I need to be more clear and transparent about something I often reflect on in my contemplations.
Sometimes, when I hear myself talk, it seems like I have a lot of deep rage and unprocessed resentment towards some "gurus" in this world. And, to some extent, that’s probably true.
That being said, I also have friends who are high-quality "gurus" that I still deeply respect and love. I honor and feel for this path of evolution because I know how hard it is.
I myself have had some very interesting "gurus" who have supported my spiritual journey and helped me grow as a decent human being. I feel unlimited gratitude for their teachings and for everything they embody.
I bow my head in deep respect and value the work that most "gurus" are doing today.
For their courage. For their dedication and faith. For their vulnerability and unlimited compassion. For their heart and presence.
It's important to have teachers, access to knowledge, and people who consciously support and care for you on your path.
You need to deeply trust these people and be in complete inner alignment with what they preach and the "wisdom" you are most likely paying for.
Don't get me wrong, it’s crucial and valuable on many levels to have teachers in our lives to properly initiate us and help us during our initiations.
I would not be where I am today without the "gurus" who have crossed my path. All of them—the good, the bad, and the very ugly—were valuable teachers and resources at some point in my life.
I don’t need to pray to them, glorify them, or have their personal photo on my altar.
They don’t expect the exclusivity of my beliefs to align perfectly with their teachings. But I feel their presence deeply in my heart. They make me reflect, they inspire me, and they hold my hand when needed. I can truly trust them, no matter what.
I honor who they are, I unconditionally love them in my heart and soul, and I humbly recognize that without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I accept and understand what they teach, how they do it, and why they do it that way. I also follow certain teachings, spiritual schools, and am part of advanced practice groups.
But!
I also deeply respect and honor myself. At all times, I maintain my personal sovereignty, inner discernment, and free will as my own superpowers, regardless of the context or the teacher in front of me.
My "guru" is here to support me and help me properly open, stabilize, and ground my consciousness within my personal and unique system.
He is not here to control me, tell me what to believe, guide the big decisions in my life, or direct my soul’s unique path of evolution and experience.
The "guru" or "teacher" is my personal guide, my mentor, and a dear friend I can unconditionally trust and follow. But he is not my master; he has no control over me or my life. I don’t blindly adopt his personal beliefs, nor do I make our teaching-driven relationship exclusive or forever committed for any reason.
I retain my inner spiritual, mental, and emotional authority and the power of choice to follow my own heart, integrity, and dignity, no matter what.
I love the "gurus," I love walking by their side, being inspired by them, and learning from them, but I mainly listen to myself when it’s time to reprogram my belief system or spiritual values.
I am my own favorite "guru," even though I have many others whom I deeply love, adore spending time with, and care for in my heart.
Life, humanity, and nature are my favorite teachers. My mundane relationships with people I see daily often represent the biggest mystical initiations and most profound spiritual growth for my soul.
The simplicity of my human experience and my relationships with others are my best teachers. I am my own prophet and messiah. I am my own God and the best "guru" I can always count on and unconditionally trust.
So, when I get very mad and judgmental at some "gurus" in my reflections, you need to understand something important about why I do it.
Most of the time, I am not angry at them. I am enraged by some of their "followers" more often than I am personally upset with the gurus themselves.
I talk about them because they can take it in and properly digest it. They can easily process what I’m saying and probably agree with many of the points I’m making.
Most "gurus" actually don’t want you to follow them blindly, obey their teachings submissively, glorify them, or never challenge them.
They are still human. They are also on a spiritual journey. They continue to learn something new every day. They are not perfect, and they probably haven’t found the ultimate secret to eternal bliss.
Most "gurus" don’t want your unconditional faith, your easily corrupted beliefs, or your empty glorification of who they are.
They don’t want followers; they want students!
And students are usually curious, willing, and possess a well-developed sense of self-criticism. They do their best to challenge the teacher and the entirety of his teachings at some point.
The obedient, always-listening-no-matter-what students are deeply boring and discouraging to work with.
The best student will always surpass the teacher and his teachings. He will push his teacher further and deeper. He will provoke an existential crisis in the teacher to prove he is a good student.
And this experience will bring a real teacher the most joy, gratitude, and awe when they receive such a gift from a real student.
Followers with deep, unresolved issues often make the "gurus" discouraged and even corrupted to the core, dissuading them from teaching anything valuable or real. It’s not the challenging attitude or questioning of their teachings that bothers them—on the contrary, they often love and enjoy it.
Because in this way, you make them grow personally too. They can have normal human fun and pleasure with you, not just be the authority figure you obey for some reason.
A real "guru" doesn’t want to teach you anything you don’t genuinely want to know.
They will never try to modify your inner belief system against your free will. That’s your job, and you are responsible for the consequences of those changes in your own mind, not your teacher or guru.
A real "guru" will never try to take your inner powers from you, control your behaviors or emotions, or be mad if you no longer agree with their perspective or teaching and decide to walk away.
They will sincerely smile with deep joy when you decide to fly on your own. You will likely remain good friends and continue supporting each other, but differently.
Your "guru" doesn’t want to become your personal God.
Unconditional loyalty and naive trust are probably the unconscious desires of very wounded followers who want to be magically saved and healed by someone. It’s usually not a need or want of self-aware and responsible gurus. They probably don’t care much about how much you glorify them.
The guru does not want you to worship them. They want to bring you closer to your own God, your own mastery of self.
A real teacher doesn’t want you to be a student forever. That would make no sense. If he did, he would be a poor teacher.
Because if you never outgrow your teacher, it’s either because you’re a truly bad student, or your teacher doesn’t master his teachings either. And if that’s the case, he can’t teach you anything real or authentic—he’s just repeating what he heard from someone else, read in a book, or saw somewhere, without understanding what he’s talking about or why it works the way it does.
A "guru" often faces the same challenges as a president or a CEO.
People give them their inner power for some reason, make them responsible for their personal lives and beliefs, and blindly follow whatever they say.
Then they complain and condemn. They call people in power, their "guru" or boss, evil and corrupt, forgetting they were the ones who gave them that authority or power and put that responsibility on their shoulders.
The teacher-student relationship, like all others, is always transactional and mutual.
Your inability and laziness to take responsibility for your own growth make the teachings of your guru feel corrupt and controlling. It has nothing to do with the actual guru, his teachings, or his personal experience.
I deeply empathize with "gurus" in this world. I’ve been in leadership positions before, and I know how it feels to be there for people who end up blaming you for their own ignorance and cowardice.
I know how it feels to be honored or glorified, and then hated and harshly judged by the same people.
I know how it feels to be betrayed by those you gave your heart to, initiating them into your most vulnerable teachings with purity and love, only for them to spit on your soul and blame you for their unhappiness.
I know how it feels to be responsible and accountable for someone without understanding why I was put in that position in the first place.
People often blame those in power. But they rarely consider how those in power actually feel or what their headaches are about.
How it is for them to think about how to make you happy, how to teach you to properly empower and take care of yourself, how to grow up, and stop relying on them to tell you what to do or believe.
We very rarely put ourselves in the shoes of those to whom we’ve given our inner power and placed in positions of leadership.
We make them our bosses, put all our responsibilities on their shoulders, and then complain, pretending we have no power.
Do you really think your teacher, boss, or guru wants you to remain stupid, powerless, and dependent on them?
If so, you should probably change the authority figure in your life.
Do you really believe they like being condemned for the authority you gave them over you?
If so, you should probably question why you need that.
The more I reflect on "gurus" and their "followers," the more I see the same patterns over and over again, in all types of organizations, human groups, and personal relationships.
And I see one main common reason behind why so many of these power-based, teacher-student, hierarchical relationships fail: the lack of proper personal sovereignty.
No one is evil or perfect.
We all feel tempted by power, either to take it or to give it to someone else.
It is easier for many to give their personal power away and blame those in control than to stand in their own power, accept their own choices and responsibilities, and become their own authority figure.
When we all learn to keep our sovereignty, no matter what, the need for authority and hierarchy will collapse.
We will all become equal sovereigns of our own lives and consciousness, and will properly support and care for each other.
The teacher-student relationship, the boss-employee relationship, the leadership-followership relationship, will become much easier and enjoyable.
For everyone.
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Before you can truly respect a teacher, you need to understand why we share our teachings and the real value of what we do.
If you want to remain a student forever, don’t look for a guru. Just go outside and look around. Pure and simple life is there. She will teach you all she can, but only if you let her. Only if you open your heart to real wisdom and the authentic teachings of how to become yourself—not how to become like your 'guru' or someone else you're not.
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I want to express the most profound gratitude and deep respect for all the teachers, gurus, mentors, and spiritual allies I’ve had the chance to have in my life.
I will not tag them in this post. If some of you ever read this, you know who you are. And even if you don’t ever read this, I know you might still feel it somehow, somewhere, so it’s important for me to name it for real.
Thank you. Deeply. For everything. No matter what, I still feel love, joy, gratitude, and deep unconditional respect and acceptance for what is—for every teacher and their teachings.
It is true, I have been deeply traumatized by some teachings and teachers, and I have also managed to traumatize some of my very dear teachers without even realizing how or why I did it.
I am sincerely sorry for the latter.
I have had a very interesting path of relearning how to honor those who share their teachings with an open heart and courage. I relearned to bow my head to those to whom I have given my power and trusted to teach me or initiate me into something even deeper or more transcendental.
I humbly bow my head to each teacher I had the privilege of having in my life.
Thank you endlessly for being you, for daring, for being there however you could, no matter what. Thank you for loving and caring for your students in the best ways you knew were possible. Thank you for remaining humble, always evolving and growing side by side with your own students or 'followers.'
I am deeply sorry to every teacher I have ever disrespected or judged (consciously or unconsciously) because of my own self-ignorance and immaturity about what life is actually about—and my naivety in not realizing how many of us don’t actually get it either but are very good at complaining about it anyways.
I am sorry if I have ever been arrogant without reason or careless about teachings I simply wasn’t mature enough to understand.
I am deeply sorry if I was ever rude, mean, or reckless toward my own 'gurus' whom I actually always deeply loved and unconditionally respected, even if I was often a bit too challenging or unorthodox as a student for some of my dear teachers.
I care, and I know. I love us, and I see. I feel, and I trust. I am. We are. Here. Now.
Always in movement and transformation, but always the same. The core of it is always the same. The love and joy are.
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