Spiritual Teachers and Gurus

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I’ll comment that on the internet there appear to be quite a number of these.

I do have a background in orthodox UK university based science education. Nevertheless because I do not have qualified teacher status I am not allowed to teach science unsupervised in UK state run high schools. I have previously set my self up as a private science teacher and there was some circumstantial evidence to suggest that I enhanced the achieved “A” level grades of my 1:1 students. They may have gotten more than that; 10-20 hours of 1:1 teaching in science might have had extra ancillary benefits. Only Ph.D. students have had that from me before. I was for a while paid to teach.

Pissing about on the internet this afternoon there are a number of opinions about what a “spiritual teacher” should and should not do. There are warnings about overly devotional guru-worship and falling into cult like behaviours. The first comment that I have about so called spiritual teaching is that it often appears wishy washy, hand waving and vague. There are many pushing their own agendas. Some sell books to advise on spiritual journeys and teachers; they include red flags. One of which might be having merchandise. There is a lot of self-promotion out there. The internet marketers have had an influence.

The second comment I have is that it is impossible to teach the spirit. It stands above and transcends human endeavour. To think you can teach the spirit is very up-your-own-arse ego. Spiritual teacher is an inaccurate and misleading term. A bad use of nomenclature.

“Hey man I am a very spiritual being…”

“Yeah right…”

There appears to be some backlash against Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana in particular.

My own view is that many are experiencing what might be termed sixth ray problems. Full of idealism and devotion they deify a teacher upon a pedestal and if he gets a collection plate out or waves his cock about, they are disappointed and crest fallen. Everyone likes to crucify people they have previously worshipped or deified. They don’t take responsibility for their own lack of discernment. Heaven forbid a teacher should smoke or drink! God does not do that though Jesus was a dab hand at the wedding bar with the wine {allegedly}.

The clergy have always abused power…Those drawn to it may have a predilection so to do. People who want to teach and be special may have very mixed motives. Monasticism encourages sexual repression and leads to deviance in some.

People also have prejudices…

In our time the plagues of immediacy, short attention span and having to be Insta-ready are extant. I don’t know if people can hack hard work and confrontation. There may no longer be any purpose in trying to help people towards liberation. The time may be entirely wrong. Humanity may need to fall deep into a quagmire, a doldrums of empty meaningless vacuous materiality.

The current blueprint for any would be teacher is to write a book, send it to Oprah, sell more books then set up a guru institute offering free ten day trials. {We are only taking credit card details so that your first subscription goes through easily. The subscription can be cancelled at any time during your ten day trial.}

My personal view is that the quality of much New Age guidance / literature out there is not high. If you look on YouTube it is even worse.

At the turn of the century there seemed to be a lot more New Age activity…It seems to be dying out. Physical new age, or as I call them hippie shops, are closing and disappearing from our streets. You can still buy crystals and tarot on line.

I know with a fair confidence that I am out of touch with the younger generations. They are alien to me as I perhaps am to them. I note fear. I note anxiety. I note fear of missing out. I don’t as yet see an upsurge in rebellion as to what my generation has inflicted.

Is there a need for “spiritual” teachers and gurus in our modern times?

Or do we just need more “nice” merchandise and antiseptic courses in Insta-ready locations?

Zambezi – PTSD and the N Floor Crew

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Quite by accident last night I was taken back to events fifty years ago. These events played out at Kwafala Rapids Camp in the Kafue National Park on the Kafue River a tributary of the mighty Zambezi River. An innocent question about fishing led me back to the river. On one day I went out fishing with a guide / ranger near a reed bed half a kilometre away. He was fully grown and I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. We caught five pike and two bream {perch}. We rowed back to camp and had fish fresh from the river cooked in foil and butter on the braai. The next day I watched him pulled under the water a couple of metres from me by a crocodile.

Based on our success three adult rangers and three children went lure fishing the following day. I was the eldest, there was my sister and a fellow child staying in the camp. We rowed out towards the reed bed and a hippopotamus came up under the boat dumping us all in the river and capsizing. One of the guides could not swim and he tried to grab hold of me. I swam away. I had a bronze medal water life-saving award. He drowned and floated off in the current downstream. The remaining two rangers tried to right the boat but the breeze block anchor prevented it. I got struck on the head by the boat refusing to be righted. I swam to a nearby island and the other two children followed me. Soon the two guides also followed. The one who followed my path to the island was taken down by a crocodile. Thrashing, screaming, more thrashing and silence. The remaining guide, Richard, was in shock. I made him get moving and we headed back cross the islands to within hailing distance of the camp, the other side of the rapids. Getting back into the water after what we witnessed was not easy. We waded and swam between islands for several hundred metres to get near camp. I don’t think the other children really understood. I did. When we hailed camp, the dead by crocodile guide’s wife began her mourning ululation as the tropical dusk fell like a portcullis. It is a sound impossible to forget. We were stranded wet in darkness on a small island in the middle of an African game park, where there were hippos and crocs.

My father drove through the night and came back several hours later with a kayak canoe from another camp. He and the other boy’s father navigated by lamp and our shouts to where we were. They had a gun, blankets and food. At dawn we paddled back to camp.

On the way out of the park I had to write my statement to the police because the policeman was illiterate. I feared I would be in trouble for not saving the drowning man. I carried guilt. I could have done better. I could have saved him. I could not rely on adults.  A few weeks later I was back for autumn term in a genteel English preparatory school in Gloucestershire. My behaviour in school was poor and I was in trouble a lot. I had seen things none of my classmates had.

Nobody could see this in me. I looked normal and seemed to fit in, eventually. Retrospect suggests that I met most of the DSM-5 criteria for delayed onset PTSD. I nearly had a heart attack when I was followed by a tiny fish swimming in the Mediterranean in Southern Italy. Years later I went into “tachycardia” during a night dive off Sharm El Sheikh. I self-medicated, I exhibited risky behaviour, I was hypervigilant anxious, I had a suicidal ideation, I was volatile. I was detached and observational and struggled to have friendships.

I think to myself what lies ahead for all those poor souls in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. I had a mere “tickle” of trauma. It played a big part in my life. What is stored in that vast endless well of trauma caused by all the vicious brutality? Millions or what is left of millions carry things, things seen and now unforgettable. They will be as deeply scarred as their countries. The burden of human inflicted trauma is severe, deep and unyielding.

Last night I had a dream with some of the N floor crew  from UMIST. A place and a time where the memories are generally fond. Back then life had not gotten overly complex. The ghost of Kafue was perhaps still in its coffin. Buried perhaps by activity and self-medication. I did not tell them of the Kafue.

It is one of those things, by no means unique or special, the effect of which you cannot convey. All of us have marks and scars. A fact we tend to forget in our interactions, which can be insensitive and abrupt.

It never occurred to me to tell my various therapists about the crocodiles and the river. They never asked. It was easier to reach for the Prozac.

This speaks for the quick and the convenient, the preferred modus operandi of our times. Scratch the surface and put on a plaster. Next…

It is my belief that sooner rather than later humanity is going to have to look in a more profound way at the so-called mental health crisis. The malaise is deeper, mind after mind is rejecting the way society goes through the motions of life and living.

The time is not yet, but it is soon.

Omen – Coincidence or Dreaming Symbol?

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We have not long gotten back from the supermarket. The road directly in front of our house, on a slope, on a bend and near a bridge over the river was blocked off. There were fire brigade, ambulances, road safety geezers and cop-like officials. We could not get past the road block and into our house. There had been an accident at the exact place where our drive joins the departmental road. From the conversations overheard the police had breathalysed one of the drivers and another had skidded off the road and into a field. I can still hear them chatting outside and doors going on the vans. Nobody seemed injured because the ambulances were not speeding off.

Exactly six weeks ago to the day and almost the hour a car had come off the road and rolled over into our drive. This was when I was being operated on for the hip replacement. The wife got back to wait while I was operated on and found the road blocked.

Two car accidents at around 10:30 AM spaced by exactly six weeks just outside our front door might be a coincidence or an omen. It could be a dreaming symbol.

What are the odds of this happening? Discuss…

Yes on both occasions there was a small amount of ice. But this is the first time that this has happened on “our” corner in over six years.

Cars, states of awareness, belonging to other people, have crashed and skidded even rolled over outside our house, our view of the world. The awareness of others has crashed and been upended. It has been brought to a halt.

Interpreting the dream somebodies {somewhere} state of awareness has been turned on its head just outside our house.

I wonder who this might refer to?

Are there more crashes to come?

Spooky…

What is on the cards for 2026 ?

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In a little over ten days we will get to see the orthopaedic surgeon for the post-operative check up. This will provide some ideas as to when / if they might operate on my left hip. There are a number of factors. Operations are not carried out unless there is an obvious need. {I am already more mobile than before.}  It is probably wise to have two new joints at the same time so that the wear and tear is shared offering perhaps overall greater joint longevity and my ability to recover from major surgery. Aside from the sleeping, I have recovered in a satisfactory manner. In France they tend to use the sledgehammer approach. Do it all in one go. We shall see what he thinks and the outcome of that meeting will advise as to how a fair part of the year will be. There will be at least 2 months needed for operation and initial stages of recovery. Spring – early summer?

So far the wife’s Myeloma is on hold. Long may this continue.

The housing market in France is still stagnant. But like everything in France it is seasonal. There is more hibernation here. The French are not overly fond of the cold and the wet. This market could change as the sun comes out. The decision about hip operation feeds into the thinking on selling the house.

If my mobility continues to improve the pressure to downsize and move house eases. It is still on the cards, a when and not and if.

My application to be allowed to stay in France has been submitted. We shall find out if I am allowed to stay in the next few months. There may be some administrative difficulties. If I am not allowed to stay then that means a move back to blighty. We cannot submit the wife’s application for a couple of months. The outcome of these applications might close off one option. A change in government in France could change everything.

The world is volatile right now.

The statistics for the blog views show that in December I had around 250 views with Council Bluffs, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Manilla and Phnom Penh being the most frequent visitors at around ten-twenty views each.

It is safe to conclude from these data that the readership of the blog is very small. On the basis of measurable data the blog has only a minuscule impact. It is a something of a hobby to keep the grey matter ticking over. That is about it, no biggie.

The next big thing here is the early February toad migration. I will need to lift the bottom wires of the electric fence so as to avoid electrocuting toads migrating towards the pond. Last year we had over a hundred randy toads and frogs.

I should be able to do more gardening. I have already laid some more mole traps and can do some work to clean up after the wild boars. I should be able to drive the sit on mower. There are a number of DIY projects in the house.

Hopefully 2026 will have less medical merry-go-round…they have already done all the major tests.

There is no real world physical evidence for anything more complicated than this. It looks like more of the same…

As usual spring brings with it much beauty and much to do in the garden…we will go up to the coast more often until the summer approaches and the tourist number density increases. We will then go country to return to the coast in Autumn.

A couple of simple decisions hold the key to how the year looks to be panning out…

Left Eye Surgery – Electrodes – Kate Bush – Dream 30-12-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had before 8 AM.

The scene starts with me approaching Guingamp hospital from the downhill side into the old “severe” style hospital building. I go up the hill and into a main entrance lobby. The slightly brutalist view gives way to an old style hospital corridor with brick-red sealed painted floors. The nursing staff wear starchy white linen skirts with little nursing hats. I am being admitted into the eye surgery ward.

The nurses doing the admissions are speaking to me in English. Using baby English and short sentences. I say, “on peut parler français”. But they ignore me and carry on trying English. The nurse sits me on the side of an old style hospital bed with a white painted metal frame. She shows me an image of me with my left eye held open with various clamps like in “A Clockwork Orange”. The image focusses on my left eye only which is enlarged in comparison to my right eye. She shows how they might cut the eye with a scalpel to improve the quality and depth of my “seeing”. She says that they are going to focus on my “seeing” in my left eye. Someone comes in and taps her on the shoulder. They are ready for me up in the ward.

Together with a porter she wheels the bed along the corridor and through a nurse’s station into a ward. The ward is packed with people in beds. The beds are very close and she wheels me up next to the back wall of the ward. The people of the ward are of mixed ages and social status, around a dozen. They are all glad to see me and relax because I am now there.

Sat at a small desk is a senior female doctor in a lab coat and with dark hair. Surprisingly she is talking home counties English and I can imagine her with a G&T at Henley.  She is not very happy being there and talks to her team only in English. I ask her how long she has been here. Too long is her reply.  A nurse says to me that the time for my operation approaches and they need to fit electrodes to me to monitor my heart. She turns her back to get the electrodes. I get off the bed and stand on small box, now naked apart from my black boxer shorts. I can clearly see the recent scar from my operation. All the other incisions I have had are also highlighted. I stand there bare chested with my hairy chest exposed. I say that they may need to shave me. They attach electrodes and I stand there on the box with my arms pointing downwards in a pose made famous by the Abu Garib torture victim. The view zooms out and all that can be seen is a semi naked me with electrodes attached all over my chest and body arms open, my palms turned out and arms pointing downwards.

I am then lying back on the bed and a male nurse inserts an oxygen tube into my nostrils. He says that they are going to introduce some Ketamine vapour into the flow in order to relax me for the operation which is soon. I comment that I am already relaxed.

I am now walking with Kate Bush in the hospital grounds. I am dressed in my boxers and a very loose fitting open hospital gown. She is wearing her grey hakama pants and top from the “Running up That Hill” video. She asks me with more of a lisp than usual what I make of it all. I say that it is metaphorical and that the left eye is all about feeling and seeing. That it is no bad thing for me to develop some more feeling and perhaps compassion. I have a penchant for the austere, the vast and the cosmic. She says that yes it is a metaphor and that the dreaming to which she pertains is all about feeling and snow. She says that sometimes it is good to have THE feeling. She asks me how I feel about having the clamps and the surgery. I say that it is a metaphor and that the “seeing” can be a mixed blessing. I say that my left eye has always been metaphorically enlarged. She, a dreamer, has always known this about me.

The dream ends.

Two Golden Dragons – Ogyen Trinley Dorje Karmapa – Laser Start-up Dream 29-12-2025

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Here is last night’s dream in two parts. The first had around 2 AM and the second part after 5 AM. In between I went downstairs to watch some YouTube and have a snack. Plutonium by people at Nottingham Uni was one of the clips.

The dream starts with me in an indeterminate space where I am inquiring of a disembodied voice. I ask for advice on why I am having trouble sleeping. It says, “It is because of the dragons, the twin dragons you have inside of you, the restless dragons. They keep stirring.” I note what the voice is saying.

Then in full visual field I can see two spectacular highly ornate golden dragons, “Chinese” in character. Theye are Li dragons with no discernible legs, serpentine in appearance with fearsome heads. I know that these are Mu {moo phonetically} dragons. They are my dragons, in me. I remember “collecting” the first Chinese dragon two decades ago. These dragons “swim” inside me. They are a part of me. They are also Vajra dragons.

{I understand Li to be fire in the dream but note that it might refer to the longer word Loong on waking.}

The image of the dragons persists for a very log time on and off. They swirl. They face each other.

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They then chase each other head to tail in an animated ying yang. They present over and over, in various shades of iridescent gold. They are present on the orange-yellow and red flag of Bhutan. They are druk and dragon, dragon druk. They are most definitely oriental and not western dragons. I feel them writhe in me like the opening sequence to “The Crying Freeman” film. Despite my real world handicap, I feel lithe, flexible and able. The dragons are on my skin and under it, in me. I am dragon like able.

I see the double Vajra dragons of Bhutan..

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I can see people in a Himalayan street with long golden dragon “puppets” held aloft on sticks dancing through the streets in procession. The puppet dragons are blowing in the wind and harsh Tibetan style horns are playing. There is celebration. They are making the druk, the dragons dance. It is a dragon dance, festival.

The image of golden two dragons head chasing tail disembodied in space against a cloudy thunder sky replays, over and over. I see dragons against a summer sky. I see dragons against the stars in the firmament. These are the two golden dragons, nimble and fluid.

I awake around 4 AM France time. I am unsure if I will get back to sleep. I have an ultra-present image of Karmapa Ogyen Trinley in my visual field. I understand that he is doing a morning meditation. I take some medication and go downstairs for a snack. The visual image of Karmapa remains very strong even when watching TV. I “tell” him to send someone for me if he is that interested. I go back to bed half expecting the Karmapa to materialise.

I doze off and find myself in an industrial unit on a technology park. I have taken it over at a bargain price and I am auditing the space therein. There are rooms for offices, rooms for labs and rooms for production. I am collecting together a group of people in an ultra-high technology laser based start-up. I have with me a youngish man and an organiser-able woman. She is taking notes and commenting where needed. She is my right-hand “man”. I show the man the lab spaces.

On an optical table there is an ultra-fast laser system with harmonic generation. We can see blue and green laser beams. It is a new type of time domain spectrometer /device. It is small footprint and completely novel. I say that we need to attract investors and grow the company.

Two men in suits join us and take the tour. They want to know what my objectives and milestones are. I say to them that under no circumstance will I adopt that old-fashioned way of thinking. They say that it might be difficult to attract investors if I do not. I say that I have a small track record, this is not the first time I have done this. One asks what is the first target. I say it is to manufacture and sell the first unit. After that all will be easy. He asks what the sale price is. I reply that it is a quarter of a million. He says that this will not pay many salaries. I say that people will work here for joint ownership and not for pay.

I take them all to lunch at a canteen in a neighbouring company. The woman serving knows me and although I have no money she is happy to put it on my tab, my account.

Back in the facility the people are setting up desks and computers. Some investors are coming. That investment must be on equal share. There can only be one type of share, no fancy preference shares. The younger people are nervous and sceptical. I am very relaxed because I know that the technology is one of a kind, unheard of. It will be easy to attract the investment but more difficult to invent an entirely new way of operating as a company. I have my dragons inside and they are auspicious.

The dream ends and it is 9 AM!!

Karma Quotes

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Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.

Sakyong Mipham

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I want revenge, but I don’t want to screw up my karma.

Susane Colasanti

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You cannot control the results, only your actions.

Allan Lokos

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How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne W. Dyer

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Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Eckhart Tolle

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If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.

Kurt Cobain

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Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

Haruki Murakami

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Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?

Jodi Picoult                                

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Dear Karma, I really hate you right now, you made your point.

Ottilie Weber

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Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate.

Rick Riordan

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I guess one of the ways that karma works is that it finds out what you are most afraid of and then makes that happen eventually.

Cheech Marin

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Karma, when properly understood, is just the mechanics through which consciousness manifests.

Deepak Chopra

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There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.

Sylvester Stallone

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To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

Bodhidharma

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I am what we call a ‘karma yogi’ in Sanskrit. A karma yogi is somebody who believes in data. I collect a lot of data.

N. R. Narayana Murthy

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Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.

Stanislav Grof

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With some things, karma is good enough. Lessons come back in different ways, you know what I mean?

Big Narstie

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Being vegan just gives you such great karma.

Alicia Silverstone

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As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of.

Nina Hagen

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Some General Observations

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I have met a number of people who think they know more about dreaming than me.

A number of people seem to believe that I can benefit from education by them. I am in severe need of their knowledge / wisdom and they feel sufficiently generous to learn me.

Many people are convinced that they know best and are always right. They can be adamant.

It is not unusual for people to gob off on subjects about which they know little. There are a lot of “instant experts” out there.

As a rule people will only do what seems to be convenient to them. It is very unusual for anyone to put themselves out.

People believe that high-kudos institutional affiliation is a marker of depth and extent of knowledge. Who you know can be more important than what you know.

People believe that “they” are the arbiters of truth. Peer pressure and acceptance is very important to them. Belonging to the herd, tribe, shoal, cult, party, institution or society is seen as vital. One must belong to some grouping or other.  “We” know better than “they”. God is benevolent to only “us”. We are special.

People are terrified of missing out and being socially ostracised.

People are very fickle.

People put things off and practise escapism  / avoidance until such time as they learn the meaning of complacency via hindsight and retrospect.

People are very self-centred; they only do what suits them and advances their imagined  interests. Genuine selfless compassion centred altruism is rare, altruism for public relations show is common.

Those in power by association or by position will always seek to conserve that power at whatever cost and for as long as is possible. Even when it is foolish so to do.

Letting go is not something which people do easily. The clenched fist clinging on is much more common than the freely open palm of offering.

People worry and stress much more than is warranted. This is because they are obsessed with the socio-political pecking order which them deem reality. They are masochist and insist on suffering lifetime after lifetime.

People imagine that they are hard done by and say stupid things like “it is not fair that Jack got cancer..” They are unwilling to take responsibility for the karmic effects in their lives and play an endless blame game…

In the west people like to complain and moan and find fault and whinge and blame and play stupid dramas and seek revenge and throw sand at each other in the sand pit and then sulk to mummy, a lot. This is not in proportion to the relative ease of their life circumstances. There is an ungrateful sense of entitlement which pervades.

In general it is always someone else’s fault. Quite often I am to blame for all of their woes.

It is all my fault after all…