goldisheavy

Here's why authoritarians fail every time: Authoritarians view their subjects as fundamentally less capable and the subjects themselves buy into this view as well. At the same time, authoritarians provide people with erroneous teachings left and right simply thanks to the reliably fallible nature of human beings. When a non-authoritarian provides faulty teachings, it's easy to make corrections. Not so when faulty teachings are provided in an authoritarian social context. This is the mode of failure with regard to authoritarian tendencies. The reason authoritarians fail is because ultimately all people are equally capable and all people are also equally fallible. So authoritarianism is always built on top of a lie and a delusion. Now let's tackle the secret clubs. When people come together and start openly sharing information, opinion and experiences, the people who belong to the secret clubs feel left out. Why? Because it's often the case that to preserve the secrecy of the club, such people are required to take a vow of silence regarding things like teachings and personal experiences. So just imagine what happens. A bunch of people get together and start to have an engaging and animating discussion involving open sharing. The secret club participant wants to join in, but can't. So what will such person do? Well, first there is going to be jealousy and envy. The person will be jealous for attention because all the participants in the free exchange receive a share of attention. The secret club member doesn't receive this attention and thus becomes jealous. There is also envy, because the person from the secret club will be envious of the freedom displayed by the free and uninhibited people. So what does the person from the secret club do? Well there are two approaches, often undertaken sequentially: 1. Try to disempower and delegitimize the free and open discussion. This is done by attempting to delegitimize individual posts, or the people who post them. At the same time a stream of disempowering messages comes out. These disempowering messages have one purpose: make people doubt their own abilities. 2. "Invite" people into your secret club. This way you hope to privatize the free and open exchange of information by channeling and constraining the discussion to occur solely within the secret club's conversational space. These "invitations" may sound sincere, especially if the person goes easy on using tactic #1, or they may sound hollow, if the person first attempts to delegitimize your writing, attempts to disempower you, and then "kindly" follows up with a suggestion to join the secret club as a remedy. This is very similar to how mafia goes around offering protection. Protection from what? Well, mostly protection from themselves, as it turns out. "We'll empower you and legitimize you but only if you join our secret club and throw your power behind our Guru/Dear Leader." Yes, that's the spiritual equivalent of mafia racket. Make no mistake. Now that you know how this works and why it works this way, please be careful people and don't be a victim! Make no mistake: secret clubs are not sustainable over the long term. They'll be more and more marginalized as people become more and more aware and enthusiastic about true wisdom. Be strong in freedom.

I am in fact already what you call "there" here. I don't ask for help. When I needed help, I asked for it and got it. I want to decorate this space. Do you understand? I want you to wish the end-state on me, and not what you believe the journey is! When you wish your own peculiar journey on me, you are slowing me down. You probably don't mean to, but that's what happens. Think of it this way. Imagine that you live somewhere in Eurasia and I live in the North America. You are journeying through the Sahara desert to eventually get to Paris. I am also going to that same place, but I am coming from North America. And you wish, "May you journey through the Sahara Desert!" I am like, what?? I don't need to do that. My task is to cross the Atlantic Ocean. I don't want to end up in Sahara. Not really. So it's better to wish the person to end up wherever one intends to end up, without mixing your ideas of what it takes to get there into the wish. Well, I am just doing a little spring cleaning.

You still didn't quite state what your goal is. You assume that practice leads to enlightenment. I guess your real goal is enlightenment, although you didn't quite say it like that. What is enlightenment? In other words, what is the person like when that person is enlightened? Your practice might just be something that takes your mind off the real issues. I am not judging your practice because I don't know what your practice is. Yes, trust is necessary. Of course I've always maintained this. The whole brouhaha was over devotion and not trust. Remember? Do you need to be devoted to your doctor to get help? There is nothing wrong with this, actually. In fact, this kind of lingering can be essential in the learning process. Your motivation has to be genuine. You can't pretend your way toward enlightenment and your Guru can't ride you like a horse toward it either. I am a 2010 gold medalist in the Humblympics. Right. Instead he has many human touchable bodies. This is called "community." Well, if someone is your everything, that's submission. Make no mistake about it. This again? Well, your story is not completely consistent on this. So 12 years on paper? How about it?

Get my intention. Excellent! I am glad to hear it. Same here.

Precisely! Secrecy used to have an honest function in the past. And in some places around the globe keeping some things secret or low-key may still be a necessity. I've been asking myself this for a long time now. It will be very good indeed. I am certain of it.

Cat, people like those you describe don't create problems on public forums. They are basically invisible and I am happy as long as they continue to be invisible. Enjoy your "high caliber stuff"

That's a terrible wish on your part. If you truly want to help me, then wish me this, "May you realize perfect wisdom and freedom immediately!" "May you become liberation on sight phenomenon!" "May your Buddha-field be brimming with enlightened beings!" Now this will be an effective wish. Don't wish me any useless delays or disempowering thoughts. I am a lot stronger than you can understand. I eat demons at night. I mean this literally. There is not much that can scare me or disturb me because I've been scared and disturbed to my core already, so I know what it is and I am not afraid. I am ready to die immediately, as in, right now. I am also equally ready to live, even live in your face, if necessary. Just think this over and don't be wishing me any kind of a useless ball and a chain.

When you say someone is your everything, devotion does become blind at that point. So you are saying some conflicting things. You can be devoted to many things. And e.g. when I am devoted to what I do, I like doing it. If am devoted to my teacher/master/guru (give him / her the name you want), then it is far easier for me, to do my daily practice. Is practice your end goal? If yes, then you should stay where you are. If not, then join the community I support and protect. But don't answer this too quickly. Give yourself time to think. Do you want to practice forever? What are you practicing for? Which means as well I trust that this method/practice will help me. Help you to achieve what exactly? If I do not have this trust, it will not help. How do you know it will not? Who told you this? Where did you learn this? As I continuosly will struggle with it. I could devote simply to the Buddha-nature in me. And I do. But it is really hard to see and stay in it, when I still do not really realize it. This is why you have friends. You don't need to enter into a dom/sub relationship to get some help. If the only way your Guru will work with you is to have you in a dom/sub relationship, your Guru is an exploiter and an abuser. Any true Guru has enough humility to help from the position of a friend without planting one's ass on a fancy throne (literally or metaphorically). I could simply trust and devote to Buddha. But he is just a mere idea, I do not know him. I cannot talk to him. I cannot listen to his advice, because yet I am able to see him. That's not true. Buddha has left many teachings behind. Those teachings are his testament. They are reliable and worthy and they are so powerful, than nothing whatsoever needs to be added on top to make them effective. I speak from personal experience here. Buddha is with us right now. I see it thus very clearly. Here enters the Guru. He is there. Visible. Touchable. I can argue with him. I can feel his love, he can guide me etc etc etc. And his job is not to guide me into depending on him - but the opposite. He has to take away things from me. Things I quite often do not like to give away. All my attachments (as well towards him), all my ignorance, all those "nice" things I want to keep. Like as well my sadness, my anger and all the other stuff I am stuck in. 2) Love: The first time I met my later teacher, in one moment I saw so much love and light in his eyes, as I never had seen before. This was the moment I started to trust him, to love him. I wanted more of this pure and complete love, of being finally accepted exactly as I am. This moment for me was incredible. I worked with this love for one year. And then finally came back to go deeper, to accept him as my teacher. Guru Yoga is about love (and trust and devotion and letting go). To love somebody with daily less expectations is incredibly strong. To allow somebody to love me completely, is changing me in an extreme way. It hurts often. Because the more I allow myself to feel his love, the more my personal bullshit comes to the top. The more I love him, the more I have to deal with my expectations. Are authoritarianism and submission required for love? And yes. You can be, you are my teacher as well. But could you really handle all of my (and others) bullshit coming up? Because I am only one person the short answer is no. Even if I am very wise and very strong, I can't necessarily handle everything to your liking. If your liking is not an issue, then I can handle it all, yes. But luckily I am not alone. There are many friends you can find here who are very skillful. And one more time -- it is authoritarianism and secret exclusivity that I protest. Not love. Not the act of teaching. Could you really give me a hand passing through it? I know, I can not. I can handle many things - but not all. Many things touch my personal emotional knots - and then it gets complicated. And this is, why it is so beautiful to have a realized being as a teacher/master/guru. So you decided that your teacher is realized. Can you please tell me how you have come to this conclusion? Until now he never ever got stuck in my stuff. I never saw him get stuck in anything. And yet he is able to offer a vast clearness and "nearness" (sorry, if my english words do not always fit). I use my teacher - he is not using me. I take all my bullshit on top of him. I give him the face of my fears, my blocks, my emotions. And as I do trust him, I can accept his hand, his help. (A hand which does not have to be the real physical hand). Just by trusting and loving, I can go nearer to my bullshit. I can face it, leave it. And see that behind all this, there is something very different than all this struggling. That there is clearness, silence. If there is one person I can show really nakedly who I am - this is incredibly strong. And this is Guru Yoga, this is devotion. You just described trust and not devotion. And if your teacher doesn't mind making you some tea, then it's OK. And this is what is leading towards your own inner master, to the complete realization of emptiness. This is where you find real freedom. And then you are as well free of your master. Ask your teacher this question, "When do you think I will be fine learning and practicing on my own?" He'll probably give you a reasonable and finite timeline, something measured in a number of years. Hold him to it! Put it down on paper so you don't forget the promise. If he says you have to be his student indefinitely and nothing less will do, that's not a good sign. It means he either has no plans on getting you up on your own two feet, or lacks the necessary know-how or courage (and that's just the best case scenario).

As everything? That's not healthy! Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Remember, this isn't about me. I don't want to be your Guru. I only promise to be your friend. If you think I want to replace your guru with myself, then you utterly don't understand what I am trying to accomplish here. You can trust in the community of like-minded individuals. No one person alone can be your teacher, but together with you, we can do a good job teaching you everything you want to know.

I read your whole post, and I heard your roar, thunder and earthquakes! This is great! It should be obvious by now that I see it the same way you describe here. I agree with you 100%. So what are some of the solutions to this? Let's think this over. First, let's say this should be a voluntary process. This means I assume people actually want to get wiser, more effective and more fulfilled, which I believe leads to kindness. So, to the extent some people are genuinely happy with status quo, we will not bash them on the head. This still leaves us with a lot of people who do want to grow spiritually but who are afraid and stuck. These people will naturally seek out some help. Some of that help will be in the form of books and general information gathering. Some of it will be in the form of Gurus. And some of it will also be in the form of peer groups. All these people will engage in some level of personal practice. Let's keep in mind that even just reading a book, even hearing a few stanzas of a text like Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra has immeasurable benefits. That's not to say this text is special in some absolutely exclusive way, but I am saying that the hearing phase of the practice is crucial. So right away, a lot of the people will be redeemed by this. We will no longer see them as useless hobbyists, but as worthy aspirants. So let's decide not to denigrate people who engage in the hearing phase. We will not say things like "Oh, you're all talk and no action... you don't have real experience, meh." Let's not talk like that. Even if the person shows interest and reads anything that inclines toward wisdom, let's consider that serious practice, and let's start respecting this. Therefore let us cease constantly bombarding people with disempowering messages like "You're just at the intellectual level... it's all worthless unless you do what I do, because I have real experience, I am not just intellectualizing about it, etc." I believe this is a reasonable approach. If you agree with me, then let us vow something like this: "I will not denigrate the hearing phase of the path." This is not a secret vow. We are OK to share this with others and without bashing anyone over the head, we can invite whoever thinks it's reasonable, to also vow this as a training vow. If a number of people vow this, the atmosphere will become friendlier. Second issue. Second issue is that there is a fear or concern that many people will proclaim themselves to be enlightened. Personally I think this is wonderful! Why? Because regardless of whether or not people are actually enlightened, if many people claim to be enlightened, then it will drain all specialness from the title itself. We don't want people to think that status is something they need to acquire. We want people to know the difference between status, which is useless, and true joy. I believe the depth of wisdom is a reward in and of itself, and if we try to force or push people toward it, we will only cheapen it. So when people take the dippytoe approach, we are not to denigrate or look down on those people, because if we do, it means we have doubts that where we are at is worthwhile. (We want those people to dip deeper than toes with us, because without them we feel alone and scared and perhaps stupid... and if they would only dip together with us, we would be validated and supported). So we have nothing to fear from false titles or the dippytoe people. In fact, those people are friends. Those people will eventually be the ones who will overturn the vertical hierarchies. Even in their unwitting phase they are helpful to our cause. We will know who is worth what not by titles or claims, but by engaging in debates, and if it gets to that level, then also in tests of siddhis. I agree. Our job is not to force our way on everyone. Our job is to create a community of like-minded individuals and to psychicly protect that community from the overbearing Gurus and dom/sub addicts. We will not abolish all the old methods and Gurus overnight. Instead we will slowly become more numerous and our communal way more popular. We will be in ascendancy over a period of time and Guruism will be in descendancy. Our job is not so much to attack Gurus per se, but to protect our community of peers, which at first may be a bit fragile. So we can engage in debate and purposefully disempower and magically subjugate all the maras who try to attack our community, but beyond that, we can just be content. In other words, I am not going to leave my house and start hunting the Gurus. Instead when someone attacks our way of life, our community, and so forth, we will immediately neuter all such attacks by questioning them, challenging them and finally disempowering them. Eventually all the Gurus and those sick with Guru-itis will realize it's better to just go somewhere where people are less healthy, where they have fresh meat to prey on. Think of it this way. It's exactly how Linux is gaining strength. Linux gains strength from within. It doesn't do so by bashing Microsoft. At the same time, if someone showed up on a Linux forum and started bashing Linux and saying "until you start using Microsoft you are worthless," such talk would face fierce opprobrium from the Linux community. We should behave likewise. So our main goal really is to be the enablers of the peer-to-peer method of spiritual growth. We should only disempower and magically subjugate all the maras to the extent they get in our way, but we should not seek them out. Ultimately if people are not attracted to us voluntarily thanks to some measure of our communal wisdom, we have nothing, and there is no point to the whole exercise. So we should keep that in mind when we control the mara infestations and so we shouldn't become obsessed with controlling the maras. We should be obsessed with constantly empowering each other and helping each other grow. I agree. I agree again. Well said. I don't anticipate perfection among us. I just think we can do it. We can help each other out. Oh, no, it was great! Thank you for your long reply.

I know the feeling. That's exactly what happened with me. It's no reason to give up. When going gets tough, the tough get going. That's the function of the whole world and of what you consider to be yourself. We all can do this. Remember, we don't have to be on our own. I never said let's all become solitary hermits. We can help each other. I am here for you, but not as someone who will dominate you (although I can be firm in my expressions at times), but as a friend who may sometimes challenge you, but who is ultimately just a friend, your equal. You are not? How do you know you are not? Teachers don't have to be authoritarians. They don't have to wear crowns or sit on thrones. What is an "anti-authoritarian" environment?

Thank heavens the scientific community doesn't work like that, or I wouldn't be using this computer now.

Yes. First of all, people already have real power. The reason people get disempowered is because they are swimming in countless disempowering suggestions. So the way to counteract this is to provide many empowering suggestions. Remember, we don't have to actually give or transfer the power to the people. They already have it. It's just a battle of suggestions. No, because all structures have exploitable weaknesses. There is no structure, but it works this way: one person at a time, two people at a time, peer to peer. Think of it like a virus. The virus is powered by ignorance. As long as the ignorance exists, the virus of wisdom is going to spread. Once ignorance is exhausted, the virus of wisdom is going to die with it. Well, in some ways yes, obviously! But people don't have to work it out completely by themselves. People can have friends. Some friends can be wiser than others. Everyone doesn't have to be completely equal, but there should be no dominance and no submission. So for example, let's say I just started lifting weights and someone is able to lift 600 lbs in a deadlift. I don't prostrate and I don't start worshiping the ground this person walks on. Instead, I learn from this 600 lbs deadlift person in a positive way, in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual support. Well, I don't have the same animosity toward rituals as I do toward dogma. I think some rituals may be OK if they are offered as options or alternatives and not as "Do this, cause I said so." kind of thing. Well, yes, but remember the other half of my message is that you are not as powerless or as helpless as the propaganda makes it sound! Let's start by having occasional doubts in our own weakness. The propagandists want us to have doubts in our own strength and capability. Let's simply turn this process on its head. Have doubts in your weakness and doubts in your incapacity. And remember to have some fun with it too. This space is your space. You can build here as much as I can. Welcome! I will be glad to become the space where you can build things. Make all of us wise and strong CowTao and I will willingly become the substance from which you can make things! After all, this is simply the spirit of Mahayana.

Until which point? There is no limit. Keep this in mind: The discussion here is one or few authoritarian teachers who are dominant and who require your submission vs learning from teachers in a non-dominating atmosphere. These teachers prefer not to call themselves "teachers." They are friends. Children don't do well in authoritarian and structured environments. It's a well known fact. They grow up angry and full of resentment because everything they were taught was authoritatively beaten and jammed down their throats. Child learning environments don't have to be like that at all. There are many successful schools that don't teach in an authoritarian fashion.

The fact that the imperialistic dom/sub ways of thinking make me bitter is no secret. I talk about it all the time. Just like everything I say makes you bitter because you want to cling to your vision of impending Guruhood. Guruhood will be your reward. It's what you want, and it's what you'll get. I'll do everything I can to make sure you trap as few dittoheads in your eventual clique as possible. I want freedom. My reward will be freedom.

Brilliant. Not only is this circular nonsense, but it completely contradicts dependent origination teachings, giving authority some kind of inherent and independent essence. I am going to put this shining wisdom in my signature.

Alright. In that case, you need to leave Namdrol and Chogyal Namkai Norbu. Please leave them now. I will repeat this message to you every time I get a chance. This is pure bullshit. You're trying to tell people that they can't depend on themselves. People have the capacity to learn from their own mistakes. It doesn't mean they don't make mistakes, nor does it mean that evidence of the mistakes is evidence of how the inner teacher lies. You're wrong buddy. This is your condescending assumption at work. You assume everyone around you is a spiritually incompetent and incapable person. I don't assume that. But it's obvious how from your assumed POV you'd say something like that. This is the blackness of your heart pouring outward. Let's talk about projections now. When you assume that people are incompetent and can't take care of themselves, you are projecting a visualization of beings that is negative and impure. When I assume that people are basically competent and capable, I am projecting a visualization of beings that is positive and pure. So in terms of projections, I am projecting the right way according to Mahayana. I see purity around me. You see filth. Since you continue to see filth all around you, it's obvious all those years of studying had no effect on you whatsoever. This is proof positive that Gurus don't work. They've failed you, and your failure is exposed very clearly and very obviously for everyone to see on these here forums.

Well, let's see. I want the imperialists to tear down their empires. This is what you're calling imperialistic. Besides, I wasn't addressing the imperialists in this thread, but you specifically. So we are talking about just one self-admitted and proud submissive follower who is also an imperialist-wannabe. They work poorly and inefficiently. Like alchemy vs chemistry.

What a beautiful and thought provoking post, Seth. It's so much pleasure to read this than to read another cut-n-paste of 1000 year old teaching that's been chewed to death by millions of people already. Such thinking can only come from sincere engagement. If you just follow, follow, follow, then you'd never be able to think this freely and this poignantly, and speak this eloquently. You'd just be busy rehashing the same 3 teachings you follow over and over and over again. You know, maybe if people each came up with their own 3 teachings and rehashed those, it would be OK. There are 7 bil people on Earth, so there would be 7 times 3 = 21 bil teachings, and it would be interesting! But what happens is, there is so much groupthink, that you end up with something like 10 teachings or so getting bashed into the ground by billions of people over and over. That's so stale, it's like death. Sure, once in a while it's nice to be reminded of something old, but I want the ratio to be 95% fresh and 5% old. Currently the ratio is like 80% old and 20% fresh. I think we can do better!

I don't think they are completely 100% bullshit. I think that rituals tend to lose their freshness over time. At some point a ritual is fresh, and it has a sacred meaning. As more and more people repeat the ritual, or even as the same person continues to repeat the same ritual, it becomes stale over time. The more the ritual is repeated, the staler it gets. This applies to one person doing some ritual over and over and to many people. I think dogma is much worse than rituals, personally. Rituals just paralyze the body and the gross layers of the mind, which is kind of bad, but it's not a huge loss. Dogma paralyzes the deeper layers of the mind. Dogma is not just mental fixedness, it's also a non-recognition of mental fixedness as such, and non-recognition of the implication of said fixedness, as well as the non-recognition of the implications of the dogmatic content. So all these non-recognitions often occur together and are mutually reinforcing and stabilizing. This is why dogmatic people are sometimes hard to move or to touch. That's great. I mean, seriously. If you love it, that's awesome. What I have a personal problem with is when you suggest to me overtly and covertly that what I am saying is worthless unless I start appreciating your clothes, rituals, and everything else you are doing. You attempt to disempower and delegitimize what I am saying. And it's not just you. Many people on this forum have attempted that. The reason I find what you're doing problematic is not me personally. I will be fine no matter what you do. I can see through all the maras. You can't really shake me or confuse me when you verbalize your personal psychological issues. However, I believe you're confusing and bewildering the heck out of the weaker people who as of yet have hard time standing on their own two feet as strongly and as surely as I am. We are giving conflicting messages to people with wobbly feet. Vajra: The Guru will hold you up! Me: Exercise your legs! That's the difference. When I say I don't need a Guru the implication is not that I don't need one, but that no one does. And by Guru I mean something specific, namely a human authoritarian teacher. Of course we all need to learn somehow, but our teacher is always with us. Our own mind and our own body is the teacher. Our life. Our dreams. All these are super teachers that will never lie, never cheat, don't charge you additional costs, don't get tired, don't abandon you even for a second, have endless superb wisdom, and more importantly have tons of fresh wisdom as opposed to old formulaic regurgitations. I know because I practiced bhakti yoga too. This is also why I am now warning people! It's all too easy to go down the wrong path with bhakti yoga. When you're in a devotional state you are vulnerable and ripe for exploitation. It's a nasty trick that works, but isn't worth the risk. There are sure ways that work just as well and have less risk. I prefer the sober way over the drunk way. Now tell me how would an authoritarian succeed where a friend would fail?

I strongly disagree with this estimation. I think while some small amount of contradiction falls within a healthy range, generally the more internal contradiction, the more mentally sick the person is. You don't understand the difference between being able to consider contradictions for the purpose of examination, and actually committing to contradictions. There is a huge difference. For example, I can read the Bible without committing to it. I can then read Daodejing without committing to it. In the similar way I can observe countless contradictions without committing to any of them. My commitment is strong to the extent it is passionate and to the extent the beliefs that condition my commitment are themselves coherent. I am definitely committed to something. If you are not passionate about anything specific, then having a fragmented mindset is not going to be all that painful. The more passionate someone is, the more it is essential to have a coherent mind. A coherent mindset is always safe: it is safe in a dispassionate person and it is safe in a passionate one as well. The same cannot be said about fractured and self-contradicting mindset. It's very possible that you're a person who is ill-at-ease to some extent. For example, when you talk about your many roles, are they mutually contradictory roles? If yes, you definitely suffer from a disease. If those roles are orthogonal or mutually supporting, then why mention that as an example of something contradictory? Either way you're either sick or confused. You offered something that I take as either an inaccurate example, or shallow. I can't accept your example as valid or useful. For example, when you say you see yourself as nothing, I don't accept that at all, except in a shallow poetic literary sense (like emo or goth kind of stuff). I don't want to waste time on such empty rhetoric. It would only be violence if it was imposed on you somehow. Violence is what happens when one half of your being fights the other half. I call that inner violence. I am calling you to abandon inner violence of your own free will. You are fiercely protecting your right to fight yourself on an inner level, as if I am dangerously close to stripping that ability from you. If by "one way" you mean I want everyone to be wise, healthy and powerful, then yes, I want it all one way. So you gave a hollow and dishonest example on purpose? Why don't you give an example that has true meaning to you personally? How about exposing a contradiction that's actually real for you? So far you failed to materialize your worry in this debate. It's not at all misleading. It's correct to equate the two. It's wrong to imply that mystery can somehow be satisfied or unsatisfied. That shows woeful misunderstanding. Thank you! So let's not talk like that again.

"Blessed are the peacemakers."

I wanted to mention one other very important thing that just occurred to me while I was reflecting on your post. (surprised? that's right, I continue to reflect on many posts here after I am done replying) Based on the quoted description it appears that you make devotion something that's good for its own sake. In other words devotion is good because it results in a more devoted relationship. Being together through thick and thin is good because it's good. For me, trust is something that's in the service of a higher value. Trust is in the service of truth. So trust is not good because it's good to trust. Trust is good because it's an environment in which searching for truth is most optimal, in my view. Sticking with a person as long as possible is not something I consider valuable for its own sake. It sounds a lot like an unhealthy attachment, in fact. I prefer to judge relationships based on quality and not based on a quantity of time. Of course if you can sustain a quality relationship longer, that's great. But length of time is never the primary consideration. Only quality is. When I talk about quality, I don't talk about cheap things, like having the person flatter you all day long and other superficial sugar, so let's not try to debate against quality by equating it with something superficial. Instead think of quality as something that's connected to your highest and truest aspirations.

This is one of the reasons why lasting success makes no sense at all. Nor is there such a thing as lasting failure. You seem to equate a coherent state of mind with inflexibility. That's a deadly mistake on your part. Someone is coherent when all parts of one's being want the same thing, are integrated and well connected, brightly inform one another, work well with each other (play for the same team, so to speak), etc... Varying according to situation doesn't necessarily mean working with conflicting visions of reality or working with conflicting visions of what's good for oneself. If anything, a coherent person is better able to adapt to the environmental changes because it's always obvious what adaptation would be best, and it comes naturally and effortlessly. The reason this is so, is because you don't have an inner fight with yourself every time you need to react. You are ready to go every time because all of you is playing for the same team. This is deadly wrong. Mystery doesn't have an intent that's separate from our own relatively more conscious intent. So talking about satisfying mystery is simply nonsense. It just means you don't fully understand what it is you're trying to discuss here.

It seems you're trying to shift all the responsibility onto the student. Now the argument looks like this: "Gurus exist because unready students demand them." Of course I don't buy this at all. Why not? Because in any interaction the responsibility is shared. The more powerful and more conscious person has a greater share of the responsibility, even if not dramatically greater, it's still at least slightly greater. So for example, if I am strong and I go around beating people, I can say if those people just exercised and studied philosophy (as Musashi said, the way of the warrior is the way of the sword and pen, both), there is no way I could beat them. So the responsibility and the fault fall entirely on the victims themselves. I believe this would be an unbalanced view. In all cases I always share responsibility around. I'm willing to skew the responsibility toward the more proximate agents, the more powerful ones, the more empowered ones, the more aware ones, etc. Well, I didn't expect you to come to my defense so quickly and so eloquently. You just don't know how to trust, or where trust really resides. Trust is not put onto your idea of the person, nor is it put on a person. Trust is put on that which is in common between you and the person. Doing so results in a strong and stable trust. But good trust isn't blind, that's true. That's a virtue of trust and not a drawback. If you want to know what's more fundamental in a relationship then consider this: A relationship with trust but no devotion. A relationship with devotion but no trust. Contrast and compare.