Ruining the Surprise: Secrets of the Gurus
What is the job of a spiritual teacher?
There are many of us who choose to go at it alone in this lifetime.
Some of us gather a few like-minded companions along the way, crossing paths by the weaving of intention and chance, but with the great pilgrimage that should be called “the search for my life’s meaning”, the majority of us realize that this meaning can only be found on our own terms. We feel intensely that the courage to go at it alone is the first step of the hero’s journey.
But soon the trek becomes exhausting… and eventually it seems wise to turn to someone for guidance. A healer. A therapist. A suspiciously urban part-time Shaman/full-time mom. Anyone who might possess the tools capable of freeing us from our failed routines, even if they are charging $39.99 a session. A psychological Sherpa to point the way to a new trail, a new path forward, no matter the material cost.
Such a spiritual guide is sometimes called a Guru. A seemingly unique instructor who appears to dedicate their time to the sharing of spiritual experiences and the revealing of therapeutic higher truths.
In reality, what the Guru offers is directions toward the struggles of accepting the imperfect conditions of one’s temporary existence within a random and ambiguous world.
Guru’s may at first appear to be “the ideal bearers of final truths, but [in reality they are] simply… the most extraordinarily human members of the community.
Even the most recent example of a modern Guru, the psychotherapist, can only be of help if they are capable of meeting the patient on their level. A bird’s eye academic view of a psychological condition is of no use to the suffering patient. They’re entrenched, and the fog of war is thick.
Throughout history, the Guru has appeared in different forms. He might wear the garb of a humble teacher, or she may sport the tattered robes of a revered medicine woman. Or he may enter the scene with the dramatic ambiance of a shining prophet, shy shaman, eccentric wizard, or somber sage, depending on the historical time and place of their emergence.
These ancient and contemporary figures always provoked both awe and fear from the masses; a social response to the guru’s foreign attitude toward the customs, rules, and traditions normally adhered to in any given community.
Unencumbered by cultural expectations, the Guru is his own person, intentionally disassembling the traditional codes of conduct and flipping the old value structures upside down with every step taken. Sometimes he gets caught in the act, and like Socrates is crucified as a nefarious corrupter of the youth.
Next to his wisdom-filled trojan horse, the weight of his message (if he can subtly deliver it) comes partly from his speaking the mysterious language of prophecy, a poetic language that can be found within myth as well as dreams.
If the myth is the outer expression of the human conditions basic struggles, joys, and ambiguities, then the dream is its inner voice.
The Guru does not teach directly, he teaches indirectly. Not by using the familiar avenues of dogmatic lecture and charismatic persuasion, but through parable and allegory.
The ability to understand the lessons embedded within an allegorical story does not depend on the strength or cunning of a person’s mind, rather it’s something that is met with on an internal level and intuitively felt through various facets of personal experience. Direct knowledge.
Many of these parables contain multi-dimension levels of wisdom conveying everything from the literal to the symbolic, and all that lives between. What you may personally gain from such an allegorical tool is completely dependent on your own personal perspectives and perceptions. In other words, what you are ready for is what will be revealed.
Take for a fun example the Sufi teaching story of the Watermelon Hunter.
Once upon a time there was a man who strayed from his own country into the world known as the land of the fools. He soon saw a number of people fleeing in terror from a field where they had been trying to reap wheat. “There is a monster in that field!” they told him. He looked, and saw that it was a watermelon. He offered to kill the “monster” for them. When he had cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they had been of the melon. They drove him away with pitchforks, crying, “He will kill us next, unless we get rid of him!”
It so happened that at another time another man also strayed into the land of the fools, and the same thing started to happen to him. But, instead of offering to help them with the “monster”, he agreed with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from it with them he gained their confidence. He spent a long time with them in their houses until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fear of melons, but even to cultivate them themselves.
As a perceived guide for others, this teacher must possess strategic patience and compassionate understanding in order to properly deliver his curriculum. The truth alone is not enough to set a person free. Introducing facts will not change a person’s opinion about anything. Just take a look at the atrocious Red vs Blue tennis-fact-check-match that is ‘American politics’ for proof of this.
If the Guru is too forward about his revelations he risks a defensive response from his audience and deepens the mystery of his persona. He must take a long way around in order to avoid getting his own head cut off by sprinting toward his goal. He succeeds by navigating carefully through the pre-established vibe of the group and plants his seeds from within the walls of social trust.
Paracelsus, the great renaissance magus, very much understood this secret. He warned that the Guru should be careful not to accidentally reveal “the naked truth. He should use images, allegories, figures, wondrous speech, or other hidden, roundabout ways”.
By handing out metaphors and parables rather than answers the guru replaces himself with material that can be used by the student’s own imagination to procure an inexhaustible source of personal meaning.
The job of the spiritual teacher is to instruct the student in the tradition of piercing through one preestablished traditional bias; to get him lost so that he may find himself again.
The master does not pass the “torch of wisdom”, he simply shows the disciple how he made fire and points to where he found sticks. His goal is to prove to those of us who feel inadequate that the student and master are true equals.
The guru tosses the student off the boat to remind him that he can swim — or if he can’t, provides an opportunity for learning how.
Boat or no boat,
Just relax and you’ll float.
Still, be cautious of sharks,
They frequent these parts.
— Great White Guru
Thanks for reading,
Stay tuned for more blasphemy.
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— Alex
