Originally Posted by shadowofwind
I don't agree that an actual guru would never choose to make sharing his discoveries important. I can imagine that he'd choose not to because he understands it to be counterproductive, but not unimportant. I think the blissful nihilism that often masquerades as enlightenment, and which may make the sharing seem unimportant, is actually one indicator of the limited wisdom of gurus.
But wouldn't an actual guru handily recognize that blissful nihilism* and shrug it off, given the wisdom of true enlightenment any qualified guru would have experienced? You are consistently assuming that all "enlightened" folk are charlatans; try assuming,perhaps, that some of them actually got there, and are able to spot the simple charades that their impersonators necessarily adopt.
It may be that true gurus (assuming there are any) are not interested in sharing, but it could be more that they have a real understanding of how the recipients of their words will react than it is they have a smug or misguided assumption that what they "know" cannot be transcribed in a way these simple people (aka, everyone) could comprehend. True gurus may actually be at a loss for words to describe what they've seen, and sensibly choose then to describe nothing, rather than mislead gullible listeners.
In a sense, an enlightened guru might understand that there is no way to properly translate her experiences, so she finds it better to keep those experiences close, and simply wait for others to touch the same truths as her, and then share, for the sake of learning more, her experiences.
* Oh; and if a guru starts spouting exigencies of bliss, assume that he is full of shit. Bliss (and nihilism, for that matter) is a buzzword; a descriptor that shields ignorance behind a high wall of hope... yes, hope is a powerful tool, obviously, of the charlatans as well.
Of course a guru may actually help people. I was probably helped by Ramana Maharshi, for example. People are complex, and I'm not suggesting he was Satan incarnate. But I still say that if we scale the presumption of knowledge down to what the individual actually knows, and he qualifies his message appropriately given that limited knowledge, then he no longer fits any standard definition of the word 'guru'.
Agreed.
If there is a man somewhere who has answers to questions about the origin and fate of the universe, and if it does not hurt others for him to share those answers, then he must share them. That is my opinion. A child deserves to know who his father is.
Why must a person not be qualified as a guru until he can answer questions about the origin and the fate of the universe? Is there no middle ground? Are there no other facets of existence that are not quite so universal that beg to be understood and explained? Like the nature of our soul, or identity?
A child generally knows who his father is, intuitively; that's the knowledge we humans have already learned to absorb. However, whether a child must know the origin or specific metaphysical constructs from which his father emerged, and whether someone who knows as much is obliged to share, is far more arguable, I think.
Aside from that: someone who has seen (and remembered) the Truth about, say the origin and fate of the universe probably ought to share with the rest of us, but that someone must also consider whether his description of those things will be understood by anybody, and, worse, whether his descriptions will be misunderstood an converted into yet another useless religion.
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
Here's my intuition about why these answers are not shared: That knowledge is a part of a wider context of knowledge, and there are other related truths which we are hiding from. This hiding is partially at an individual level, but there's a collective aspect to it also. We can't step outside of it any more than we can step outside of our human genome. Some truths get through, but they're distorted by the obstruction of the other things we don't want to see. And we can't deal with any of it well in our current condition. That condition will improve, god willing, then we will discover more. In the meantime, we move in that direction by making choices not to hide from what we do see, even while realizing that we're not understanding it correctly from our limited perspective.
Well said; I tend to agree with all of that. It does not explain why gurus cannot exist so much as we are not yet programmed to allow them to exist, but the reasoning is sound, I think, if not, yes, truly intuitive. Perhaps potential gurus are those few who have enjoyed opportunity to digest the truths that get through, and from them are able to forge the paths to discover more. Yes, collectively we'll all walk those paths eventually, but what if an enlightened few are doing so right now? And what if they know this path is not meant for discovery just yet, that the collective "we" must -- for its own genomic good -- continue to hide, for now? And what if these few would be willing to share with individuals who displayed the fortitude necessary to single them out?
All existent gurus may be charlatans. Hell, all self-proclaimed gurus most certainly are charlatans. But that doesn't mean there is not a precious few enlightened beings living among us, who -- as they explore their own unique existences with the vision of their transcendental perspectives -- are either keeping to themselves or waiting for properly engaged explorers to discover them.
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