Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!eos!data.nas.nasa.gov!news
From: dorsai!sirknigh@uu.psi.com (gawain)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Guru/Enlightened Being
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.051107.17104@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 17 Jun 91 05:11:07 GMT
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Organization: The Dorsai Diplomatic Mission (+1.212.431.1944)
Lines: 73
Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov

I'm new to the conference and have been following the posts with great
interest.  The discussion of the necessity/desirability/or otherwise for a 
"guru" seems to be the hot topic and so, a good place to enter in.  
First, it seems that the source of much of the passion in these posts has to 
do with John Wheeler's use of the words "Enlightened being" or some such
term.  It seems surprising that anyone on the path to enlightenment would
use these words.  I thought that at the "higher" levels of spirituality, that
one would have transcended the categories of dualism.  So it seems to me that
the very use of the adjective "Enlightened" simply indicates that the person
using the term has not reached a level beyond or "through" the opposites.  I 
don't think John meant to cast aspersions on any other spiritual leader, 
though this seems to be implied.  Perhaps it's just a by-product of the
use of dualistic language in trying to describe a quality beyond dualism.
Of course, this does not reflect in any way on the person so described.  

My understanding is that a truly Enlightened person would be like the great 
master of any of the Zen-related martial arts.  The belt beyond the black belt, 
for instance, is a white belt -- the *beginners* belt.  Enlightenment is a 
"return" to an ever-renewed and renewing sense of wonder, one that the 
unenlightened might call "naive," though I think this is far from the case.

That said, it leaves the issue of the necessity for a "teacher" or "leader."
My first experience with an eastern religious group was hilarious.  A friend
spoke eloquently of this spiritual leader.  His followers were so impressed by
the leader, that they bought him a country estate, on which they founded an
ashram.  These were intelligent people, most of them professionals such as
lawyers and teachers.  When I arrived I discovered that the leader -- who 
shall remain nameless -- had been traveling around for a couple of years.
In the meditation room the followers faced a small color photograph of their
spiritual leader.  It all seemed pretentious and somewhat silly.  And was.
They were looking outwards for help towards enlightenment.  And if their
guide was gone, they would damn well look at his picture in their search for
spirituality.  This was their mode.  And the mire of their souls.

Like Tom Simmonds, whose posts have been both enlightening and moving, 
I later started to read eastern texts in english translation, as well
as commentaries.  When I found the works of D.T. Suzuki and R.H. Blyth, I 
began to have intense experiences that felt like insight.  Certainly not
enlightenment, but interesting nonetheless.  With Suzuki for instance, I would
go slowly through his very erudite and dense exposition.  Painfully slowly, 
from one idea to the next.  Without my noticing, the text would begin to flow
with no seeming effort.  This might be called a kind of "Reading Samadhi."
Joseph Campbell seems to have attained to a degree of insight and is quite clear 
that his attainments were exclusively achieved by reading and the contemplation 
of what is read, of course.  At any rate, by the time the text was finished, I 
would look back to the world, hours of time gone by, and experience seemed very 
clear.  

When I read of the chinese and japanese adepts who would leave their master
to go into retreat for years, returning only to have their "insight" tested, I
began to believe that though a teacher can take you part way up the pole, you
must not only take the ultimate leap all alone, but perhaps, make a good
deal of the climb that way, too.  I now believe that the return was not to be
tested, for the enlightened need no tests.  But perhaps they were part of the 
canon of stories that an ongoing tradition tends to build up, to maintain 
itself.
Insight, enlightenment, call it what you will, seems to me to be something
experienced alone that turns you back to not only all humanity, but the
universe itself, with an oceanic, all-embracing, all-encompassing "conscious-
ness."  Of course, therer are many approaches to the path.  I'm simply saying
that once on it, one becomes one's own teacher, or rather, as in Tom's case,
everyone becomes your teacher, which I think is another way of saying that you,
part of the Great Whatever It Is, are your own teacher.  If the Buddha nature 
is there from the first -- and it is -- then indeed we must kill the buddha, the 
little self, and all who would tell us What It's All About.  Some, call them 
teachers, may tell us  a little about How we might find the path, but if there 
is Truth, Buddha nature, a way without opposites, Enlightenment, what have you, 
it should be reachable by a blind man sitting in a dark silent cave, or any of 
us fumbling on our own with whatever guides our deeper intuitive nature has us
reach out for.  If one of those guides be a teacher, so be it; but I think
ultimately, we will reach INTO  our Self, and there, find the experience known
as enlightenment.  And I believe that any real Teacher would have us do the 
same.