Tarquin, Eugene, what I found really interesting about both of your messages is that it is apparent that you have been searching for ‘a real group’. Maybe this is why you have both been disappointed with what you found. The group, the school, the master or whatever isn’t - and can’t be - the goal of the search. It’s only the beginning. To expect a high quality of consciousness from one’s fellow travellers on the way, while one is still caught in the trap of making judgments, makes no sense at all. It’s only when we learn to accept others that we can accept ourselves. And accepting ourselves is a pre-requisite for acquiring the knowledge of ourselves which is the goal of the Sufi way.

The Nasrudin story where he is looking for his key under the streetlamp provides an good analogy to this situation. The ‘key’ isn’t in the perfect group, the perfect school, the place where everybody’s behaviour is a model. It’s in the darkness where we fumble around and are spooked by our shadows. In this sense, the more the group is ‘pressing our buttons’ the better. Because then there is real learning, a real encounter with ourselves - and real choices about whether we surrender our pride and affirm our essence, or whether we capitulate to negativity and strenghten the false self. The work is done, step by step, dealing with the shit - not by swanning about in the company of ideal companeros.

The over-reaction to ‘spiritual seekers’ - ‘running screaming and deranged into the night’ - is an excellent start. It’s here, I would suggest, that the real search begins: to try to understand why you are so exercised by people who are really neither worse nor better than anyone else. Are you resistant to the idea that you are reacting not to them, but to something they show you in yourself? Even better. Picqued by the groups that don’t recognise your ‘amazing spiritual qualities’? Excellent! This is already ‘The Work’. No need to look elsewhere for it. Indeed, running of to Afghanistan - or wherever - as Eugene suggests could be seen as a form of escapism from what needs to be done here and now. To look at oneself. To “travel in one’s own land”.

HI James.

Thanks for the comment! You will not be surprised to learn that I disagree somewhat with your analysis but I am in a quandry because I don’t want to appear to be justifying my position - oh what the hell, I’ll go for it....I aspire to Malamati-hood after all!

I think the root of the issue lies in the definition of ‘real group’ and why one is searching for one.

For sure, this cannot be the end goal in itself - though I think some ‘seekers’ do actually take this view - but is rather a necessity at a specific stage.

So in relation to myself what I am saying is: all these groups may or may not be ‘real’ but that is not applicable to me because:

1) I cannot discern
2) I have to do preparatory work first - ie, learn to discern.

This requires honesty with ones self.

As to what constitutes a ‘real’ group, I’m afraid that there are counterfeits of everything valuable that exists. There are real and false groups - surely no-one could argue that all ‘spiritual’ groups are genuine? Clearly it is of utmost importance to be able to distinguish between them.

So what is ‘real’? What does it mean? I agree with you that it has nothing to do with one’s associates within the group and the more annoying they are probably the better in this regard.

What I mean by ‘real’ is a group in touch with a genuine tradition through the medium of a teacher who has himself reached the end of the road and is therefore ‘awake’.

Re ‘running and screaming’ - obviously you haven’t met the same ‘seekers’ that I have! :D

Segovius,

You are saying:

1) Not only do I no longer believe there are ‘Masters’ in the East in the way Shah and Gurdjieff describe, I do not believe they exist anywhere else either.

Sorry to say but I think we are rushing to the conclusions that are not based on our own experience. We DO NOT KNOW whether Masters exist or not. The only way to check it out is to find them. Idea to go to Nuristan or bordering part of Pakistan looks insane, of course, but it’s worth going there and checking out as soon as it becomes possible for any European to get there without being killed. I have heard from some friends that Sarmoung brotherhood moved to Pakistan in search of safer areas for existence. Another guess! If you get to Pakistan you can try to find them. But not in the way as tourist does, going around and asking everybody, but, for instance, do not take it as advice, if you go and visit some Sufi shrines in the area you will achieve:

a) Contact with the group of Sufis of the order to which Saint belongs;
b) If you are lucky some guidance where to move next;
c) You can participate in their activities;
d) You can learn, you can make friends who will help you;
e) If you are sincere Teacher of this group will give you his blessings and help you.

People in those countries are very innocent and open so do not expect much of the attitude that is almost hostile, as I. Shah described in his books. May I please remind that Sufism is path of love, devotion and affection. Relationship between Master and the disciple is based on Love, and impossible without love. Sufism is not dry, is not too intellectual as it was presented by Shah. Reading Omar’s books one could feel that he was closer to the idea of classical teaching. 

Segovius, “Something else” is inside of you. Search for something else begins when one can not be satisfied with that what is available. It does not mean that what you are looking for does not exist; it has always been difficult to find it. Good example is Gurdjieff, who came across probably thousands of Sufi groups. What you are looking for may not be Sufism in the sense that is spread around the world. I would describe it as “True Knowledge with distinctive fragrance”. It could be an Old Sufism, unburdened with dogma and ritual.
In my opinion, what Gurdjieff found and I. Shah is talking about, is not Sufism our world knows. It is not mainstream Sufism. Being the only real Sufism but with very minor representation it could not dictate the rules to other Sufi orders, to have an authority that could be recognised by those who are trapped into the ritual activities.
If we take case of I. Shah, I may guess that Nuristan and Hindu Kush Sufis did not belong to mainstream Nakshbandiya, which is very religious, Islamic one. If I am not wrong, Shah Bahauddin represented just one line of Khwajagan. What has happened to other Khwajagan teachers who were not linked to him? It looks like Nuristan has always been the place for different sects who sought refuge in remote parts of Nuristan.

James, I do not feel disappointed with what I found – my Teacher provides me with what needed at the moment and the situation may develop in a way not known to me. I am very happy with what I am receiving at this particular stage; this is what corresponds with my level of development. Even though, having a teacher and a teaching, one must not be satisfied with his current position. Here, Segovius, comes the point for you, your desire for truth will be enough to reach IT. Longing is more important than the finding, because it moves you along the way. If you have longing in your heart, you will certainly attract a soul who will guide you. He will respond to you. I know we want it here and now, it may take some time for you, just wait. Why I am saying that we need to travel is because that miracles happen but you need to help them to happen – so give them a chance to come your way and what you have been doing in the past (approaching different groups) was right, just do not stop.

James says:

2) I have to do preparatory work first - ie, learn to discern.

I think Shah has made the whole thing just So-o-o-o-o-o complicated with “Learn how to learn”, “teaching stories” etc. I guess he wanted to “sell” his version of Sufism at higher rate and he well managed
But what have you bought??????? Can anybody share on their experiences with IAS or OAS groups please?

In this respect I would really appreciate if some of the Shah’s disciples could describe what was happening in Shah’s groups, whether there have been any PRACTICAL exercises or just talk and study of the “learning stories”. It has never been clear to me, as I have not attended one, whether Shah was theoretical or practical teacher or he was not a teacher at all – he was just transmitting the message his superiors asked him to pass over to us.

It is not so difficult in practice. Your first step with your teacher will be a simple Naqshbandiya technique of Tavajjuh – Master will focus his spiritual attention on your soul and will show you where to go and what to look for. This would be your first step that will make you a drunkard of the God. All books and psychology will come later. Shah’s emphasis on psychology is exxagurated. It is more ENERGY and TRANSMISSION work. It is not done through the mind, mind is an obstacle, and it is achieved through the connection to “higher” centres. So, you can start right now!
There are real and false groups indeed but just for YOU and ME. What are the criteria of a real or false group? If it is resonating or not with you. One of the signs of a real group that after attending it you should FEEL great and happy. It would be a good sign. Second sign – if you would like to go there again and how happily. Third sign – if you LOVE teacher who is guiding this group. That, in my humble opinion, would be a real sign of a real group for YOU and ME.

I hope we will continue this conversation as I feel we have a lot of things to share between us.

Hi Eugene

I am a bit busy right now but will reply in greater depth later tonight. Perhaps. :D

I don’t quite share your optimism re the regions you describe. I have travelled quite extensively in these regions over numerous years and can only say that I have found the ‘Sufism’ there is of two kinds:

1) Purely Islamic - in many cases extremist.

2) Cultic and pseudo-magical - often centering around ecstatic techniques and music.

I would like to comment further on all this but I need to earn a living for a bit. Perhaps James will weight in. Btw - some of the quotes you attribute to him are mine, not sure he would agree with them!

Was listening to Midweek on Radio 4 and heard the story of John Wood. He was formerly head of Microsoft’s advance into China, until a life changing trip to Nepal, where he visited a school with very few books. He decided to give up his job and set up Room to Read, http://www.roomtoread.org/ an organisation that donates books to schools in under privileged countries like Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand.

I was very moved at the description of his experiences in this program and very conscious of how little my own rejection of materialism and interest in spiritual matters has accomplished compared to this.

What occurs to me is that there is a certain something as Eugene says that operates through all beings in different ways and it is up to each person to follow their own path.

I remember reading Witness by JG Bennett as a late teen in which he describes reading this quote from the Bhagavad Ghita at the home of Madame Ouspensky.

“It is better to follow your own path however bad than someone else’s path however good. There is great spiritual danger in following some-one else’s path.”

Peace and Best Wishes

Paul

My own Master, Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order, would understand what you are saying. He has a short talk on the subject called
Sufi who are disciples of their own imagination:

http://www.sufism.ru/eng/txts/d_disciples.htm

He was of the East, in Iran, and is now of the West, in England. And although I have heard of other real teachers, he is the only one I have met.

Peace and Blessings!

Well, this is certainly refreshing dialog.

I agree that the definition of real teachers, groups and students is relative to where the teacher, group and student’s reside. So, if we can fast forward past that and get to the heart of things, fast forward past lower and medium resolution teachers and students, fast forward past fanatics and the like, then what I hear being discussed here is a cry out for a truly genuine and intensely deep teacher, who centers on being both practical and on being able to very clearly transmit from the other side. I also hear intense frustration on not finding such a teacher. I also hear a desire, at least by some, to become a part of a group that can truly change global consciousness, using highly advanced and deeply principled approaches, approaches that are not based on generalized teachings such as “all we have to do is focus on Love.”

I study with an amazingly deep teacher. Here is a comment I just left in reply to Eugene’s comment on the Hola post:

“One day the [most highly decorated] priest in Shinto, came to my teacher’s home and said to him, ‘I have traveled the world, been with the world’s greatest teachers, including those with the deepest understandings, and I have never met anyone who comes close to your abilities, including how simple you can make and explain the most complex things. You are perfect.’”

A hundred people could come to this site, each claiming they have a great teacher. Each teacher may truly be great. So what is our goal here? To find a great teacher, or to do our work, or to find a great teacher who is extremely aware of the Work, the Plan, and has very specific and practical understandings of how to go about that? And not only that, but who is also very capable of explaining and showing it to others, because many teachers fall short in this area of explaining and showing, as well as giving the students the experience itself.

On a recent post on my blog, the subject of what is the essence of my teacher’s teaching came up. I asked for his personal response:

“The essence of my teaching is more in terms of an effect that takes place inside of yourself because of the place I am teaching from inside of myself. So if you are asking about the essence of my teaching you are asking about where inside of consciousness I am teaching from. In other words what point in consciousness am I conductive of.”

So, who has asked him to explain that? No one.

In all of my time of blogging, no has ever contacted me to say, “Mark, how can we find out more about this teacher of yours?”

I take responsibility for being an ineffective communicator, but when the student of such a teacher shows up knocking on your doorstep, and then enters your home as a welcome guest, and the entire conversation centers on finding a teacher, yet the house guest - as the representative of the Master - is never asked to introduce the Master, well, I find that to be frustrating and sad.

How can we discern if such a teacher is the real thing or not? This doesn’t necessarily take years and years of studying to develop deep inner discernment abilities. For example, if you already had depth before coming into this life, which I believe some, if not all, of the commenters previous to me have, then you already have deeper inner discernment skills. So it simply because a question of getting that inner bell to ring. How does that happen? By communicating with and meeting the teacher. How that experience unfolds is an acid test.

If, in the presence of a deep teacher, you are brought into a deeper experience and/or understanding, and it relates to your life and to your goals, then this is one way to judge the teacher. What I have often seen, however, is students who, upon finding themselves in this position, deny what is happening by somehow diminishing the value of the moment. It may be because the experience does not meet their expectations, but we already know that it isn’t what we think it is. It may be because they don’t know how to live in the moment, or because they are living in denial. In this situation, some teacher’s will just blow you off, and you may never know they did it. In other cases, teacher’s are unable to give you either an ‘in the moment’ experience or give you an deeper understanding that relates to you, to your life, to your goals, to your objectives. Instead, it all has to be related to their perspective, or to their culture, and to their biases. The deepest teacher is able to transcend such biases and restrictions, fully able to center his/her self on the student’s needs, giving the student what the student truly is needing in that precise moment. 

Clearly there are those here who either already have a teacher or are seeking one. Yet, even among those who have a teacher, I also hear this question over and over: do deeper teachers truly exist, and how can I find one? I state, unequivocally, yes, they exist.

Such a teacher does not come wrapped in the way you expect. We don’t know how this deeper inner experience we are seeking looks; we don’t know how it feels. So it is vital to be open, to have open minds and open hearts. Similarly it is vital to open ourselves as fully as possible to the subjectivity of the experiences, while at the same time maintaining an objective position. This balancing of subjectivity and objectivity can be very confusing to novices, but it is often intuitive to more advanced students.

Such a teacher does not always provoke warm and fuzzy responses in his/her students. Sometimes the student’s experience is intensely disturbing and grueling, as we wrestle with the inner self on the way to the deeper inner Self. A genuinely deep Master understands this, and will not compromise his/her student’s eternal trust and value. Instead, the Master stands for their student, no matter what, eternally devoted to them.

Perhaps a good question to ask a very deep teacher is, “How do I know that you are a very deep teacher?”

A very deep teacher should be able to answer that to your satisfaction, not in a way that leaves you hanging, but in a way that leaves you satisfied on the one hand that they are a deep teacher, and unsatisfied on the other hand because you thirst to go deeper. A very deep teacher should always have more depth than you can plummet.

Admittedly feeling a bit intimidated to jump into this discussion, I do so anyway because I have found the discussion fascinating, as it always is at this site.  So I am grateful for the sharing and discussion done here, and for the opportunity to discuss, to form thought, and to be exposed to challenging dialogue.

I start with the paragraph in the post that discusses opposites. The way I see it, opposites are precisely what does illuminate Truth more clearly.  Lightness follows darkness, and how would we know the Light had it not been dark? In religion or spirituality, there are “teachers” who abuse and teachers who are genuine (at least I think there are).  Which is which?  Does having both coexist assist us in this discernment?  I see in the comment back to James that segovius says that a “real” group is in touch with a genuine tradition through the medium of a teacher who has himself reached the end of the road and is therefore awake.  I think I have to wonder if anyone ever reaches this place.  I honestly don’t know.  I honestly don’t even know what that would look like if I saw it.  So maybe that is a discernment problem, maybe it is that it doesn’t exist.  I’m not sure which.  I do know that I am trying to come to a place of acceptance of my limitations and realizing my ‘place’ in the Truth of things, regardless of whether or not I like what that ‘place’ is.

Defining what one is looking for.  Hmmm...would you still be seeking if you knew what you were looking for?  I suppose so, but it seems to me half the battle is won if we can arrive at the definition.  I’m not sure I will ever know the answer in full to this very basic question.  I have never been much of a joiner and so I don’t seek that.  However, I did find myself for a very long period of time living in what was not truth for myself and on some level knowing it wasn’t, so there was some level of discernment of Truth that I wasn’t listening to or giving voice to out of fear and insecurity.

I agree with James when he says searching for the group isn’t the end goal but is rather the beginning.  Fumbling around in the shadows and the darkness where our buttons are pressed does I think give opportunity in ways that finding just peace peace joy joy everywhere you go cannot and does not.  My real encounter with myself is precisely as you describe, James, when having to confront the darkness for the Truth it is, to be broken in humility (and humiliation), and cutting through the illusion that Truth lies in connecting with those who were seeking to feel good all the time, denying the Truth of their own void, but lifting hands and voices in denial of the darkness.

Eugene’s comments regarding a genuine Sufism (a tradition I know little about but am very interested in learning more about if anyone can point me to some reading I would be grateful) resonate with me in terms of a genuine Christianity, which I have to wonder even exists anywhere in the world today. And i also think a real group is defined by whether or not it resonates in truth with us personally.  If it does, the rest of the criteria will follow.  We will want more of that, we will LOVE it, we will feel nourished and energized and happy in it.

I agree with Mark too that we do all have inner discernment skills that we tend to discount or deny or think aren’t fully developed sufficiently to be of much use. Though I think there are probably different levels of discernment depending on the individual, to some extent we all have it.  We know it when the bell rings in our soul in resonance and harmony.  If we are open to it, it will guide us in our discernment process. I also like what Mark says in that a teacher doesn’t necessarily come in the package we expect, and this may also be an easy way for us to miss that experience.  We set up expectations for what we are looking for and shut ourselves off to the possibilities of something totally unexpected.

Very interesting discussion here.  Thank you for your patience with me and with processing of some thoughts here.

Peace, joy and well being to all.

Tarquin, what an impressive dialogue you have started!

For once, I’m going to try to keep myself brief. You said: ‘I think the root of the issue lies in the definition of ‘real group’ and why one is searching for one.’

I think, though, that this is not the root of the issue but the root of your quandry. For me, the ‘root of the issue’ is the nature of the curriculum. If this is, as I believe it should be, yourself, the ‘real group’ is the one that enables you to develop real insights about yourself.

In addition to the quote above, J.G. Bennett also said, somewhere, that if he didn’t have a group to work with he would go out and find people on the street. That, I think, is the reality of the situation: we need others to show us ourselves. Just as we can see our face in a beautiful mirror or in a muddy puddle, the make-up and conduct of the group is not that important. What is important is: a) their effect on us, b) our ability to observe this and c) our willingness to learn from it.

Hi James

if that were the case - and I agree it is in part - then you would not need groups at all. You could just see yourself in everyone you meet or situations you encounter.

Of course this is the ideal and imo, a real student would be able to do this as a matter of course - that reminds me of Shah when he said that he had found far more fake students than fake teachers!

But I disagree with your comments that the make-up of a group is unimportant. I know for sure that there ARE actually fake groups as there are fake versions of everything else.

I have no quandry about this, nor am I interested in pointing the finger or listing them but they are out there for sure and although you can certainly be ‘shown yourself’ in these groups that does not make them genuine imo.

I suppose we all have our borders where we draw the line. I guess you and I would agree that we would not consider a group that advocated, say, suicide bombing as genuine. Nor perhaps one where murder was tolerated or even to be more extreme, child abuse.

Below these extreme cases - which do indeed occur in ‘spiritual groups’ as can easily be verified with Google and a spare half hour - the lines may become blurred.

What I find unacceptable and indicative of error, you may not, and vice versa.

I guess what I’m saying is there are no absolutes and what applies to you may not apply to me and the contrary also.

Didn’t Bennett lapse into Catholicism at the end? I always felt something deeply tragic about that.....

Tarquin, I wasn’t suggesting that any group has the same value. The first of the three criteria I’m suggesting touched on this: that what is important is their effect on us. A group that is under the direction of a master who can provide what Shah called ‘The Sufi Current’ (which goes by other names in other traditions) is much more valuable in its effects than any other kind of group. But this doesn’t mean that it will necessarily look, or feel, like a ‘real group’. The effect of that ‘current’ will exaggerate, provoke and intensify all kinds of manifestations, good and bad (if we can really label them in this way) in the members and in their interactions. That’s where the second criterion comes in: can one observe this, or is one simply swept along with it? Because if one can’t step back and look at what is happening, one clearly cannot benefit from the group.

If one is not in a group of this kind, it is still possible - albeit to a lesser extent - to experience some of the same things with other people (which is the point I think Bennett was making). One can clearly learn some interesting and useful things from associating with a group of religious fanatics (and it’s worth remembering in this respect the account in Among the Dervishes of how the author is taken to a Muslim Brotherhood meeting in Egypt). But how much can one trust oneself to remain an observer?

The development of ‘Higher Awareness’ is not necessarily consistent. A person can be highly developed and also highly flawed at the same time - in my limited experience this is a more likely situation. Doris Lessing’s character ‘Nasar’ in The Sirian Experiments is a nice illustration - someone who is in temporary rebellion against The Way, but is nonetheless understands it much better, in a real sense, than the narrator. What one sees on the surface is not always a reflection of what is happening inside.

Changing the subject, I’m not sure Bennett would have seen his adoption of Catholicism as a ‘lapse’. He always seemed to be quite clear about the failings of the Church, but he believed that there was an Apostolic Succession and transmission of Baraka, no matter how flawed some of the links in the chain were. He remained in sporadic contact with Shah almost until the end of his life – there is an account of Shah visiting Sherborne House a year or so before his death, talking to the students and then having a long, private discussion with Bennett. Bennett would have been working on his book on the Khwajagan, The Masters of Wisdom, at the time.

Eugene, I don’t think that Shah made anything particularly complicated. But people do seem to be getting themselves tied in knots over ‘what Shah really meant’. As I understand it Shah was tasked with compiling materials, from the rich treasury of Sufi teaching, that would be useful to people in the Western world of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He used his groups as a ‘testing ground’ for some of these materials, eliciting responses and using their reactions to make necessary adjustments. By working with ideas that were then unfamiliar in the West, the groups and individuals connected with Shah also helped to improve the general capacity for absorption and transmission, through a largely unknown process that was hinted at in some of the books (‘The Tincture Technique’, etc.) Shah stated that this task had been completed by the early 1980s.

The books that Shah left provide a comprehensive account of ‘The Way’. As you must have experienced, how one understands them really depends on whether one is on the ‘outside’ or the ‘inside’. To outsiders, they provide an opportunity to ‘sensitise’ oneself to concepts and patterns that resonate with Sufi teaching. To travellers on the Way, they are more like a map or a handbook – they are brought into new life by recognition of situations or experiences. And I think we’ll really see them come into their own in this respect over the next few decades.

To look back at what Shah was doing in the 1960s or 1970s as a template for how ‘The Way’ will unfold in the future is, I believe, a mistake. What Shah achieved will be a vital component of that unfolding, but the way he achieved it now seems to be largely irrelevant. Likewise, I don’t think the forms of Sufism that exist in the Islamic world have much more to offer Western societies. Shah and others took the most useful parts of ‘The Tradition’ and transplanted it into a new environment, without its religous and cultural trappings.

We are at an extraordinary ‘moment’ in the evolution of our species that is much, much bigger than the work of any one individual, however important. Something fundamental is changing in the relationship of humanity with, for want of a better word, the Divine. And it is becoming possible for a very large number of people to undertake the kind of ‘Work’ that in the past was reserved for a select few. Shah’s achievements, like those of many others (over many centuries) anticipated this moment and laid the foundations for it. Now it is for us to live this moment, to harmonise with it as best we can and to work for its most successful outcome.

hello there. Just letting you know that I enjoyed reading your blog. very insightful.

In all honesty, I don’t quite understand all the Westerner’s obsessions and predilection with seeking. It seems that there is an emptiness that should be filled? Perhaps that’s a symptom of modernity.... I certainly agree with the idea that LOGOS has Replaced MYTHOS in the modern world. and this is the result.Ever wonder why post-modernist ideas (except as a tool, which is important to change the “world order") and existentialism never really took off in traditional societies?

as an Easterner living in the slow lane (I live in the Philippines). I have concluded that individualism is the root cause of all these bizarre Western occurrences. The individual is pitted against society rather than the two working side by side- the individual INSIDE society and having a natural place in it. so then the individual’s truth will be authentic- it comes from LIVED EXPERIENCE and personal convictions rather than Reason or Science. (anyway naturally if you live in such a society, it’s natural to be have “post-modernist” ideas or to be Nietzschean)

Please remember, I am not judging nor blaming anyone. I am merely stating an observation. For me, this is a Western malady and I am so sad that as our country becomes more and more modernized and Westernized, the people’s traditional values and culture are being destroyed. we are literally destroying the fabric of society. People here are becoming self-centered and materialistic.

I feel kinship with anyone SEEKING for answers be they Easterners or Westerners, cuz it’s just the questions that differ. “Nothing human is alien to me."-Seneca

Hi Fredda - I absolutely agree 100%, you have nailed it.

I think there are various diverging views on what seeking actually is. Personally I have never seen it as ‘seeking for a group’ but more something that happens after one ‘graduates’ from a group (or teacher).

One is then on one’s own and fit for a search. The group/teacher is - again purely imo - merely a preparation for the ‘search’ which is an interior one.

And yes, ‘seeking’ can be monumentally egotistical and self-absorbed which is odd in a way as this area necessitates the negation of the ‘self’ not the actualization of it.

I think it is the same mechanism that drives some people and religions (and groups) to corrupt the original teaching of the founder into it’s polar opposite: so they themselves can stay static and not have to change yet still feel they are ‘right’.

Do you want to see a photo of my cat?

Diverging views… yes. Rumi’s lovely tale of the travellers and the grapes illustrates this, with the travellers contending with each other because they don’t understand that what they are asking for, each in their own language, is really the same thing, grapes. Only the master, who is familiar with what is sought and also knows the different ways that people conceive it, is able to reconcile these apparent divergencies. But, even then, the seekers have to be willing to listen to him.

Many, many years ago my old friend Muz Murray told me this story, and it has stuck in my mind ever since (I’m giving it in his words, from his website):

“Once when meditating in an ashram in Krishna’s town, Vrindavan, someone dropped the handle of a bucket in the cowshed outside. The vibration sped right through me and set my whole body tingling. The world around me completely dissolved into vibrating particles. Suddenly I saw the Cosmic Joke—that everyone was God looking for God. And the deadly seriousness of the average aspirant’s view of life (including my own) made me crack up. I fell on the floor shrieking with laughter for about twenty minutes.”

That’s the point here. All this talk of ‘seeking’, but what is really being sought is not other than the one who is seeking. The curriculum is ourselves.

One of the things that strikes me from the current discussion, which will probably seem really arrogant when I say it (but I don’t know any other way to express it), is that as one becomes familiar with what one has been seeking, one sees more and more validity in other paths, teachers and seekers (and, also, where some people are going wrong).

I think this touches on Mark’s heartfelt admission: “I take responsibility for being an ineffective communicator, but when the student of such a teacher shows up knocking on your doorstep, and then enters your home as a welcome guest, and the entire conversation centers on finding a teacher, yet the house guest - as the representative of the Master - is never asked to introduce the Master, well, I find that to be frustrating and sad.”

Those who can recongise the teacher frequently don’t need him, but those who need him frequently can’t recognise him.

hello. I agree with Paul Lerner’s idea that “It is better to follow your own path however bad than someone else’s path however good. There is great spiritual danger in following some-one else’s path.”

I think you just have to follow what your heart tells you. ^^

I think in your society (*is it the US?) the most sensible thing to do is to SEEK the truth, grapple with so many questions and find a teacher/"The Way”. I feel bad for people who are apathetic and are forced to adapt to such way of life. If I were in your place, I would be in a bind, too. I guess I’d be asking myself, “How can I follow a Master whose way of thinking is completely different from mine?  How can I understand his VOCABULARY?  can I unlearn all my thoughts when they have been result of my experiences?”

anyway I’m not gonna be of much help here. But lemme just reiterate the danger of adopting an idea that’s alien to your nature. For example, Christianity was imposed on Filipinos by Spaniards. Filipinos easily adopted it because I think 1.) its idea of HEAVEN made them joyful- they will be united w/ their loved ones 2.) Filipinos love and celebrate children and Baby Jesus or Sto. Nino was loved by all 3.) Filipinos love and revere their mothers so Virgin Mary was a big hit 4.) Jesus Christ hung out with losers and the outcasts and they identified with such a person.... but it’s not really good for us I think cuz it resulted in twisted morality, oppression from the upper classes, teenage pregnancy and degradation of the woman’s status, among other things.

my point is that some ideas or Masters may feel so right. Maybe it’s gonna hit the right notes. It fulfills some need, or it is intellectually attractive or appealing. But if it is FORCED, imposed, and does not come from the lived experience, meaning to say IT IS NOT NATURAL, it may not be good in the long run and you will revert to your old natural self (should you wish to be REBORN).

that is why I find it so strange that some religions want to CONVERT others not their own KIND as though it’s for the other people’s GOOD. why do other religions have that audacity?

the more you struggle and seek the more the truth (whatever that is) will elude you.  that is what I think. ^^

as for your cats, yes PLEASE show me their pictures!!!

Fredda - I agree though the opposite can also happen imo: that an ‘exotic’ master from another culture can be accepted as spiritual because they come from a different frame of reference the ‘seeker’ is unfamiliar with.

If they were a product of the culture that the ‘teacher’ came from then they might not mistake what he is peddling (in many cases) for spirituality.

Re religions: it’s like football teams...or perhaps football hooliganism, of a cerebral kind. It’s tribal: my God can beat your God - or perhaps your God isn’t God at all.

This can happen with ‘groups’ and ‘masters’ too and often does.......

It is always a sign that the person is not really believing what they themselves claim to and need to bolster or keep this nagging doubt at bay by getting sheer force of numbers to back them up. Kind of like: well, if I can convert (or enroll) you and you and you then it MUST be the truth......

Cat pics en route to blog some time during the evening.....

Thank you Fredda but not my idea a quote from the Bhagavad Ghita. Also expressed by the Native American Indian , Billy Two Rivers one time wrestler on British TV as “whatever you do paddle your own canoe”

The name Muz Murray rings a bell from somewhere. Gandalf’s Garden? Remember reading an article about him once as having spontaneous spiritual experiences.

Find myself in agreement with a lot of what James has been saying in his last post but must admit to being puzzled at all Mark’s frustrations.

Does his teacher share these frustrations? Does he wish to post anything on this site? One feels sure that he would be more than welcome? After all I’m allowed to post!

My friend James Moore too is very fond of his cat, Tarquin, reckons he has more sensible conversations with him than with many humans.

Best Wishes to all

Paul

Dear All,
I would like to try to share my thoughts with you on several subjects. Sorry if I do not quote who said what as after 18 posts it is difficult to remember.
Fredda, you are wondering what we, westerners, are seeking. The answer: the same as all seekers of the world. It is not question whether you are satisfied with your life, your environment and culture, it is something else, it is beyond that. It is as you are looking for your Beloved, this desire is beyond the mind, it is Divine chemistry. It is insane, sometimes, it gives pain and restlessness but it is huge driving force for some of us. Hence ...search for a Teacher as representative of fulfilment of this divine thirst. If you love somebody you do not put preconditions: don`t be Islamic, don`t be this or that, it just happens. Relationship with the teacher is beyond the mind as Teacher operates from the level beyond the mind. I am sorry to learn that these teachers are so rare. In my opinion groups are secondary, your relationship is one to one with the Teacher. But groups are needed in the west. Why? Because there are no real Masters but mostly teachers who work on the intellectual level. How many books are written about Sufism and Naqshbandiya, but it is all so FAAR from a real process of Naqshbandiya teaching. People could writeabout how Sufi teachers could work with disciples in London from their cave in India, but those who are writing about this, so called “teachers in the west”, - could THEY work like this with their own disciples? It is just a theory. West is unlucky place. Why? Because real Masters do not need us, they do not need to come here, because with our level of intellectualism we are not capable of learning. We are wrong material, junk. Why? Again – teaching is not happening on the intellectual level, but with all preconditions for a “real” teacher we have, we can function on this level only. May be this is the reason why while looking for real Sufi teacher we find extreme Islamic groups or fakirs? May be we can not see a Real Master, who could be making a Chai at the train station or selling vegetables on the street where you hotel was located. Or do you think Masters live in big villas in Kent and writebooks on Sufism?I respect work of I. Shah who has presented a teaching in the language acceptable in the west; but, in my opinion, his effort was almost useless, westerners can not take what is given to them, because they do not know how.
Amir Kulal, being on his deathbed, said that there will be no time in the world`s history when Almighty did not send his Friend in to the world of people. This Friend or Friends are here, around us, may be in 10 hours by plane, but we still fail to BELIEVE that they exist. If we do not believe that they exist we will not find them. Yes, there is a danger that if you are too much in believing than you will be trapped in to the different game with your own projections, but some level of optimism is necessary.

Eugene

my question to you though is: what makes you think you would recognize them? And this can be a question for anyone else who wants to take it on too.

Would you recognize them by externals? Will they have some signaling mechanism or signpost?

What if they are deliberately appearing to be other than they are?

I’ll tell you how I know for absolutely sure that I personally would not recognize them (can’t speak for anyone else):

When I lived in London I used to catch the tube a lot, as you do. One day, I was on the train as normal when suddenly everything changed. Visually. And mentally.

I became aware of everything at once. I knew that I only had to think of something to know it and look at someone to know what they were and were thinking. I was totally awake.

I remember seeing how everyone else was asleep and thinking that if there had been someone awake there, in that state I would know it.

BUt there was also an element of unpleasantness to the experience. First I knew for sure - as in this state I knew whatever I turned my mind to - that I would be back asleep in a matter of minutes and would forget all this. That was unbearably heartbreaking.

Also I knew that the driver of the train was asleep (metaphorically) and that we were all in danger. That we are always in danger. Frightening knowledge....

Then I was back asleep.....

I cannot recall the experience other than in the way I am telling you - ie cannot re-live it, but I learnt one thing:

That is the state we need to get to. It is not the ned of the road and certainly not ‘advanced’ but nevertheless, we do not possess it and we should. It is our right and we can get to it.

It is my belief that we cannot recognize masters when not in some such state. Of course we may find something real without this state and I’m sure many people do....but we lie when we say we ‘know’ if we merely just are ‘convinced’.

segovius, I completely agree with what you are saying. We, people asleep, cannot recognize them. But there is something in us that will help us to recognize these Masters.
Friend of mine told me a story about Chai Baba, who lived in India.  He was very humble man; he had a chai shop where he used to make chai for his customers. Hi did not speak. He thought in silence. But when you enter his shop you immediately feel the change of your state - you become awake, you see world differently, you understand world differently, and you experience huge force in that Chai Shop. And Baba...goes on making chai as nothing happened to you.
May be one of those was in the same coach as you, segovius, may be he was around or may be he visited you from the beyond, or may be it happened spontaneously or by your effort, but it IS possible. The question is how to make this state permanent and who will help you to make it permanent.
But I am sure that if you meet a Real Master, you will FEEL it, your state will tell you.
Now, question: where we can find such people? In London, Barcelona , NY or Kabul, Delhi or Ajmer?

Near Hampton Court in my case. Like Mark earlier there was no difficulty in recognising my teacher once he decided to reveal himself to me. Had actually met and talked to him on many occasions over 7 year period prior to this and thought he was a kind of village idiot.

Have never been looking for a teacher on purpose so can’t really comment on how hard that would be to find one.

Best Wishes

Paul

Eugene, you asked: ”Now, question: where we can find such people? In London, Barcelona , NY or Kabul, Delhi or Ajmer?” But to me this is the wrong question – it is Nasrudin searching for his key under the streetlamp ‘because there is more light there’. To find the teacher, one has to find the place in oneself where one can ask, in recognition of one’s total incapability of ever finding him or her by oneself, and in total sincerity, for guidance. How many times does it have to be said ‘the master finds the disciple’?

But most people cannot bring themselves to accept that this is how it happens: we cannot trust God to do it for us, we feel we have to do it for ourselves. Yet if someone cannot find this point, there is no basis for the master to work with. If you don’t believe that you are in the hands of a higher power, you will not be able to accept the master. So why bother to look for him? He cannot offer you anything you would be prepared to believe in.

I testify, from my own experience (which is the only experience I am qualified to speak from) that this is how it is. When, after decades of ‘seeking’ I finally came to the point where I could ask this question, it was answered the very next day.

You also say:

“Relationship with the teacher is beyond the mind as Teacher operates from the level beyond the mind. I am sorry to learn that these teachers are so rare. In my opinion groups are secondary, your relationship is one to one with the Teacher. But groups are needed in the west. Why? Because there are no real Masters but mostly teachers who work on the intellectual level. How many books are written about Sufism and Naqshbandiya, but it is all so FAAR from a real process of Naqshbandiya teaching.”

I understand why you say this, but I have to say (again, from my own experience) that it is simply not true. The tradition of the Khwajagan flourishes in the West. Who are ‘The People of the Secret?‘ Those who have received their ‘secret’, their sirr from a master who stands in a line of masters that goes back through Bahauddin Naqshband to the prophet Muhammad (the peace and blessings of God be on him). In addition to my own master, those who transmit this ‘secret’ to their own disciples include Arif Ali-Shah, Alejandro Sanz and Llwellyn Vaughan-Lee. The teaching of all of them is based on the transmission of ‘substance’ (baraka) and ‘energy’ (kaif) through the principles of ‘contact’ (tawajjuh) and ‘binding’ (rabita), in an entirely non-intellectual way. In this respect it is identical to the teaching described in the fifteenth century classic of the Naqshbandi Way ‘Drops from the Fountain of Life’ (Rashahat Ayn al-Hayat).

But in other respects, this tradition is now almost entirely naturalized in the cultures of the West. None of these teachers require their disciples to be Muslims, most avoid Arabic or Persian terms (substituting everyday words from the languages in which they teach) and all are people who live Western lifestyles amongst Western people in a completely, and unremarkably, normal fashion. The Way is not in ‘outward show’: in exotic clothes, foreign names, elaborate rituals, unfamiliar practices. It is in the encounter with oneself, and others, in the everyday world.

Tarquin

Your question about how to recognize one’s master is very similar to the question ‘how would I know if I fell in love’. That is, it sounds incredibly complicated if one tries to answer it intellectually. But in fact it is very simple. And the answer is the same: ‘You just know’.

The whole basis of the relationship is built on this recognition: the part of you that recognises the master is the part that he or she develops, supports, encourages, exercises. In one sense, it is the ‘Higher Perceptual Capacity’ (and, in another, ‘the True Self’). It’s also the part of you that will be pitted against the false self, the conditionings or personalities, so one has to begin with a taste of it. This can then be pitted against the voices of doubt, resistance, reluctance and so on that will be stimulated by the circumstances the master creates (directly or ‘energetically’. Each time you choose to act on this this part of you, as you did in putting yourself in the hands of the master, it stenghtens the essence. But each time you act against it, following doubt or negativity, you strengthen the ego (and beyond a certain tolerance, this will make you leave the master).

The first time I encountered my master, I had no idea of who he was. He was a normally dressed man, in his middle years, in a small provincial town in a country that had no associations with ‘The Tradition’ for me. He didn’t speak to me: he just looked at me. But at that moment I ‘knew’ that he was a highly developed person. However, at the same time, I dismissed that thought immediately. “I’m sure he’s just someone waiting for his wife”. It took six years, and a series of coincidences, to reconnect. Yet this memory never left me. The quality of the recognition stayed in my memory, uncategorized and uncategorizable, working away at me: it was quite unlike anything else in my experience.

And that’s the thing. Finding one’s master isn’t like finding a job - something you can do by going through the web or the newspapers, writing application letters, weighing up whether one is more interested in this one or that one. It cannot be ‘shopping’. Instead it is like finding one’s life partner – a decisive encounter for both of you. If he or she makes it difficult, it will only be to ‘stretch’ the distance between your recognition and your doubt, so that the difference is clear. And the encounter won’t leave you alone – it will become a ‘Zahir‘ (to use Borges’ lovely
image. You’ll try and put it aside and it will keep coming back, even if you might manage to supress it for a few years (or even decades).

“...the would be novice is still, on the face of it, inadequately equipped to select his ‘true guide’. He will, therefore, be forced to use other methods than the ordinary to make his selection: in other words, he will ‘know’ when he meets the right teacher in ways other than the logical. In effect, he will experience a sort of ‘falling in love’, a sensation of mutual sympathy so strong that no other recommendation will be necessary. [...]

‘This level of sympathy is essential, since whatever may be the formal trappings of the master-disciple connection, its essence is wholly flexible and living. Each process of instruction is unique, however much it may resemble others, since each is the outcome of a personal relationship. The teacher never really has only a group of disciples whom he instructs; he has around him selected individuals with each of whom he stands in a unique relation. Even when he appears to speak to all, he bears in mind the different impact of his words on each.’

Thus Peter Brent in The World of the Sufi (in a piece that I think excellently describes all of this).

The thing to bear in mind is that the encounter of disciple and master is something that exists in both of their destinies. The principal difference is that the master understands this, and is attentive and present whilst the disciple goes ‘sleepwalking’ into this situation. However it’s outcome is not pre-determined: God gives the potential disciple the free will to walk away from this opportunity in a huff (and, indeed, many subsequent opportunities too ;(

Dear James, thank you for wonderful post describing Teacher - disciple relationship. You have touched the very depth of this unique affair.
Nothing much one can say about this mystery. It looks like Finding a Master is not our decision at all but it does not come if one is not Seeking. In my case it was something less expected, it just happened. Recognition came immediately and effortlessly and with a joy. 
You also mentioned in your previous post about people in the west who represent tradition. I can not find anything on the web on Arif Ali-Shah.
And I somewhat disagree about Llewellyn as I know his group quiet well.

Eugene

yes, I also would agree with your thoughts on Llewellyn who I also know to a certain degree. I have no experience of Arif other than through email but I was given reasons for my antennae to twitch so to speak.

The OAS groups - which he has inherited I believe - are highly suspect in my opinion and they are clearly stated to be so by Idries Shah who clearly outlines the characteristics of ‘false groups’ and they tick quite a few of the boxes.

My association with them did nothing to contradict this although I was really looking hard for reasons....eventually you just have to call it like it is or decide to live in illusion.

But enough of the negative, it is unbecoming. I agree with James’s implication too.....when one ‘finds’ there is also the realization that one is also ‘being sought’.

It’s really not as simple as ‘finding a teacher’. In a way, anything can be a teacher....it is more a question of becoming a learner. In that moment everything changes.

One’s distance from the teacher is not so different if you are a ‘disciple’ or merely searching. In both cases you are miles away and the ‘disciple’ is not necessarily any nearer than someone who has not found the teacher yet. From my observation the opposite could well be the case.

Tarquin, Eugene

I can’t speak for Omar Ali-Shah’s groups, having no experience of them. However, the people I have met and communicated with from his groups have been thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive, with beautiful manners. And some of the those who worked with him: Russell Page, Irina Hoare, Oliver Hoare, Leonard Lewin etc also remained very closely connected with Shah. So I think it is not the case that these groups were ‘anathematized’ (or whatever the word is

There is much speculation about all of this and one of the things that fuels it is that Idries Shah didn’t actually ‘clearly state’ anything publicly about his brother’s work. There are reports that he said such and such to so and so, and something else to someone else, but from our point of view these are all hearsay. No doubt he told each person what was going to have a productive effect on them.

What is a matter of record is that some people who worked with the Shah brothers’ father, The Sirdar Ikbal Ali-Shah, were directed to assist Omar Ali-Shah, and continued to do as they had been instructed after the supposed ‘falling out’ of the brothers in the early 1970s. Others, like Leonard Lewin, who worked with Idries Shah for many years, later became involved with Omar Ali-Shah’s work.

Shah wrote some excellent material on groups that can help people in a group situation to understand and make the most of the opportunities it provides. Do groups always live up to these principles? Clearly not. We carry all the things that undermine the group situation inside ourselves: a predisposition to ‘cult behaviour’, power trips and petty politicking, taking advantage of others, backbiting, needs and dependencies etc. These things are conditioned deeply – one can’t just make a decision to leave them at the door, and expect to have no further problems with them.

As newcomers to the work situation, we’re not aware of a fraction of these things. Furthermore, exposure to the group – and to the ‘energy’ - will magnify many of them. Magnify them so that we can see them: magnify them until we can’t avoid them any more. The Master is not going to come charging in every time someone oversteps the mark. Indeed, the fantasy of being ‘rescued’ and having a parental figure who is going to tell us what to do in every instance is something we will have to confront. Far more likely the master will let the group ‘stew’, even to the point where its behaviour becomes dysfunctional, until something real changes inside the members.

As someone looking in, you can’t know what is going on. It’s no good applying the ‘principles’ either - because the group’s flouting of the principles may be the thing that creating the learning they need. The master gives us the tools to get ourselves out of the shit, but he doesn’t protect us from it - either from our own shit, or from the group’s. Then he waits for us to decide to use them. If we don’t - and human beings can be unbelievably stubborn - he might just give us another push so that we’re up to our necks in it again. Eventually, we’ll have enough of it.

If one can’t trust one’s intuitions, one falls back on ‘principles’. If the principles cause one to conclude that ‘this group is not correct’, this can be seen as an elegant way of disposing of someone who can’t connect or harmonize with the work of the group without that person losing face. They decide ‘this isn’t for me’, and leave the school in peace. But one only has to look at some of the discussion groups on the Internet to see where people who can’t connect with The Work often end up: becoming disputatious and argumentative, hoarding trivial information and using it to enhance their standing and prestige, flitting from one thing to another, even attacking the thing that once they wanted to associate with. This is what Shah describes as ‘becoming inverted to oneself’.

Nor can one judge a master by his disciples. By definition, these are people who are in transition between an unregenerate and a ‘mature’ state. At times, they may communicate the baraka, the grace, but at others they may display flaws and faults that the baraka has grotesquely magnified. At other times, they might just seem boringly – even depressingly – normal. They are a ‘work in progress’, which only the master can see. Almost certainly they will trigger what therapists call resistances, transferences and counter-transferences. And to start with, one of the biggest resistances will be to accept that they might be mirrors to us, rather than not very nice people with challenges that are ‘not my problem!’.

‘If you want the mirror to reflect the face,
hold it straight and keep it polished bright;
although the sun does not begrudge its light,
when seen in a mist it only looks like glass;
and creatures comelier than angels even
seem in a dagger to have devils’ faces.’

Says Hakim Sanai, in David Pendlebury’s lovely translation of portions of his The Walled Garden of Truth.

It’s not easy to admit that the ‘devils’s faces’ we see in others could be the result of our own ‘mirror’, our own heart, having become a ‘dagger’. But then again, the master comes to ‘save sinners’ - those whose realisation that they are lost, in a mess, stuck, means that they are willing to let him help them. And having been receptive once, are willing to let him help them at every successive stage of The Way.

James...a very insightful post and I want to thank you for the time, effort and thought that you have put into it. It certainly is a great contribution to this blog and dialogue.

I don’t really wish to add anything and you have stated it as clearly as possible I think but I do think there is a potential ‘danger’ in groups and masters whether they are ‘genuine’ or not.

This danger is that people can justify their - or the group’s - behaviour in the light of some higher aim.

Sometimes, as you imply, a certain negative behaviour may be a ‘test’ or a learning experience (as all things are potentially) but just as easily, it could be something one should shun. In the end it is a judgement call which one will naturally make according to one’s inner state - and I think this is as it should be.

If one grows in knowledge then you’ll know whether you were right or wrong and be able to amend your attitude, if not it doesn’t really matter much.

I don’t want to judge anyone and I try not to, but alternatively I also do not want to put up with certain things. These things apply to all of life - I will not tolerate racism or other hatred without questioning it, as an example off the top of my head - but when I find them manifesting in groups which purport to lead to ‘real life’ then find it 100 times more intolerable.

I have found this to be the case - not racism btw, I refer to things I have decided not to tolerate - in many groups and so I reject them. I have no qualms about this whatsoever, IT just means I have discovered they are not for me.

Now it may well be that I am wrong and these groups are real but this does not matter - if this transpires to be the case then I will conclude I have been wrong about esotericism and adjust accordingly.

It is not easy to see our own devil’s face as you and Sanai so rightly say. But also remember Rumi who says that many men’s inwardness is that of Satan too - and that some of these have the face of a Saint.

Tarquin, I totally agree with you. In the end, the only test can be whether one feels one has benefited from the experience. But then one also has to be prepared to give it a chance - Rumi’s story of the tattooist and the lion is a good illustration of what happens when people say they want it, but can’t take the pain.

The first years of The Way are boot camp for most people - there are many, many horrible and confusing moments, And many points at which one wants to give up, whether provoked by other’s behaviour or one’s own negativity. One really needs the dedication of an old-fashioned explorer - the ability to remember why one is doing all of this, and to continue nonetheless. The feeling that one has nothing to lose, that this is an adventure worth staking pretty much everything for, also helps. And one has to take responsibility for the fact that it might turn out to be a complete and utter waste of time (this I learned not from any ‘spiritual’ figure, but from a remarkable graphic designer called Lou Danziger).

Someone told me this story about a contemporary master. It’s only hearsay (and has probably been changed and elaborated along the way) but I think it still makes a good point. Someone was talking to him about various people - these people were saying that, these others were doing this, why were these people experiencing whatever they were experiencing. The master listened patiently while all of this was being accounted and then he replied: “what the fuck has any of this got to do with you?”

Think James has written eloquently on many subjects here that bear a close resemblance to my experiences.

In particular his report of Peter Brent’s description brought back lots of memories for me that I had put to the back of my mind.

In fact my teacher often referred to people being drawn to him by “ a single glance across a crowded room”

However there was no formal group work as such. We often went out to the pub and played darts and groups just spontaneously formed. Else sat in his room and people would just turn up or not. It was truly a magikal time.

As to “what the fuck has any of this got to do with you” My teacher used to say"if more people spent time minding their own business and less time worrying about other people were doing the world would be a much happier place”

Fuck he would have considered to be “False utterance of carnal knowledge”. Swearing a sign of topsy-turvishness in some-one.

As for me considered myself to be very poor material - a reluctant disciple at best. Still wonder to this day why he spent so much energy on me.

Thanks to everyone who replied to segovius’ post so far, I learned a lot~

I totally agree w/ James post in comment number 24, that you have to open your heart and stop intellectualizing and rationalizing. The problem with Western thinking for me is that their minds are so “rational” (pitted against spirituality) that it has become grotesque… AS if you would like to measure and quantify everything and you refuse to see the ESSENCE and MYSTERY of things, which your SOUL recognizes, as James Souttar said (but your mind rebels against, since it must always analyze and verbally express something).

This is why I think so many Western intellectuals seem cold-blooded and detached. Why can’t they FEEL? (mostly it is the female “thinkers” who feel) But I am not judging them and I am not saying they are bad. It’s natural for them/you to be like that/. I was merely pointing out how an Easterner views this Western obsesses ion for rationalizing and explaining and consequently explaining the world.

I really admire great Eastern religions/ways of life (for them the two are inseparable); they are so splendid and magnificent.

Segovious in your #17 comment you said that “an ‘exotic’ master from another culture can be accepted as spiritual because they come from a different frame of reference the ’seeker’ is unfamiliar with. If they were a product of the culture that the ‘teacher’ came from then they might not mistake what he is peddling (in many cases) for spirituality.” I agree with you in both statements. Are you suggesting that people from another culture are privileged to see through the veneer of these Masters?

For many Easterners, there is no overwhelming need to DETECT the mistakes of the master. There are no MISTAKES as long as the Masters are direct results of the people’s experience. Religions (and the particular Masters of each) are results of civilizations- people’s NEEDS, experiences, history, sufferings, etc. So unless you REALLY KNOW what it’s like to be, say, a person from India with four thousand years of history behind you, I guess you will not appreciate and understand how they beautifully explained the world through HINDUISM and their sacred writings.  What matters for me is HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS so conforming to community and society is so natural. It’s like we have no other choice.

I think it is in man’s nature to be seek “Masters” in the same way that in the simplest of tribe there will always be an elder or a tribal leader. I think we all need to be guided by traditions because we are part of the community, a bigger whole (although a tribe was discovered in the Amazon jungles that had no art because they do not have memories that go beyond three days- they did not need to record histories) . This goes beautifully with the idea that Past and Future are in the Here and Now and here and now is eternity. (here I go again, speaking in an “Eastern” way ^^)

Eugene, thanks for your reply in number 19. I agree with you completely. Almost all great religions of the world have indeed sought for a power/being/spirit that’s higher than themselves, be it a God or some kind of nature spirit. I was reacting to Western obsession with “seeking” because they seem to be too idealistic and too sceptical and yet they feel compelled to ACHIEVE AND ATTAIN something, a state or a level. But thing is you cannot spirituality without being “silent” and humble and recognizing that the answer is inside YOU- that you and the universe are one? (actually scientists can have the same conclusion through New Physics especially quantum mechanics). But how can a Westerner have this conclusion if they are individualistic and egoistic? And it’s but natural for them to be like that because in THEIR society, being individualistic works and that’s their experience. It’s a natural result of their civilization.

Despite all my rantings against Westerners (hehehe) I really like them. ^^ In many poor Asian countries there is a need to fight against the West (yeah, despite the White Man’s fantasy of having the manifest destiny to spread the word and save the world) and we must recognize that we must put a halt to mindless PROGRESS (another Western idea) if it destroys our day to day lives and prevents us from LIVING IN THE PRESENT, IN THE MOMENT. So it is refreshing to see Westerners taking interest in the East,….

We would love to have the west’s olives and wines and technological discoveries and art. The west can do with the East’s tropical beaches, fruits, and spirituality. ^^ Everyone has a place in the world, just as in the animal kingdom even the “lowly” amoeba and plankton have an important function. I only discovered our “Eastern” way of life when I compared it to the west. so bring on the cat pictures and let’s be “natural”.

i’m reading the conversation. I don’t really understand everything (i speak french and live in Bruxelles) but i’m so interserting by these questions. I ‘m asking myself these questions. I have not time today to writemy point of view. But the james’sreflexions touch me. The element “baraka” seems to me the most important. Il believe there is no real group without that.  Also the fact that we doesn’t choose but we are choosen seems very important. Soory for my english. Très amicalement. Sébastien.

Sebastien think what you say sums it up admirably on all fronts James reflections very knowledgeable and detailed, transmission of baraka, and we don’t choose but are chosen. For me the only real thing left out is prayer,remembrance, and thankfullness.

Paul

Your experiences sound fascinating! When I was younger, it was the exotic aspects of a master’s behaviour that always attracted me but these days I find I’m more intrigued by the ‘everyday’. A master in a secret monastery carved out of the mountains in the Hindu Kush - that’s one thing. But one who teaches in the Public Bar of the local pub, that’s something else altogether!

One of my favourite Shah stories has always been the one about the kabob seller who recognises his master by the way he picks up and eats a stick of kabobs. (And now, looking back, I wonder why this appealed to me so much). When I first met my master’s two sons (who I met before I eventually ‘reconnected’ with him), the thing that struck me most about them was the way they greeted me. Just a simple handshake and a “hello”, but it was as if the whole of them was in that gesture.

Like the kabob seller and his kabobs, I’m a professional hand-shaker. And in thousands of greetings I had never experienced that before. It’s not as if it was some great, mysterious sign of illumination. Just such an everyday thing. But I thought at the time “if I learn nothing else from these guys, I want to learn this”. And I’m still learning… The only difference now is that I realise that to be there, in total presence, when one meets someone, one has to have travelled the whole of the ‘journey’. It’s not ‘everyday’ at all.

Hi Segovius, James, Eugène, paul, and everybody,

I’ve bought a dictionary these week end. I hope you will understand me. I’m afraid that my reflexions seem poor, ordinary. It will be easier for me to specify my thought in french. But… As it is.

First

The question of the Mandate (mandat in french) is also crucial to recognize a teacher as a genuine teacher (and a group as a real group). OAS speak about this question in his last book “La tradition soufie en Occident” (published in France and Belgique in 2006) criticizing Gurdjieff and his groups at the same occasion. The teacher must have a mandate. From who? I don’t know. But the mandate is also important as the element baraka.  Without mandate/ Without baraka there is no sufi’s group. This is my opinion. But the problem remains the same. How to know if the teacher has a mandate? and Baraka (as baraka is first experience).

Second (about intellectualisme and to love his teacher)

What is love if we can not recognize love. If we haven’t knowledge of love. A first work is learning to know the meaning of the word. I love my wife, my daughter, holidays, beach, chocolat etc… But what’s the authentic meanig of this word. Is it the same meaning to love America, the beatles, David Beckham and to love is teacher. No, i think there is a real work to do. That’s the idea of I. Shah.

Shah gives us a lot of informations to make in a second time, the authentic experience, to FEEL the concept. There is a lot of false emotions and feelings (false love, false genorosity, humility etc..) What’s the meaning of the words ? That’s the question. Shah gives informations and in a secpnd time, the learner doesn’t need words anymore. He knows. The knowledge is beyond words. But how to make without? How to make without informations? “Informations precede illumination”. I.Shah spents a lot of time to explain the authentic meaning of the words - He is a “sémanticien” in French - to prepare the experience, the sensation, the knowledge. I think words have an “objective energetic equivalence” who’s manifest by an objective inner feeling. Beyond that there is “mystic experience” i suppose but it’s another subject. I d’ont think Shah was an intellectual. certainly not. He just prepare TO TASTE. We cannot send a kiss in a letter.

Third

Who are you James ? (i don’t nwish specia

Hi Segovius, James, Eugène, paul, and everybody,

I’ve bought a dictionary these week-end. I hope you will understand me. I’m afraid that my reflexions seem poor, ordinary. It will be easier for me to specify my thought in french. But… As it is.

First

The question of the Mandate (mandat in french) is also crucial to recognize a teacher as a genuine teacher (and a group as a real group). OAS speak about this question in his last book “La tradition soufie en Occident” (published in France and Belgique in 2006) criticizing Gurdjieff and his groups at the same occasion. The teacher must have a mandate. From who? I don’t know. But the mandate is also important as the element baraka.  Without mandate/ Without baraka there is no sufi’s group. This is my opinion. But the problem remains the same. How to know if the teacher has a mandate? and Baraka (as baraka is first experience).

Second (about intellectualisme and to love his teacher)

What is love if we can not recognize love. If we haven’t knowledge of love. A first work is learning to know the meaning of the word. “I love my wife, my daughter, holidays, beach, chocolat etc...” It’s the same word. But what’s the authentic meanig of this word. Is it the same meaning to love America, the beatles, David Beckham and to love is teacher. No, i think there is a real work to do. That’s the idea of I. Shah.

Shah gives us a lot of informations to make in a second time, the authentic experience, to FEEL the concept, th word. There is a lot of false emotions and feelings (false love, false genorosity, humility etc..). He explains that. What’s the meaning of the words ? That’s the question. Shah gives informations and in a second time, the learner doesn’t need words anymore. He knows. Of course the knowledge is beyond words and not intellectual. But how to make without? How to make without informations? “Informations precede illumination”. I.Shah spents a lot of time to explain the authentic meaning of the words - He is a “sémanticien” in French - to prepare the experience, the sensation, the knowledge.

I think words have an “objective energetic equivalence” who’s manifest by an “objective inner feeling”.  Beyond that there is “mystic experience” i suppose, but it’s another subject. I d’ont think Shah was an intellectual. certainly not. He just prepare TO TASTE. We cannot send a kiss in a letter.

Third

Who are you James ? (i don’t wish specialy an answer). It seems that you’ve made a long road in yourself. Your reflexions make me think at genuine sufi’s reflexions. And i’m very suprised, luckily suprised to read that on the web. Thank you.

Personnaly i’m looking for a sufi’s group. But i have the impression that in Belgium or in france, it is more difficult. Does it exist in this countries ?  I know that in the ‘80 and ‘90, there was a group with Luis Ansa in Paris. But he has published two books that seems too vain (cult behaviour) for myself. What’s the situation today? It seems that sufism is more present in UK or Spain than France or Belgium. Maybe i should learn english and cross the channel? Why not?

Très amicalement : sébastien

Cher Sébastien, Je te remercie pour ton mots généreux.

Who am I? If only I knew...! But that’s the point of all this, isn’t it? What I can say, though, is that I’m just a very ordinary person who, for reasons beyond my comprehension, has been allowed to witness some rather extraordinary things. (Not enough extraordinary things, however, to let me imagine that I am anything other than an ‘accidental tourist’.

This question of mandate, I think, would seem to be closely related to some of the things we have been talking about here. Real teachers do have genuine credentials, but in my (very limited) experience often suppress these rather than use them to relieve the would-be student’s doubts. One has, I think, to satisfy oneself that the teacher is ‘the real thing’ by using one’s perceptions. And I think it can be a disaster for someone to be given reassurance about a teacher that enables them to ‘put their mind at rest’, when they should be stretching for these perceptions.

So, for me, it is a question of what and who the ‘mandate’ exists for. It’s obviously not a marketing tool. Shah, for instance, famously avoided telling anyone who his teachers were (although they are, in fact, described in the longer version of Lewis Courtland’s interview in The Diffusion of Sufi Ideas in the West) He said he represented ‘the Guardians of the Tradition’ but left it to his readers to decide for themselves if they believed him. And my sense is that a teacher’s mandate is for him or her. Whether it comes through the hands of the master’s masters or not, surely the only authority entitled to give it is the One in whose Name the master teaches?

The baraka is a different matter. ‘Teachers’ who don’t transmit the baraka (or however one wants to call it) are not really teaching anything, are they? But (again, in my very limited experience) baraka is a bit like ‘fairy dust’. That is, when one is receptive to it, its presence is very obvious. But when one is dwelling in resistence and negativity, it ‘melts away’. A bit like the experience of depression, which makes one conveniently forget any pleasant experiences that contradict the sense of ‘my life is just a load of crap’. So there would seem to be a paradox here. If one affirms one’s perceptions, the baraka is palpable. But if one is wallowing in doubt, it is nowhere to be seen.

Incidentally, Luis Ansa is an old friend of my master’s - they met in Mexico when they were 16 (the story is given in Henri Gougaud’s Les Sept Plumes de l’Aigle. If you are interested in asking me about any of this, my email address is .

best wishes, James

For anyone interested, Luis Ansa giving a fascinating short talk on the subject of L’amour (en français) on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kixVExUPMPE.

Hiya folks, friend Obo over at the yahoo! group caravansarai recommended this thread and I must say, it is very more-ish! There are so many responses that it’s difficult to know which bits to single out or quite where to dive in.

James writes “The group, the school, the master or whatever isn’t – and can’t be - the goal of the search. It’s only the beginning.”

And later, James goes on to say: “I wasn’t suggesting that any group has the same value. The first of the three criteria I’m suggesting touched on this: that what is important is their effect on us. A group that is under the direction of a master who can provide what Shah called ‘The Sufi Current’ (which goes by other names in other traditions) is much more valuable in its effects than any other kind of group. But this doesn’t mean that it will necessarily look, or feel, like a ‘real group’. The effect of that ‘current’ will exaggerate, provoke and intensify all kinds of manifestations, good and bad (if we can really label them in this way) in the members and in their interactions. That’s where the second criterion comes in: can one observe this, or is one simply swept along with it? Because if one can’t step back and look at what is happening, one clearly cannot benefit from the group.”

Whilst it is true that groups are “just the beginning”, personally I wouldn’t dismiss group work as some kind of kindergarten (or for that matter Shah’s work as for the kindergarten, as Anne Marie Schimmel avers). A lot of the learning, as you suggest, is in how we relate to, experience, react to and interact with those around us and with our environment. And a group or other community is a valuable means of providing a specially enriched environment which facilitates deep and accelerated learning. Much of our learning about ourselves we learn in relation to those about us.

A group guided by a master who has personally walked the path, who knows the way ahead, who is in touch with the baraka (which means grace and gifts, not merely “good luck"), whose vocation also happens to be that of a teacher and who is capable of organizing and working in a community (or what the buddhists call sangha), is more likely to have a more valuable and profound effect on those in the group, but we should not belittle the benefits of spending time in other “profane” groups of apparently random composition, some of which can work at very deep levels in certain aspects (for example in zen-inspired gestalt therapy).

In the end, working in a sufi group is only one, relatively artificial, example of a learning environment (which will indeed act as a magnifying lens for the frog-price, warts and all!), and part of the aim is to make naturally available the self-same learning and baraka outside of formal study, anywhere and everywhere you may happen to find yourself in life, and (to put it in another way), to connect at first with the group and the teacher ... and at length with Reality and Truth.

Of course, I may be wrong

With good wishes (and a little rascality),
eric.

This quote came from “The Sufi Lighthouse:  Illuminating Spiritual Abuse”: 

“While there is no doubt that Gurdjieff had some interesting capabilities and gifts, there are many questions within me about what it is that he actually had or what those capabilities and gifts actually signified. Furthermore, whatever it is that he had, he did not seem capable of transmitting it in anything more than a passing, limited fashion, to any of his followers. Although people such as Ouspensky, Nicoll, Bennett, Walker, Collins, Peters, and others all had interesting things to say, none of them seemed to reflect the sort of understanding or qualities which might incline one to trust them with one’s spiritual well-being (which is to be distinguished from the idea of whether one could learn different things through their writings or by interacting with them - that is, while everyone can be one’s teacher in the sense that one has something to learn from, or through, them, a spiritual guide is much, much more than what is involved in the process of ‘teaching’ in such a limited sense).”

The rest of the article can be found at:

http://spiritual-health.org/Sufi/Community/Spiritual-Abuse/gurdjieff.htm

Wishing you all the very best in your search for spiritual authenticity,

Bilquees

James’ old friend Muz Murray writes: “Suddenly I saw the Cosmic Joke — that everyone was God looking for God. And the deadly seriousness of the average aspirant’s view of life (including my own) made me crack up. I fell on the floor shrieking with laughter for about twenty minutes.”

When I read that, it brought a smile to my face, for many years ago (in 1986) shortly before I came across the works of Idries Shah I had a profound - but alas oh-so-transient - episode of wakefulness myself. Before things degenerated and went back down hill, I, too, had just this kind of realization. Yes, it’s as if we’re playing a child’s game, like hide and seek.

Having said that, the game we’re playing is also one of consequences (as anyone who’s—say—stepped on a land mine and had their leg blown off would tell you. In my case, quite recently, it was a collapsed lung).

In the fleeting episode of wakefulness, I felt like I had discovered certain aspects of what the Sufis refer to as Truth and Reality. It was like being stripped and standing naked in the full glare of a spotlight or some kind of all-seeing eye of collective consciousness. Confronted by one’s deeds and misdeeds. Stripped of all rationalizations. Stripped of all excuses. Pared down to the bare facts. And embarrassed, scared and also spurred to prodigality by this gut-wrenching, face-reddening, throat-lumping realization of having fallen asleep and fallen from grace ... yet again.

And yet, beyond this there was something more than mere forgiveness, a realization that we all fall from time to time, that we are all in the same boat, and that there are friends around to help pick us up, dust us down and move on.

What an interesting discussion!

As it happens, James and I are in the same school. I didn’t come across my teacher in any weird and wonderful way - I just happened to see a mention of him in a Web discussion group and decided to follow it up. I see that James has been contributing, but he didn’t tell me that and I just discovered the discussion by accident.

Like many, I spent years with Shah’s writings, and didn’t seem to get very far with the few approaches I made to him. My ideas of what a genuine school would be like were heavily conditioned by my interpretation of his work. Note that I am not saying that he conditioned me, but that I conditioned myself, as he said some learners might. It is very difficult to know how to interpret Shah - what is literal and what not?

For me, there was no feeling of “recognition” of my teacher. What there was, if I am honest, was a great deal of doubt and misgiving. Was he genuine or was he not? I attempted to apply literally interpreted criteria from Shah. And, on those grounds, I can’t say my doubts were alleviated.
But, what the heck, I had made the decision to try the school, and so felt it was incumbent on me to try to be as sincere as I could. That doesn’t mean that I would try to convince myself it was genuine. That would have been insincere, not sincere. No, it meant accepting my doubts as realities, but despite them, doing what I was asked to do with a genuine intention to learn. This is not a very difficult or strange concept. It is *exactly* the same as what happens when you attend any ordinary school. You accept that your teachers know what they are doing, and apply yourself with sincerity to your studies. You have to trust, but you do not have to, may not be able to, believe.

This is a good thing, I think: after all, you might just have applied to a school where the teachers know very little about the subject they are supposed to be teaching. Trusting them, doing what they ask of you, will afford you an opportunity to evaluate whether what they are telling you actually works in practice. But you will only be able to do that if you suspend blind belief. If you don’t, you may well start questioning the evidence of your own commonsense.

Why does anyone believe? I think we need to distinguish between kinds or degrees of belief. At one extreme is unquestioning, blind belief, which I tend to think is based on indoctrination - with the usual interplay of fear, hope and guilt. An advance on that is belief which is based on actual personal experience. The teacher has taught me how to do quadratic equations, let’s say, and then one day I come across a real-world situation where I experimentally apply such an equation. Lo and behold, it works and produces a useful result. I now have a degree of belief in my teacher based on my own experience. Maybe I can’t say for sure yet that the differential calculus he has been teaching me is also valid, but let’s wait and see how that turns out. The more that my experience with the teacher confirms that he really can teach, the more I am inclined to believe that other things he is teaching me, which I may not yet quite understand, are nonetheless valid.

I suppose that if one has an initial “mystical” or “ineffable” experience indicating that the teacher is genuine, then one will be inclined to go with that. However, I think my point is that there is at least one other possibility - that over time, with sincerity and effort, one will have increasing confidence in the teacher. This is what I have so far found with mine. But he doesn’t “teach” in any recognisable way. He and I have shared very few words, and then only seeming pleasantries. I see him - and come to that, other students - only comparatively rarely. So how can I tell that he is teaching and that I am learning?

What can I say? I spent decades studying Shah and felt I did actually learn a little; but within a couple of years with my teacher, I changed more than in all that time. I found myself coming to new understandings and appreciations. I began to see Shah’s work in a completely different way, perceiving things in it that had eluded me even where I could have recited his words verbatim without looking.

One problem initially had been the conflict between my understanding or interpretation of Shah and what actually happened in my teacher’s school. It would have been so easy at that very early point to dismiss it out of hand, curse myself for being a gullible fool, and leave. I know of people who have in fact done this very thing, even shared their negative opinions with others - who sometimes accept those uncritically. But you can’t judge by hearsay, and 1001 teaching tales point this out in one way or another: there is no substitute for actual personal experience.

My friends, unless one has that special kind of recognition of one’s teacher, then joining any group is necessarily going to be a RISK. This is so whether it is genuine or bogus. If the former, there’s a risk that one won’t recognise it and leave; If the latter, that one won’t recognise it, and stay.
What minimises this risk, I would say, is exercising trust, but not blind belief. Trust in God, but still tie your camel, as they say. If we do this, then even if a school is false, we can still learn something of use. It is useful to discover that differential equations don’t work the way our teacher says, no? Better to leave that particular teacher and try another one. So far, my teacher seems to have repaid tenfold such trust and sincerity as I have been able to muster. Does this mean that one day I can be sure his version of calculus will work? No. I still do not, strictly speaking, *know* that my teacher is genuine. “Know” is a very big word. It’s right at the other end of the spectrum from blind belief. I’m somewhere in the middle, I’d say.

There’s something that I know I didn’t, and suspect others may not either, fully appreciate. My musings on Shah had led me to the opinion that, somehow, I had to be fully prepared, have reached a certain level of grace or perfection, and that I should be able to recognise my teacher with absolute certainty. Either that, or, seeing that his school was exactly as I thought it should be based on my interpretations of Shah, (here you can substitute the name of your own personal exemplar if you wish), be able to have complete confidence in him.

One doesn’t have to be in a school very long to realise that a number of its students, oneself included, are very remote from perfection, or the capacity to evaluate its authenticity with complete certainty (because judgement tends to be based on prior conditioning, internal or external). They, and oneself, have many faults and failings, but - and I have found this (like so many other things) totally unexpected - in some way I am at a loss to describe, one becomes much more at ease with one’s own fallibility. I had not realised before how important it is to achieve this. It may sound strange to think of it as an “achievement”, but without it, I suspect progress might be virtually impossible. It is something that it took me at least three decades to come to terms with, whatever feats of intellectual fancy I might have been capable of in the past.

I concur fully with James that the “curriculum” is personal and internal. If one were to express it metaphorically, then if it were a war, it would be waged on an inner battlefield. Oneself is both the good guy and the bad guy. The latter is the false self with which one most usually identifies, and the former is the truer self. One begins to get better discrimination of which is which: it is so easy to wage this war between antagonists who are equally the false self - as if the circus had come to town and a trickster were persuading people that the world within the tent was real, making them neglect the one outside where they actually lived and worked.

The “school” is everywhere; in the car, the supermarket, the workplace, with family and friends, strangers and enemies alike. It has always been there, but I believe one requires the energy or baraka channelled by a true teacher to help make some kind of sense or use out of it. It is conceivable that some are sensitive to this baraka without being aware that they are in any kind of “school” or that they have a “teacher”.

The structure of many tales Shah published, and not a few of the things he wrote that I previously interpreted literally (and I believe inappropriately), help me deal with life in my school, which means with life itself. I do not know how I would have been able to negotiate my way through it without this inestimably useful information. But some apparently do - may never even have heard of Shah.

It would be pointless to try to explain how this is so. It is all completely unique, completely tailored to the individual. Even when one tries to explain it to other students in the same school, one doesn’t always succeed. I now understand why people like Shah can’t just say something “straightforwardly”, and why it’s easy to imagine that they are being coy or mysterious for the sake of it. It is all put so very simply in statements like “he who tastes, knows”, and that applies as much to mundane things as to “spiritual” ones. I have never skied, for example. If anyone who had done so told me that to know what skiing was like, I would have to give it a try myself, what would be mysterious about that?

We are dealing with a very practical and experiential subject. Intellect really doesn’t come into it. Some students are intellectual, and others, anything but. Intellect can tend to get in the way, and over time, if one has intellectual leanings, one finds that they become less and less magnetic, even if one’s intellectual appreciation of certain things seems to become richer.

I don’t think one can say that life in a school is always easy. Its energy can sometimes promote very unpleasant experiences. I don’t believe these are necessarily always “tests” consciously set by a teacher, though there’s no doubt that they can be “testing”: that some will be unable to bear them and hence may decide to leave. But it’s perhaps the wrong language to say one has “failed the test”. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that one isn’t ready yet to pay the necessary price for continued study. Pay a pound, and you get 100 times what you get for a penny. I don’t believe this is a “reward” concept, so much as a kind of natural force or law, like gravity.

I have stopped contributing very much to Web discussion groups because they just go round and round in circles when the answer is to go out and do something about one’s desire to learn. One can quite easily locate a number of schools; some may be more genuine than others, but if we keep our wits about ourselves, they can all afford valuable opportunities to learn. One doesn’t have to make a level of commitment that isn’t - can’t be - warranted, given one’s actual knowledge. I don’t believe any true master will expect such a thing; I think he will know that there must necessarily be doubt, and view that as a positive rather than negative thing. What use is a student without doubt? If he thinks he already knows it all, and he is right, then he has no need of a teacher. On the other hand, if he is wrong, he might not pay heed to what he’s actually being taught.

I incline to the view that the teacher who seeks to assuage doubt, or the student who denies doubt, are equally false. I suspect a genuine teacher will introduce doubt if the student seems not to have any, because he knows that the student should doubt given his current level of understanding. Honesty with oneself is, after all, indispensable to learning anything whatsoever.

John

Beautifully put, John.