Spiritual Masters that aren't Swindlers and Frauds

Since there's a thread already focusing on Deepak Chopra, I thought we should turn this around and talking about Masters which are credible.

Firstly I'd like to start with Eckhart Tolle since he's also gained a celebrity status thanks to Oprah, just like Chopra. He's written some books and travels the world leading retreats and the like, in fact this last summer he led a retreat at the same center I aspire to work at next year. His books are incredibly powerful, and explain things in ways which are easily digestible. He's also incredibly awkward, and does not come off charismatic in the least. He bores the shit out of people when he speaks but there's a very deliberate and centered way about him which is alluring.

Secondly, Thich Naht Hanh is one of the greatest masters on earth today. He runs a retreat center called Plum Village which some of my sangha-mates have been lucky enough to attend. They ascribed it to Buddhist boot camp, and said they took something profoundly life changing from the 3 week experience. Retreat Centers often differ and depend heavily upon who's leading them, but Thich Naht Hanh has been around for a minute and has mastered the process of helping people blossom. He has also written some incredibly profound books.

Nextly, Alan Watts is the shit. Everything he says is beautiful and rings true. May he rest in peace.

I'll also add Don Miguel Ruiz though I'm a little ambivalent about him. I find his story about his toltec lineage difficult to believe. But that doesn't subtract from the Four Agreements at all, in my opinion. The information is solid, easy to understand and easily utilized in your life to change it into a dramatically happier one. If you are impeccable with your word, if you don't make assumptions, if you take nothing personally and if you always do your best, you can change the world you live in to a personal heaven. It's that simple. Just follow the basics.

Terrance McKenna

Jed Mckenna

What do you guys think of Ram Dass? He's getting up there in age but he's genuine. I read one book of his, Be Here Now which I enjoyed, lots of nice pictures.

Babaji
Khoot Humi
Guru Dev
Paramahansa Yogananda
Apollonius of Tyana
Sanat Kumara
Sri Yukteswar

Joseph Goldsein is pretty cool.

I realize this post is a little older but I just stumbled on it.
Any thoughts on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev?

A few of the names above sound vaguely familiar, but a friend from had me read a book on Sadhguru and I liked it.

What is the book called?

My friend referred "Midnights With a Mystic" by Cheryl Simone and then I read "Mystic's Musings" (not a novel so much as a book of questions answered by Sadhguru) after that one.
I really liked both.

Eckhart Tolle and Abraham Hicks are really good spiritual teachers. Their teachings are simple and to the point, easy to apply/follow, and understand


I believe Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and the Mayans were on a whole other level as being spiritual masters though.

They were way more advanced than us spiritually. Actually, both seemed like an entire civilization of eckhart tolls and spiritual masters. They knew about consciousness

They did a lot of work with the right-brain/intuitive mind which is why they used symbolic images and glyphs. Some of the work the ancient Egyptians did with images/symbols is highly sophisticated subconscious work and which is why their cultures don't make sense to left-brain analytical thinkers.



Experiencing spiritual bliss and raising your vibration/consciousness literally feels like your in another dimension....you have access to higher levels of creativity, peace, wisdom, intuition, empathy, new ideas..i mean it can't be explained..its almost like a dream

when you get a group of spiritually evolved people together to start creating things like glyph-languages, channeling positive energy into things like crystals, artwork and even creating a whole culture together ..I just can't even imagine it..those civilizations were in a whole different dimension




I went off on kind of a rant here, but It's interesting stuff really, teachings from eckhart tolle, abraham hicks, etc.. are only the beginning

Most teachers are not swindlers or frauds, even if their understanding is incomplete. Most are actually motivated out of good will to help people. Most of the teachers mentioned I respect. I don't know much about these 'satgurus' but they are traditional teachers that adhere to their traditions rather than preach their own conclusions.
I like Adyashanti, I like most Tibetan lamas, I like Sri Nisargadatta. I like Osho although he was both the real deal and a swindler and a fraud, both at the same time!
I don't like Gangaji, she is a swindler and a fraud. And the whole 'satsang' circle of people are frauds. I don't like Mooji, I don't think he is a swindler or a fraud but is mistaking sensations for pure awareness. Basically anybody who talks about a 'true self' is confusing sensations with pure awareness, except Sri Nisargadatta. Alan Watts is great! I have never heard any teachings by Babaji and don't even know if there really is such thing as the real Babaji, he might be mythical. I also don't know any teachings by Sri Yukteswar. Well, there is the Kriya yoga which is basically Himalayan tantric kundalini yoga in a Hindu wrapping.
But basically most teachers have good intentions. Even enlightened people see things differently and they debate among themselves just as much as ordinary folks do. Because the truth is really beyond human comprehension, so there are practically infinite interpretations possible. Personally I believe Buddhism does the best job at understanding the truth and is the most sophisticated map of consciousness available. But there are even so many different sects of Buddhism that all disagree on tiny little aspects of Buddhism! A good example is the shentong/rangtong debate. The real guru is within and that is who each one should put their faith in. Outer teachers just point to the guru within (if they are genuine).

There is an experience that people get confused with final enlightenment, and that is the experience of "I AM Universal Awareness!" It is a very compelling state and the truth of it seems so final, all seeking stops, the limited self disappears, etc... that many teachers are at this level, including Ekhart Tolle. But in Buddhism this isn't even the first degree of enlightenment. This is a transient experience on the path of insight called "The arising and passing away of sensations." The Dark Night of the soul immediately follows this insight, which Ekhart Tolle experienced, but he hasn't reached Stream Entry (the first degree of enlightenment) because he doesn't know that awareness and the present moment are impermanent. After the dark night of the soul, in meditation reality blinks in and out and one sees that awareness is not the ground of being. Many of us have also experienced the Arising and Passing away of sensations during lucid dreams and are now in the Dark Night of the Soul. So it is important in looking for a teacher to see where they are coming from, you don't want to be lead backwards or else you will never get out of the Dark Night. Any teacher who doesn't realize that awareness is empty of inherent reality, any teacher who talks about a 'true self' or awareness is your true self is reifying awareness and still has an identity (self) that they are in bondage to.

How is Gangaji a fraud, as opposed to someone who's understanding is incomplete?

I think they're all frauds, in the sense that they claim to know the whole truth when they don't. But I don't see why you single her out.

Well, because her understanding is incomplete, her teacher told her that her understanding was incomplete, but she still 'teaches' watered down feel-good teachings that betray her tradition, and only for money!

She's a fraud by the authority of Papaji? I don't see the essential difference between what she teaches and what Ramana Maharshi taught. And I don't see much difference between teaching for money and accepting food and worship at an ashram. The first Ramana Mahsarshi dialogues I read were in a book called Be As You Are, which seemed good to me at the time. Later I read a different collection of dialogues and there was a lot there that read and vibed like it was corrupted by power, if not as badly as someone like Rajneesh.

If you measure what is complete according to the authority of other teachers, then always you find some which are incomplete, and of course they are always competing with each other that way. But I have yet to see a teaching which is self-evidently wrong about something, if you look for it.

Well, it is my personal opinion of Gangaji and I am in no way trying to slander her or anything or convince anybody she is a fraud. I just think she is. I think her realization is a pretty low realization not on the same level as Ramana's. And I think she is teaching ONLY for the money and fame and prestige, not for any other reason whatsoever. She has a house in the town where I lived and I have been in line with her at the food co-op, and I have been to her satsangs and met her back when I was a seeker. But then again I don't think Advaita and especially neo-Advaita is a complete teaching.

But this is all just my opinions. No inherent truth in what I am saying.

"But I have yet to see a teaching which is self-evidently wrong about something, if you look for it."

I meant to say the opposite, "isn't", not is.

What you say about Gangaji seems likely to be true to me, more than just your opinion. Generally speaking, the more information you get about any teacher the uglier it gets.

A couple of self-styled sages I've met seem generally concerned with helping people. But when I tried to broach the issue of where their approach might be hurting some people instead of helping, they don't want to look at that at all. Even if I'm wrong, they should still want to consider my argument for a moment, just to make sure. If you tell your doctor that the medicine he prescribed is making you sick, he ought to at least try to understand what you have to say, even if he thinks you're mistaken. If they're not willing to do that, if their image as a messenger of truth is more important, what does their desire to help really amount to then?

I got a lot more out of reading Ramana Maharshi than listening to Gangaji tapes, though its hard to say how much that's the depth of their understanding and how much its the way their different minds are filtered by mine. Also I read Maharshi first.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Generally speaking, the more information you get about any teacher the uglier it gets.

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I bet this is the case with every human being! lol.
I don't really care about teachers like I used to. I used to be slightly obsessed with who was a good teacher and who isn't, etc... Now they are just human beings doing what they do in my view. Some just rub me the wrong way, like Gangaji and Adi Da Samraj.

Yeah, Adi Da was a poster boy for New Age ego run amok. I find it hard to believe that intelligent people could read that stuff and take it seriously.

Of course all people are flawed, but not all people are claiming to have the ultimate answer to everyone's problems. It would be a different situation if the guru was merely falling a little short of an ideal, or teaching something that's not deeply connected to his own failings. But since he is selling profound personal transformation, ostensibly based on direct knowledge, the nature of his own transformation is critically relevant to the truth of his message. And if he is no more transformed than average people, as measured by his own ostensible values such as objective honesty or compassion, then this shows that his path doesn't work. For instance, in his biography when he was still calling himself Franklin Jones, Adi Da claimed that his ego had died completely. Clearly it didn't, so he was a fraud or at best an utter fool. And this very significantly undermines the authority of his teaching, since he was its principle result.

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Originally Posted by apurtell

I realize this post is a little older but I just stumbled on it.
Any thoughts on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev?

A few of the names above sound vaguely familiar, but a friend from had me read a book on Sadhguru and I liked it.

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You should check out vids on Google for this man.
A very good speaker, but he does not tell everything openly.
Has free classes in poor countries.
Slightly richer countries, the price goes up.
In the USA he charges the most money of all.
Sounds unfair, but all the money goes to good causes.
You can see he has a lot to tell, but he always holds something back from an answer.
Not yet been confused by his sucsess, but he looks to be heading that way - slightly.

If you want a spiritual master with a difference, just type
"OSHO: Strange Consequences"
Now there is a dude with a totally new way of passing on wisdom.
Some people are a little shocked when they hear his comments.
Try to watch all the 6 mins, then comment please.

I lived in Oregon when Osho had a commune there, back when he was calling himself Rajneesh. His cult was a cesspool of abuse and criminal activity.

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ma Anand Sheela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rajneeshpuram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If your ideal for attaining psychic power involves orgies, fleets of luxury cars, and long white beards, then I recommend ZZ Top as a better alternative.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I lived in Oregon when Osho had a commune there, back when he was calling himself Rajneesh. His cult was a cesspool of abuse and criminal activity.

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ma Anand Sheela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rajneeshpuram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If your ideal for attaining psychic power involves orgies, fleets of luxury cars, and long white beards, then I recommend ZZ Top as a better alternative.

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Now that is why I joined this forum.
In the UK a lot of vids, and details do not come up on Google searches.
Tons of information available on here from members.
Thanks for the links

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Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

I bet this is the case with every human being! lol.

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Nah, children are great.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

A couple of self-styled sages I've met seem generally concerned with helping people. But when I tried to broach the issue of where their approach might be hurting some people instead of helping, they don't want to look at that at all. Even if I'm wrong, they should still want to consider my argument for a moment, just to make sure. If you tell your doctor that the medicine he prescribed is making you sick, he ought to at least try to understand what you have to say, even if he thinks you're mistaken. If they're not willing to do that, if their image as a messenger of truth is more important, what does their desire to help really amount to then?

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Nice point. Even if the guru's answered your specific concern 1,000 times, what's the point of him/her coming down from a mountain and assimilating into society as a helper or "well-being" mentor if he/she's okay with overlooking even one person's dilemma? (Especially if it concerns how the guru may be hurting others when his very mission is to usher people into peace?) We can consider that maybe the guru didn't want to "spoon-feed" you, but that's no excuse for completely ignoring constructive criticism.

The first step to becoming a teacher is realizing you are forever a student, after all; even the wisest can still learn from the young. We become stagnant only after we decide to stop learning... only after we stop listening to what others have to say.

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If they're not willing to do that, if their image as a messenger of truth is more important, what does their desire to help really amount to then?

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And I think your point is applicable in all fields, really.

If your practice, whether it's an approach to understanding cell regeneration or a philosophy of living for pleasure, is effective enough so that others can repeat it to share your results, it's usually inevitable that you develop a sort of public image as a result because people are curious about origin and enjoy knowing "who's behind an idea", especially a great idea. When knowledge is shared, people like to know its source.

We are all messengers of truth in this way because we are always sharing knowledge with each other. And, thus, our lives naturally represent what we've come to understand about the world in both observing it and pursuing our curiosities about it. Because we are thinking beings, an individual's "image" inevitably reflects how we place value on the mind. All people, therefore, are messengers of truth as long as truth is the object of pursuit... as long as it's on the mind, so to speak.

The trouble in all of this "sharing of knowledge"--in this grand unfolding of Reason--is keeping our composure in the face of praise (as conceited as that sounds). Positive feedback is undeniably really, really great to receive, since it literally confirms the utility of all your efforts, all of your laboring, and inevitably all of you. Recognition feels so good that it often (quite easily) overwhelms us to the bone, numbing all other senses, including our sense of purpose: for what use do we have without the acknowledgement of others, right? Wrong.

Although we leave the womb with hardly any instincts, the few that we have help us survive. Eventually, as we develop into toddlers, we acquire a few additional motivators alongside pure survival, including the attention/praise of our parents. This is never our sole motivator, however; we are multifaceted! Through our ability to simply observe, it seems we are innately curious. Our utility, therefore, is literally self-imposed once we mature out of childhood, once we know the power of our own will.

A sage's usefulness as well as anyone else's, thus, can never really be legitimized or confirmed by their "image" because images are empty representations or symbols of something expected to be internalized within a person. In the same regard, receiving recognition for your image alone amounts to nothing either because it is more so a bi-product of what is actually meaningful--that being the applicability of your practice by another person.

An example of how significant it is to differentiate between "image" and "person" (of how important it is to be precise with our words) in order to further our overall understanding of the world can be found in the semantic debate about "ego" currently underway in this thread.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I lived in Oregon when Osho had a commune there, back when he was calling himself Rajneesh. His cult was a cesspool of abuse and criminal activity.

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ma Anand Sheela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rajneeshpuram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If your ideal for attaining psychic power involves orgies, fleets of luxury cars, and long white beards, then I recommend ZZ Top as a better alternative.

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Hey I live in Oregon!
Osho is in a league of his own, defying logic!
Some people think that Ma Anand Sheela worked for the CIA.
It seems plausible since she was the one responsible for turning the place into a concentration camp cult and the bioterror attack and basically got a slap on the wrist for it and is now successful again doing what she does.
It was her idea in the first place to go to Oregon from India.
But these things happened under Osho's nose. Yet he was wiretapped and his house bugged as well. The FBI seized the recordings of everything that happened in his house, which he only left once a day, and could not find that he had any knowledge of the criminal stuff going on. The only law that Osho broke was immigration fraud by arranging marriages between Indians and Americans. But that doesn't excuse his collection of Rolls Royces and diamond watches and '70s style science fiction guru robes. But is that a fault? Nothing he did contradicted his teachings. He enjoyed luxury, like a rock star, and he was very open with the fact he saw no reason not to. And his view on sexuality is that we shouldn't be hung up on it and should be free with it if we wanted to.
But he went crazy. The paradox is that he went crazy but was still enlightened, but he did go insane. But he did transform the consciousness of the whole planet for the better. But perhaps it went to his head. It is a great story. I would like to see and Oliver Stone movie about it that is as non-biased as possible. The thing with Osho also is that it is impossible to be non-biased about him. Have you noticed that? Everyone who knows about him has an opinion.

Personally, I think being a rock-star guru was not good for him, but was good for the planet. At first he was a real guru pretending to be a false guru, but he was seduced by the sex, drugs, and power and adoration. He had very good hypnotic skills.

I personally find Osho pretty hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=5ocbZhRQS9I

I find him hilarious as well. And I think he used jokes as spiritual teachings. The punchline transcends the mind. I also think he had a very very deep insight and his words guided me to cut through a bunch of confusion. I owe a lot to him. And perhaps his life story is what helped me let go of him as well and see through the outer guru and realize the inner guru.
And I admire him the way I admire Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Bruce Lee, etc... all of whom were merely humans as well. I admire that he owns his dark side and does not hide it at all and in fact he owns it with style. He never hurt anyone either, and I genuinely feel that he loved and appreciated every single person.

Dannon Oneironaut:

If what he did didn't contract his teachings, and if it led to his seduction and insanity, then that would seem to me to say something about the nature of his teachings. If he "saw no reason not to" enjoy living like a rock star, and it corrupted him, then that doesn't make him a hypocrite, but it does make him mistaken about there being no reason not to live like that. And if it was a mistake, then teaching that view to his followers was a mistake also. And teaching that view was a pretty big part of what he was about.

I'm not sure I believe that its possible for it to have been bad for him and good for the planet. Who he was is what he brought to the planet, for both good and ill. The guru and his student are two sides of the same dynamic.

I'm not saying he didn't have power or a kind of understanding, and I don't think that it necessarily makes sense to try to evaluate whether his life was a net positive or negative. Certainly there is good in everything. But bullshit is bullshit, and certainly there was an awful lot of bullshit there along with everything else.

Somewhat separately, I think that most conspiracy theories about the CIA or other US government agencies misunderstand their nature. The CIA is a bad organization, but it doesn't have much power domestically, and it has a lot less power overseas than is commonly imagined. People speak of "the government" in a personified way, as if it has an agenda and some kind of nefarious plan. Actually its a lot of semi-incompetent careerist bureaucrats struggling to get a better suck at the giant tax tit, and they're pretty much like everyone else in more ways than not. I used to work in an evil-looking building where alien artifacts are dealt with, according to what I read on the internet, and I had an above top secret clearance. It doesn't mean anything, its not really like that. The point I'm getting at is I think the way people view this sort of thing is a projection. Counter-culture spiritual people can't accept ownership of the problems in their own community, so they project things onto the CIA or whoever. But its not about them, its about us, and I think we need to deal with what's ours to deal with.

I lived near Albany and Corvallis for a long time. Have some friends near Portland. I did farm work, landscaping, and restaurant work in high school and college, but could never even get an interview in Oregon in the years after I graduated. Otherwise I would not have left, and would have gone back.

There is something about Osho that transcends duality in my opinion. One cannot say this or that with any conviction. For example, did it not work? What was it that lead to his insanity? Was it being a flamboyant guru? Did he really become insane? Or was he always insane? Or merely pretending to be insane? Or neither? All we can have are empty opinions. (BTW, I only like his teachings from before he came to America, those were genuine teachings. I stopped being interested when he talked about Zorba the Buddha and the Rebel and the 'new man', he was reading too much Neitche)
I agree with what you say about the government, it is a good example of an empty concept. However, he certainly was on the government's tip, namely the FBI and the CIA. This is not a conspiracy theory. He went on a world tour and was arrested in every country because the CIA influence. This is fact. He turned it into a publicity thing.

There Is No Such Thing As Enlightenment - YouTube

My husband is into the spiritual side of things a lot more than me - and he really likes:

Shinzen Young

When typing his name into youtube - I came up with a video on OBE.
It is quite bad quality and bit hard to listen to - and is a bit repetitive.
What he seems to stress, is, that in that state of consciousness there is the potential to relatively easily enter what he calls witness consciousness - an equanimity - the potential to separate oneself from the drags of your worries, ego - whatever.

Seems he says meditation is the way to systematically induce this inherent ability - like it also happens when you are in intense danger - time slowing down.
He says it is natural - something inherent in our bodily make-up - even says animals do it all the time.
Us being hindered by our addiction to "thinking".

He says it is the real significance of the experience to unravel the connection between the body and the mind - liberate the mind.

Here we go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BeXurNhgdk

I also came across criticism of his person.

What do you people think of him?
Thanks in advance!

^^ Your husband has good taste!

Aside from what Young might mention in the video, Vipassana meditation is part-and-parcel to the kind of self-awareness that drives lucid dreaming.

Regarding that "natural" awareness he descibes in the video, keep in mind that that is only the tip of the iceberg of Vipassana's non- dual point of view. Though his example is a good start, though in my opinion only considers OBE from a "perspective" and not active point of view, it only illustrates the beginning of a Vipassana practitioner's journey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a2xH93rons&feature=player_detailpage

Russel Brand
Hunter S. Thompson
Bruce Lee
Shakespeare
Grant Morrison
Alan Moore
Austin Osman Spare
Anton Lavey
Aleister Crowley
Anonymous
Alex Jones

Mr Deity

But to be serious Krishnamurti is probably the closest thing I can think of, but I don't think he would have liked being called a spiritual master. People have this idea that spiritual teachers have their shit together. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The fucked up things they do in their personal lives don't necessarily negate their teachings, but it does show that those teachings are not some kind of magic pill that if swallowed protects you from fucking up. There is no magic pill. The sooner you realize that the sooner you can actual begin to make real progress spiritually.

I really like what Ramana Maharshi had to say. Here's one video of things he talked about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYaJqRRBRVs

I especially like what he says about mind and doubt and living in the heart: "Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. There is no use removing doubts, if we clear one doubt another arises and there will be no end of doubts. All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source have been found. Seek for the source of the doubter and you will find that he is really non-existent. Doubter ceasing, doubts will cease."

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Originally Posted by StonedApe

Mr Deity

But to be serious Krishnamurti is probably the closest thing I can think of, but I don't think he would have liked being called a spiritual master. People have this idea that spiritual teachers have their shit together. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The fucked up things they do in their personal lives don't necessarily negate their teachings, but it does show that those teachings are not some kind of magic pill that if swallowed protects you from fucking up. There is no magic pill. The sooner you realize that the sooner you can actual begin to make real progress spiritually.

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Buddha said, "Wisdom in the mouth of a fool is still wisdom, just as gold is still gold whether in a leather sack or an ornately carved box."

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Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Buddha said, "Wisdom in the mouth of a fool is still wisdom, just as gold is still gold whether in a leather sack or an ornately carved box."

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Yeah, but the ornately carved box can hold your stuff!

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Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Buddha said, "Wisdom in the mouth of a fool is still wisdom, just as gold is still gold whether in a leather sack or an ornately carved box."

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Do not trust something is gold merely because of the package it comes in, is something he's basically said as well. One can only trust information based on the fruit yielded by that information's source. In other words, pay attention to people who are good at what you want to be good at and have that which you want to have. If someone basks in a state of happiness you're envious of, how can you call them a fool?

Nice to see you post again.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

If someone basks in a state of happiness you're envious of, how can you call them a fool?

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I can without hesitation call a happy person a fool. What if a man sucking his own blood, or someone else's is basking in happiness? But if I'm envious of them, then I'm twice the fool.

In any case, we can both agree that fruit tends not to grow on thistles, that the foibles of ostensibly great teachers usually do show us something.

You're bringing complexity to something I was simplifying and I appreciate that. But I'm also not using envy in a negative way, envy gives me the desire to be more like someone and thus listen more to what they have to say. I would rather listen to someone I desire to be more like than someone who claims any other type of authority on a subject. That's all I'm saying.

Sorry If im interupt in something here now. But Jiddu Krishnamurti is one legit teacher! He explains the most simple things in a hole new way. I just love it.:)

I started out with Wayne Dyer by accident after I left contemporary Christianity looking for what I was after..

I was watching tv and Wayne Dyer comes on in a PBS presentation on a Friday evening. I looked at that and said something like "WTF, who the hell is this new age balding dude ?"..and promptly flipped to another channel :shock::D

Saturday afternoon was the same story after work. "OMG not this guy again"...flipped the channel yet again

Sunday evening I was beat tired. Sat in the chair in front of the tv already playing. Programs changed and... you guessed heres Wayne Dyer again.
This time I didn't have the remote and was too tired and lazy to go find it, so I watched. By the end of the program I was on the edge of the seat listening and seeing what he was talking about inside myself and my experience.

Went on from him to reading of Nisargadatta Maharaj, then to Dzogchen in the writings of Chyogal Namkai Norbu, to Shri Ramana Maharshi, RamDass , Neem Karoli Baba, and a seemingly endless list of others of all religions in all time frames. Seeing what each was saying inside myself and my own experience, which is the key to determining if the mesaage is based in truth or not.



The water from the well is water from the well..

Regardless of the bucket that carries it up from the depths..

Remember..

The bucket itself cannot quench your thirst..

And..

A bucket without holes carries more water..

Without such a wasteful mess..

But in the end..

A bucket, is a bucket, is a bucket...

Its the water one is after

My introduction to Buddhism came from the guy that wrote Surfing the Himalayas. I had been reading Manly P Hall and when I started Snowboarding to Nirvana I peaked and interest in Buddhism. I looked up Buddhist Cosmology and had a prolific click as I saw Buddhism explain, in completeness, all of the details beyond the veil that all of Manly P Hall's research could barely collect a few pieces of. If not for Manly P Hall's research, however, I would have taken Buddhist Cosmology with a grain of salt. Only both combined could provide insight.

Later I discovered that the author of Surfing the Himalayas was a total fraud. But he still opened me up to Buddhism so that I could go on to read from more insightful eastern philosophers.

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Originally Posted by NonDualistic

Seeing what each was saying inside myself and my own experience, which is the key to determining if the mesaage is based in truth or not.

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I think one thing to watch out for here is that since we are all psychically connected, you can often find their 'truths' inside of yourself even when they're mostly bullshit. Lots of people get trapped by this, if they find 'internal' experiential confirmation they trust it unquestionably.

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

I had been reading Manly P Hall and when I started Snowboarding to Nirvana I peaked and interest in Buddhism. I looked up Buddhist Cosmology and had a prolific click as I saw Buddhism explain, in completeness, all of the details beyond the veil that all of Manly P Hall's research could barely collect a few pieces of. If not for Manly P Hall's research, however, I would have taken Buddhist Cosmology with a grain of salt. Only both combined could provide insight.

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I bought and attempted to read "Secret Teachings of All Ages" a few months ago. I thought it was terrible, almost utter bullshit. But yeah, even shit has a lot of food value if you can kill the microbes and you don't have anything else to eat. For instance, I keep recommending Ramana Maharshi to people even though I think his teaching doesn't lead to where he claims it leads. The movement of identity it involves is at least partially real, because it does something.

Manly P Hall's conclusions aren't always perfectly apt (like his connection between Sir Francis Bacon and Shakespeare, for example) but really? Utter bullshit? He revealed Christ's sun god connection before Zeitgeist ever popularized it (as in circa 1920s). Did you read anything he wrote on Hermeticism? On Pythagoras? On the Mysteries? Damn dude, that's a pretty provocative opinion. Wait, I remember you now, were you the one that claimed an infallible authority over esoteric knowledge because you can read greek?

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Originally Posted by Original Poster

Wait, I remember you now, were you the one that claimed an infallible authority over esoteric knowledge because you can read greek?

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No, that was tsiouz. My experience with him was pretty much the same as yours. Remarkable that you and I exchanged many dozens of posts and you can't remember who I am.

Yeah I read much of Hall's stuff on Pythagoras, Hermeticism, and mysteries. Part of the problem is I had already read other Theosophists extensively, such as Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, Percival's Thinking and Destiny, which I read several times, and other things like Steiner's Theosophy or Max Heindel's Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception. They all draw from many of the same sources, and I spent many years sorting out what might be real and what is clearly not. So by the time I read Hall, I was already pretty close to the subject. Plus I have an extensive scientific background, so when an esotericist makes scientific claims those errors are often fairly obvious to me too. I'm not suggesting Hall didn't do anything of value for anyone, I was just shocked at how bad it was from my standpoint, since several people had recommended it. Your background is different from mine obviously, so different things stand out.

Oh no, I actually understand that. But I still consider Hall a pioneer. Keep in mind a lot of his claims reflect the era he wrote in. We're on the same page again, I don't dismiss Freud as bullshit but of course we have also moved passed his insights in modern psychology.

And sorry, I remember your name and I remember having lengthy discussions with you but I can't sort out what, specifically you advocated compared to other participants. I remember you being quite a bit more intelligible and coherent than tsiouz, though.

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Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I think one thing to watch out for here is that since we are all psychically connected, you can often find their 'truths' inside of yourself even when they're mostly bullshit. Lots of people get trapped by this, if they find 'internal' experiential confirmation they trust it unquestionably.

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Seeing or finding, is probably the wrong choice of words, "tasting" first hand what they are talking about would be a better descriptive term. People can talk of apples and oranges, but unless you taste one you really only have assumptions and heresay to go on. If someone tells you an apple tastes like an orange, if you have tasted them both, you can immediately tell he does not really know what he is talking about.

So, if one does not know the taste first hand, it is good advice to be wary and maybe shop around to see what everyone else is saying on the subject too so as to find the differences and similarities and go from there until one does taste for themselves.

One thing is for sure, if someone that is teaching comes out wanting something from you, or says "my way is the only way", well then red flags should be springing up everywhere..