22/07/2024
Three of the teachers I meet on my path so directly, and so grateful for them.
Chogyam Trungpa appears first in 2012 when I start looking for teachers, (teachings), then Lama Tsultrim in 2014, and I would meet Ram Dass the year later ….
Here is something beautiful for you that moved me deeply;
The path didn't turn out to be what we expected...
~ RAM DAS on TRUNGPA RINPOCHE and... on the spiritual path
There was an element of "rightness" in our approach to the spiritual path, and there were spiritual teachers who helped us overcome this dilemma. Probably Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche helped me the most. What you need in a really good teacher is the quality of fluency. Not malice, but falsehood. I remember my first summer teaching at Narop Institute, I had a very difficult time with Trungpa Rinpoche. One of the problems was that all his students were drunk all the time, gambled and ate a lot of meat. I was thinking, "what kind of spiritual teacher is this? “I myself walked the Hindu path of denial. Hindus are always afraid to cross the border and fall. And here was this man leading his disciples, as I thought then, straight into hell.
Of course I was held captive by judgement. When I looked at the same disciples a few years later, I saw them performing One Hundred Thousand Spreads and the most difficult spiritual practices. Trungpa Rinpoche guided them through their impulsive habits and penchant for deeper aspects of their practice. He wasn't afraid, while most other traditions avoid the risk out of fear that someone would not endure and "will go astray."
A Ta**ra teacher is not afraid to lead us through our own dark side. Therefore, you never know if a tantrist is a perfect teacher or just a person indulging in his addictions. There's no way you'll know it.
If you want to be free, all you have to do is to use these teachers to the fullest of your power, and then their karmic problems will not affect you. This is the secret of choosing teachers, which you eventually discover to yourself.
.. Among other things, we expected that the spiritual path would make us psychologically healthy.
I received psychological education and did psychoanalysis for many years. I taught Freud's theory; I was a therapist. I took intensively psychedelic medications for six years. I have a guru. I have been meditating regularly since 1970. I taught yoga and studied Sufism, as well as many areas of Buddhism.
In all this time I haven't gotten rid of a single neurosis – not even one.
The only thing that has changed is that if my neuroses used to be terrible monsters, now they look like little freaks. "Ah, sexual perversion, I haven't seen you for a long time, come in, let's have some tea."
For me, the result of my spiritual journey is that I now have a different contextual counting system, which enables me to identify far less with my known neurosis and my own desires. If I don't get what I want, it's just as exciting as when I get it.
When you begin to understand that suffering is grace, you cannot believe it. You think you're confused.
When you are on a spiritual path, you begin to experience boredom with everyday life.
Gurdzhiev said: "This is just the beginning." He said, "It's going to get worse. You have already started to die. Still a long way from complete death, but still a certain amount of stupidity comes out of you. You can no longer deceive yourself as sincerely as you used to. Now you know the taste of the truth."
As this growth happens, your friends change, but you don’t grow at the same rate. So you lose a lot of friends. It can be very painful when people you loved, even married to, don't grow up with you. Many of us, feeling guilty about leaving friends and realizing that we needed new types of relationships, have been caught in this trap.
When you can no longer justify your own existence by your achievements, life begins to become meaningless.
When you think you've won, but you discover that you haven't really won anything, you begin to experience a dark night of the soul, the despair that comes when everything else begins to fall apart.
But we are never closer to the light than when the darkness is deepest.
In a sense, the structure of the Ego was based on our individuality and on our desire for happiness, convenience and home comfort.
Trungpa Rinpoche said in his Plutian manner, "Enlightenment is the highest disappointment of the Ego."
This is what constitutes a difficulty. You are aware of the fact that your spiritual journey is fundamentally different from the path you have been on. This transition is extremely difficult. Many don't want to do this. They want to draw strength from their spiritual work and make their life enjoyable. This is great and I respect it but it is not freedom and not what the spiritual path offers.
He offers freedom but it requires total obedience. Obedience - who you think you are and what you think you do - to what you are.
It's a mind-boggling thought that spirituality dies becoming into yourself. But in that there is death, and people are grieving. Grief is inevitable when the one you thought you were begins to fade.
via Dorje Nandzed
