Jaxon-Bear's Mea Culpa
File under: Hands Where They Don't Belong
A former devotee shares his histrionic commentary about the Eli Jaxon-Bear sex scandal, along with Jaxon-Bear's letter of apology to his community:
The wound of the pain that I have caused will be with me for at least as long as this body lasts.It sounds like a pity party the size of Burning Man over there, and the whole thing pivots on the idea that there are separate entities who get hurt by stuff like this. There are and they do, but only as the result of ignorance (avidya), which is what these gurus are supposed to be dispelling.
The whole hullabaloo can be an opportunity for the parties involved to look past themselves as the people who are hurting to their underlying nondual truth, but instead they coddle and foster the very sense of identification they are all trying to transcend.
Nevertheless, it's a really good thing that it's all out in the open, despite the over-the-top mourning of the loss of trust, etc. And besides, what they're really mourning is the death of their own ideas about their teachers, and that's a really good thing too.
posted by guruphiliac @ 12:07 AM
20 Comments:
Here is another one for you.
I'm wondering, though, about your declarative statements in this and other posts. How do you know what you think you know? (That's not a philosophical query, btw.)
How do you know what you think you know?
It's all in Shankara's commentaries.
I am pleased that you have attempted to understand the teachings of Shakaracharya. However, advaitha (nonduality) can be a construct that is used to explain away many injustices.
At any rate, I have completed six months of a self-imposed vow of silence, and will gladly answer any questions that you or anyone else has about self realization.
> advaitha (nonduality) can be a construct that is used to explain away many injustices.
*****
Nobody is using advaita to justify anything creepy. I'm just pointing out that all the wailing and moaning arises out of ignorance much more than compassion or realization, in my opinion.
How do you know what you think you know?
It's all in Shankara's commentaries.
Heheheh. I guess I missed his commentary about taking everything we read at face value. Also must've missed his dictum about making unilateral pronouncements regarding what's good for other people. Yo, what a subtle writer he was! :-)
Also must've missed his dictum about making unilateral pronouncements regarding what's good for other people.
That's because he didn't have his own blog. ;)
Good one! :-)
And here's your leelink for today, Jyoti!
"The whole hullabaloo can be an opportunity for the parties involved to look past themselves as the people who are hurting to their underlying nondual truth, but instead they coddle and foster the very sense of identification they are all trying to transcend."
The way you use the term 'non-dual' truth is starting to sound like just another spiritual platitude, some ideal of perfection that no one can reach. Life is messy, dual or non dual truth.
"However, advaitha (nonduality) can be a construct that is used to explain away many injustices."
Swami S., can you explain the above statement, to someone who knows very little about the concept of Advaitha?
The way you use the term 'non-dual' truth is starting to sound like just another spiritual platitude, some ideal of perfection that no one can reach.
If it were anything approaching any kind of "perfection", what the hell would I know about it?
It doesn't make you perfect, just aware that you aren't really the suffering individual you believe yourself to be. It doesn't stop the suffering, but can help to mitigate it.
My reaction to the concept of non-duality is in response to several experiences with 'teachers' who go on endlessly about 'oneness', while getting miffed left and right at people who challenge their pretentious egos. They expect other people to transcend their imperfect humanity while they themselves are so stuck on their spiritual realizations that they can't see reality from their dog's, or cat's ass, as the case may be.
I'm just tired of it.
And I'm not trying to say that you are one of these types of teachers, cause I don't know you well enough.
Back to the original post, YES! And may the community find itself still intact, but outside of the influence, direction and instruction of its former teachers. Then the community could support each member in finding that the truest teacher and the purest teaching have been embodied inside themselves all the while they were looking to the dais for answers. Didn't Papaji say, "Call off the search!" And isn't what we've been looking for already inside (except of course what we've project out)?
You want your purveyors of Truth
To look and act special.
You want them different
And separate
And powerful.
You prefer to imagine them
Cloaked in light
Than sitting on the toilet.
You like them passionless, sexless,
Mellow, gentle and kind.
You like the idea of miracles
And will invent them when necessary.
Your strategy is to keep them
Out there
Far away from you
Exotic and mysterious.
You revel in the myth
Of the Enlightened individual
Hoping to someday be so empowered.
What you can't tolerate
Is for them to appear
As ordinary as you.
Ram Tzu knows this…
You always miss the Truth
Because it is too plain to see.
(No way by Ram Tzu)
You always miss the Truth
Because it is too plain to see.
Another way to describe occlusion.
I've always loved me some Ram Tzu.
Jody, for someone who would like to reach the commentaries of Shankara in a western friendly book, what would you reccomend?
Both Eli and Gangaji claim a lineage through their teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja, to Ramana Maharshi, an Indian sage who resided at a mountain named Arunachala, in Southern India. Of course, anyone who knows of Ramana, and his life, knows there is no such lineage. Ramana never claimed a lineage, never claimed to be a teacher, and never had any students. There were plenty of people devoted to him, deeply in love and committed to him, but no passing on of self-realization through a line of distinct teachers. Poonja was a devotee of Ramana’s, but he too never claimed a lineage. Poonja, in fact, sent everyone who came to his door back out into the world to “teach.” Hundreds, maybe thousands, heard Poonja speak and went out into the world to spread his word. Eli, himself, spoke openly about how he couldn’t believe how, or why; Poonja would send everyone out with his message, even though so many were ‘not enlightened.’ Eli obviously found a way to separate him and his wife from the rest through claiming this exclusive lineage to be their own, passed down from Ramana to Poonja to Eli and Gangaji.
Isn't this Sri H.W.L. Poontang who was their teacher supposed to be a lady's man himself? Maybe that's where poor Eli-Bore learned his manners.
love
THAT'S ALL THERE IS...
WHO are we to judge..
let's PUT OUT POSITIVE ENERGY ON THE PLANET..
AND FOR ME. i LOVE ELi AND GANAGJI AND FIND MY SELF BLESSED THAT THEY ARE IN MY LIFE.
Blessing
WHO are we to judge..
The same sort of being that decided to diddle with one of his students when he knew better.
in the regular world it's called lying. plain old garden variety, home-grown lies. we don't have to get fancy and deep into duality and non duality.
if you accept a gooroo who lies to you, lies to his wife, lies to his girlfriend, then that is your choice. if you want a spiritual evolution based on basic honesty, then you will seek elsewhere. we make choices.
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