awakeness, you can never be sure about anyone else. You can only recognize in another what you've seen for yourself. The problem is if you have a teacher that you think is awake but actually you can't know for sure, and they confirm or corroborate someone else is awake, well you can't know that for sure either. Only when you're own awakeness is crystal clear can you recognize it, without a shadow of a doubt. One of my teachers says when awake people (those abiding in awakeness) get together there's actually no interesting conversation, because all the interesting conversation takes place figuring things out but if you're both awake and you get together it's just like, ‘hey how's that enlightenment thing going for you?’ ‘Oh good, good! How about you?’ ‘Oh great, yeah!’ — end of conversation!
Student: aren't there moments when even someone enlightened, or awake, might question their awakeness?
Hareesh: No, it's as plain as the nose on your face. You can't question it, it's plainer than the blue sky.
Student: The obsession with ‘I am’ not less overemphasizes the I, as much as the obsession with being better, or the fixation with, or fear of being worse.
Hareesh: Westerners, especially Americans, but westerners in general, have sometimes not a superiority or inferiority complex but in the equality complex in which they obsessively need to insist on their own equality out of fear of seeing themselves as inferior. For example in India, traditionally you bow to the feet of your teacher and I've heard westerners say, ‘I would never do that!’ and they proudly say ‘I would never bow to another human being!’ but they're also missing a huge piece of cultural context which is in India you bow to just about everybody who's your elder! You bow, traditionally, at the feet of your parents, your elders, your uncles, your aunties, and your teachers. It’s not elevating the teacher to some almighty pedestal, it's a culture where you bow, you humble yourself before all your elders even when they don't deserve it. It's a completely different cultural context and also, there's something beautiful in that - the ability to not be so caught up in yourself that you need to obsessively establish your own equality at every stage. Yes, you're equal to all other human beings on the level of your humanity, you're smarter than a lot of people and there's a lot of people smarter than you so why does that have to be a problem? Don't make that a problem!
Student: can you speak about the dynamics and organisations that can surround a guru?
Hareesh: Cult dynamics spring primarily from the psychology of the students rather than the teacher and the teacher always has a part to play. People can start engaging in cult dynamics even if the teacher doesn't encourage them but also, if it goes on for a while, the teacher is permitting it. A teacher of integrity, at a certain point, needs to work hard to dismantle cult dynamics and and reject projections. If they're not doing that, if they're pretending to be oblivious to how people are pedestalizing them, then they love it and then they're dangerous right. It is perfectly true that all the cult dynamics can start with the followers you know because the followers want to believe that they have found the one true teacher. It feels good for the followers to think that. If you want to know about the authenticity of a teacher, you look not only at the teacher, you look at their community also. You for the evidence that the spiritual path is working.
Student: What do you call the unique essence of a person, not the self, but the personality?
Hareesh: Personalities are influenced by conditioning but there are also aspects that are not and you can see this from birth. But you're talking about personality display which is a combination of everything. It's all the factors. Before they understood about genes, in the ancient tradition, they talked about past life samskaras and ancestral karmas which we can explain a lot of that today through behavioral genetics. Please read ‘Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are’. It's on behavioral genetics and it explores big a part genetics plays a role in the development of personality. One of the biggest pieces of good news is for parents. Parents just absolutely flagellate themselves about not doing a good enough job, or not shaping their child in the best possible way. While they're raising their child they guilt-trip themselves and then after they've raised their child they guilt-trip themselves some more. Polmin argues that very little you do actually has a significant impact on your child and you don't shape the destiny of your child. Your job, as a parent, is to make sure they don't accidentally kill themselves, the way humans are likely to do when they're stupid and haven't learned things yet. You're not shaping their character or their destiny right. For some parents that's disappointing but for the majority, it should be a huge relief as all your mistakes in parenting actually don't make that big of a difference. Providing a generally loving environment and a non-abusive environment that does make a huge difference but we're not talking about that, we're talking about parents who provide a generally loving environment but still guilt-trip themselves.
The personality display is a combination of everything and it's mistaken for essence nature. The unique vibe of a person is not their essence nature. We say ‘essence nature’ because the ‘self’ actually refers to the whole “kit and caboodle” — like the five-layered self is ‘self’, the body is self, mind is self, thoughts and emotions are self, prāna shakti is self, void is self, and consciousness is self! When we talk about essence nature we're just talking about awareness presence, we're talking about beingness, and everything to do with behavior is part of the other layers of the self. It's part of the personality display. There's also this very very very very subtle element. When you really drop in with someone, you're completely filled together, you're just totally still and you're looking into each other's eyes and so there's no behaviour, there are no words, it's just presence then you might call it a vibe but you're seeing a essence nature, you're seeing beyond personality and personality display and it is wonderful. When you look deeply into somebody's eyes and they look deeply into yours, you sense something timeless or beauty or presence and that's essence nature. It's actually easy to drop in with if you just drop everything else for a moment. There's a whole process by which personality display can transform, up to a point, on the basis of receiving the imprint of essence nature which requires two elements. One is abiding in essence nature, you keep dropping into essence nature and that's where you're just letting yourself be what you are, not trying to be anything else and reposing in essence nature. This has to happen consciously (for a few it can happen automatically), so you consciously invite the light of essence nature to permeate and recalibrate the other layers of the self which can result in a change in the personality display. In a sense it depends on a many factors (karma) but the person's personality is aligned with essence nature to a degree that even abiding in essence nature is not going to result in some substantial change in their visible personality but for others it does and that's that's a kind of great mystery that the tradition never really attempts to explain that some people's personalities transform substantially after awakening and others don't. For most people it doesn't happen automatically, even though you've recognized essence nature authentically, there's work involved in allowing the light of essence nature to penetrate and permeate the other layers of the self. So a person might be enlightened or awakened insofar as they recognize their essence nature but still haven't integrated that on all these different layers. Who says they should but they're probably more pleasant to be around if they do some integration.
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