Spiritual Teachers and Gurus

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?

Unprecedented Dreaming

For me it has been a useful exercise to group these dreams thematically and see the scope and variety of subject matter. Many people are interested in dreams and things like lucid dreaming. There is an attempt to gain scientific credibility for dream studies using instrumentation and the statistical methods of psychology. Taken as a whole the opus of dreams published here and those not yet published may be unprecedented, and unique. Who else dreams of vajras, patents, lamas and hydrogen bonded water clusters?   

Am I simply an anomaly or is there something more significant at work?

In general people seek to promote their own ideas and profile. The not invented here syndrome can be found on all sides. Group mind is very anti anyone or any idea which does not originate in the group. Outsiders are not very welcome especially if they challenge the status quo or question current operational dogma.

I did, religiously, a Toltec dreaming practice daily at least once a day for eight years. I did it on the Victoria line of a morning. If you can do dreaming practice on a crowded rush hour tube you can do it anywhere. The control has to be good. The intent behind this practice is to connect with the dreamer {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} and then to hand over the steering wheel of the earthly vehicle to her. To live life according to the advice given in dreams, to surrender control.

Subsequent to this I did a meditation called the master in the heart which has a similar purpose, of connection. It builds the Antahkarana, a rāja yoga. One could say that Toltec dreaming draws inspiration down and the yoga builds upwards. They are rose and lotus visualisations. Union or at-one-ment are the goals or aim if you like. It does not require wearing tight leggings or looking fit / hot. It does mean that some measure of letting go of imagined control is needed.

Because I am good at visualisation, I have extended the rāja yoga to “places” beyond any written account. In Toltec terms a steady pictorial visualisation is an active dream in which you imagine and hold fast an image. These dream thought forms tend to stabilize when they are “accurate” and reproducible.  For example, the Sahasrāra chakra or crown chakra is one such visualisation. Opening this chakra and going beyond it is a death practice in which one opens the exit door. In order to do this one needs to stretch the sūtrātman anchoring the life inside the body. It is a risky thing to do, control must be impeccable. I first did this in a detached house in the middle of a wood on a country estate a distance from interruption and people. During the day I was quite alone in a “cabin” in a wood.

Because I am a scientist by training and I used to train smart young things in science at a top university and at high school sixth form levels. I even had postdoctoral workers. I have kept lab books or dream journals. The rāja yoga or active dream meditations were extensive with some of the thought forms taking weeks and months to build.  What one experiences in passing to a “higher” more “rarefied” state of consciousness is a kind of “membrane” which has to be transcended / popped. Each new state is difficult to hold or stabilize. Yet with practice it can be done. Here is one page from my dream journal.

In these meditations slight residual corporeal awareness remains but all sense of earth-time vanishes. There is a distant awareness of the room. One continues breathing but unconsciously so. I did record electroencephalograms {EEG} and video for a few of these. The EEG is, aside from very low frequency and amplitude theta, essentially flat despite the visualisation.

These meditations have a sensation of extensive travel to non-mundane “levels” “states” or “places”.

There is no way that I could adequately convey the experience to others. Unless you have “gone” there yourself you cannot know. Of particular assistance was the mantra associated with the Heart Sutra which one can chant in order to change between states when working upwards.

Gate gate, para gate, para sum gate bodhi svaha

Gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond, hail the awakening

I was in conscious control doing this during daylight and without drugs or booze.

One needs to take great care to come back “down” and into body consciousness. At first the “path” downwards is as slow as the “upward”. In time one knows the way “home” and this can be done more quickly.

I guess these meditations are a form of white tantra. They are situated at anja and above and have nothing to do with basal tantra. In some later meditations three centres are active, heart, anja and sahasrāra.

In my book active visualisation and 3d {sometimes +} thought form building is active dreaming.

Of course I could be kidding myself, but I somehow doubt that.

This is what I mean by dreamyoga…