Death Knell of the Guru System?

Abstract

This article proposes a radically new approach to the much discussed question of the relationship between claims to spiritual enlightenment and ethical behavior recently rekindled by disclosures of what seems to have been very unenlightened conduct in the private life of J. Krishnamurti, the one modern teacher most people assumed to be above such frailties. The approach is based on the author's personal experience of a lasting shift of consciousness following a close encounter with death in 1983, which leads him to contend that the transformation of which Krishnamurti spoke was not a change in personality but an opening of "depth-perspective" in the moment that puts all human feelings into new proportion in relation to actual enjoyment of eternity. The surest way to prevent such a change is to pursue spiritual development in the hope of achieving some ideal condition, which means that idealization of spiritual teachers is a trap not only for gullible seekers, as often maintained by skeptical psychologists, but even more for the teachers themselves. Krishnamurti saw this more clearly than most, yet seems to have been unable to avoid the trap. The need now is to abandon the whole master system in favor of a genuine experimental approach to spirituality with full up-front admission of failures as an essential requirement not only for any real research, but also for maintaining enlightenment itself. When a guru's not engaged in meditation (meditation), A-reciting of his mantra for the week (for the week), His capacity for infantile inflation (-tile inflation) Is enough to drive disciples up the creek (up the creek). He will take the girls aside for tantric yoga (tantric yoga) While celibacy is ordered for the chaps (for the chaps), When he starts behaving like an angry ogre (angry ogre) He claims it's just to make your pride collapse. Oh with all these daily pujas to be done (to be done), A disciple's lot is not a happy one (happy one). -Gilbert & Sullivan (channelled communication, a New Age update of the 'Policemen's Chorus" from The Pirates of Penzance, first written when this ancient spirit was split between two Victorian Englishmen in his last incamation).