Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni.buddhismo
Titolo: Calder contro guru e religioni (ma chi e' sto Calder? un cnd english-speaker?)

http://home.att.net/~meditation/CommonLies.html
Common Lies of the Phony World of Mystics 
"There is no one there to tell you you are enlightened."  U.G.
Krishnamurti
     The ancient religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, all started as campfire religions.  The
initial spark of the religion may have been a remarkable human being
having an insight or a vision, but the religions themselves were
formed much later by unenlightened disciples of the original teacher. 
All of the ancient religious myths, which strict fundamentalists
accept as fact, began with disciples sitting around a fire at night
and telling stories about the glory days of their long dead spiritual
heroes.
     Imagine the world before the printing press and electricity.  In
ancient times nights were long, dark, and potentially very scary, with
no television or radio for entertainment.  Huddled around a fire,
afraid of thieves, wild animals, disease, or starvation, story tellers
would gain recognition by fabricating heroic tales of perfect saintly
beings in order to entertain and comfort.  Over the centuries
religious myths became wildly grandiose and fact was lost in a sea of
invention.
     Modern day gurus often try to market themselves as being
reincarnations of ancient religious super-heroes, or at least being in
a direct lineage of some infallible ancient knowledge.  As in The
Wizard of Oz, if you pull away the curtain of falsehood surrounding
many gurus you will find an ordinary human being trying to make a
dishonest living off the sincere spiritual aspirations of their
followers.  Below are some of the common big lies told by religious
mystics to watch out for.  Hold on to your wallet and your sanity and
be aware that it is easiest to pick your pocket as you are being
hugged by a guru selling cosmic love and compassion.
Lie #1)  "Surrender to me because I am enlightened and thus more
intelligent and wiser than you."
     The Eastern esoteric definition of 'enlightenment' has nothing to
do with intelligence or wisdom.  The Western definition of
'enlightenment' is intellectual and artistic, as in the "enlightened
age" of the great artists and thinkers.  The Eastern esoteric meaning
of the word has nothing to do with mind, talent, art, or wisdom.  The 
true occult definition means to have no boundaries, thus you feel the
infinite emptiness of the cosmic Void.
     There is no wisdom in the Void;...no art, no love, no hate, no
compassion, and no good or evil.  The Void simply is!  All of the
emotional and intellectual content is in the mind and the
enlightenment is far beyond the ordinary mental level.  Enlightenment
is the consciousness of raw nature, formless and empty of definable
content.
     Superconsciousness has subjective experiential benefit in that it
makes you feel truly magnificent.  Unfortunately, cosmic consciousness
has no functional benefit and does not increase IQ or practical
wisdom.  Intelligence and pragmatic wisdom come from a complex
interaction of genetics, education, and life experience.  The opinion
of the "enlightened ones" on politics, science, or economics is of no
inherently greater value than the opinion of an unenlightened person
of equal education and genetically derived higher brain function. 
Thus the undemocratic theocracies of the enlightened elite have always
failed disastrously in the past and will always fail in the future. 
The violent history of planet earth proves beyond doubt that religion
and politics should never be mixed.
     People who reach the Void can become corrupt, but the corruption
is in their human minds and brains, not in the total Void itself.  The
total Void is not human and thus has no mind or potential for
corruption.  That is why Zen Buddhists say you should live in a state
of "no-mind."  A more accurate term would be no-thought, as the human
mind-brain has other basic autonomic survival functions that continue
even if the conscious thought process stops.  Interrupting the
constant stream of thought is enough, however, to allow cosmic
consciousness to enter your body.  You do not enter it.  It is more
accurate to say that the ultimate consciousness, the Atman, enters
you.  You can never own the Atman or put your personal brand on it,
but it can save you from the pettiness and misery inherent to the
limited human mind.
     The world of gurus and religion is a world of big business,
politics, and lust for power.  The more disciples a guru attracts, the
more power and income they can generate.  Teachers often say "stick
with one guru" (themselves) because when a guru loses a disciple he
loses a potential source of power and income.  As the dishonest
propaganda surrounding the teacher grows more fantastic, the quality
of the guru's disciples always becomes more and more immature and
corrupt.  People who grow up mentally know there are no perfect human
beings.  Children can be fooled by incredible claims of divine
infallibility.  Adults who have lived a long life with alertness
cannot be hoodwinked by such old tricks.
Lie #2)  "I am enlightened and I have no ego." 
     Some humans do become 'enlightened,' but no living human being is
without ego.  If you lost your ego you would physically die within
three days because you could not eat, drink, or have any activity
other than basic involuntary movements such as breathing and heart
beat.  It is the same neurological mechanism that talks, walks, eats,
and accomplishes tasks that we also call the 'ego.'  You can have a
centralized ego, as most people do, or you can have a decentralized
ego as enlightened people attain.  In the end, as far as behavior is
concerned, it makes little difference.
     We feel a centralized ego vividly, so its suffering becomes a
tremendous burden to us.  Some may go on a spiritual path to get rid
of ego, but in truth we can only push ego to the periphery of the
mind.  The human brain is vast, with many hiding places in its neural
web where the ego function can hide without notice.
     21st century science knows that the brain is highly adaptive.  If
one portion of the brain is damaged, it is often possible for another
area of the brain to adapt itself to take over the lost function.  If
a centralized ego comes under fire from the brilliant light of
meditation, it can simply shift its location to an area of the brain
unaffected by the torch of consciousness.  In fact, a hidden back-up
peripheral ego center already exists, and this is because the ego
function is essential to human survival.  There is no such thing as
total self-knowledge of the human brain.  Even fully enlightened human
beings have blind spots where they cannot see.
     Just because you do not feel an ego does not mean that you do not
have an ego.  The East deluded itself into thinking ego could be
destroyed, but the entire East was wrong.  The East has never been
good at combining subjective feeling with objective provable fact, and
thus the East was not the birthplace of real science and the
scientific method.
     "Part of the guru is "enlightened," wise, knowledgeable, and he's
mentally living in this enlightened part of himself.  He believes that
he *is* that part exclusively, ignoring the other parts which have
been cut off and dissociated from his conscious awareness.  He becomes
identified with the guru aspect of  himself exclusively.  The other
parts, however, do not disappear.  They still exist, but are simply
disowned and regulated to the unconscious." - Charles Morrison
     Objectively, by any measurement, enlightened people are as
egocentric as anyone else.  Quite often they become even more egoistic
if they allow themselves to be put on a pedestal.  Totally enlightened
humans have become corrupt, self-indulgent liars, murders, and
thieves.  Do not accept the big lie of the egoless master.  They do
not exist now and they have never existed in the past.  There was no
"Lord Buddha," only an enlightened Siddhartha Gautama.  There was no
"Lord Jesus," only a carpenter who made extravagant claims.  The only
way to be egoless is to physically die and not come back into this
world.  If you are here, you have an ego.  Do not fool yourself or
allow yourself to be fooled by others.
Lie/scam #3)  "Do not judge the great masters.  They are on such a
high level of consciousness that they cannot be measured by normal
standards of good behavior."
     This is a convenient old lie used by gurus to cover up lie #1 and
lie #2 and to turn naive disciples into mental eunuchs, thus making
them more useful as slaves.  Of course gurus do not want to be judged
by normal standards because that will destroy their business.  The
corrupt spiritual teacher always wants a blank check.  If he seduces
your wife, it is for your own spiritual benefit.  If he robs your bank
account, it is a test of your state of spiritual surrender.  If the
guru murders someone, it is for the victim's own good and the guru
should not be prosecuted.  When spiritual teachers start acting like
Pharaohs, "enlightened" or not, they have crossed a line into the
world of criminals.
Lie #4)  "Read my new book and it will help you find enlightenment." 
     The German and Austrian Nazis of the 1930s were wrong to burn
books.  Books are a great way to learn about history, science, and
art.  Unfortunately books can also be an obstacle when it comes to
matters of existential truth.  Books often turn the search for truth
into dogma and give people the false impression that by reading them
you can know something about meditation without actually meditating
yourself.  In my opinion, the world would be better off if most of the
books written by the famous mystics were used for fuel to keep us all
warm at night.
     Meditation is basic good-clean-fun.  It can make you feel filled
with light and highly euphoric, but it will never turn you into a
pedantic reservoir of borrowed intellectual knowledge.  Reading and
religion are both polar opposites of meditation.  In meditation you
clear yourself of thoughts and become more detached.  Reading and
religion fill your head with other people's thoughts, which are often
more idiotic than your own thoughts, and you become attached to dead
teachers, dead philosophies, dead shrines, and dead rituals. 
Meditation, by contrast, is thrilling real life, right here and right
now.
     Meditation, like gardening, is a relatively simple affair that
requires honest effort and patience.  It is not a highly complex
intellectual task, as the study of DNA or astrophysics.  You can read
all you need to know about meditation in just one hour.  A few simple
pointers are enough to get students meditating and on a path to
growing awareness.  You cannot read your way to enlightenment, but you
can read your way to the loony-bin.  Books stimulate the thinking
function of the brain, making your mind spew out more thoughts at an
even faster pace.  Meditation means transcending the conflict and
limitations of the world of thought and entering the naturally serene
state of no-thought.
Christopher Calder 
http://home.att.net/~meditation/
  - home page
A riproposito dei precetti del Kalacakra, interessante il passaggio
sul guru che ti fotte la moglie e ti ruba sul conto in banca per il
tuo beneficio spirituale!!!:-)))
ciao
Valentin

> 
http://home.att.net/~meditation/CommonLies.html
;-)