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From: moorthy@hctdemo.leis.bellcore.com (moorthy)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: My guru is better than your guru!!
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.222226.13458@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 14 Jun 91 22:22:26 GMT
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Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov


	
	I see recently a  trend in this newsgroup comparing different masters
	and arguing that one is better than the other. I thought of sharing the 
	following thoughts which are based on my experience.


	When one is blessed with a direct experience of God, 
	that person will understand that what all great	
	spiritual leaders were talking are different aspects of the same
	thing. In other words, every teaching one came across, every master
	one met with and  every life experience one went through will fall
	in place automatically without the mind trying to unify them. 
	One  master is better than the other and one system is
	better than the other ONLY WITH RESPECT TO AN INDIVIDUAL AT A
	POINT OF EVOLUTION. When one experiences the grand UNITY, that person 
	will realize through direct experience (without the mind trying to find 
	the unity by itself) that all masters are that person and all the teachings 
	received from the masters came from that person, etc. What is important
	is that we evolve spiritually using whatever teaching appeals to us
	at a point in our life. Of course it makes sense for an individual to
	say that a particular master did or did not appeal to me at a stage in my life.
	It is not the same thing to declare that one master is enligtened
	and the other is not or one is more enlightened than the other.
	A person who has unified with all beings will  never compare oneself
	with another  because that person knows by experience
	that he/she is not different from other gurus. 
		
	Next, I would like to suggest that we avoid arguing whether guru is necessary
	or not. As discussed below, it depends on an individual and the current stage 
	of his or her spiritual evolution. To bring out this point, let me suggest
	that there are three categories of spiritual evolution. Please note that 
	this classification is not meant to say one is at a higher level than the other. 
	
	During the first one, one is freeing oneself
	from the body and mind. At the end of this evolution, one sees an infinite light
	and merges with it. At this point one loses consciousness. In other words,
	one meets a blankness at this point. In general one needs a guru
	during this category of spiritual evolution. Most of us are in this category.

	In the second category of evolution, one is able to raise one's purified
	mind beyond the blankness that one meets at the end of the previous category
	of evolution. During this evolution one becomes one with the trinities,
	namely Shiva (Holy spirit), Vishnu (Son) and Brahma (Father).
	Such people are rare and do not in general need a guru.
	At the end of this evolution, the individual mind becomes one with
	the one universal mind. It is with this last stage that J Krishnamurti
	was primarily concerned in his talks. That is why his consciousness
	was asserting that guru is unnecessary. That is why he was saying
	you are the world; there is nothing like an individual mind, there
	is only one universal mind, etc. This is the state of transcendental person 
	that DA was perhaps referring to. JK, being at the last stage of
	the second category of evolution, did not require a guru. He did not perhaps
	realize that he is talking to mainly people in the first category of evolution.
	Jesus Christ seems to have been in this category. These people in general
	learn mostly everything by direct experience and need to refer to
	scriptures and other books in order to describe to others what they know
	by direct experience.
	

	There is a third category of evolution. These people rarely come
	down to the physical level. They display one or more of the omniscient, 
	omnipotent and omnipresent aspects of God. If they lack one or more,
	they evolve to realize the other aspects.  

	I would like to suggest NEITHER believe NOR disbelieve  what I said but to verify
	whether it is true or not by direct experience. Till then, it is better
	to say I do not know. Also I am not asserting that this is the only way
	to classify spiritual evolution. Nevertheless it seems to me this explains why
	some people say guru is necessary and other do not.

	I would also like to suggest that if your master says
	that there is nothing like trinity, do not just borrow it and argue with others
	that there is nothing like trinity. It is true with respect to your
	master  because he or she has unified the trinities and has gone beyond it. 
	It may not be true with respect your stage of evolution. Similarly,
	knowing by reading about transcdental states is not same as knowing
	by direct experience.