Guru rating service!

[Trunk]

Heh, well I think an even more ideal setup would be to let the "public" plug in their own rating for any teacher and then have some space to explain their reasoning. Because I think for some people it can get even more complicated than level of enlightenment vs. ability to explain, it's also their ethical development and maturity (ie: are they exploiting positions of power), the order in which they present concepts, even their personality, etc. So allow me to use this as an opportunity to plug the fabulous Tao Bums Review Board as having the potential to be this very resource.

The review board is very, very cool for most areas - but awfully political (or something near that word) re: teachers. Hypothetically, let's say there's a widely known and popular teacher on that list that I think is not worth a rat's ass. I'm way too pc to put up a review, give them zero or 1 out of ten, say why, append my name to the review - for all people to see for all time. Maybe all you rowdies would, and maybe I'd even applaud you some for it (if the reviews were honest and well spoken).. maybe I'm missing the boat and the opportunity of this..

 

Opinions?

[neimad]

The truth is relevant in all cultures at all times.

When one is in the truth whatever they say will affect us.

So the ones you are talking about don't make the cut.

 

the truth is relevant and there is only one truth, agreed.

 

however the attempts at describing truth (through the only possible mechanisms: metaphors and analogies) are culture specific.

 

using ancient or different cultures metaphors and analogies to try to understand truth, is like trying to read a book in a foreign language. sure the same characters may be used.... but can you understand the words and sentences enough to grasp what the book is truly saying?

 

first you have to learn the language and then perhaps you can understand the book.

[TwoTrees]

I think the best 'gurus' are the unknown guys and gals - ones that have no big 'message' that is so good for marketing, they're the ones that make waves on a small, personal level... once a guru starts communicating through books, videos, cds etc they lose some aspect of their ability to help transform others... once they start advertising and trying to appeal to our illusions they re-inforce the very aspect they are trying to transform. I'm not saying that all masters with marketing campaigns and big, shiny, sexy messages cant help people... it's just that you cant judge whether they are effective or not.

Absolutely positively 100% on-target

Success can be obtained upon millions of ways. It's just a matter of perspective that gets you there.

[Cameron]

I have no interest in reviewing a teacher. I suspect it is a very personal and karmic thing so don't feel comfortable with it . Let's say Mantak Chias stuff can be very helpful to someone(as an example) and I give Chia a low rating(As an example only I never met Chia) maybe that would prevent someone who could get a tremendous healing from Chia from doing it.

 

I think you have to check these people out for yourself if your drawn to them and decide for youself. I am not against having the review thing and think it can be cool if your being lighthearted about it but not something I am personally comfortable with excercising myself.

 

Cam

[sean]

[GrandTrinity]

hhmm that rmax powered qigong is prett good I'd suspect.

 

I think we do need to be critical of the so called "guru" as the internal guru is the only one that really matters in the end.

 

Learning how to access that internal guru more/all of the time is essential to progress. I think the more ground we over individuals and as a group, the more internal and global power we gain.

 

I think it is time to weed out the weeklings so to speak and be critical of "gurus" and praise the ones who are doing something good, such as setting up a aplan for world peae and undergoing the rigors of scientific research.

 

The power of "breath exersize" qigong, kriya, mind-body awarness really does have the power to bring the 4th density (transcendance of time...) to all humans on the Earth now, it is a matter of finding and applying the techniques that work.

 

And respecting the sacred feminine! Woo woo!

[neimad]

to you sean!

 

actually i had that point of view long before scott ever brought it up.

 

i had it in relevance to my parents buddhist practices. they went on and on about deities and this and that using all kinds of words and so forth to describe concepts.

 

i often thought what they were talking about was ludicrious as the metaphors and analogies used didn't make any sense to me.

often now in a conversation with my father, say, i can get a feel for his meaning behind the words but i have to translate it into my own language to make sense of it.... and then i don't really know whether i actually got what he really meant or not.

thats my point about importing metaphors and analogies from other cultures, you just have to assume you know what they are talking about..... sometimes you might be off the mark though and accepting it just at face value means you may have really missed something valuable just because your language doesn't mesh properly.

 

there is this back and forth of terminology and because we don't have a common point of reference (he wants to use buddhist terminology all the time) often we rarely agree on anything even though we might be discussing the exact same thing.

 

but then again in this back and forth i often do have my own insights (not sure about him, he is pretty dogmatic and him and my mother seem to refuse to think for themselves upon these matters instead relying solely upon what their teachers tell them or what they read in books.... they begin any dicussion with the phrase "from the buddhist perspective" or something similar.... i often tell them i'm not interested in the buddhist perspective, i want THEIR perspective, but they don't seem to have one.... CULT CULT CULT lol).

 

so my point there is i guess i get what you are saying. it is this discussion around the concepts is where the development can happen.

 

but i strongly hold to my analogy about reading the book though. if you are relying upon translations, you just have to seriously hope the translator is a good one! if he isn't.... you aint gonna understand the story.

 

to use your example of qigong (put aside my CST stuff here, i'm speaking for ME not for scott sonnon or RMAX), what is your translation of qi gong then? how did you come to that translation? was it an experiental one? can you explain what qi gong is to someone who has absolutely no interest or understanding whatsoever in eastern thought? so that is without using concepts such as "chi" or anything else, can you tell me what chi kung is? if you can... then thats awesome, we have just shown that such things can be explained without cultural concepts. if you can't, then you are telling me that chi kung is something unique to chinese culture and out of the grasp of someone who does not study eastern thought? that is unless i am ready to embrace some elements of chinese culture i will never be able to understand or practice chi kung.....

get what i'm saying?

 

it's possible to cross-pollinate cultural concepts, and perhaps even a desriable thing for our own personal insights and reflections.... but it's not entirely necessary and it can even be possibly dangerous or deceptive in my opinion.

 

 

p.s. i don't follow dogma, of any kind. often CST reflects what i thought already, and when it doesn't i won't go with it.... however CST stays in the purely physical and allows me the oppurtunity to reflect and explore the rest on my own providing only concrete practices to enhance the ability to live comfortably in my body. i like that.

Edited May 22, 2006 by neimad

[cloud recluse]

On that debunking note, Cloud, *The Jung Cult* by Richard Knoll is also excellent. Not that I think Jung's ideas are *completely* worthless (I'd be pseudo-triumphantly standing on a giant to say that), but there are definitely cultic elements in his organizations, and he did have something do with forming that cult of personality himself.

 

Peregrino,check out Knoll's sequel THE ARYAN CHRIST if you havent allready,but balance it with Sonu Shamdasani's CULT FICTIONS.Storr's treatment in FEET OF CLAY is quite fair I think,& Storr himself is a kind of post-Jungian.Whats interesting about Jung is,like many gurus,his immense difficulty with intimacy (not that thats a straightforward matter for anyone) possibly stemming from childhood pain,in his case an incident of sexual assault (though I dont think Storr actaully refers to that in his book ).

 

Regards,Cloud

[sean]

but i strongly hold to my analogy about reading the book though. if you are relying upon translations, you just have to seriously hope the translator is a good one! if he isn't.... you aint gonna understand the story.

...

can you explain what qi gong is to someone who has absolutely no interest or understanding whatsoever in eastern thought? so that is without using concepts such as "chi" or anything else, can you tell me what chi kung is? if you can... then thats awesome, we have just shown that such things can be explained without cultural concepts. if you can't, then you are telling me that chi kung is something unique to chinese culture and out of the grasp of someone who does not study eastern thought? that is unless i am ready to embrace some elements of chinese culture i will never be able to understand or practice chi kung.....

get what i'm saying?

...

it's possible to cross-pollinate cultural concepts, and perhaps even a desriable thing for our own personal insights and reflections.... but it's not entirely necessary and it can even be possibly dangerous or deceptive in my opinion.

The origins of language are a mystery. There is no "our" language or "our" culture or "our" race except for in mostly arbitrarily defined contexts. There are just languages, cultures and races that evolved on separate parts of the planet with different climates, geography, etc. Exclusively thinking in terms of "our culture" and "their culture" is a sign of ethnocentrism IMO.

 

Chi kung is a subtle, complex concept. IMO it cannot really be translated into two simple words in the English language because IMO English speaking civilizations have not developed anything quite like Chi Kung. Not because of any inability or flaw in English speaking cultures, but just because of different values and focus. You can't do it all. The Chinese didn't initiate an industrial revolution. This came out of the values and focuses of Brittain and then the rest of Europe and North America. Likewise this doesn't mean that non-English speaking cultures can't learn to use machinery. It also doesn't mean that every new term coined to refer to the specifics of machinery and it's operation has to be found in non-English speaking languages out of some idealistic notion that every single detail of every map of reality can be found in every language. Lot's of languages just straight up imported English terms for machinery, computers, etc. And historically the English language has frequently imported terminology from other languages that more precisely described the subtleties of a phenomenon than any word in the existing English lexicon. It's not always a simple process, but it's also not rocket science.

 

Chi kung is a bit more complex to translate than machine terms because it's intertwined with Eastern philosophy to some extent. So I wouldn't try to explain what chi kung means to someone categorically against a brief introduction to discoveries in Chinese philosophy because it does require some familiarity with these philosophies to understand. This isn't really any different than explaining any subject though. I wouldn't waste my time trying to explain web design to someone without any understanding or even interest in computers or the internet.

 

You say there is a possibility of danger and deception in importing terms and I agree. It's not something to be done carelessly. For instance, translating chi kung as merely "breath work". Really though, I think the future is going to bear more and more of this cross-fertilization between cultures, practices and philosophies so the problem is unavoidable. Might as well grapple with it now. The ideal is not a new-age cafeteria style attempt to clump everything together into a huge gross lunch, but more of an integral approach to recognizing cultural strengths and limitations, borrowing when necessary and other times looking closely to see how the same wisdom is already found in our traditions.

 

Sean

[neimad]

i take your point sean and i respect it.

 

 

it's a little bit of both and as usual there is a happy medium.

 

i think importing of words etc is natural. i agree with you about the whole "us and them" problem with culture.

 

really my point is more with the concept, the actual descriptions the actual metaphors and analogies to explain spiritual concepts. the are complex and can only ever point the finger at truth, but cannot be truth.

 

for a teacher to be able to explain truth they have to draw from the daily life around them and show how examples from this can reflect the concept they are trying to explain.

 

to even think that our daily lives were anything like the lives of chinese, or any other ancient people, a few thousand years ago is pretty ridiculous. in such vein how can we understand their analogies properly without immersing ourselves in what it would have been like to live as they are?

 

anyways its not really important to me or my development. i just like any excuse to have a discussion.

 

[freeform]

.

Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform

[Trunk]

I gotta chime in on this, too.

 

I think the best 'gurus' are the unknown guys and gals -

My experience is that that are quite a number of low profile very advanced teachers. Authentic, sincere, blow your socks off, real deal Teachers with anywhere from 5 to 50 students showing up for class / events. That's where, personally, I've found the best opportunity to learn.

 

I readily acknowledge that there's some serious heavy-weights that are very popular (the Karmapa, for example), the skillful means to studying with someone like that is to meditate upon him or her from where ever you are, receiving inner teachings from a distance. At least, for me, I'm not attracted to crowds of multi-1000's.

 

appeal to our illusions they re-inforce the very aspect they are trying to transform. .. marketing campaigns and big, shiny, sexy messages ...

Selling sensation and marketing it as spirituality.

Sowing the seeds of confusion and suffering.

Edited May 22, 2006 by Trunk

[sean]

anyways its not really important to me or my development. i just like any excuse to have a discussion.

Hah! Same here. I'll use almost any excuse to start ranting. Very often through this process of passionately upholding a particular point of view, I will find myself ruminating about it on and off for weeks, turning it over at different angles. Usually at some point my mind will generate ways that the perspective I was arguing against holds a lot of validity I didn't see at first.

 

I've heard it so many times that one should stick to one practice and get deeply into it... I'm of the opposite school of thought (whether it's flawed or not)... I think you can study many different practices (languages?!) and achieve a depth in none of them - but in yourself. Using the art metaphor - you could study painting using oils for 20 years and become a total expert, while reaching a profound state of flow in terms of painting - I like to dabble in all the different types of art - and if I can spend 20 years doing that, I can achieve this profound flow independant from any specific artistic medium (practice/language).

 

Obviously this doesn't suit everyone - I'm an Information Ager - so I'm quite good at using, filtering and discovering patterns in varied information - because once you discover the non-semantic pattern in something you gain mastery of the pattern rather than the language/semantics describing it.

Freeform, that is so cool you stumbled across this style naturally. I've been beating myself up for 15 years for not being able to decide on area of study and commit my entire life to it. Right now I am reading Refuse to Choose and it's reframing this in a similar way to way you wrote here.

 

if Sean's taking the piss out of your reliance on CST and the rmax philosophy, you should take the piss out of his constant reaching for 'The Ultimate Truth'...

NNNNNnnnnnnnnOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!! (said like Darth Vader at the end of the last Star Wars). Not my ultimate truth seeking! Then what would I be?! What would I be without my seeking the ultimate truth!?

 

Re: Judging / rating gurus. If you think about it like judging their ability to teach and not their existence as human beings, that is a nice distinction. Not everyone who is enlightened can automatically teach well and some might just be constitutionally ill-equipped for it. On a more serious note, some teachers do abuse power and hurt students in ways that can only point back to unintegrated shadows in the teacher. When we have an experience with the dark side of a teacher, the crossroads we then face is not "choose to let people know" or "don't choose", it's "choose to let people know" or "choose to let people remain in the dark about this, perhaps allowing it to happen again". Forfeiting choice isn't one of the options. Choosing not to say something is a choice that has repercussions as well. (Wow, did I just type this two paragraphs away from a link to a book called "Refuse to Choose". )

 

 

Sean

[neimad]

haha thanks freeform.

 

 

sean you think too damn much! your constantly referring to someone elses point of view, quoting people you have read about and relying on their wisdom while pretending it's your own.

it isn't your own unless you are prepared to redirect it to reflect what you truly think.

 

search for truth but realise your the only one who will be able to experience it and understand it. you will never ever read it anywhere.

 

it's not to be found in any practice, book, guru or anywhere else but inside yourself.

i couldn't care less who quoted what.... i know some people say it's important to reference the source of knowledge, but i don't personally believe that. i think once you have assimilated it into yourself, understood it... then you are free to reframe it and put it back out there as your own. undoubtadely whoeever said it to begin with did the same thing anyway.

 

 

nahhh i can't do it. i have no need or urge to go on the attack. even though i don't study aikido anymore, i'm aiki in my defense, i just blend and let the force go around me.

come running full bore at me, i'll drop to my knees and you'll find yourself flying head first into the ground

 

i like sean, and i like all the guys on here. a nice eclectic tripped out community.

 

as for my defense of CST. well i know it seems like i am defending it, but really i am just thoroughly enjoying my investigation and exploration of my body through this system. i'm pretty passionate about it and as such i talk about it often.

i understand that the system has limitations as it is held to the physical realm only... and thats cool with me, that what i am looking for. i don't believe a complete system exists other than the one you can create yourself and thats what i love most about CST, the overt aim is to become your own master.... i really dig that as there aint many others out there with such an aim its usually "follow me and do it exactly the way i have told you to in the order i have".

rather than sit here and pick out where it's limitations lie as a spiritual path (and it never claims to be one) i'd rather just focus on the good stuff, and fill in the gaps myself.... which is what i do.

 

i am an eclectic, like most of you guys here.

 

i don't subscribe to dogma, i don't subscribe to guru's.

the only guru i am interested in is myself!!!

 

that doesn't mean i neglect teachings that people have to offer me, it just means i wont prostrate myself before someone and say unto them "i am a piece of clay, mould me". my parents think it's arrogance on my part.... but i have never said i wont acknowledge a divine being and appreciate any teaching they can give me. if they are truly devine they wouldn't care less whether i prostrated myself to them or not.

 

it makes me sick the way some people grovel to their guru's.

how could someone ever expect to find truth for themselves if they expect that someone is going to hand it to them like a certificate of completition!?

[sean]

haha thanks freeform.

sean you think too damn much! your constantly referring to someone elses point of view, quoting people you have read about and relying on their wisdom while pretending it's your own.

it isn't your own unless you are prepared to redirect it to reflect what you truly think.

 

search for truth but realise your the only one who will be able to experience it and understand it. you will never ever read it anywhere.

 

it's not to be found in any practice, book, guru or anywhere else but inside yourself.

i couldn't care less who quoted what.... i know some people say it's important to reference the source of knowledge, but i don't personally believe that. i think once you have assimilated it into yourself, understood it... then you are free to reframe it and put it back out there as your own. undoubtadely whoeever said it to begin with did the same thing anyway.

nahhh i can't do it. i have no need or urge to go on the attack. even though i don't study aikido anymore, i'm aiki in my defense, i just blend and let the force go around me.

come running full bore at me, i'll drop to my knees and you'll find yourself flying head first into the ground

 

i like sean, and i like all the guys on here. a nice eclectic tripped out community.

It's truly an honor to get critical feedback in such a kind hearted frame. I will now proceed to prove why you are wrong with citations from some books I've read.

 

Sean

[neimad]

It's truly an honor to get critical feedback in such a kind hearted frame. I will now proceed to prove why you are wrong with citations from some books I've read.

 

Sean

much love, brother.