Degeneration of Traditions : Mechanisms

[rideforever]

People are attracted to sources of power, they feel they will get something from them.   So they go see what is going on and listen.   And then the misunderstand.   Instead of stretching their intelligence up and struggling, they hear only what makes sense to them ... at their carnal material nature, they translate the teaching into their carnal understanding.

 

Why were the gnostic gospels removed from the Bible ?   Because the were not understood by coarse people and the gnostic material drew suspicion.

Why was A Course in Miracles re-edited in 1976 with many important ideas removed ?  Because they were not understood ...

 

And so you are left with a path that looks deceptively like the original, except the original light and spirit has been removed by the 1st generation students.

 

Why has advaita gone from being a devotional gurukul transmission path, to wise-acreing about concepts over cappuccinos ?  Because it was not understood, because people were not prepared to do the work and did not really need to do the work, they were there to have an easy life, sound important and feel pleased with themselves.

 

Perhaps the first stage of degeneration is omission through non-recognition; and the 2nd stage is wise-acring.   As a new crowd arrives at the tradition, and the light has already been removed, the new crowd starts to explore the material in an intellectual way because .... nothing is happening.   Nothing is happening because the 1st generation students deleted all the light, and so the 2nd generation students receiving an empty meal start to have a look in the mental realm for answers.

 

False Compassion : Masturbation of Feelings : Insect Oneness

Jesus gave 2 commandments : the first was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, body.   And the second was to love your neighbour as if he were yourself.
But when I have heard people repeat Jesus's instructions, they conveniently omit the 1st instruction.    They just talk about love and compassion etc...    Why ?   Because that is quite comprehensible to apes, who know about caring for people.    
Unfortunately without the 1st instruction it is all carnal and meaningless.
If you don't love God (have a bridge to the light) ... then your caring is animal.
After a while the students start to notice that loving your neighbour does not bring salvation, so they .... begin to try to extract more juice from loving your neighbour ... now they wish to love everyone and everything and imagine they will save the world and so on.   Which is not what was intended and just fantasy.   They exaggerate the 2nd instruction because they didn't hear the 1st.

 

When the teacher doesn't know

Several teachers (Nisargadatta, J Krishnamurti, UG Krisnamurti, Mooji, Adida) have stated at the end of their lives that nobody understood them, nobody got it, or very few.    And so we have to question whether teachers actually know themselves how to teach, it appears to be a separate skill.   Eckhart Tolle for instance struggled since he was young, going here going there, sleeping rough, trying this trying that.   Finally he arrived at realisation and he teaches The Power Of Now.   But .... that was not his own path.   He cannot teach his own path because it was a big mess. 
So he made something up that might or might not work, certainly it was not how he awoke.
Often the teachers are simply describing their state, like describing a summit ... .but that is not a path to get you to the summit.
It is quite sad if a teacher speaks for 40 years and nobody is awakened.
Osho says at the end of his life : "I leave you my dream".    Dream ?    Where are the instructions ?   Bye thanks a lot.

 

Jesus's early years are concealed, and Osho similarly sought to dismiss it ... in order to project a superman image.   If you saw the pain suffering stupidity and banalness of their early journey perhaps students would not be impressed.

Another thing I have noticed is that teachers always assume you are a beginner and want you to start at the bottom, but this may not be the case at all.   Humans don't really assess their own state, and few teachers can either.

 

So how can we do something positive then with this information :

 

- always go to the source, read the words of the teacher yourself

- study the life of the teacher himself, what choices did he make and how does it compare to your own choices

- regardless of what the teacher says try to feel his state and invoke a transmission, even from a photo or song

- assume that most wise-acres that follow do not understand

- demand results from anyone you follow

 

Active destruction

Many teachers/groups seem to be looking for an easy life, where you can hug and screw or wise acre all day long, wear strange clothing and burn incense, and convince yourself everything is great ... rather than the light.
Such groups actively destroy teachings and are suspicious of what is real.
You can say that such people are at a level of consciousness where they wish to explore friendship and various things and so choose the umbrage of a spiritual tradition .... in other words they are doing what they need to do for their own journey .... but it results in the destruction of a tradition.

 

Eating from the King's table

I suppose you can say that the Light percolates into this world, and the progressive eating of the Light is how it carried into the dark world.   Like Chinese whispers, each generation repeating the words with a little less light ... until what is left has no light in it, and un-differentiated from the darkness.
Another mechanism of transmission into the dark world is when a being lifts himself up to hear with better ears and himself becomes lit up like a lighthouse.

[Jeff]

Some interesting points, but in my view you have strung together a bunch of different types of issues under the same label and that makes it very difficult to discuss, as their is not one answer to your concept.

 

As an example, Jesus did lay out a methodology, but his teachings were “corrupted” by an institutional framework that was trying to build an empire. The last thing the Roman Empire wanted was a bunch of independent “un-attached” thinkers running around.

 

Also, not all realizations are of the same level. What Eckhart Tolle has realized is no where in the same realm as Jesus. If one has truly realized, they can not just teach it, but they can actual show and share a “taste” of it. This is why there are so many stories of Buddha telling people to just stay with him for extended periods.

 

 

[3bob]

I suggest letting go of most of that detailed harping about this or that mess, (since you have already been there and done that, besides such uses a lot of energy that could be better spent) Btw, Jeff gave you a nugget with, "but they can actual show and share a “taste” of it"...

 

1. loving "God" is a work in progress being that we have mostly created God via various thought(s).  Going to "the source" is also a work in progress being that if we fly directly into the sun with paper wings many of us will burn up...whereas following the simple and true ways of mother nature  teaches us much of what we need to know and live by.